When I joined meta in 2022, recruiting and managers were telling me Meta was trying to have half of its employees be remote by the end of 2024 (or 2025, i forget which), and now they're generally anti remote, particular for IC5 and below. Were there actual correlation between remote work and lack of productivity at Meta? If not, what's driving the complete 180?
Whether remote is productive or not aside— I find it hilarious how hard these recruiters (especially meta’s) tried to market their “remote-friendly” culture a few years ago just to back-track. I legit had recruiters try to naively justify low-balling with “all the amazing perks you get, including remote work.”
DDPD. Simple as.
I think when Meta changed policy they said something like remote works well for experienced folk but new grads get worse training. I call B.S. but I wouldn't be surprised if internal polling showed that: I found new grads to be the most whiney against the remote since many are looking to continue some campus-like social atmosphere.
The biggest thing is the communication challenges of remote work. When you're onboarding in person, you can go over to a colleague for a quick question. For remote work, you ping them, and this communication feedback loop is usually MUCH longer. With VCs intention is lost due to less signal from tone, facial expression, and general mood they were in prior to the vc. You also lose out on conversations during social time, like lunch or snack break chats. Also, metas documentation being amazingly detailed doesn't help... I think it makes sense why it's difficult to onboard if you are coming from a place of practically zero experience. I'm not saying it's not possible. There's just a lot more friction...
> I think when Meta changed policy they said something like remote works well for experienced folk but new grads get worse training. I call B.S. but I wouldn't be surprised if internal polling showed that that may be true to some extent, but it's not just new grads who can't be remote, but experienced hires as well since the guidance is IC5 and below aren't allowed to be remote
Where now?