Meta is expected to broaden its cut of technical program managers beyond the recent elimination of that role at Instagram.
The parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reality Labs, the segment covering its artificial intelligence and Quest hardware projects, is expected to eliminate or drastically reduce the TPM role in additional organizations, according to two people familiar with the company's planning.
The move is set to be similar to what happened last week at Instagram, wherein scores of TPMs were told they would need to reapply and reinterview for available product-manager roles, or else they would be let go in March, as Business Insider reported. One of the sources said the TPM role was poised to be "consolidated" into the PM role in several organizations within Meta, most likely impacting hundreds of jobs.
A Meta spokesman declined to comment beyond saying that the company's effort to become more efficient, part of a mandate from CEO Mark Zuckerberg last year, was ongoing. Since embarking on Meta's "Year of Efficiency," more than 20% of Meta's staff has been laid off, while the value of its stock has doubled.
Although Meta has not finalized which specific organizations will consolidate the TPM role, and any plans may change, the other source said probable candidates were the Facebook platform, which has the largest head count at Meta and has been undergoing a reorganization since last year, as well as Marketplace and WhatsApp.
Fewer TPM roles at Meta
A third person familiar with the company and the work done by its TPMs and PMs noted the roles often had "very similar" functions, although TPMs could be "more in the weeds" of a highly specific or technical project.
An organization such as Instagram, the person said, "does not need TPMs" considering its maturity and the types of technical projects it now undertakes. On the other hand, the person added, teams working on something such as a hardware project related to Quest headsets often needed a TPM with technical know-how to "help the trains run on time."
Meta has about 30 open roles for TPM work (out of roughly 1,600 available job postings), all related to hardware, AI, or infrastructure projects. Meanwhile, it has about as many available PM roles. By eliminating the TPM role at Instagram, more than twice that many people are ostensibly competing for available PM roles. Meta hasn't said it's creating more PM jobs than those already available, only that TPMs impacted by the change are welcome to reapply for such work.
"This is how you do a layoff without having to call it a layoff," one of the people familiar said.
More cuts or "quiet layoffs" have been top of mind lately for many employees. Meta has already changed specific teams and projects, including shrinking its responsible-AI organization. A new wave of tech cuts has happened in 2024, including at Amazon and Google. Such layoffs have been incremental compared with those of late 2022 and 2023.
Meta workers face tougher performance reviews
Along with cuts to TPM roles at Meta, annual performance reviews are wrapping up, with results to be delivered to employees early next month. The performance-review process has been tougher since last year when managers were directed to increase the number of employees who fell into lower performance categories, and layoffs followed. Two people familiar with the company agreed that this round of performance reviews had remained tough.
The lowest performance ranking of "needs support" is typically considered an automatic PIP, or performance-improvement plan, which tech workers often view as inevitably leading to being let go.
One of the people said workers were expecting that many hit with a low-performance ranking "will be pushed out, one way or another," whether or not Meta conducts a formal layoff.
"This is just the process now," the person added.
The Meta spokesman said the company's approach to low-performance rankings "is not any different than it's been in the past."
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