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Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#51

Post by kzisme »

Haydos585x2 wrote: post #2

I've been working as a web developer for the past 5 or so years and am yet to see one that wasn't taken by senior management and even then it's only 2-4 of them. I don't think real estate companies have many available anymore. I'm sure it's better for them to say "this is a 100 person open-office" than "this fits 50 private offices". This is Australia so YMMV in the states.

At my current company we had just added 5-10 new private offices, and before they were even done being built "Senior" level employees were already sitting in them...even if they were going to someone else.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#52

Post by douche »

Agree with the impossibility of working in an open office. There have been a couple days where I've had to work with everybody else in our conference room because of renovations to the portion of the office where our offices are. It's no good, I gave up and went home and worked from there; just too much distraction and having to be constantly on, since, whether it is rational or not, it feels like somebody is always watching you.

The panopticon was a design developed to ensure constant surveillance of prisoners. It doesn't say good things about the status of employees when you make their workplace functionally equivalent.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#53

Post by lj3 »

jasode wrote: post #49
cyberferret wrote: post #25

I cannot believe that still in this day and age, there is still a belief that open offices are better for developers?? Joel Spolsky tried to set the record straight, what, about 15 years ago? For the record, I don't normally listen to music when programming - I like a quiet environment. Interruptions are a bane. I have a private office, but as soon as anyone enters - even quietly, my flow state is broken. Plus on the…

>Joel Spolsky tried to set the record straight, Joel Spolsky may have tried but his companies (Fog Creek, Stackexchange) are not big enough nor influential enough to convince the industry. Microsoft in 1990s was one of the few companies that deliberately provided private offices with a door for every programmer. However, that ideology later morphed into putting 2 or more developers to share one room and then relocati…

> Microsoft in 1990s was one of the few companies that deliberately provided private offices with a door for every programmer. However, that ideology later morphed into putting 2 or more developers to share one room and then relocating a large group onto open floor plans[1]. It shows that even a company that originally prided itself on private offices eventually deviated towards open offices. (They still have lots of private offices.)

It's worth noting that when Microsoft was at its peak was when they had private offices. Correlation is not causation, but it's hardly a glowing recommendation for open offices.

> As a counterpoint to offices with doors, there was billionaire Gordon Moore (CEO Intel) in 1996 without a private office.[2]

That's not a serious counterpoint. We're talking about private offices for engineers who are on the maker schedule, where interruptions are harmful. CEOs run on a manager's schedule where interruptions are less harmful.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#54

Post by jasode »

lj3 wrote: post #53
jasode wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Joel Spolsky tried to set the record straight, Joel Spolsky may have tried but his companies (Fog Creek, Stackexchange) are not big enough nor influential enough to convince the industry. Microsoft in 1990s was one of the few companies that deliberately provided private offices with a door for every programmer. However, that ideology later morphed into putting 2 or more developers to share one room and then relocati…

> Microsoft in 1990s was one of the few companies that deliberately provided private offices with a door for every programmer. However, that ideology later morphed into putting 2 or more developers to share one room and then relocating a large group onto open floor plans[1]. It shows that even a company that originally prided itself on private offices eventually deviated towards open offices. (They still have lots of…

>but it's hardly a glowing recommendation for open offices.

To be clear, I'm not "recommending" open offices. Microsoft still has private offices and I believe it's still the majority configuration of their Seattle campus (MS employee can chime in to confirm this.)

>We're talking about private offices for engineers who are on the maker schedule, where interruptions are harmful.

The Intel programmers don't have private offices either. (The ideology was that the CEO's open cubicle was copied down to the engineers as well.)

Also, the problem is that "harmful" open layout has not been proven to lead to business failure nor has "beneficial" private offices proven to lead to business success. We need a company with private offices to beat Facebook/Google/Apple/Intel who all have open offices without doors for their engineers. Instead, what we have is a bunch of articles that do surveys and of course the employees will respond "open offices suck!"

