Dealing with career setback at Meta & fears about AI future - need advice

Are we the same person? I worked at Amazon for a year before being laid off after receiving a 'Needs Improvement' rating. I later discovered I had been unofficially PIP'd when an AWS partner rescinded a job they offered me since even subcontractors had to have hiring eligibility.

I didn't know about Taro or other tech career resources back then. Unfortunately,

• I thought that being a great coder was enough for great performance at FAANG until I dropped the ball on my first ambiguous project by failing to manage stakeholders and project timelines (I was more concerned about tinkering with the API instead!!).
• Since back then was an easy tech market, simply memorizing answers to common leetcode problems was enough to get into big tech, and oh boy did I struggle to try to get my next role.

I was unemployed for ~10 months before I found a proper stable role, and even now my current job is not a place I can see myself growing my career in the long term. I also had to move to a new area that wasn't ideal (isolated suburbia).

I had completely blew it and had to start over.

After, I took a long look at myself and realized I was arrogant and wanted my great coding skills to compensate for everything else in my life. When I moved, I told myself that this time was going to be different.

Now

• I try to focus more on my communication and keeping stakeholders updated rather than completing as many tickets as I can at work
• For my first 6 months, I would go into the office every day and chat with whoever I saw there
• I would leave work at ~5 PM ET, not open my laptop for the rest of the day and focus on other aspects of my life which include
  • Cooking my meals instead of eating out every day
  • Going to the gym regularly
  • Exploring the area and even chatting with locals
  • Planning Taro meetups

Now, I'm in a much better place and feel confident in the next recruiting cycle. Everyone's journey is different but I would say to understand that life is not a race and to try and focus on your health/connecting with others for the time being. I know you are smart and capable enough to find the next role that empowers you!

I'm sorry you were impacted by the layoffs at Meta. I'm sure you were stressed out while working there, and it still impacts you today. First things first: you'll be ok!

All things considered, you have a huge advantage relative to most job seekers:

• You have an enormously powerful brand on your resume with Meta
• You likely have a very strong network of people you've interacted with

Even though you didn't actually receive a PIP, I would encourage you to go through the PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) course.

How do you bounce back when you've had a shot at the big leagues and it didn't work out?

One of the main takeaways from the course is this: receiving a poor rating from a company, or even getting laid off, does not mean that you're a horrible developer or the company is a horrible workplace. It simply means the combination of your working style and the company's working style did not work out.

It could be due to the product domain, tech stack, management style, company values, or any number of other things that you cannot directly control. Don't blame yourself.

When you re-interpret the layoff as a 2-way relationship that didn't work out, you will be much more confident that a better company exists out there for you.

Also, critically, you should not volunteer that you were laid off for performance reasons: https://www.jointaro.com/course/the-ultimate-performance-improvement-plan-pip-guide/interviewing-after-a-pip/