Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever • Hacker News Board

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by sushshshsh » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

djohnston wrote: post #271

sushshshsh wrote: post #269

Side rant, I'm convinced that companies who say the office helps communication are just really bad at communication. If I send you an email with some pithy questions that you need to answer for me to complete my task, you should respond to them. If you don't respond to them, even with a "I can't help you", then you aren't hiring people who are good at communicatimg.

is this irony?

No, I'm really being serious. If someone doesn't answer an email, the reason usually isn't "I'm busy", it's "I don't want to help you".

If the answer is "I'm busy right now and I am not responsible enough to remember all of the people I need to follow up with to at least give them a pointer of who could actually help", then your company is dysfunctional.

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by efficax » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 6:15 PM UTC

hellisothers wrote: post #315

efficax wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's any real evidence that remote work is any worse (or better) for productivity than in person work.

I actually thought it was a forgone conclusion that remote work is _more_ productive (for IC work) but the problem is ideation and serendipitous interactions leading to novel IP is more likely to happen when people are physically near each other. Hence the aversion at a corp. level to remote work.

There's a plausible story that is told here about spontaneous interactions producing new and interesting ideas, but what I don't know is if there is any actual evidence to believe this is the case. As contrasted to having regular planning meetings over zoom and then mulling over ideas in private (which I find to be a very fruitful way of coming up with solutions to problems, much more than "brainstorming" or whatever in a group)

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by heavenlyblue » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

antihero wrote: post #408

iso947 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point being if someone in NY works 9-17, someone in UK May be happy working 13-22

I think it would be rare to find someone in the UK that would be happy to work when at the time that everyone else is going to be in the pub.

Yeah, especially given the fact that literally nothing is open out of hours in the UK (with exceptions - but you wouldn’t be able to base your life on that).

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by dbish » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 7:03 PM UTC

cheez wrote: post #111

webkike wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, cities offer public transportation and a lot of enjoyable things to do. They were a thing before large corporations were seated there.

most people move to cities for work, not for restaurants and things to do. Not all, but most.

I've seen people in the Seattle area and SF area who want to live in cities so badly that they reverse commute out of the city to their offices (Seattle to Redmond for MS, SF to Menlo Park or Mountain View for FB and Goog). These companies have a large group of private buses that handle this commute so it's common enough in those groups that there is evidence people move to the cities for things besides work.

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by IshKebab » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

t-writescode wrote: post #397

IshKebab wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then your pay will be cut too. Lots of people think that is unfair because you are doing the same work, but those people just don't understand that salaries are market based. Also you might think "my company doesn't cut salaries", or "I just won't say I've moved". That might work if you stay at the same company for the rest of your life, but if you move jobs there's no way you'd get the same deal.

I believe that depends on the company. Facebook? Sure, I think I saw an article about that for Facebook. Other places? Maybe not. Often times, there's plenty of places that are _totally_ within commuting distance, but really aren't. Do you think Facebook would lower someone's wages for living in Davis rather than Palo Alto or San Jose?

> Do you think Facebook would lower someone's wages for living in Davis rather than Palo Alto or San Jose?

Yes of course. You only think that would be surprising because until now companies can tailor salaries to the office location, based on the reasonable assumption that most people will live nearby, and the annoyance of commuting long distances will roughly cancel out the lower cost of living.

As soon as the annoyance of commuting is removed they will definitely take into account your cost of living.

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by smoe » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

karakot wrote: post #438

smoe wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have missed my point in the original post, that I care about everyone getting these or similar benefits, not just me in a higher salaried positions or after years of staying in a company. It indirectly improves my own quality of life and affects cost of things. Me making 150, 200 or 300k actually has fairly limited impact on my life. Everyone else getting the same benefits or not has, in a way not easily co…

I answered this line: >>> My point is that US companies have to pay more because more things need to be taken care of by the individual instead of it being socialized to different degrees. the point is you get all these benefits and on top of this you get several times higher salary (I'm from Europe myself originally for what it worth).

Because that is what pretty every US American independently from political affiliation i talked with about this told me. They need to spent their own money on things that is covered via taxation in many parts of Europe. Whether this is good or bad, is a bit a matter of opinion.

I have absolutely no doubt that if you want to maximize personal compensation and benefits, the US is the place to be. Nothing else comes close

But originally this threat was about "Why compete with FAANG trying to pay new grads $300k when you can pay an experienced developer from Europe $100k? I honestly never understood it."

