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Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

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

#241

Post by pconner »

npongratz wrote: post #130
Declanomous wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic Systems has a private office for each of their 9,000+ employees. Their campus is outside Madison, WI, so it's cheaper to do that there then it would be elsewhere. Private offices don't have to be large. I'm sure the money for private offices would appear if companies were sufficiently motivated to provide them.

I don't know if Epic is a private office nirvana for each of their employees, but to be fair, it does sound like the majority do have a private office. I only live in the area and hear stuff second- and third-hand, but I gather an increasing number of Epic employees are assigned to shared offices. The Boston Globe's glowing commentary on the campus concurs: "Most employees have a private office; some share one with a…

I was there for a bit in 2014. From what I saw, most offices had two people.

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

#242

Post by mrweasel »

guelo wrote: post #73

Developers also hate Facebook's mission and the overpriced shithole location.

As people get older, they tend to wonder if what their doing is valuable, or even morally right. So I think as Facebooks employees are getting older, they naturally want to leave. At this point Facebook is one big click bait site and that's not something people want to work on long term.

If Facebook was more about bringing people closer together, and less about showing ads down the throats of it's users, more people would want to work there.

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

#243

Post by tikhonj »

combatentropy wrote: post #146
namiller2 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your office doesn't have a single shared meeting room? Most places I've seen with open offices have some sort of meeting rooms to use for private conversations. How do you have a client call or anything of that matter?

If everyone has their own office, then someone coming into your office is an everyday affair. They could be talking about a programming problem, lunch, or something personal. You don't know, but you would go crazy wondering about it, because it happens all day. In an open room where half a dozen or so people sit, if two people stand up, walk into a conference room, and shut the door, that's weird and curious.

I work in an open office and grabbing a room with somebody is totally normal—it happens every day, for all sorts of boring reasons. We even have small rooms perfect for this purpose: three or four chairs and no tables or video conferencing equipment. People use them for anything from random conversations (technical or not), personal phone calls or even just a bit of extra privacy and quiet for solo work.

Personally, I've been very happy with the environment. It helps that the open part of the office is bright, quiet and pretty sparsely populate.

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

#245

Post by BinaryIdiot »

cbhl wrote: post #63
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'm under the impression that Microsoft was The One Company of the big five that still gives its employees offices with doors.

When I applied there and was given a tour of several areas it seems to be small team rooms that could fit, at most, 10 people. But this was also in just two parts of two buildings in their headquarters so who knows if that's the norm across the entire company.

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

#246

Post by yason »

nilkn wrote: post #108
caleblloyd wrote: post #27

I worked for a year at IBM's RTP campus. Everyone had their own dimly lit cube with 5-foot walls, no natural daylight, and white noise playing over speakers to drown out conversation. The depressing undertone of the office was part of what pushed me to quit. My team at my present job works in an open setting with 8 people in the room and windows with natural daylight. It's quiet enough to focus but gives us the oppor…

Natural light is one of the most important aspects of an office to me. A few years ago I actually turned down an offer because I realized I'd be sitting in an interior team-sized room with no windows and just a door to a hallway, again with no windows. I would have been giving up a seat next to huge windows with light flooding into the room. I just knew that I'd end up depressed in those working conditions and decide…

I have my office windows all blacked out with blinds and a heavy curtain. Natural light makes it difficult to look at the screen. I will enjoy my natural light when I don't need to use my brain for coding and work. The best environment is like an evening or night: darkness except some dim, indirect lights, just like evenings and nights with slight ambient lighting. Best offices accommodate different needs.

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

#247

Post by bduerst »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #238
ng12 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Menlo Park is a shit hole? Compared to what?

That land was gerrymandered into Menlo Park despite being miles away on the wrong side of the East Palo Alto ghetto.

EPA is shitty, but the FB campus is right on the bay and not in EPA. The only shitty thing about it is that you have to deal with the Dumbarton bridge traffic, which is good or bad depending on which side of the bay you live on.

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

#248

Post by exDM69 »

schiang wrote: post #34
caleblloyd wrote: post #27

I worked for a year at IBM's RTP campus. Everyone had their own dimly lit cube with 5-foot walls, no natural daylight, and white noise playing over speakers to drown out conversation. The depressing undertone of the office was part of what pushed me to quit. My team at my present job works in an open setting with 8 people in the room and windows with natural daylight. It's quiet enough to focus but gives us the oppor…

Team sized rooms are definitely the way to go. You can avoid conversation from other teams that you don't care about. When there is a conversation in the room, it's probably related to what you're doing so it's not necessarily distracting you. I worked in a room with just my team and it worked out great. We were able to have discussions and draw stuff on white boards on the wall without distracting anyone else. It al…

I work in a team sized room and much rather would have my own quiet space. I happen to sit next to a "key person" who is constantly having (important) discussions with coworkers that I don't need to or want to hear.

I'm really distraction and noise sensitive so I really prefer working from home when there's code to be written.

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

#249

Post by exDM69 »

schiang wrote: post #34
caleblloyd wrote: post #27

I worked for a year at IBM's RTP campus. Everyone had their own dimly lit cube with 5-foot walls, no natural daylight, and white noise playing over speakers to drown out conversation. The depressing undertone of the office was part of what pushed me to quit. My team at my present job works in an open setting with 8 people in the room and windows with natural daylight. It's quiet enough to focus but gives us the oppor…

Team sized rooms are definitely the way to go. You can avoid conversation from other teams that you don't care about. When there is a conversation in the room, it's probably related to what you're doing so it's not necessarily distracting you. I worked in a room with just my team and it worked out great. We were able to have discussions and draw stuff on white boards on the wall without distracting anyone else. It al…

I work in a team sized room and much rather would have my own quiet space. I happen to sit next to a "key person" who is constantly having (important) discussions with coworkers that I don't need to or want to hear.

I'm really distraction and noise sensitive so I really prefer working from home when there's code to be written.

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

#250

Post by suyash »

dilap wrote: post #13

An open office wouldn't be so bad if library-like codes of silence were enforced.

Good point, the real problem is not open offie vs closed office. It's distractions - noise, interruptions, visual distractions etc outside of the computer screen. Actually if you really think about it, the biggest distractions for quality work are multi-tasking on the computer.
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