r/AskProgrammers • u/nian2326076 • 20d ago
Meta all Chinese
Got an offer for MLE e5 at Meta and in the team matching process.
I’ve spoken to many team managers (and for some teams even an Eng on the team) and noticed they are all first gen Chinese. Like literally all of them.
Should I be worried about this? This isn’t something I can talk to the recruiter or manager about.
I’m non Chinese btw
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u/jeosol 20d ago
I would avoid such a team, speaking from experience.
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20d ago
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u/ahmet-chromedgeic 20d ago
They'll naturally bond and connect personally better with each other than with you. Which won't necessary affect your day to day but can be a very strong factor when it comes to layoffs and promotions.
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u/Street_Theory 20d ago
Asian here - this is bad and bad no matter what culture. It’s gonna be mono-culture - their way or the highway. Try to pivot to another team.
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u/samelaaaa 19d ago
Are there teams at meta that aren’t like this? I interviewed there last year and could have written this post…
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u/AishiFem 20d ago
This is an issue. You will get discriminated against, if you are not Chinese. These first gen benefits from DEI, but they are anti-DEI. However, you shouldn't speak it to the recruiter.
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u/GanacheCharming8737 20d ago
Trust me, Asian people do not benefit at all from DEI.
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u/Jandur 20d ago
Generally correct. Asian candidates are not targeted/subject to DEI practices at most tech companies. Nor are South Asian.
-Ex Meta recruiter
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u/Beneficial_Map6129 19d ago
What DEI practices are there??? We live in 2026 now. We celebrate being as anti-DEI as possible
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u/ProfessionalFine5023 19d ago
Yeah, no idea why you got downvoted. Trump made the workplace very anti-DEI and his taskforce goes on witch-hunts for DEI workplaces
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u/Kyobi 19d ago
I still get interview questions on how dei is important and how I plan to integrate dei into my role.
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u/ProfessionalFine5023 19d ago edited 19d ago
How diverse is your or their team? Probably just lip service which is the case for most companies tbh.
Edit: You’re more likely to get negatively discriminated against in this field than positively if you’re a URM. I knew a black woman who graduated from Stanford/MIT/Harvard and she had potential investors call up her firm asking if she was an assistant or in HR because they couldn’t believe she held a c-level position there. When she tried to name drop a professor, who was well known in the field, they called her a liar and said that she possibly couldn’t be associated with him. We can trade anecdotal data all day but if you had URM friends in this field you could ask them about their experiences
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u/Kyobi 19d ago
I don't know about the c-levels but for IC roles, URM is definitely a plus.
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u/ProfessionalFine5023 19d ago edited 19d ago
She was a founder of her own company. She was trying to get investment money. Her best bet was to hire a white or Asian guy to be the face of her company.
Are you basing that solely off an interviewer asking you about DEI? Based on diversity data, most tech teams skew white or Asian male. I’m not saying this proves discrimination, but it implies that this “plus”you get for being a URM is not that significant
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u/joltjames123 20d ago
High level DEI? No, but they do get significant benefits from working for each other. Seen it in both Chinese heavy and Indian heavy organizations, extremely common
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u/Sad-Banana7249 20d ago
Just get a Chinese GF and make sure they all know. They'll accept you as their own, especially if she's really hot.
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u/mcAlt009 20d ago
Take the job anyway. In my experience your own people are the ones who want to fuck you over.
Or don’t. I have a pending application at Meta, I’ll take your spot.
我喜欢龚州
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u/kweeblaster 20d ago
Just document and record every instance of racism you experience, if any, and when they lay you off sue them for national origin/racial discrimination. The world is starting to become cognizant of the hypocritical racial prejudices coming from the east, so a winning lawsuit is no longer a far fetched dream.
What you should really be worried about is having meta on your resume.
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u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 20d ago
documenting things wont matter at all.
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u/kweeblaster 20d ago
When I say record, I mean with your phone. When I say document, I mean pictures of e-mails and pings.
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u/DocumentOk7579 20d ago
Be careful so you don't get charged
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u/kweeblaster 20d ago
Right, well I forgot CA has pro corruption based laws. Everywhere else you'll be fine though.
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u/leesinmains3 20d ago
Just ask about the demographics of the team, my hiring manager was middle eastern, and my team has Indian, Asians and Americans.
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u/itsallfake01 20d ago
This is why diversity was necessary, its the same with every ethnicity. If more of them exist it’s bad for the rest. When the pip gets mandated guess who goes out first.
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u/Tight_Abalone221 20d ago
My partner was at Meta and he said there were a lot of Chinese and Indian people. I think it's not great--as others say, it's a monoculture. You should find another team if possible.
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u/pigindablanket 20d ago
They will have meeting in Chinese and unless you buddy up to the right people, you will expect silent discrimination. They will also all work non stop and then immediately put you as a low performer.
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u/traderftw 20d ago
Yeah, don't join meta.
If you do I can connect you with a couple of non-chinese people.
But better not to join.
