> its work was given prominence in the engineering operation by former Chief Technology Officer Michael Schroepfer, who announced last year that he was stepping down.
At the end of 2016, I joined Twitter to lead one of the anti-abuse engineering teams. My boss, who led the effort, was great: loved Twitter, hated abuse, very smart. 6 months later the CTO, who had been behind the creation of the anti-abuse engineering effort, left. My boss, previously gung ho, left in a way that made me think he was getting signals from his boss. And shortly after that, said boss's boss said that our team had succeeded so well that there was no need for us. He scattered the engineers, laid of the managers, me included, and declared victory. We all laughed bitterly.
What these have in common for me is a high-level executive launching a special team with great fanfare in a way that addresses a PR problem. But because PR problems are generally fleeting, as soon as do-goodery loses its executive sponsor, everybody goes right back to the short-term incentives, meaning things like "responsibility" go right out the door. At least beyond the level that will trigger another PR disaster.
And if you're wondering why you don't hear more about things like this, you're not supposed to. At least for the managers laid off, it was a surprise meeting and then getting walked out the door. In the surprise meeting, they offered a fair chunk of money (for me, $40k) to sign an additional NDA plus non-disparagement agreement. I happen to have a low burn rate and good savings, so I didn't sign. But I know plenty of people who have looked at the mortgage and kid expenses versus the sudden lack of income and eventually signed.