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Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

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Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#151

Post by rndmswethrwawy »

mailshanx wrote: post #139
rndmswethrwawy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer, a moderate amount of luck (passing the bar at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) combined with an aggressive stance toward your comp can absolutely take you from the $100k to $500k+ range. You will have to work for it, AND you'll have to ask for it, but it can be done. I am the typical "leaned to program as a kid in the 80s/90s" engineer. Knew C when starting college, went to a state school fo…

That's an inspiring story. Do you advertise yourself as a generalist or a specialist? When it comes to the actual role, how important do you feel is raw engineering ability versus managerial and political skills?

My work at Amazon was building services with Java and Spring Framework. I got that job based solely on general "algorithms and code on a white board" skills. My resume at the time was a scatter shot of some past Java work (Amazon doesn't really care) and some iOS stuff back in the early days of the app store.

I wanted to do something more systems focused, which prompted my departure. I am a capable systems programmer -- not sure why, systems stuff just "click" for me, but honestly I feel most of the value I bring to the table is as a generalist with at least "toy" experience doing a lot of other things. Particularly building systems software, work higher up in the stack helps with understanding what various workloads actually care about.

I like to think I'm one of those T-shaped people Valve describes.

I am not a manager (I'm an engineering lead). I'm ok at corporate politics -- I suspect a lot of people think I'm a pain in the ass, but I get quiet email's thanking me for being a pain in the ass from other people. Mostly I'd say my career/comp has benefitted from a optimizing for the reality of my job versus what I think I should have to optimize for. What's obviously valuable to me isn't necessarily obviously valuable to others. The ability to explain the value of my (and my team's) work so that others can recognize it is part of the job. This is particularly true as I advance -- a pre-launch executive review is basically an annual self evaluation with more on the line. The same metrics-driven approach works for both. Advancing past line-engineer in the big five means shipping successful products, and shipping means convincing executives with broad responsibility and limited context. If you don't do it, how can you be sure someone else will?

So, all of the above? Politics will probably take you further faster. Management (unless you're bad at it) is almost universally acknowledged to be an easier path to career advancement than being an individual contributor. I like being an engineer, though, so basically I optimize for how little of the other two I can do to maximizing the "useful" engineering I do (where "useful" is defined as engineering that ships, delivers value to customers, and ships in a product I can be proud of -- that last one is more important to me than comp, but I'd never let my boss know that).

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#152

Post by rndmswethrwawy »

flachsechs wrote: post #148
rndmswethrwawy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer, a moderate amount of luck (passing the bar at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) combined with an aggressive stance toward your comp can absolutely take you from the $100k to $500k+ range. You will have to work for it, AND you'll have to ask for it, but it can be done. I am the typical "leaned to program as a kid in the 80s/90s" engineer. Knew C when starting college, went to a state school fo…

i sincerely congratulate you, but my point stands ("or were simply granted some kind of employee stock"); that $500k is with generous equity compensation, and you are one of the lucky few who was able to get it, thereby probably doubling your compensation from a base salary of 200-something. the vast majority of people do not get that kind of stock, the ones who are conned into over-working for their low-six figure j…

My argument isn't that it didn't take equity to get there, but that it's not intractable through "ordinary work". The big tech companies are essentially always hiring, and they're not the only ones offering marketable equity as part of the comp package. Yes, the performance of that equity can (and does) vary, but unless they're a company with Amazon's "total compensation philosophy" you benefit from the ups and the downs don't hurt too badly.

Between them FAMG employ hundreds of thousands of engineers, they're always hiring more, and within them comp in excess of $500k isn't rare (it's certainly not the median, but I suspect it's below the top quartile), hence my assertion that $200k can certainly be a stepping stone, if you're willing to put up with the BigCo open offices, reorgs, politics, etc. You seemed to be arguing that those tradeoffs aren't worth it as the $200k is very unlikely to translate into much more. I'm arguing the likelihood is higher than you were giving credit for, but perhaps we weight the concrete value of FAMG equity comp differently.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#153

Post by dpkonofa »

andrewflnr wrote: post #98

> Similarly, Gensler's 2016 UK Workplace Survey found that workers were more likely to innovate if they had access to a range of spaces supporting different working styles – including private, semi-private and open-plan environments. This is my favorite part, because it confirms an intuition I've held for a long time: both open areas and private offices have their uses, so provide both. The only downside I can see is…

And this is the part that I don't understand. According to most articles about this, they do offer private, shared offices. They're shared in that anyone can badge into them and use it privately but they're not assigned to any individual. That seems like a great compromise and yet it's rarely mentioned in articles like this.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#154

Post by MengerSponge »

sitkack wrote: post #102
MengerSponge wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked into custom fitted earplugs? They're expensive^, but they're so much more comfortable than the foam guys. I got a pair of Etymotic musician's earplugs to wear to concerts last year--they have a flat 15dB reducing filter, so music still sounds good without damaging my hearing. I can swap out those filters for simple plugs, and it's done wonders for my focus at work. ^)$150 is a lot for earplugs, but if…

Almost anything in this category will do http://www.musiciansfriend.com/hearing-protection those crazy expensive one are probably overkill.

Yes, those are a great place to start, but after wearing silicone tri-tip earplugs for about five years, I sprang for in-ear molds. tri-tips are more than good enough to block out noise, but they're much less comfortable, especially if you wear them for hours on end.

