Hugging Face DevEx Veteran's "Resignation Rant" Turns Out to Be a Joke

Merve Noyan, a member of Hugging Face's Developer Experience (DevEx) team, posted on September 11 that she was resigning that day after five years, adding that none of the founders were "acting responsibly." The post quickly spread across the open-source AI community—until it flipped: the "irresponsible" behaviors she listed were ironic praise, describing how the founders built a platform connecting the open-source AI ecosystem and preventing a duopoly, with models running fast locally, low costs, and cheap, efficient hosting. Merve then clarified it was only a joke and publicly asked people to stop flooding her DMs.

Confirmed

• Merve Noyan worked on DevEx at Hugging Face for five years and posted the "resignation" on September 11
• The post opened with accusations against the founders but was actually reverse praise of the platform's value: connecting the open AI ecosystem, avoiding a duopoly, fast local model inference, cost savings, cheap hosting
• She confirmed it was a joke and asked people to stop sending DMs

Unconfirmed

• User xhluca guessed she was joining NVIDIA, which Merve confirmed with a "true" reply—only a hint, with no formal hiring announcement
• One post (m7) frames the satire as criticizing a "double monopoly" problem on the platform, slightly diverging from the widely reported ironic-praise interpretation; exact wording cannot be verified

Why it matters

• Many users initially took the joke as a real "veteran blasting the founders," producing a wave of misreading that shows how sensitive the AI community is to personnel turmoil at top companies
• The joke's core was a positive assessment of Hugging Face's open-source positioning, indirectly reflecting community recognition of its role in countering closed-platform monopolies

2026-09-11 ~ 2026-09-11 · 7 related posts

• [source] Hugging Face DevEx Veteran Resigns Publicly, Says 'None of the Founders Are Acting Responsibly' — mervenoyann · 2026-09-11
• [source] Ex-Hugging Face DevEx engineer hints she's joining NVIDIA after resigning — xhluca · 2026-09-11
• [source] Hugging Face dev's dramatic 'resignation' post was a joke, DMs ensued — mervenoyann · 2026-09-11
• Hugging Face DevEx veteran posts fake 'resignation' that's actually a platform love letter — ben_burtenshaw · 2026-09-11

3 near-duplicate retellings: MaziyarPanahi · ariG23498 · mmitchell_ai