I doubt that a statistically significant amount of new grads get 300k in compensation plus those kind of benefits. I haven't spent a whole time researching but I couldn't find anything backing this up. E.g. it seems that you need to stay at Google 5 years to get 25 days vacation and entery level total compensation at FAANG being more in the 150k - 200k range.

On the other hand as an experienced developer making more than a 100k in just salary plus at least these benefits is not that hard in Europe if you are willing to move or find a remote job.

From all I heard or read, outside FAANG, the financial industry, and certain hotspot, the compensation and benefits within the US go down quite considerably and the difference to Europe is still big, but less exorbitant.

So sure, if you come in with full FAANG (many / all? of which have had engineering teams in Europe for a long time) style compensation packages plus benefits you will be able to attract many Europeans, especially if they don't have to move. But then we are quickly back to square one: Why compete with FAANG?

And again, I'd argue a big part of the reason why US companies can offer these much higher compensation package to positions like software engineers is because they save it on lower end jobs and there are fewer regulations for the common good in place that would cost them money. For some, this makes US companies a non-starter independent from the individual offer.

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by momokoko » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

errantspark wrote: post #415

momokoko wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope you like working India(Bengaluru) timezone and working for India wages. Like most that are higher percentage remote, the vast majority of development is done outside of higher wage countries and due to government currency policies are out of reach for those in country with a higher cost of living. I’m shocked how naive people seem to be in these threads about remote work. There is tons of remote work. There alre…

You say that like it's a bad thing! Async work is a solvable problem. I want a fairer world.

But is it fairer when a person lives in a country that intentionally has monetary policy that causes them to not be able to work for those lower wages? A person in the US is not legally allowed to move to one of those lower wage countries and cannot afford to house or feed themselves if they worked for those wages. A person in one of those lower wage countries can afford many luxuries on that lower salary due to cost of living differences.

So that person, even if they are highly skilled, will instead have to work at a low skill job for low wages . Not because they have lower skills, but because their government is looking out for the wealthy asset class as opposed to the working class and those other countries(like India) do not legally allow US citizens to live and work in their lower cost of living country.

I know of many companies with outsourced talent, that have a local office in the US where clerical workers and the janitors of the building make higher wages than the overseas outsourced engineers. And those clerical workers and janitors do not make enough income in the US to have decent housing or health care. They are forced, by the laws of the lower cost of living countries, to stay in the US and live poorly.

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by dbish » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

mnm1 wrote: post #373

dbish wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

De-facto, but actually counter to productivity, just like open-office. Companies that choose to not do this, will have a per employee efficiency advantage. Big companies may not care just like in open office because the per employee advantage is outweighed by the ability to reduce costs for the space

In software, remote work is way more productive in my experience working remotely for the last almost seven years. It's a win win. More productivity and way better working conditions (home office, nice desk etc.). Less hours needed to finish. Easier to concentrate. Easier to deal with bad bosses or co-workers or take time out and breaks during the day. More flexible schedule. Much less stress. The pros go on and on.…

How big are the teams you've worked with? I agree it's productive for deep work and when design is already worked out for large changes or additions, but I've had many people on my team complain that they can't work through a hard problem on a whiteboard with peers or quickly sync up on a design and require more time in meetings to get things done across components/team members/teams. Also not everyone has a dedicated office space at home, those people are hurting and having a hard time focusing in many cases.

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by e40 » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

cjbprime wrote: post #297

e40 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my experience. 4 years ago I offered 3 people in the US a job. All declined it. They were looking north of $175k. All were in very low cost of living places. They would live like a king or queen on that salary there. I was offering $125k. It was a very quick conversation, too. Once they knew that, they bailed.

Not sure exactly how to ask this, but since $125k is well above US market rate in low cost of living areas: have you considered the possibility that they asked for more because other aspects of the work seemed extremely unattractive?

2 of the 3 were ready to accept the job. Salary was the only issue. The 3rd, I'm not sure of. The job was writing Lisp code, so you can gauge the unattractiveness of that yourself. (It's what they were looking for, they said.)

Re: Atlassian tells employees they can work from home forever

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Post by iso947 » Sat, Aug 08, 2020, 10:26 PM UTC

heavenlyblue wrote: post #443

antihero wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be rare to find someone in the UK that would be happy to work when at the time that everyone else is going to be in the pub.

Yeah, especially given the fact that literally nothing is open out of hours in the UK (with exceptions - but you wouldn’t be able to base your life on that).

Most shops are open in mornings, so I don’t get your point. Indeed almost everywhere is closed outside 9-5.