Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

Post by webvictim » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:25 PM UTC

busted wrote: post #66

fsloth wrote: post #9

Is there anyone here who likes open offices more than a floorplan divised into smaller rooms? I ask because I've worked in an open office setting as a developer for years (the place is otherwise nice) and thoroughly despise it as a workspace. Yet some people don't seem to mind it. I don't mind serendipity. The problem is I serendiptously overhear everyones discussion which is incredibly disruptive for deep work. Fact…

I've worked in a 2-person office, in a cubicle, and in open office plans of various sizes. I personally prefer the open office format. It makes the team feel more cohesive, it makes me able to jump in to problems that are happening, and it's never stopped me from doing work that requires deep concentration. And if I really wanted to, I could book a small conference room or go to a corner booth somewhere away from my…

Post by chris11 » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:28 PM UTC

QuercusMax wrote: post #35

dilap wrote: post #13

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

Where I work (at Google), it's generally pretty quiet; you'll occasionally have conversations going on, but most of the time all you hear is typing. It's not quite "library-like", but making phone calls at your desk is very strongly frowned upon. At my last company, we generally had 1-2 person offices; it was very easy to stay in your office all day long and never interact with other developers. With the open plan he…

Post by chris11 » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

kangax wrote: post #195

evanelias wrote: post #171

For me, density and team layout makes a big impact between a good open plan space and a horrible one. I worked for FB in NYC, and found that when visiting Menlo Park hq, the open plan there didn't bother me at all -- if anything, I was actually way more productive there. The density at MPK was low enough that the noise/distraction level was minimal, and all of the surrounding teams were working on similar parts of th…

I'm at FB office in NYC and I agree with your points. MPK always has that more chill vibe and is less dense/quieter. The NY office has gotten much better though. Many engineers are now on 15th floor which has no distractions like help desk and is generally surprisingly quiet. I notice myself working in almost complete silence among many people around and only once in a while put my headphones on. Sucks to hear about…

Post by jpgvm » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:36 PM UTC

elnado wrote: post #264

erobbins wrote: post #220

I worked at a company where there was a combination of team rooms and offices... but all the walls were glass. You had the benefit of being able to see if Julie was at her desk so you could go ask her a question, but not hear Bob next door arguing with his wife again. It was fantastic. Now, I'm at FB... and I wouldn't work on a team in the new "warehouse" building. It's terrible over there, frankly.

Haha I used to be at Microsoft in a building like you described: a combination of open space with offices and break-out areas. They're trying to renovate all their buildings to follow this hybrid approach as they did with building 16 which is just incredibly gorgeous ( https://news.microsoft.com/stories/b16/ ). Now I'm at a startup in the bay are that adopted the generic open-space/warehouse design and although I'm h…

Post by Declanomous » Mon, Oct 10, 2016, 10:40 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #279

Declanomous wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard the same thing. From what I understand, the issue is that Epic is growing faster than buildings can be built. Regardless, while a shared office is worse than a private office, it's way better than almost any other option. I've worked in a shared office with a partition, a cubicle farm, and an open office, and the shared office was the best work environment by a huge margin.

Sharing an office is great if both of your backs are to the wall. If not, it turns into hell.