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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?

#271

Post by ghaff »

amw wrote: post #257
ghaff wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The biggest one is that we can't really hire newbies I'd be interested in counterpoints but I'm inclined to agree. I'm mostly remote now though I have an office I can go into. However, while it's true that communication systems are much different than earlier in my career, it's hard for me to imagine the first ten years or so of my career after grad school working remotely. For all sorts of reasons, including social…

We do it and it seems to work out. Our system is based on assigned mentors, which we do for everyone who wants it, but explicitly do for newbie engineers for their first .

Interesting. My ability to get up to speed with the work itself and collaboration notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure that I would just have found it hugely isolating working from home, especially full-time, right after graduating from school. Even later, I'm effectively fully remote (although I have an office I can go into and did more in the past) but I travel a lot to events and I really worked by way up to fully remote over a period of at least ten years. So it wasn't like I jumped into the deep end.

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

#272

Post by sli »

afoot wrote: post #161
ubermonkey wrote: post #157

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 coole…

This is very interesting, because your office sounds like hell to me. Any time I work from home I'm absolutely desperate for meaningless social interaction, a walk and a chat while out for coffee, a beer with my team at lunch or after work and face to face discussion. I guess it's hard to find something that works for everyone.

I tend to fill this with Telegram voice messages, or would sometimes just go over to a coworker's house and work with them for a while just for the fun of it. But that's not something you can do unless you have remote people who are still local to you.

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

#273

Post by JJMcJ »

motohagiography wrote: post #176

Funny behaviors from an open office plan I experienced: - tribes claiming spaces: there was a couch area where a natural affinity group formed based on common personality types typical of urban/suburban tribal divide. developed an in-group/out-group mentality. a counter group formed in a lunch area. - posturing: top tech individual contributor used main boardroom for "really important video conference meetings," and…

One job:

The more important you were the longer you left conference room doors open after conference started and the louder you slammed the door when you finally got asked to close.

Extra points for speaker phone at absolute max volume.

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

#274

Post by nunya213 »

wskemper wrote: post #20

I work for Viasat; all of our new-build offices in the past few years have been designed around what we call the neighborhood concept. A neighborhood is a set of individual offices (maybe 60sqft-ish?) with three solid walls, and one glass/wood wall with a sliding door. All the offices open into a central room that can be outfitted in a bunch of different ways. There are neighborhoods of different sizes, and basically…

Thoughts on David Dewane's Eudaimonia Machine concept?

https://medium.com/@jsmathison/i-cant-stop-dreaming-of-eudai...

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

#275

Post by thedufer »

ben1040 wrote: post #132
carlosdp wrote: post #5

Fog Creek famously has a non-open office space [1] [1] https://medium.com/make-better-software/beyond-open-offices-...

I don't know if Trello still works this way after the spinoff from Fog Creek and subsequent Atlassian acquisition, but I visited Trello's NYC office and they had a similar setup to Fog Creek's. Trello also has a significant number of remote employees.

Trello shared an office with Fog Creek until last December or so, so no surprise that they're similar. I suspect Trello retained the offices layout since Fog Creek was the one that moved out.

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

#276

Post by heedlessly3 »

afoot wrote: post #161
ubermonkey wrote: post #157

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 coole…

This is very interesting, because your office sounds like hell to me. Any time I work from home I'm absolutely desperate for meaningless social interaction, a walk and a chat while out for coffee, a beer with my team at lunch or after work and face to face discussion. I guess it's hard to find something that works for everyone.

couldn't you just solve this problem by joining a workantile? They provide a sense of community.

However, if you don't want to pay for one, then the library and coffee shops are alternatives. Sure most people come and go, but after staying at a spot for a while, you will notice who come more regularly.

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

#277

Post by Diederich »

detaro wrote: post #242
bayonetz wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@xiphias comment shouldn’t have been flagged. The same priority-based booking nonsense happens in our open floor plan. Similarly, you need to be important enough to have priority. We love touting how “we are so flat hierarchy that our CEO doesn’t even have a office!”...except he just has a conference room permanently booked instead.

The specific comment isn't flagged (it would be marked as such otherwise), the user has been banned.

Apparently here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15725493 Certainly not a productive comment.

A quick scan of that users's history seems to indicate fairly reasonable stuff:

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=xiphias&next=1582220... (among others)

Given a lot of other reasonable posts, (apparently) one low value comment seems to be able to get a user shadowbanned. That strikes me as a bit excessive.

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

#279

Post by amyjess »

Bartweiss wrote: post #259
PeterStuer wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called 'hot-desking'. In practice everyone still sits in the same place every day, and sublimizes their territorial marking. Sitting in 'someone else's' spot is seriously frowned upon. This trend happened when the 'open plan' needed a next level of hell.

> This trend happened when the 'open plan' needed a next level of hell. I seem to remember Dilbert explaining this as a way to ensure employees felt more like company-owned sacks of potatoes than actual humans. Hot-desking really does seem like one of the most dehumanizing office designs I can think of. I know the supposed benefits of open offices, but I'm not even sure what hot-desking claims to achieve? Except in c…

> I know the supposed benefits of open offices, but I'm not even sure what hot-desking claims to achieve? Except in call centers I guess, where it's explicitly "to speed up firing people".

In call centers, there's another reason: if the company gets big enough, they may have more employees than desks. Since call centers work on shifts, not everyone is going to be in the office at the same time, and so they just lay down a policy of "nobody has their own desk".

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

#280

Post by matchagaucho »

afarrell wrote: post #266
matchagaucho wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my #1 challenge at the moment... how to sustain a remote company culture and offer mentoring/onboarding to early career Developers. I support the "craft" of Software; which requires an equal distribution of Apprentice, Journeyman (Journeyperson) and Master level people. But it's difficult to "pass on" the craft to an Apprentice who is remote, so our team tends to be all mid-career folks.

One thing to focus on is teaching the skill to onboarding yourself into a new project. As an example, one part of that skill that I've learned from my current employer: It is actually socially acceptable to say "Hi, I've been working on $ticket recently and don't have a specific question but I feel rather lost. Could I grab 30 minutes on your calendar and you walk me through how SaltStack actually gets data values an…

During our interview process we attempt to quantify "Communication" as a trait; which includes "Ability to ask questions and clarify requirements."

It really is an essential must have skill for remote workers.

The ability to communicate visually and exhibit spatial intelligence through sharing screenshots and diagrams also goes a long way to being successful remotely.

An open office has the benefit of whiteboards and pen/paper to do visual knowledge transfer.

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