@GergelyOrosz: A story of why Meta signaling they don't care about engineers a few months back is resulting in resignations month late…

A story of why Meta signaling they don’t care about engineers a few months back is resulting in resignations month later:

1. A long-tenured dev I know lost faith in Meta leadership, put out feelers at top startups

2. A few weeks ago, got an offer at a high-growth startup. Was hesitating

3. Meta leadership did a half-hearted u-turn, signaling “oh sorry, our bad, we actually care about y’all”

4. This dev talked internally at Meta w leadership chain, and just about started to believe things could change, and the right move is to stay (network, impact, TC, comfort etc)

5. Said startup had more of their team talk with this dev, also with investors, upped their comp offer, and outlined how much more autonomy this dev would have there

6. The dev realized they already felt a part of this startup, and actually would contribute meaningfully (vs at Meta being dependent on the next mood change of upper leadership)

7. Startup offer accepted, resignation handed in at Meta

This was just one such story. Meta will lose so much standout engineers this year: the damage was done recklessly (but Meta as a business will be just fine)

Oh and btw joining a VC-funded startup no longer means any base salary cut vs Big Tech, in fact it’s often a base salary increase + a larger equity package than the current Big Tech one for these staff+ level engineers

These startups are REALLY competitive for the right folks. Except those folks never thought about leaving Meta until Meta started to systematically destroy their eng organization: