Meta's mass layoffs hit middle managers and software engineers especially hard

9 hours ago 12

As Meta pours billions into AI, it's laying off two roles the most: developers and managers.

Last month, Meta cut about 8,000 jobs. Business Insider obtained public filings revealing the job titles of 4,665 employees affected by Meta's mass layoffs in California, the state where Meta is headquartered, and Washington, where it has one of its largest offices near Seattle.

Managers were by far the hardest-hit group, making up more than 1,400 of the layoffs identified in the filings — nearly one-third of the total. Almost half of those cuts were software engineering managers. Individual software engineers were the second-most affected group, with nearly 1,000 layoffs.

The data paints a tough picture for two groups that have long been central to the tech industry.

Software engineers have been bearing the brunt of AI this year. Companies such as Block and Coinbase have used recent advances to justify sweeping layoffs, although hiring for software engineers is picking up again.

It's also a difficult time for middle managers as companies embrace small teams and expect bosses to produce their own output.

Middle managers have been the target of Meta's layoffs since 2023, when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he didn't want a culture of "managers managing managers."

"The changes we are implementing vary by team and include layoffs, open role closures, and moving thousands of employees to business-critical priorities across the company," a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider.

Other highly affected roles in the layoff disclosures included data scientists, with 419 people laid off, and product management, which saw 301 cuts. Other job types were less affected. For example, fewer than 100 people in marketing and fewer than 50 people in sales roles were cut.

These layoffs came as Meta embraced AI internally, calling some of its employees "AI builders," reorganizing them into small "pods," and holding "AI Weeks" for staff. In April, Zuckerberg attributed the layoffs to the need to offset AI spending, not automation itself.

The disproportionate impact on developers and managers is no surprise given Big Tech's shifting priorities, Jason Schloetzer, an associate professor at Georgetown University's business school, told Business Insider.

Tech firms care more about revenue per employee now than in the past, when companies bragged about their engineering talent pool, he said. Big Tech firms also used to hoard talent to keep them away from competitors.

Now, unprecedented spending on AI makes it harder than ever to justify those hires, he said. It's also easier to have fewer engineers thanks to AI tools.

"The AI bill is coming due," he said.

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