Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–356 of 356 posts

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

#351

Post by ubermonkey »

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.

Oh, yeah, it's ABSOLUTELY not for everyone, and there are things you get "for free" in an office that have to be planned for us.

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

#352

Post by crzwdjk »

kabdib wrote: post #62
jmspring wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SVC is being redone in open floor plan. Those in Redmond being converted often have PMs and Engineers doubling up in the same office - two total separate use cases. Some roles mitigate this with remote work.

The Studio buildings at MS were open plan when we moved in. Pods of six people sat in a kind giant cubical corraled by high walls, with these "six-packs" strung down the length of the building's wing. Managers and the privileged few received offices. When space got tight, they removed most of the interior partitioning and furniture in the six-packs and crammed more people in. The most I ever saw was ten people stuffe…

Each new major generation of NVIDIA GPU was accompanied by an upgrade to the power transformer to the building that the software teams sat in, because it turned out during bringup that the building was already exceeding the capacity of the transformer.

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

#353

Post by wskemper »

wmli wrote: post #339
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 found these pictures after some digging.. would you say they are representative? http://sca-sd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2c-viasat-offic... http://sca-sd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2d-viasat-offic... Architecture firm's site: http://sca-sd.com/portfolio/viasat-2/ Looks very spacious, not sure if it's feasible in high cost (/ sq ft) offices?

Yes that's it! Now I've got a bunch of other places to throw those... :) I don't know the cost, I just experience the value.

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

#354

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.

This comment dug up some of the photos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16879350. They're a good representation.

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

#355

Post by wskemper »

cs44 wrote: post #342
wmli wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found these pictures after some digging.. would you say they are representative? http://sca-sd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2c-viasat-offic... http://sca-sd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2d-viasat-offic... Architecture firm's site: http://sca-sd.com/portfolio/viasat-2/ Looks very spacious, not sure if it's feasible in high cost (/ sq ft) offices?

Are you hiring? (Half heartedly joking...)

We absolutely are! Our list of open positions is on our website: https://www.viasat.com/careers/openings. I'd post my usual spiel about our Seattle office (where I work now), but we're renting coworking space up here, so I don't want to bait and switch.

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

#356

Post by cdeutsch »

noir_lord wrote: post #125
kpil wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for the Microserfs reference!

I'd forgotten that book existed,I need to read it again, it's up there with "office space" for humourous tech related media.

What book are you referring to? Sounds good :)
Post reply on HN