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

Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

calnewport.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 483 posts

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#14

Post by nashashmi »

DougN7 wrote: post #4

Open offices were developed by people who don't have to really concentrate for their job. They're awful for developers.

People go to cafes to work. It is not closed cubicles there. And I think they are able to concentrate more. I know for one that I can.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#15

Post by go_go_ »

fecak wrote: post #10

As the moderator of a Reddit sub focused on comp sci careers, I don't think the open office is an issue for junior level developers. The worship of what we in that sub call the big 4 (some combo of Google, Facebook, Apple (or Microsoft), Amazon) is pretty much what you hear from every college senior, and I've never heard anyone even mention this as a negative. Of course these are mostly people who haven't had much ex…

I think some of it may also come with the amount of guidance and mentoring those people require.

Early in your career, the best thing for you to do is to acquire knowledge -- not raw output. The open office allows for knowledge sharing and eavesdropping in ways closed offices do not. However, as you progress you require less 1:1 time with people and can work independently given a set of goals and general architecture. This requires less face time and more coding time.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#18

Post by harryjo »

byebyetech wrote: post #8
fatlasp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought open offices became popular because it was literally the cheapest set up for facilities. For startups it worked because all you had to buy was desks. Somehow that got spun in to 'open offices are so sexy!' Open offices are horrible for productivity imo. Moved to a job with an office and it is so. much. better.

We need a job site that lists companies that provide your own office. I would only apply there.

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html #8

joel used to (still does?) host a job board that used Joel Test as a factor. Maybe it died when StackOverflow launched.

Re: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

#19

Post by loeg »

yumaikas wrote: post #2

As an anecdatum, I am disinterested in Facebook because of that large open office. I currently have my own office, and like that very much. It will be interesting to see where this all goes.

> As an anecdatum, I am disinterested in Facebook because of that large open office.

Me too.

Post reply on HN