Nothing to say. Tired of these companies laying people off left, right, and centre. I know so many great people working at all such companies and this kind of ‘low performance’ layoffs are so disheartening and demotivating for people. I’ve heard people say that it leaves a black mark on people and their careers will be ruined at least temporarily. I don’t think that’s gonna happen honestly. People have short memories and no one is sitting and keeping track of who got laid off/ when etc.

However, how’s everyone feeling? It’s a sad bad day.

I did not survive recent layoff. It kinda make sense, I worked there for 4 years after collage, I got an EE and the rest was MA, until this previous year, first half was a MA and I guess second MM?, main issue I was on red zone to get to IC5. It is tough to realize how much you depend on a company besides salary, I immigrated from outside the US, didn’t even have a personal US number. The small things are the ones that make realize the privilege, like, my fridge didn’t even have food cuz I was eating at the office every day.

Anyhow lesson learned

Edit: Apologies for the acronyms, I’m so used to the language. MA = meets all EE = Exceeds expectations MM = meets most expectations

This are ratings based on your performance, being MA what you get if you do what your manager expects for the half.

New grads are hired as ic3 and you have some time to get to the next level, so you have 2 years to go from ic3 to ic4 and 3 years from ic4 to ic5 that’s senior level, if you are close to the time limit, it is call red zone, if you are not able to get promoted you are fired, I think

I was one of the "performance-based" layoffs at Meta in Feb 2025. I was a top performer on my team—picked up on-calls, covered shifts, worked on critical systems. There was no signal I was at risk. On Feb 10, like so many others, I got the email and was laid off.

Fast-forward to April: I went through a tough 5-round interview with another company. I got a verbal offer and was told I was the top candidate. As background checks began, I proactively disclosed that I left Meta on April 18 (the actual termination date from the layoff). They asked why. I was honest and said I was part of the layoffs.

A week later, they rejected me.

It just… hurts. You try to do everything right. You show up, give your best, stay transparent—and still get punished for something outside your control. Thanks, Meta, for screwing me over not once, but twice.

EDIT: if you wanna know the company that rejected me please feel free to DM me

EDIT:Thank you all for your positive comments and feedback regarding this situation and those of you who messaged me directly as well

Lost my job at Meta on Monday, on the ground of under performing, which came as a surprise as I've always had excellent reviews, like all the others affected that day. I did request to see the documents from which they concluded that I wasn't meeting expectations, got a complete nonsense answer saying that reviews were done downward of performance cycle and therefor would not be prepared for impacted employees. Each state has different labor laws, but I just read that, at least in CA, employers must be able to produce documents to backup their decision to terminate an employee for low performance if challenged. Layoffs are always awful for those impacted, but what Meta did seems quite fishy legally. Could that be challenged? I have no intention to ever work for them again, but it sure would be nice to get the share of bonuses we rightly earned...

Meta Begins New Layoffs: Meta started cutting 5% of workforce (4,000 jobs), including some high-performing employees. CEO Zuckerberg says cuts will make room to hire "strongest talent" for AI initiatives.

Source: InstaByte

2025 - https://www.businessinsider.com/internal-memo-meta-increases-employees-rated-below-expectations-2025-5#:~:text=Meta%20has%20instructed%20managers%20to,out%20low%2Dperformers%22%20faster.

I've said it before. Nothing is truly safe or off the table.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/22/meta-layoffs-ai.html

Meta just laid off 600 people from its AI division and now the company is pushing employees to use its internal AI chatbot, Metamate, to write their year-end performance reviews. According to Business Insider, managers and staff are being encouraged to let the tool draft self-assessments and peer evaluations by pulling from internal docs, messages, and project summaries.

Joseph Spisak, a product director at Meta's Superintelligence Labs, talked about this at a conference recently. He said he uses Metamate for his own reviews and described it as a "personal work historian" that can summarize accomplishments and feedback in seconds. The company isn't forcing anyone to use it yet, and adoption is all over the place. Some people use it heavily, others just for rough drafts. One employee said the tool needs a lot of manual editing because it doesn't always capture the nuance or detail you'd want in an actual performance review.

The timing is notable. Meta cut those 600 roles as part of what CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been calling the company's "year of efficiency." The layoffs hit AI infrastructure and research teams, with the stated goal of making the org more agile. Affected employees got 16 weeks severance plus tenure-based comp. Meanwhile, the company is embedding AI deeper into its own operations, including how it evaluates people. It fits the broader push to automate administrative work and reduce overhead, but it also raises questions about how far companies will go in using the same tools internally that they're building for everyone else.

Source: https://www.peoplematters.in/news/performance-management/after-600-layoffs-in-ai-unit-meta-turns-to-chatbot-for-staff-evaluations-47161

Meta will lay off roughly 600 employees within its artificial intelligence unit as the company looks to reduce layers and operate more nimbly, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday.

The company announced the cuts in a memo from its Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who was hired in June as part of Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. Workers across Meta’s AI infrastructure units, Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit and other product-related positions will be impacted.

Axios was first to report the cuts.

Meta has been aggressively investing in AI as it works to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Google, pouring billions of dollars into infrastructure projects and recruitment.

On Tuesday, the company announced a $27 billion deal with Blue Owl Capital to fund and develop its massive Hyperion data center in rural Louisiana. The data center is expected to be large enough to cover a “significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post in July.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/22/meta-layoffs-ai.html

This seems to be at the direction of Wang. I wonder what is going on in Yann's office right now.

”By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Wang writes in a memo seen by Axios. Meta will allow impacted employees to apply for other roles within the company, Axios reports.