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Ask HN: Isn't FB's culture of “show” impact counter productive?

12 points by lifeplusplus ↗ HN
Joined FB about 11 months ago. Not a week go by where mentors, managers, and anyone else I come across, doesn't advises me to "show impact". Like what more do you want me to do? I actually straight up asked this question from manager. I'm not kidding his answer....

1) brag I mean mention, your accomplishments and learnings every standup

2) write weekly posts about your learning and tag all sister teams

3) constantly post in workspace chats

4) write RFCs, doesn't matter if they ever get read

5) brag more in wiki (just half day spamming, like writing resume but daily)

I'm almost being forced to always to do these:

- go for flashiest = more people can see and understand == more impact.

- go for smallest = you doing 1 task for 8 weeks == bad, you making 3 diffs a week gets you more exposure

- go for easiest = you spending solving important and big problems == people seeing your name.

It's like social media mentality but how whole org is being ran on those principles. On social media your goal is to be always be in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

There are amazing engineers on my team. But there is no collaboration, everyone is busy writing their posts. It's almost as if teammates are hoping for you to fail hard. So you can't outshine them in showing impact. The culture is very "ME" oriented. Everyone is suppose to create a "me brand".

Sure it's important to build things that matter, but wtf. You can make a cult out of any concept if you push it to extreme.

A friend summarized it nicely; amazon warehouse of programming.

11 comments

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margarina72
Thanks for sharing. While I have no first hand insights, it does sound like it's not necessarily providing the best set of incentives.

However maybe it also have to do with the size of the company. To survive the ecosystem, you first need exposure and output, in order to secure a position/network that will allow you to work on harder problems.

To expand a bit on the idea, if you think of what it takes to make things move in a company the size of Facebook, you probably have a long queue of easy/boring task, and then anything remotely harder than the boring stuff require team work, collaboration and having secured the right talent in your team to move the needle. Collaboration require good communication, which can honed through getting people to write a lot about their work. It also make it easier to spot the right talent.

While it can have some negative effects, maybe at scale it helps organizing the company.

Definitely would be interested in reading other people's opinions here.

ThrowawayR2
Yes, it is, as you note, extremely counterproductive for employees to be heavily focused on "impact" or "visibility" rather than advancing corporate goals. It is also the unfortunate norm at FAANG-type corporations and is caused by the confluence of 1) a lot of smart and competitive and ambitious people, 2) tremendous monetary rewards for climbing the corporate ladder, and 3) the unwelcome possibility of being left behind for not climbing the corporate ladder fast enough (ask your colleagues how people with low "promotion velocity" are perceived) until you reach a terminal level.

The least undignified way to play this toxic game is to align your "impact"-generating efforts with your business unit goals as much as you reasonably can and use that as ammunition for why you are more promotion-worthy than your colleagues and to focus all your efforts on being promoted to a terminal level quickly where the need for these stupid antics is lessened. If you're simply not willing to play the game at all, your days at a FAANG are numbered.

romanhn
This was my experience as well. Left a highly functional agile group (yes, those exist) and joined FB as an engineering manager. It was a culture shock, to say the least. The culture is that of individual performance, and all incentives stem from that. If you're a go-getter that can operate autonomously and drive things to completion no matter what, in a high-pressure, deliver-or-perish environment, you will thrive there, with fast promotions, ridiculous money thrown at you, and ever-increasing responsibilities and expectations. For the rest 95% of us, it's a stressful treadmill with unrelenting pace, poor work life balance, and "impact" worship. The teams are just collections of individuals doing their own thing (I'm simplifying a bit and there is collaboration, but it's very... "stay in your own lane"). I eventually realized I was not a fit for that culture and vice versa.
toast0
> If you're a go-getter that can operate autonomously and drive things to completion no matter what, in a high-pressure, deliver-or-perish environment, you will thrive there

I'm not sure that's true. If you have dependencies on others and they're not operating in the same fashion, it gets impossible to get things done, and that's a recipie for frustration and resentment, not thriving. Now, if your scope of work doesn't need things from other teams, but who doesn't need something from someone? And they're not going to be willing to do it, because it's not in their plan for the half, so doing it doesn't help their PSC.

#totallynotbitter

romanhn
That's fair, I probably should've said "might thrive". That said, I've seen some impressive feats of cutting through the red tape or stepping up in areas outside one's expertise to get their project delivered. Those tended to be the folks with impressive career trajectories. But luck certainly played a factor as well.
badpun
How many people get fired for underperfoming? Maybe one could work at their own pace and ignore all that culture BS. It won't get you a promotion or more money, but if they're already paying you a lot, then sanity is easily worth more than a promo.
romanhn
Generally speaking, underperforming for two halves (so, a year) is very likely to result in a dismissal. Even earlier, if it's particularly bad. Senior Engineer (level 5) is considered terminal, i.e. you won't get fired for not growing, but at that point expectations are high, so coasting is not really an option for most people. Lower levels have a ticking clock, with the expectation of reaching senior by a certain time at the latest. Not doing so will definitely result in a dismissal.

TL;DR, it is a high-performance culture and ignoring it is hardly realistic. People do get let go. Folks usually leave on their own before it gets to this point.

toast0
That's certainly one of the many toxic elements of FB culture.

Given that you're working in a swamp, figure out what your goals are while you're there, and how well you need to play the PSC[1] game to be able to reach your goals. PSC and the toxic culture around it isn't your problem to solve, it's just a weight you need to wear while working towards your own goals. This is a deeply cynical view, but that's me. If you're lucky, you can make impact without making noise, but you've got to figure out who to ask to write you reviews. Also --- keep in mind, they're looking for impact, but they never said positive impact... sev0 all systems down is a ton of impact, and it is acheivable ;)

[1] Performance Summary Cycle, aka 6-month review process for those not exposed to this particular swamp

jesuscript
I actually think what they are asking of you is aligned with the product you work on. There is a level of vanity involved with Facebook, and showing off is part of how users actually use the product.

You must become one with your users.

2rsf
Yes, it's bad. I have a not so different experience from older Microsoft where it got worst and ugliest when the review season approached.
borplk
I think that's the culture in giant companies.

In many small companies,

- There is no daily standup

- There is no weekly posts

- There is no RFC

- There is no wiki

- Uh oh ... there is no FAANG money

Everyone already knows who you are and what you are doing and how well you are doing them.