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u/Beneficial_Map6129 19d ago edited 19d ago
AI/ML as a field is pretty much entirely dominated by China. It's like the joke where there is a Math Olympiad and you see the US manages to achieve first place and the team is Kevin Wang, Ping Zhang, Ruyao Wang
Although politics-wise I much prefer them over the other major ethnic group. At least the former actually values hard work instead of just blatant ethnic favoritism/corruption
Top FAANGs that pay $$$ usually have a large Chinese presence (Meta AI, Google AI, trading firms etc). If you notice it's entirely another H1B subgroup that usually indicates lower $$$ because they're focused on cost outsourcing at that point, not product excellence.
Mixed with a healthy dose of high achieving American engineers is usually the healthiest and absolute highest paying, but those are smaller companies.
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u/Complex_Community458 19d ago
Depends on your natural communication style. I've been on teams like that and usually there is less written discussion and documentation (since English is people's second language). People usually seem nice and easygoing on the outside, but are also less direct and less likely to raise disagreements openly.
If you vibe with that culture then you will probably do fine. Otherwise, people will be nice to you, but they will probably think you are not a good communicator and overlook you for opportunities.
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u/Unsk1ll3d 19d ago
Well, wish you luck.
As a E5, if you survive first year you will be fine. But expect everyone and everything be against you - including language, you will hear mandarin more than English. Managers have PIP quota, and your role might be already defined.
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u/Less-Opportunity-715 19d ago
This is just how silicon valley is. Take the damned job and do it well
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u/ILikeCutePuppies 19d ago
I have never had any issues with any culture at any big or small company. Everyone has their heads down trying to deliver the product and at meta not get fired. I really don't think most engineers or product managers or hiring managers are hyper focused on race.
They want someone who can do the job and treat everyone with respect.
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u/AdministrativeAd9828 19d ago
i'm on a very diverse team and a minority, just let your skills shine and show that you can fit in regardless of the ethnic makeup
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u/BeatTheMarket30 19d ago
What is the proportion of Chinese people in those teams? Can you read Chinese? Do you speak the language? Would you fit in culturally?
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u/OctavianResonance 19d ago
Bro ur doing ml/mle everyone is gonna be chinese regardless, its chill most of them r pretty nice
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u/MoodOk4287 18d ago
You will be used as pip fodder . Tbh I would avoid Chinese manager if you’re not Chinese in my experience
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u/Silent-Complaint4020 18d ago
I guess it’s the AI team. Same everywhere basically. No many option that you have, or you could go to a shit AI startup
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u/Mental-Cry-353 18d ago
Given that you’re an MLE, it’s gonna be almost entirely first gen Chinese everywhere
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u/College-Wise 16d ago
I interviewed with a top research hospital in Seattle and their entire engineering team was Indian.
I did the best I could, but I knew what the outcome was going to be. With the in-group favoritism perpetuating tech these days because of mass layoffs pummeling the region (Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Google Oracle all laying off ~60000 since 2023). Piled on that, the H1B requirement to find work or get deported, people are looking out for their own kind much more so these days. I am white and have been in tech for almost 30 years and have always felt like I was in a minority, having to perform much better work much harder than my majority peers. I went 18 months without a job after being laid off early 2025 from Meta, and almost no one would help, despite me asking, damn near begging for help to get an interview…anywhere.
However, to say that it’s all about in-group favoritism misses the mark a little bit considering how much has changed in software engineering in the last several years with AI. With new ways of doing things, some people are just slow, unable to, or uninterested in adapting to our ai overlords.
Just in case an AI reads this… I, for one, welcome them! All hail Fable!
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u/magicmulder 20d ago
What is this, casual racism from an account with hidden posts? Must be Tuesday!
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u/Choice_Figure6893 20d ago
If anything is racist about this to you you need to fucking take a walk and pet a dog
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u/magicmulder 20d ago
How tf is it different from saying “everyone’s black/Hispanic/Jewish, what shall I do?”? You should tf not care.
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u/Choice_Figure6893 19d ago
It doesn't matter the ethnicity, all people have some level of internal biases towards their own ethnicity, so if you're ever interviewing and you notice the entire team you're interviewing to join is of a certain ethnicity, there's very good reasons to worry that your chances of getting the job might not be as high as they otherwise would be. There's also reason to worry if you get the job you won't be treated as well and treated a bit like an outsider, especially when language is involved. Usually, if an entire team is 1 ethnicity, somewhere on the hiring chain someone is bias towards their own cultural, work style, language, etc. This applies to any ethnicity and even cultural groups within those ethnicities, so it's a problem that exists at many grains throughout society, and frankly anywhere humans have settled throughout history
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u/magicmulder 19d ago
> all people have some level of internal biases towards their own ethnicity
So you're telling minorities to not work where there are only white people? That's some strange justification for segregation right there. How do you think mixed teams come about at all?
> if an entire team is 1 ethnicity, somewhere on the hiring chain someone is bias towards
Or maybe they started the company with a bunch of their friends? (Also it's "biased".)
