Photo: Tim Gouw

Is Facebook a stressful place to work?

One of the consequences is that people at Facebook will often trample over one another and you'll see different teams working on very similar projects. This can lead to a stressful workplace culture that worsens one's work life balance.

careerfair.io - Facebook Work Life Balance: Is it really that bad? - Career Fair

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However, it is rumored to be notoriously bad from a work life balance perspective. Work life balance at Facebook can vary tremendously from team to team. In this article I’ll give a general overview of what a new hire can expect and how work life balance at Facebook compares to some other big tech companies (like Google). Since work life balance spans many different topics, I’ll try to frame the discussion through the lens of the following concepts: Time commitment (not just raw number of hours, but also level of stress that you face over that period of time) Mental Energy (how often do you think about work?) Office Politics and Culture People Takeaways / next steps

Let’s get started.

Time Commitment

Work hours at Facebook for tech roles are pretty standard and similar to across the industry. The norm is to work 40-50 hours per week, though it is not uncommon for engineers to put in as much as 60+ hours per week especially when teams are close to shipping features and are working on a tight deadline. The number of hours you work is also going to depend on what team you are. At Facebook, if you are working on a product that is consumer facing and generates a lot of revenue for the company (for example, Messenger), the work you do will have more of a spotlight on it and you’ll put in more hours to impress others around you. This is also the case if the team you are working on is smaller in size than others and requires specialized knowledge. This is also going to be time consuming because since only a few people have specialized knowledge, some of your time will also be learning new tools and concepts, as well as educating others about them. You might have your whole day filled up with meetings, leading to calendar creep. One thing to note is that since team selection often plays a big role in your total time commitment, Facebook is good at giving new hires the optionality and freedom to pick the team they want to join (they usually get around 6 weeks and over 100 choices of teams). So even a new hire at Facebook is able to gauge how much a team is going to expect hours wise before he/she decides to join it.

Mental Energy

The reason behind this is actually somewhat based on the tools that Facebook uses for teams to communicate internally. These tools make it hard to disconnect and can often lead to information overload. Let’s dive into the two most prominent tools - Facebook Workplace and Messenger. I’ll also discuss how some of these tools lead to scattered information which can make it hard to focus. Facebook Workplace is the communication tool that Facebook uses to connect everyone at the company (in comparison, Google uses their own G Suite set of tools). It’s structured like the Facebook news feed and is intended to make company / team level easy accessible.

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At first glance, you might think this is really useful, but it is also one of the key contributors of stress at the company. Since it’s structured like the Facebook newsfeed, you constantly feel like there’s more work left to do. The content is structured by some relevance algorithm and unlike email, you can’t sort or filter the content. It’s really easy to just keep scrolling through this feed and as a result it can take a toll on your mental energy. It can make you feel stressed and isn’t great for work life balance.

Messenger

The reason this is something that happens more at Facebook than other companies is because Facebook uses Messenger internally to communicate, and it’s really easy to keep checking these notifications late in the evening. This is not good for your mental health because it can often lead to boundaries between work and relaxation time being very blurred. You might think that all you’re doing is checking notifications and then putting your phone away, but the truth is that you’ve made it harder for your brain to switch off and disconnect. And if you chose to respond to one of these messages, you set a bad expectation for other co-workers around you. This is in contrast to a company like Google, where Gmail is used much more heavily and as you can expect, fewer people will be checking their emails than they would a messaging tool like Messenger.

Scattered Information

For example, let’s say you submit an Engineering Document and someone wants to comment on it. Some people might choose to comment directly on the document, but others might just make some notes on it via Facebook Workplace (because they think it is better to do so here as others can comment, like, and view the information). As a result, it can be quite stressful to deal with information not being fully available in one place. The reason this is disadvantageous is because you don’t feel fully in control and small tasks like having to take into account information across different channels keep hovering at the back of your head.

Office Politics and Culture

Again, this depends greatly on your team, but one thing to be aware of is that Facebook has a heavily product driven culture. You don’t need to be technical to join as a Product Manager. Google has a more Engineering driven culture. As a result, the managers that Facebook has when compared to Google are a lot less technical and more product oriented.

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But the problem that often occurs is that these north stars start to conflict with one another, often leading to structural problems in the organization. For example, when you hire really competitive, driven individuals that all want to have a strong impact on the trajectory of the company, then there are consequences to this. One of the consequences is that people at Facebook will often trample over one another and you’ll see different teams working on very similar projects. This can lead to a stressful workplace culture that worsens one’s work life balance. It is also important to note, however, that there are two sides to this. If you’re the type of person that wants to have a high impact career in tech, then working with other driven, smart people can be an extremely rewarding experience. It will lead to your self-esteem rising and you being able to produce a strong brag document. Ultimately, it just comes down to your own values and how you view your own work life balance. Are you the type of person that derives great enjoyment from working in such a competitive environment? Then in your case, this lack of work life balance just isn’t a big concern. Only you can decide how much you’re willing to prioritize work life balance. For some people, healthy work life balance is non-negotiable. For others who are trying to optimize for growth at this stage of their career, then they are willing to de-prioritize it.

Reach out to someone who interviewed you or anyone you might know at the company, and ask about their opinion. Do they find the workplace to be toxic or overly competitive?

Create a priority matrix of all the things you’re considering when looking for a job. This could contain elements like competitive pay, good food, smart co-workers, etc. And then see where you rank work life balance on that list. Is it near the top of the list or the bottom of the list?

If you’re currently interviewing with Facebook or on the fence about applying, I recommend going on coffee chats with a current employee. This will help you ask any questions you have about the company, including questions about work life balance, and you can also ask about how work life balance at Facebook compares to other companies that the person has worked at.

careerfair.io - Facebook Work Life Balance: Is it really that bad? - Career Fair

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