That's certainly possible :) Even as someone with over a decade of work experience it's somewhat aspirational to work for a FAANG and get that big paycheck and all those RSUs. But no WFH is a deal-breaker unless they start opening up offices in Milwaukee soon.
Google and Amazon are both in Madison.
I doubt a lot of people would commute between Milwaukee and Madison when the Amtrak Hiawatha is 1.5 hours from Milwaukee to Chicago, within walking distance to Google Chicago.
As a hiring manager, a lot of candidates I’ve been talking to lately have been telling me they are looking for a new job in part because their company has decided to stay all-remote and they hate it. The first thing they want to know is if we have an office and/or will open one soon. People just have different preferences. I think what we’re seeing right now is a significant expansion of remote roles. Previously if y…
It makes sense when you consider that a lot of employees never had a home office or budgeted space for it when they got their living space. It can also be stressful if you have family home all day too.
Not directly addressing your point, but how common is it for someone to be a FAANG developer - extremely well compensated and smart by all accounts - and not have other options? An argument like this makes sense for the random dev shops and non-tech company dev departments across the country. For many of those, the top 1 or 2 people are arguably good enough to switch over to FAANG or HFT or some other very highly com…
As a FAANG employee myself, I think your opinion of the average FAANG developer is perhaps a bit too generous.
In my experience at least talking to some younger people there is a clear dichotomy: despite all the talk about Gen Z being "digital natives", people new in their career are much hungrier to get back into the office because they don't yet have good career networks built up and they're eager for mentorship. It is older, or at least more established workers who are less keen on that. I don't think FAANGs will have any…
Vets with 5+ years of specific subdomain experience within the company's ecosystem (along with experienced engineers who have experience from elsewhere) are much harder to replace.
A big part of the rather documentation and process-heavy development model at FAANGs and other large corporations is to ensure that other people can take over a project if any individual leaves. Much as people will hate this analogy, "cattle, not pets" is a concept managers and HR knew long before the software industry stumbled on it. The people at FAANGs are highly-talented but, even at that level, only a handful are truly irreplaceable (and those people were so valued that they were allowed to work from anywhere they wanted even before the pandemic).
>Don't have those expenses anymore? Then why should I compensate you the same as if you did? Because you're paying people to complete a job, not for what they do outside of work hours genius. Are you paying people who have kids and longer commutes more money? Didn't think so. >Why should I pay you more than some other remote worker in India, who'll work for a third of your pay? They're 1/3 as good. If that's such a g…
What about being Indian makes someone 1/3 as good?
Going rate for someone in India that is as good as me is about 60% of my pay. So if they are making 1/3 as much as me they are not as good as me (though not 1/3)
I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…
> I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Yes, aggressive measures such as: -Allowing employees to apply to be permanent remote employees -Allowing 2 WFH days per week
The policy for applying for wWFH at the FAANG I work at involves seniority and VP approval.
I’m honestly perplexed what the FANGs are even thinking in being so aggressive about pushing an end to WFH. Sure it could all work out fine for them. Maybe employees will grumble for a bit, then settle back into office life. But maybe it wont’t . There’s a very real possibility that you lose a non-negligible percent of your staff (disproportionately the most talented who have other options), handicap your ability to…
Nobody wants to give up a something once it becomes a part of their life that they enjoy. The FANG workers got a taste of not having a daily long commute and don't want to give this small life improvement back. Getting back several hours of your life is pretty big. FANG companies however have gotten a taste of nearly unlimited power and have not heard "no" in years. They too don't want to give this up. This is why th…
Where I work, those who want to continue to WFH can and those who want to go back to the office can; living 10 minutes away, I'm happy to go there two-three days a week and be physically in the same space as the colleagues who also want to be there (mostly those who live close by and also want to go to the office); also I appreciate the coffee machine, HVAC and opportunity for lunch and coffee breaks with the colleagues. While those who live 1h+ from the office or prefer to WFH can continue that way. Of course upper management isn't clear on if it will continue to function this way (I certainly hope so for my colleagues who are happy to avoid their commute).
If this is the case, what are the forums people with less established networks and industry experience use? It would seem prudent to be aware of these other "HNs".
Reddit would be my guess.
The handful of Reddit programming communities I've seen are also very uninterested in returning to work. I have to wonder if the difference isn't so much "established career" vs "newbie" and is more simply self-selection, with people who are comfortable working remotely more likely to engage frequently in online communities, and those more interested in in-person work less represented.
Eh, I love my company and I love my coworkers and I’m unbelievably excited to see them in person. In fact, I’ve already started going back into the office (since April) and 1) my productivity is easily 5-10x what it was before 2) I’ve had amazing so many conversations that never happened over zoom — both productive and personal - and as more of our company’s employees return over the coming months I’m even excited fo…
> my productivity is easily 5-10x what it was before
How are you measuring this? Those numbers seem incredulous.
I just gave in my resignation at a college I worked for. Part of my decision was the fact that I'd have to go back to the office and teach in-person. I know in person learning is superior for students vs online but I got too used to working from home.