Former Meta employee says tech feels like a toxic space, takes up job at a local winery

By Divyanshi SharmaFacebook-parent company Meta has laid off thousands of employees in the last couple of months and the move has impacted people across the globe. While some employees revealed that they were laid off while on their maternity leaves, others received layoff notice at 4 am. A lot of people have been sharing their layoff stories on LinkedIn. One such employee shared that she started working at a local winery after her stint at Meta for USD 20 per hours.

Former Meta employee starts working at winery

The former Meta employee also revealed that her new job pays roughly USD 20 an hour and that she was making a 6-figure salary at Meta. However, she added that she is ‘excited to be doing something fun and new at a woman-owned, family-run winery’. However, the pressure of paying Silicon Valley bills is there.

Talking about how the tech job market is scary and feels toxic, the woman wrote, “This tech job market is scary. I was let go in March from my role at Meta, and to be honest, I gave up on finding another talent acquisition job in the tech sector before I even started. Tech feels like a toxic and volatile place right now.”

With so many layoffs happening in the tech world, the job market is highly competitive right now. Talking about the same, the ex-Meta employee wrote in her LinkedIn post, “I’m really not down to compete with thousands of other laid-off TA professionals or hunt down hiring managers on LinkedIn to try to get my resume to the top of the pile or take a 50 percent pay cut just to stay in recruiting in some other industry. This is a shame because not only did I love my job, and adore being in tech, but I was great at it.”

She concluded her post by outlining some career options that she is considering. “Maybe I’ll pivot to a recruiting adjacent role, but is that even realistic? Everyone wants at least some relevant experience. Or maybe I’ll try to keep going with my freelance writing/editing and food photography/styling business, which has been something of a side hustle for a while now (follow paiges.table on IG and Substack if you wanna keep up with what I do in that space),” the post read.

Layoffs at Meta

Meta announced laying off 11,000 people in November 2022. In March this year, the company announced terminating another 10,000 positions. Thus, in total, 21,000 Meta employees lost their jobs in a span of months.

Meanwhile, recent reports revealed that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was called out by many employees as he chose to pay large bonuses to few top executives amidst laying off employees. The Meta CEO responded by saying that he did so because he was happy with their performances in ‘new and expanded roles’. However, the answer didn’t really satisfy employees.