If they aren't comfortable enough for you to wear all day, it's not that expensive. I mean, some people pay about that much for a keyboard, and a good desk chair is far more expensive.

That said... thank you for sharing that store! More people should know about musician's earplugs and enjoy live music without tinnitus.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#155

Post by dunham »

CydeWeys wrote: post #117
dunham wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, a bigger problem is having movement in my field of vision (I can't read text next to animated ads either). And having to stare at another person is especially annoying. We had this at the university computer labs (users facing each other), and it looks like it's the same situation in the lead photo of the linked article. I'm working from home, so I'm spared this, but my employer is also moving to a new buildi…

For whatever reason, things in my field of vision don't distract me nearly as much. So long as they're in front of me and I can see them with my peripheral vision, it's all good. Also, my monitor is big enough that when I'm looking at it I'm not seeing too much else anyway. How do you end up staring at another person? My monitor would completely block the view of anyone else if they happened to be sitting across from…

This was the 90's. They were 21" Sun CRT monitors, but spaced far enough apart (and staggered on either side of the table, if I remember right), that you could see enough of the person across from you to be distracting to me. There were 4 workstations on each side of the table.

They were close enough together, however, that the power-on degaussing coil would induct into the neighboring monitor, causing a chain reaction down the entire table.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#156

Post by erdojo »

In all my 25+ years in the valley, I've seen office trends come and go. None have been more hated than the open floor plan. Especially when you don't have a wall behind you.

It's why I now work from home. Why many work from home. Open offices are not comfortable, collaborative, friendly, or enjoyable. They make people feel watched, interrupted, and stressed.

Want me to come back to work in the office? Give me walls.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#157

Post by dannysu »

leggomylibro wrote: post #62
Cacti wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who wants to get 3/4 of the way through the construction and admit your brand new building isn't big enough? Easier to just shove everyone in. Apple is usually a smart company, but it is always a large company, and large companies are prone to making broad one-size-fits-all mistakes.

Just do what Amazon is doing, and build another one. Not enough room? Erect another skyscraper. And another one. Then a third. And then when you start facing the prospect of your employees getting lynched by locals who are furious about their rent, ask some other cities if they might have room. My prediction for the future: Amazon's internal transfer process is extremely smooth. Seattle is not gonna weather the openi…

When I had my internship at Amazon it was mostly cubicles. It's actually quite annoying and I had to have my earphones to get work done. Is it any different now?

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#158

Post by alangpierce »

codyb wrote: post #127
alangpierce wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some examples: Wanting a private and quiet space means you won't be there to provide help for the new person who has spent all day fighting with their dev environment or trying to understand an area of code that you wrote. And if two people who sit near you are trying to solve a difficult problem that you've already solved, then you won't be able to overhear and chime in with your solution. Focus is certainly importa…

If someone pings me I'll be right there for them. Setting up development environments absolutely sucks but it's usually a one time thing. Pair programming is great and I'd never advocate a development environment where senior engineers weren't available to mentor junior engineers. But I also think tenacity is a huge part of our job. My first job as a junior engineer had me working with a fellow in Israel, I'd get two…

Makes sense. Some thoughts:

* Agreed that (too many) discussions unrelated to work can be frustrating. My experience is that the vast majority of conversations I overhear are work-related and at least a bit relevant to me, but I imagine different office cultures are different, and it also probably depends significantly on how you arrange seating.

* The tradeoff between asking questions and figuring things out by yourself is an interesting one, and I think people start their careers in different places. My personality is more on the shy side, and for a long time I was worried about wasting people's time, so I would spend a very long time on any given problem before asking for help, which hurt my overall productivity. Having an office environment where it feels normal and welcome to ask questions would help people like me quite a bit. But I understand that some people are on the other end of the spectrum and give up too soon and end up asking more questions than they should.

* Another thing that I think differs from person to person and from office to office is how much you expect work to be a source of social connections. At one point I moved from a "social" office to one where people quietly focused on individual work all day (and where it felt very difficult to start a conversation, even a work-related one), and it was much more lonely than I would have liked.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#159

Post by protomyth »

sitkack wrote: post #99
protomyth wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> active noise cancelling over earphones Some folks cannot wear those without discomfort or dizziness. I tried them out an fell into that category (I have some ear issues) which is damn annoying because my brother loves them for airplane rides. Right now, I am in an office with my back to a window that looks out to insulation[1]. I'm pretty comfortable programming away. 1) they added a building expansion where my out…

Get some action figures and make a diorama of happy people throwing a frisbee in the park.

I'm going more for freaking out the students than any up-up feel of a window.

Truthfully, I rather like not having a window behind me. I see several posters in this discussion who sound like that is preferable. Maybe we have a paranoid streak our just don't like people looking over our shoulders. The fact I handle some confidential information also makes me happier to not have a large viewing port behind me. Plus, I suppose I've seen one too many horror films and already had a "only idiots in horror films do that" moment.

Re: Apple Park employees revolt over having to work in open-plan offices

#160

Post by FesterCluck »

CydeWeys wrote: post #66

At work, I currently sit in an enclosed room that fits eight SWEs, all of whom are on my team. We have sliding glass doors on the room that we only use when we're having our stand-ups so as to not disturb the people outside the room. Incoming noise never seems to be a problem. All of the conversations I overhear are from my team members, and are thus relevant to me. I also have my back facing a wall. I consider this…

Tell your folks Microsoft is moving the exact opposite direction. We're building rooms like you describe.
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