Do managers know how long you use your system?

• I don't know of any manager who goes to that level of detail to track exactly how you're using your time or what applications you're using. (but you should assume that the capability is there)
• There are certain tools internally that managers will rely on, e.g. teaminsights to track how many diffs you've made, lines of code, and comments on diffs.
• More important than the actual time you spent working (and even the granular details such as diff count) is the perception -- what are your peer reviews saying? As a manager, that's probably the biggest piece of feedback I rely on.

Rahul definitely mentioned great points! TeamInsights is a great tool in Meta where you can personally compare how your work stats stay in regards to your peers. And definitely it's not recommended to be below team's average unless you have a very specific reason for this. And one more point I wanted to add is availability. Managers in Facebook don't know (and honestly don't usually care) when you are in front of your computer and when you walk, go to gym or do surfing. But they do know if someone complains about you being unavailable during work hours..

In a nutshell, they probably could get that information, but they almost certainly won't.

Meta is paranoid for obvious reasons, so they track everything on your work computer. So I imagine that IT could produce this info if pressed for it, but I really, really doubt any manager would push for it. This is because Meta is generally good about setting objective expectations around impact delivered and behavior shown instead of using the "traditional", antiquated metric of raw hours worked.

That being said, expectations are pretty high at Meta for SWEs, so you will probably have to work a good amount of hours anyways to meet them 😅

Make sure that you and your manager are aligned on what you're expected to deliver for performance review and go from there. You can find all our content on how to navigate your performance review here.

I also second (or I guess third?) what Rahul and Igor said. The main tool your manager will use to "track" you is Team Insights, and they will definitely do it if there's feedback that your code output is low (code output is pretty much the most important metric for an E3 as well).

And of course, don't do anything stupid on your work laptop, haha.