Is Meta destroying its engineering organization?

Scale of AI Reassignment and Layoffs

• Thread centers on claims that 30–50% of engineers on some “core” / infra teams were moved into AI data-labeling / RLHF work, plus ~10% company-wide layoffs.
• Multiple self-identified insiders say those percentages are plausible or even higher for specific infra teams; others find them “unbelievable” but concede leadership might see it as rational.
• Many view the moves and constant layoffs as a way to force attrition and shrink headcount without explicit mass firings.

Why Use Expensive Engineers as Labelers?

• Pro argument: frontier RLHF requires deep domain expertise, especially for coding agents. Detailed multi-turn annotation and ranking are mentally taxing and hard to offshore cheaply.
• Counter: US FAANG engineers are overkill; similar or better quality could be sourced in cheaper markets or from specialized labeling firms. Forced, resentful labelers are unlikely to produce “high quality” data.
• Some frame it as “soft layoff” or “training your replacement” work that won’t last.

AI Psychosis, Metrics, and Surveillance

• Many see a broader “AI psychosis”: top-down mandates to “AI-ify everything,” token leaderboards, and massive internal LLM usage (“tokenmaxxing”) used as performance proxy.
• Heavy monitoring (screen/keyboard tracking for AI training and productivity) is described as invasive and dystopian; others reply that privacy on work devices was never real anyway.
• Fear that leadership is chasing AI fads in a panic, mirroring earlier failures like the metaverse.

Impact on Culture, Morale, and Org Health

• Reports of managers pushed back to IC roles, chaotic reorgs, and leadership paralysis. Some teams allegedly lost half or more of their engineers to the AI org.
• Internal attrition said to be high and rising; many plan to leave after next vest. Internal comms reportedly shifted from aggressive AI push to pleading for people not to quit.
• Several commenters argue Meta’s core social products could be maintained by far fewer engineers; over-hiring plus perf-obsessed culture made this kind of purge inevitable.

Ethics and Reputation

• Long, heated debate about the morality of working at Meta given alleged harms: addictive design, teenage mental health, scams, propaganda, and enabling atrocities.
• Some argue employees share real moral responsibility; others emphasize economic necessity, lack of “clean” employers, and the difficulty of drawing bright ethical lines.
• Broader worry that this AI-heavy, metrics-driven management style may spread across the industry, not remain confined to Meta.