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Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#151

Post by clarry »

pmiller2 wrote: post #118
fermienrico wrote: post #85

Then why pay $200k for a software engineer in the valley when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary? The question I have is what portion of the $200k salary is 1) due to the raw talent of the individual 2) because they live in the bay area.

Bingo! I often talk about how you can rent a 3BR apartment in my home town (Nowhere, Michigan) for like $900. This is true -- I've verified it recently. The drawback is that you have to live in my home town. I can certainly see companies wanting to pay less based on CoL simply to make the bottom line better. Given the way capitalism works, I'd say this is a near inevitability. The end result will probably be that the…

> I can't see this being good for employees...

... that want to live in NYC or SF. For everyone else, who doesn't want to live in places like that, this is awesome. (And that's a word I never use)

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#152

Post by winrid »

Hard_Space wrote: post #115
caseyw wrote: post #26

I’ve worked from home for a number of years. It’s all about having a normal schedule. My family knows when I’m in the office, I am at work. There isn’t anyone popping over my shoulder, and general interruptions are almost nil in my case. I think a lot of people are going to be super surprised what a quiet room and your playlist of choice can do to increase productivity. Just my 2 cents.

I've been working from home for about 16 months, and I'm afraid my partner doesn't quite get what a different head space I am in when I'm working, when she comes for a friendly visit if she isn't busy herself. I can seem cold and even abrupt, sometimes, when she comes to see me. But it takes so long to get in that space, it is hard to be brought out of it. Ironic thing is, she also works from home about 80-90% of the…

I recommend you set boundaries and expectations.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#153

Post by eecks »

LanceJones wrote: post #130
2bitencryption wrote: post #114

It's odd how HN does not reflect the reality I see. I'm at a big (Google/Microsoft/Amazon) workplace and WFH has always been a last-resort thing. I can't even imagine my team moving toward this. Every day I do too many things in the office that are face-to-face. Drop by the architect to get an opinion about XYZ, drop by a PM to ask about their functional spec, drop by a coworker to ask about some comments they left o…

I wonder how those other folks feel about their own productivity with teammates always "dropping by". :-)

As someone who gets dropped in on a lot.. it's not great. Even when something productive comes out of it it normally has made some other work unproductive.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#154

Post by jeffbee »

jariel wrote: post #123
jeffbee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do I need either of those things? If I'm going to work from home permanently then whatever computers I need can come with me. Face-to-face meetings are a justification for middle management to exist; remote work due to pandemic is going to lay bare the stupidity of managers and their ranks will be greatly reduced. I predict that the written word is going to make a big comeback.

"Face-to-face meetings are a justification for middle management to exist; " Communicating is 1/2 of business; it's really odd that so many people have difficulty with this. I think because as Engineers, we measure value in 'code' then we tend to diminish all the other aspects of the business or process. Meetings can obviously be a waste but they are also critically important.

Meaningful communication happens between your ICs. The weekly hour-long team meeting where the manager polls the room and nobody has anything to say is just a waste of everyone's time. Reducing what you have to say to an email has the effect of distilling and refining it, and in many cases leads to the realization that it was wrong to begin with, or doesn't warrant saying.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#155

Post by screye »

A question.

Do y'all feel that a trend towards remote work benefits mid/senior level employees at the cost of the development of junior employees ?

IMO, it is the same difference as in-person schooling vs online schools. As convenient as WFH is, it really isn't conducive to hands on mentorship.

Tech companies might not mind it, since the attrition rate in tech at the junior level is incredibly high anyway.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#157

Post by AlexITC »

sidcool wrote: post #62
albertkoz wrote: post #60

The thing I miss the most while WFH is the whiteboard conversations. It's nice to be able to drag your colleagues for quick tech discussion and go back to work. Pen is much faster than drawing diagrams online.

Not affiliated, but Mural somewhat makes it less painful online

I often laugh when looking at companies solving the problems for working remotely, while you look into their job openings to see none allows working remotely, in this case, 7 out of 13 positions aren't remote, not bad but still surprised.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#158

Post by CodeCube »

fragmede wrote: post #112
ska wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how your conclusion follows - it's undoubtedly true that more and more folks are involved in teams that at least partly remote. However, the skills needed to manage these effectively are mostly the same as co-located teams. To whatever degree "people person" was needed, it seems mostly the same to me.

If a coworker or employee comes in to work distraught for some reason, it's far easier to reach out in person and find out that their dog got ran over/relationship broke up/parent is in the hospital. It's not impossible remote, but it's harder, on all levels. A manager that has strong in-person skills but is weaker on digital communication skills may result in poorer outcomes all around. (I'm pro WFH but pretending i…

We are an adaptive species ... just because some folks are strong in-person (due to years of experience at it), doesn't mean they won't adapt to have better digital communication skills when it becomes a more prevalent practice. I think people will be fine ... even if there's an adjustment period :)

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#159

Post by dsr_ »

chrisseaton wrote: post #29
bfrog wrote: post #4

And so begins the bay area salary bubble pop

I don't understand why? Salaries are high because you're competing for the same small group of talented people. They aren't high due to the location.

Oh, no. The FAANGs are competing for the group of people who are willing to work in a small chunk of California and, to a lesser extent, small chunks of Virginia, Washington, Illinois, New York and Massachusetts. Remove those restrictions and the relevant group expands.

This is as silly as competing for men, or competing for US citizens, or competing for 22-32 year-olds. Demographics like that have very little power compared to testing for relevant skills, or having a visible track record.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#160

Post by Ididntdothis »

dddbbb wrote: post #137

I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I understand that must change drastically when you're middle aged, have a family to live around and a spacious house in the suburbs. But most younger people want to live in the middle of the city (i.e. small, often shared apartments but a short commute) and have no…

This makes sense. In my team it’s the same: the young guys like going out together after work and also often don’t have the space at home to set up a good workplace. They also need the most handholding. I remember some discussions a while ago where the conclusion was that it’s hard to onboard juniors remotely and remote is more suitable for experienced people.
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