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Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

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Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#151

Post by magduf »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #82
dsq wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Bose Quiet Comfort 20 in-ears are excellent for machine noises like air conditioners in server rooms or traffic drone but terrible for voices or radio.

Active noise cancellation generally works best for consistent background noise. Sound that changes rapidly, like human voices, will be difficult for the cancellation hardware to react to, and headphones that provide sound isolation may be more help. See https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-noise-cancelling-headphone-... .

I have headphones which provide sound isolation, as well as noise cancellation: Sennheiser PXC-450. In a room with a noisy server cabinet, I can actually hear people talking better with my headphones and NC on than without. The headphones cancel much of the fan noise, to a greater dB level than the isolation from the headphones attenuates the voices.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#153

Post by gpvos »

os72 wrote: post #120

Virtually everyone has an individual office where I work. Our CEO has the motto "give them a door, a window and the fastest computer money can buy".

Which company is it? (If you didn't want to give away where you work, you could have named the company without saying you work there. That was the original question, after all.)

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#154

Post by cryptonector »

Headphones are not good enough. It's much too easy to damage your hearing.

Sun Microsystems, Inc., had offices. More junior engineers would share offices, with two or three engineers per office, while more senior engineers would have private offices. Seniority also dictated office location (think of having windows vs. not). This worked very well. It's not that expensive either (it's certainly not why Sun died).

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#155

Post by gpvos »

matte_black wrote: post #144

One thing that also matters, that people tend to neglect, is ceiling height. In general when you need to do focused concentrated work, it’s best to work in a room with a low ceiling, the lower the better. Ideally it’s a ceiling you could almost touch. If you need to do more creative thinking, it is better to have a high ceiling, the higher the better (think cathedrals), though there must be a ceiling at some point.

Citation needed.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#156

Post by magduf »

newfoundglory wrote: post #44
kayamon wrote: post #8

Lots of (in fact most?) companies don't have an open plan office. When I used to work at Activision, they didn't and still don't. > How is this acceptable? Because it's totally fine. If you can't work with another human nearby you might want to get over yourself and think about what you're doing with your life.

If “open office” makes you think “another human nearby”, you may not be informed enough to contribute on this topic. That would be a shared office - an open office generally means many people nearby.

It doesn't necessarily mean many people nearby at one time, it could just mean a lack of walls (or very low walls), so that people who walk by are a distraction. I worked in an office like this for a while: there weren't many people sitting around me (it was pretty empty actually in my sector), but I was in a low-wall cubicle next to an aisle, so there was a constant stream of people walking by my desk, with their heads constantly appearing over my monitor. It was extremely distracting.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#157

Post by ubermonkey »

I get I'm part of the privileged few, but: I've been working for a small software company for almost 11 years, and EVERYONE at my company is remote. We don't lease any real estate anywhere, unless a mailbox and a colo rack count.

It's AWESOME, but there are caveats. The biggest one is that we can't really hire newbies; everyone we've brought in has to be mid-career at a minimum because the absence of the "water cooler effect" makes it harder to ramp up quickly. Folks with some experience handle this better.

The other drawback is mostly theoretical: I'm really not sure I could go back to working in an office. I control the music, the temp, the food, the coffee, when I take a break, whether or not I take a midday snooze, and my cats are everpresent. I mean, an office sounds like a dystopian hellscape by comparison.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#158

Post by brusch64 »

davidmoffatt wrote: post #22

Yes I too would love to see this. Noise canceling headphone seem to cancel everything but voices and that is the opposite of what you need.

The Beyerdynamic DT 770 are working great for this. I am using the DT 770 Pro and they are working fine for me. If you want more noise attenuation you can by the DT 770 M.

Link to the DT 770 Pro: https://north-america.beyerdynamic.com/catalog/product/view/...

Link to the DT 770 M: https://latin-america.beyerdynamic.com/dt-770-m.html

These are headphones for drummers, sound engineers and studios, so they sound good / great and are very comfortable.

Maybe they work better for you.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#159

Post by hshehehjdjdjd »

alex_hitchins wrote: post #103
blattimwind wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's rather small, even for a single-person office.

That would be an incredible luxury to some people. I've worked from what most people would call a shelf before.

Same here. A bar in a coffee shop would have compared favorably to that desk in size and ergonomics. Craziest thing about it was how at the time I was getting paid absolute tons of money, but in many ways my status at work felt more like my desk than my paycheck. I don’t know what that tells you about the human psyche, or mine. Rationally, I wouldn’t have traded much of the money for a better desk, but emotionally the money just felt like a number on a screen going up, while the desk felt visceral.

Re: Ask HN: What are some tech companies that do not use an open floor plan?

#160

Post by fzzzy »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #127
ghostcluster wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the gigantic multibillion dollar new space ring was explicitly designed around big open office units, long tables with bench seating , and the 'privacy pods' are exposed clear glass on all sides..

long tables with bench seating So everyone at the table has to have identical ergonomics?

What an absolute nightmare.
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