What influences the industry is concrete business success and not employee satisfaction surveys that preaches to the choir. If people don't understand that distinction, they are being naive about what it takes to sway the industry.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#55

Post by bryondowd »

pionar wrote: post #46
cyberferret wrote: post #25

I cannot believe that still in this day and age, there is still a belief that open offices are better for developers?? Joel Spolsky tried to set the record straight, what, about 15 years ago? For the record, I don't normally listen to music when programming - I like a quiet environment. Interruptions are a bane. I have a private office, but as soon as anyone enters - even quietly, my flow state is broken. Plus on the…

I have a private office (I work from home), but there's a difference between open offices where EVERYONE in the company is out in one big area and a separate space for each team. That's how a team I used to be on was arranged. There was the outside office, then what was termed the "developer cave", which was a large section of the office (closed off, with a door!) that housed 5 developers and 3 QA people all working…

My last job had a similar setup, with a developer cave (complete with dim lighting to disorient visitors) with 5 devs working on the same system. There were long stretches of quiet time to focus, and a little bit of idle bullshitting with the opportunity to shoot questions across the room when it would be faster than looking things up yourself or going through email.

Now I'm sitting in a cube farm, sharing a cube, and listening to administrative assistants chatter about their children and their health issues and what they had for lunch all day long. I started coming in hours late and leaving hours late just so I have a few hours of peace at the end of the day to get some focused work done. And that's on an 'easier to ask forgiveness than permission' basis.

I'd kill for a setup like the top comment by shostack, but just getting back to a cave would be lovely.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#56

Post by gumby »

bbcbasic wrote: post #6
dijit wrote: post #4

I also have the same predicament as you, I simply _cannot_ focus in open office environments and I'm not even sure why so I can't curb the problem. I'm not sure if it's a feeling of being watched, or a feeling of uncertainty in my surroundings... or even if it's the possibility of being surprised/interrupted from behind. Eitherway, I'm trying to push the idea of working from home- people aren't very receptive but aft…

I work in an office of 12 and it's a reasonable number.

Looks like this was voted down so I upvoted. It's a germane datapoint.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#57

Post by todd8 »

Maybe I am just imaging it, but for me, background music interferes with deep sustained thinking. I don't understand how people think playing music in the background at home or at work does anything positive for intellectual activity.

Open offices have a similar effect on me, and not infrequently I've been exposed to both at the same time.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#58

Post by yawz »

pionar wrote: post #46
cyberferret wrote: post #25

I cannot believe that still in this day and age, there is still a belief that open offices are better for developers?? Joel Spolsky tried to set the record straight, what, about 15 years ago? For the record, I don't normally listen to music when programming - I like a quiet environment. Interruptions are a bane. I have a private office, but as soon as anyone enters - even quietly, my flow state is broken. Plus on the…

I have a private office (I work from home), but there's a difference between open offices where EVERYONE in the company is out in one big area and a separate space for each team. That's how a team I used to be on was arranged. There was the outside office, then what was termed the "developer cave", which was a large section of the office (closed off, with a door!) that housed 5 developers and 3 QA people all working…

After 20 years in software development, I've come to believe that's the best set up for a balanced creativity and communication.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#59

Post by dethswatch »

manarth wrote: post #42
cyberferret wrote: post #25

I cannot believe that still in this day and age, there is still a belief that open offices are better for developers?? Joel Spolsky tried to set the record straight, what, about 15 years ago? For the record, I don't normally listen to music when programming - I like a quiet environment. Interruptions are a bane. I have a private office, but as soon as anyone enters - even quietly, my flow state is broken. Plus on the…

I don't think many organisations have a genuine belief that open offices are better…but it's more palatable justification than the fact that they're cheaper.

They could just be honest with employees...

Re: Ask HN: Are there any tech companies in the Bay Area that offer private offices?

#60

Post by cema »

Interesting to see so many different opinions, and experiences. Apparently it is to a large extent a personal matter.

My experience is that I seem to prefer a mix of available options. For example, my current office is about 30 miles away from home, and I sometimes work form home and like it, but then I go to the office and like it too. After several days of working in the same environment I welcome the change of scenery.

Also, for the first time in many years, I got a private office, having moved there from a cubicle. It may be a status symbol more than a convenience, but it is a convenience for sure. No problem mixing private and public space as long as I have a choice of both.

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