Leaked by laid-off Meta engineers: 90% of the advertising department are Chinese people speaking Mandarin all day, lunch excludes you, and the most toxic managers in your career

Last week, on May 20th, Meta announced layoffs of 8,000 people, with front-end engineer Jeremy Bernier being one of them. Recently, he posted a lengthy message on X platform, revealing that the Meta advertising department has been long dominated by employees of Chinese descent, and non-Chinese employees are often marginalized in meetings, lunches, and team dinners.
(Background summary: Meta strongly denies any cooperation with Chinese censorship of Taiwanese content or sharing user data)
(Additional context: Zuckerberg is in trouble? Meta’s antitrust trial begins, FTC demands forced sale of Instagram and WhatsApp)

Table of Contents

Toggle

• Feeling out of place from day one
• Non-Chinese always ranked higher on layoff lists
• Toxic management culture: a new employee was forced to see a psychiatrist before being fired
• Not about solving problems, but about "telling a good story"
• Public opinion is split in two, Meta does not respond

On May 20, 2026, Meta officially laid off 8,000 employees. Just days ago, it is reported that a former front-end engineer, Jeremy Bernier, who was laid off, posted a long message on X platform, exposing his personal experiences in Meta’s Ads Organization. The post quickly went viral and sparked intense discussion in Silicon Valley’s tech circles.

At Meta, 90% of my coworkers were Chinese, and non-Chinese were routinely excluded, disadvantaged, and targeted for layoffs. 6 out of the 7 layoffs I observed targeted non-Chinese despite non-Chinese being the vast minority. Certain orgs like ads and MRS are notorious for being…

— Jeremy Bernier (@jeremybernier) May 23, 2026

Feeling out of place from day one

Bernier joined Meta’s advertising department, which he describes as extremely homogeneous in ethnicity: “90% of my colleagues are Chinese.” He says this is not just a numbers issue, but reflects a tilt in the entire workplace culture.

The most immediate impact is language. “I’m not talking about occasional conversations, I mean every single discussion is in Mandarin.” He describes a scene where a dozen teammates and managers form a circle, loudly chatting in Mandarin, with only two non-Chinese standing on the side, unable to understand or join the conversation. This isn’t behind people’s backs; it’s “loud and brazen, completely disregarding others’ feelings.”

Marginalization during lunch is even more routine. Chinese colleagues always eat together and never invite non-Chinese. Bernier says he tried to invite others, but they politely declined each time. Soon after, a group of people would disappear to eat without him.

Team dinners are like standing in front of a mirror: a table of Korean BBQ, with non-Chinese and Chinese sitting at opposite ends, separated by an invisible wall. “The one refusing to sit with us is our Tech Lead.”

Non-Chinese always ranked higher on layoff lists

These daily frictions eventually materialized into a disturbing ratio during layoffs.

Bernier says he witnessed 7 layoffs in the Ads department, 6 of which targeted non-Chinese employees, despite non-Chinese being a “tiny minority” in the organization. He emphasizes this is not just his subjective feeling: “A department led by 90% Chinese is a fact, and it exists.”

He also points out that the Ads team and MRS are notorious within Meta for being dominated by Chinese employees. When the entire org and its management chain are controlled by the same ethnicity, Bernier says, “their workplace culture naturally seeps in.”

He gives his own example: he is someone who questions things and dares to challenge “superiors,” but he quickly found that such behavior made his Tech Lead visibly unhappy and led to various forms of retaliation.

He concludes with an important stance: “I have no opinion about Chinese people. I genuinely believe most are good people, and it’s not intentional to exclude others. But regardless of intent, the result is that non-Chinese are marginalized.”

Toxic management culture: a new employee was forced to see a psychiatrist before being fired

The latest post reveals a deeper level of management hell.

Bernier describes that the daily work in his assigned advertising team is very dull: most of the time spent adjusting parameters, clicking through outdated internal UI tools to pull metrics, and taking screenshots to paste into Google Docs. The so-called “engineering work” is essentially just tweaking configs.

I joined Meta as a software engineer and was matched to an ads team. I thought I'd be coding (this is in 2024) and scaling high scale systems. Turns out the team was mostly tweaking parameters, clicking through outdated UIs on internal tools to pull metrics and screenshot paste…

— Jeremy Bernier (@jeremybernier) May 25, 2026

But the real problem isn’t boredom; it’s how the entire system operates. Every time they need to “deploy” a change, they must first hold an alignment meeting with the Tech Lead, who questions every piece of data, testing whether you’ve analyzed all possible combinations. If the TL doesn’t approve, the deployment is delayed.

The TL also directly tells your manager that you are “irresponsible with deadlines,” which affects your performance review. “One negative review from the TL, and you’re done.”

Bernier describes this behavior pattern as “deliberate.”

“They ask me to do things I clearly have no background in, refuse to provide background knowledge, then gaslight me when I can’t handle it. They even ignore me when I say hello.” He also heard that this TL once tried to alter a file’s deadline to make an employee look late. “I really think he’s designed to make me fail.”

The supervisor’s issues are even more severe. Bernier says this is the most toxic supervisor he has ever encountered. What chilled him most was witnessing this supervisor “deliberately pushing another new employee toward failure,” forcing the person to see a psychiatrist, and then firing him.

After that performance cycle ended, the supervisor suddenly announced a 8-month leave, then left the company.

Not about solving problems, but about "telling a good story"

Bernier points out a more fundamental problem he observed: Meta’s performance review system (PSC) has distorted everyone’s behavior.

“At some point, I realized that the real goal isn’t solving problems but creating a good story for PSC,” he says. Cross-department collaboration and involving more people are seen as “higher-level work” and thus more valuable in PSC; conversely, if someone can finish things independently, it’s considered “not difficult,” and their value is underestimated.

This distorted incentive structure disadvantages engineers who are capable of solving problems independently, while those skilled at creating “complexity” and “collaborative narratives” are more likely to excel in performance reviews.

He mentions that another engineer who joined the same day as him resigned exactly after one year, because staying a full year at Meta is necessary to secure signing bonuses.

Public opinion is split in two, Meta does not respond

These two posts have sparked widespread discussion in the tech community, with clear polarization.

Supporters believe he has exposed a long-standing “unspoken” issue in Silicon Valley: when a department’s 90% of staff and the entire management chain are controlled by the same ethnicity, whether intentional or not, minorities find it hard to get fair opportunities, and workplace inclusion is essentially a myth.

Critics question his logic: “Speaking your native language doesn’t equal discrimination,” “Not inviting you to lunch doesn’t mean targeting you,” “Layoff decisions involve many factors; you can’t jump to racial discrimination just based on ethnicity ratios.” Some argue he conflates cultural differences and workplace discomfort with racial issues, unfairly painting Chinese employees as a whole.

Bernier admits he cannot produce concrete “evidence of discrimination,” only the numbers and personal feelings he observed. Meta has not issued any official response or announced any investigation so far.

He ends his article with several suggestions: enforce English as the official language in offices, set higher standards for managerial inclusiveness, and investigate potential discrimination cases. But he also concedes, “Honestly, as long as the entire management chain up to VP level is dominated by the same ethnicity, language, and culture, I don’t believe much will change.”

In the short term, this is an unresolved debate, and how to interpret it varies from person to person.