Meta Headquarters
Image by Tada Images/ Shutterstock

It Laid Off 11K Workers This Week, But Zuckerberg's Meta Is Still Recruiting in LA

Despite the company’s decision this week to lay off 11,000 workers worldwide, Meta still appears to be actively recruiting in Los Angeles.

Most of the roles appear to call for skills in augmented and virtual reality, either working directly for Meta Reality Labs — the division focused on VR hardware and the online community Horizon Worlds — or another aspect of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s planned metaverse. The platform's recruitment isn't limited to L.A.; the company's careers site also lists jobs in AR/VR and other divisions located all over the world.


The open roles paint a picture of Meta’s intended virtual reality future. One listing is for an L.A.-based art manager who will work on Meta’s "Avatars" project, which allows users to create a digital likeness that will represent them throughout Meta’s platforms — including the VR platform Horizon Worlds.

Another listing calls for a technical artist that will design the “lighting workflows and key setups” of Meta’s Avatars. The platform also appears to be hiring for a number of different L.A.-based engineering roles, both at Meta Reality Labs and throughout other Meta platforms.

Though these listings remain active, Meta’s AR and VR businesses — which the company has spent over $36 billion on expanding — were not spared from the company-wide cuts. A number of Reality Labs and other VR employees were laid off this week, though Meta has not disclosed how many. It’s unclear whether Meta is now seeking to replace those exact same roles or whether the AR/VR listings are for different ones.

It’s no surprise, however, that Meta is still continuing to hire new people amid layoffs. During the platform’s third-quarter earnings call back in October, Meta’s Chief Strategy Officer David Wehner noted that the company plans to shrink some teams and invest in higher-priority items on its agenda. While hiring at Meta will be “dramatically” slower than usual, Wehner noted that Meta plans to keep its workforce at its current levels or slightly smaller.

“We are holding some teams flat in terms of headcount, shrinking others and investing headcount growth only in our highest priorities. As a result, we expect headcount at the end of 2023 will be approximately in-line with third quarter 2022 levels,” Wehner said during the earnings call.

But prospective job candidates should probably wait for the dust to settle before applying. This week, Meta reached out to a number of recently-hired individuals to revoke their job offers,

“The recruiter from @Meta just informed me that they will withdraw my offer this morning. Does this only happen to me or also other folks,”one individual wrote on Blind, an anonymous workforce community application. The same individual also claimed to have received a written offer and completed Meta’s background check.
Why This Monk-Turned-Entrepreneur Is Betting His NFT Lounge Can Survive the FTX Fallout
Photo: Rafi Lounge

Set in the foothills of Eastern Malibu across the street from Robert de Niro’s Nobu, the Rafi Lounge, a NFT-powered wellness center and coworking space, somehow looks like both a beachfront country club and a swank monastery. On a clear day, you can see Catalina Island across the ocean. The sign above the entrance says, “Welcome, please allow us to reintroduce you to yourself.”

Read moreShow less
Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

https://twitter.com/samsonamore
samsonamore@dot.la
At UCLA, Professors See 'Exciting Opportunities' in AI Writing Tools
Image by Pixels Hunter/ Shutterstock

Generative AI is tech’s latest buzz word, with developers creating programs that can do anything from writing an academic essay about guitars and elevators to creating photorealistic paintings of majestic cats.

ChatGPT, a platform built by DALL-E 2 and GPT-3 founder OpenAI, is the latest one of these tools to go viral. But this tool can go far beyond writing a version of the Declaration of Independence in the style of Jar Jar Binks. It has the capability to write full essays on almost any subject a college kid could desire — creating another layer of complex technology that humanities professors now have to consider when they teach and dole out assignments.

Read moreShow less
Nat Rubio-Licht
Nat Rubio-Licht is a freelance reporter with dot.LA. They previously worked at Protocol writing the Source Code newsletter and at the L.A. Business Journal covering tech and aerospace. They can be reached at nat@dot.la.
nat@dot.la
RELATEDTRENDING
LA TECH JOBS
interchangeLA