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

Post by therealdrag0 » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 9:57 PM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #154

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).

Post by mark-r » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 10:38 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #198

kpil wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for the Microserfs reference!

Flat foods only.

Post by loco5niner » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 10:43 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #98

hordeallergy wrote: post #94

It's not acceptable. I've moved from a dev background to having a go at sre/devops/something-or-other; work aside, the culture is excrutiating, with people shouting across the office all day. Best case, someone talking to themself hour after hour, as if anyone wants to hear that. The idea that open floor plans are productive is farce. I effectively have two jobs, the first being just trying to get any work done.

SRE/DevOps should generally be like dev: if you're in an open office, headphones on. > Best case, someone talking to themself hour after hour, as if anyone wants to hear that. The person who is speaking usually needs to hear it. Sorry, I talk to myself every so often. :)

Post by aphextron » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 10:56 PM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #53

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…

I worked in a similar environment at Apple, when Infinite Loop first opened: Pods with offices that surrounded a central courtyard, which was furnished with sofas, chairs and whiteboards. Each office had a simple (and heavy) door alongside a tall and narrow window. The door provided effective sound isolation, and years later I realized the window was a psychological link to what was going on in the inner "courtyard",…

Post by afarrell » Wed, Apr 18, 2018, 11:06 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #291

matchagaucho wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>An open office has the benefit of whiteboards and pen/paper to do visual knowledge transfer. Any face-to-face setting really. I'm not sure why we haven't done a better job of cracking the "like a whiteboard (or flipchart or whatever) but for people who aren't in the same room" thing. I know it's partly a surface area thing but you'd think we could do better when it's such an obvious, at least to me, missing piece in…