“It is a phenomenon that has become known as “the flattening”: tech companies which hired middle managers in droves during the pandemic boom are now slicing out the layer as they make mass job cuts. Meta in particular is following a trend set by Elon Musk, who wiped out scores of middle management roles as soon as he acquired Twitter for $44bn last October.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has said the company is “flattening our org structure and removing some layers of middle management to make decisions faster”.

But across the tech sector, the position, valued by some workers as a vital bridge between a company’s bosses and its staff, but mocked by others as the height of bureaucratic mediocrity, is now in peril. Tech companies, which have made more than 170,000 lay-offs this year, according to the crowdsourced database layoffs.fyi, have focused in on the role as they aim to improve efficiency and cut costs.”