Meta Caps Manager Workloads and Adds Perks While Allowing AI Unit Staff to Seek Other Roles

Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s chief technology officer, told employees Monday that the company had undermined trust in career growth and stability when it formed the Applied AI engineering unit in March. The internal memo, seen by Wired, addressed dissatisfaction inside the roughly 6,500-person division created to improve the company’s generative AI models.

” He said the company plans to cap managers at about 20 direct reports each and will try to limit how often employees switch managers during restructurings.

Managers will focus primarily on managing and secondarily on independent work, he added. Workers will also have access to “AI coaching” tools if they choose to use them. ” In a separate post from late last Friday, Maher Saba, a vice president leading the Applied AI team, told employees who were required to join the unit that they can now apply for other roles inside Meta.

“Moving forward, we are returning to business as usual and giving people the agency to apply to roles that interest them,” Saba wrote. Bosworth stated that Meta does not believe AI will fully replace workers. ” He noted there would be “tough trade-offs for a while” around compute resources available to different teams and said the company will try to be transparent about those limits.

To improve morale, Bosworth said Meta will improve microkitchens, increase travel budgets, and spend more on social events. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.