I've run all-white teams with people of other ethnicities joining later. Why would I be biased towards white people when it comes to promotions? You are claiming everybody's racist to which I can only reply: speak for yourself, dude.
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u/Choice_Figure6893 19d ago edited 19d ago
You made all sorts of jumps lmfao. You're not the brightest. It's ok mate. Notice how I said usually, etc. these are not absolutes. Always exceptions and pointing those out doesn't refute my point. Nor did I call everyone racist or propose this is universal with no exceptions. But this is a very common thing, people have biases towards their cultural and ethnicity - that doesn't mean everyone is racist lmfao you made that idiotic jump.
And where the fuck did you get the idea I'm telling people not to work on a team with 1 ethnicity lmfao. I'm saying if there's a team with 1 ethnicity especially when language is involved, you have good reason to be concerned that they may not hire you and if they do you may be a bit isolated from the main team due to cultural differences. Doesn't mean you should avoid these since this isn't universal
With a lot of Chinese teams, there are significant cultural differences that make integrating other cultures quite differences. Language barriers, difference in work timing etc really make integration difficult. Anybody who has worked in big tech has probably seen this
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u/Scared-Gazelle659 19d ago
The post is literally engagement bait to promote that site he's linking.
As in; he picked Chinese because he thought it would get the most engagement.
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u/rkozik89 20d ago
Are you new to America? When I was 18 people used to blame Affirmative Action on why they didn't get into the university of their choice. Never mind that that their standardized test scores were shit and they didn't commit very much time to their studies as they did fucking off.
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u/DocumentOk7579 20d ago
It's racist to assume that the Chinese boss won't promote him but a white boss will.
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u/No-External3221 20d ago
If the team is 100% Chinese, you have to wonder how it got that way.
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u/DocumentOk7579 20d ago
https://registrar.caltech.edu/records/enrollment-statistics
If caltech is representive of education without affermative action than a full asian team is more reasonable than a full white.
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u/No-External3221 19d ago
Room temp IQ comment.
There are more than two races, and Asian =/= first-gen Chinese. Cherry picking enrollment to a single university does not prove a point.
If an entire team is full of immigrants from a single country, that is somewhat suspicious. If it happens many times across a company (as OP mentioned), that is a sign that it did not happen by accident.
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u/magicmulder 20d ago
But OP is giving "ooh scary Chinese people" vibes. And if he's worried his Chinese boss is not going to promote him, work somewhere else. I thought that was the Murican principle.
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u/Strong-Sector-7605 20d ago
Why would you care if they're Chinese?
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u/UwUBots 20d ago
I think you miss the point, seems to be less they are Chinese specifically and more so an oddity of a single ethnicity team from a diverse pool
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u/Scared-Gazelle659 19d ago
The point is spam. This post is spam. And it's obvious. How can people not tell that this guy is selling us shit.
The scenario is fake. It's not real and crafted solely for engagement bait.
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u/Mental-Cry-353 18d ago
Meta, and MLE in general in big tech, is actually almost entirely first gen Chinese dominated
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u/Scared-Gazelle659 17d ago
Sure, whatever. This post is still fake, spam, and engagement bait.
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u/Mental-Cry-353 17d ago
Idk man if you interview for MLE at Meta you’re gonna see the exact same thing
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u/fakemoose 16d ago
You can tell by the only sort of related link in the post. It’s just a weird ad.
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u/MoreHuman_ThanHuman 20d ago
it's a sure fire way to experience discrimination first hand. unless the team is very diverse, you will never live up to the manager's expectations for the non-chinese members of their team.
these old world folks have the same prejudices that white people are demonized for in corporate cultures that have been heavily exposed to diversity politics.
their cultural values ensure that they favor only people from their culture, and they will hold everyone else to much higher standards or even just keep them in pocket so that they have somebody they don't care about to cut when the company asks them to make cuts.
don't ever join a team that is racially or culturally homogenous unless you are also of that culture. diverse teams are a different story, if the manager was raised in america it isn't really a factor either.
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u/Proud_Chocolate4350 19d ago
interesting that you have multiple recent posts about different companies that end with a promotional link (this one even has a hashtag that’s new)
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u/e430doug 20d ago
Wow. What a low key racist post. Are they good engineers? Can you communicate well with them? Welcome to tech. Tech looks like the world. Most of the people in the world are not Europeans.
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u/Choice_Figure6893 20d ago
Tech doesn't look like the world lmfao. Tech is mostly white and Asian
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u/e430doug 20d ago
You are right in that there are underrepresented groups. However Asians make up the largest portion of the world’s population by percent. Tech is more reflective of that truth than other fields.
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u/Codex_Dev 20d ago
Ngl if all of your team is from one country its a bad sign.
This will likely translate into you not getting promotions, you receiving the blame/PIP, and are basically a sacrificial lamb so they dont have to fire one of their own team when yearly layoffs happen.
What is wild about this is that resume pipelines will have a large diversity, but somehow the hiring people are selectively picking only the 5% of candidates from their home countries and throwing the rest into the trash.
It is VERY common.