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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?

#321

Post by snow_mac »

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #219
PeterStuer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I work from home most often, and I find that not having to tack on a 2 1/2 hr daily car commute leaves me time for actually socializing IRL as opposed to trying to cram that need into the office.

Yeah, but where do you find anybody to socialize with?

I have a collection of friends from different contexts. Some from past jobs, the gym and other friends. So WFH is great. If your only social group is work, then you should expand your circle, because you never know when the employer might fire you or lay you off. Which will make you very sad because suddenly you lose all your friends.

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

#322

Post by snow_mac »

el_benhameen wrote: post #269
PeterStuer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I work from home most often, and I find that not having to tack on a 2 1/2 hr daily car commute leaves me time for actually socializing IRL as opposed to trying to cram that need into the office.

I think your schedule (“work from home most often”) is my ideal. Did you find it difficult to find a company that permits this? Did you have to negotiate for it, or is it pretty standard for everyone?

When on linkedin, set it to looking for a job / open looking for new work to notify recruiters and add a message to the box saying you're looking for remote only. They will come in droves.

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

#323

Post by cerberusss »

loco5niner wrote: post #305
nailer wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. :)

> if you're in an open office, headphones on. No thanks, 8 hours/day with headphones on is already giving hearing problems. I'm done with that.

Earplugs work great for me. It does taking some getting used to.

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

#324

Post by oillio »

loco5niner wrote: post #310
howard941 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the mech engrs in a cube has a mirror on his wall that puzzled me until I spent a day in the cube farm. I will steal that idea when they relocate me from a private office to cube hell.

Ok, I'm puzzled. Why the mirror?

So people can't sneak up on you. It is subtile, but psychologically draining to have people constantly come up to you and interact with you from behind.

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

#325

Post by resalisbury »

This is partly driven by costs. Where rents per square foot are less, more companies have opted to have offices.

Just like how in Mountain View some Googlers live in the parking lot. It's not cause they think parking lots are hip, space is expensive.

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

#326

Post by NoiseMan88 »

tintor wrote: post #10
dx034 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more about the noise level. Open plan office means that there's constant noise from talking and phones. Some can ignore that noise but for others, noise cancelling headphones are the only solution. Easier communication is certainly a benefit but I'm not sure if it outweighs the loss in productivity, especially for people that don't constantly have to talk to others to do their job.

Noise cancelling headphones will cancel low frequency sounds like fans / AC, but not high frequency ones like talking and phones.

Disturbances from noise in office environments fall into 3 main frequency bands: low (ventilation/Ac), mid (conversations) and high (some parts of ventilation noise, some noise from office equipment).

The most disturbing frequency band (on cognitive tasks) is probably the middle frequency, especially when the noise has "information" (language, tones, signals); but on a physiological level (directly affecting health (CNS function), performance and well-being it is the LOW frequencies that, albeit not cognitively disturbing at first, will have the greatest effect on a long-term perspective.

Headphones/noise cancelling headphones are good a fixing problems in the mid/mid-high range but perform poorly in the low frequency range.

My suggestion is this: your health comes first, no matter what. If you develop a noise-related disorder, you will under-perform and eventually get fired. I would do two things: use an app like SPLnFFT to document the noise level. Use a spectral analyzer to find out where the noise peaks are. ... then get proper in-ear hearing protection from an audiologist (comes in skin-colored, looks like an hearing aid). No-one can blame you for investing in your health to maintain your ability to perform, right?

Literature: http://www.noiseandhealth.org/text.asp?2001/4/13/33/31803 (K.P. Waye. Low frequency noise pollution interferes with performance)

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

#327

Post by wskemper »

rjbwork wrote: post #221
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…

Do you think you could get us some pictures of a neighborhood? Would be quite interested to see it empty before or after hours as an example of how things look.

I tried finding some online but it looks like we haven't published any. I'll need to get permission; our customer base cares very much about facility security. Let me see what I can rustle up.

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

#328

Post by bsrhng »

paloaltokid wrote: post #283
motohagiography wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably, to extend this very rich metaphor, the reason nobody can ever win is in fact an artifact of geography. One particular mountainous region known to be the graveyard of empires springs to mind. I think drama comes from uncertainty and power vacuums, which I would say are artifacts of the terrain.

I’m not up on my history - where is this? EDIT: oh. Are you saying Afghanistan?

he means hannibal

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

#329

Post by orips »

bcohen123 wrote: post #286
orips wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you weren't located at Ramat HaHayal that could almost become relevant.

We're in Cambridge MA, NYC and DC. Not sure where you got Israel from!

I'm sorry. I've got you confused with Kenshoo (two Os).

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

#330

Post by socksy »

orips wrote: post #202
bcohen123 wrote: post #137

Here at Kensho we try to accommodate everyone's preferences. We've got single offices, 2-3 person offices, and open floor areas for whose who prefer that.

If you weren't located at Ramat HaHayal that could almost become relevant.

Huh? https://www.kensho.com/careers says they are located in Harvard Square, NYC, DC, and LA.
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