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For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

economist.com

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Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#411

Post by oblio »

ridaj wrote: post #389
dan-robertson wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay in low-COL satellite offices of big companies isn’t massively different from pay in Silicon Valley (averages are more different as more senior people will be in the main office) so it isn’t obvious to me that pay far away from the office should be massively lower. One argument for this to be the case is that an employee could reasonably threaten to move to Silicon Valley for higher pay (at another company.) Obvio…

> Pay in low-COL satellite offices of big companies isn’t massively different from pay in Silicon Valley (averages are more different as more senior people will be in the main office) Software engineer pay is quite different, between, say, London and Paris, or between Switzerland and any place in Europe... And it has more to do with talent competition than cost of living. France or Germany aren't inexpensive places t…

> And it has more to do with talent competition than cost of living.

This statement is easily falsifiable.

Salaries for anything are much higher in Switzerland.

I doubt there's more "janitor talent competition" in Switzerland than in France, yet Swiss janitors are paid more :-)

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#412

Post by jxidjhdhdhdhfhf »

cblconfederate wrote: post #340
whitepaint wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for a group of people who seem to believe you're worth a ridiculous amount of money per hour > I have to say about computer programmers and their entitlement > you're already overpaid for shit that's not going to kill you Why overpaid? Programmers create huge amount of value and they are paid accordingly.

revenue is not value

It's value to the company signing your paychecks.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#413

Post by lexapro »

plutonorm wrote: post #219
OhNoMyqueen wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that face-to-face physical interaction is a way more determinant criteria than slacking off for making those moments productive.

Why do we imagine that in person communication is somehow mystical? I guess science doesn’t work because papers are not presented in person? I guess we are not engaged by films because the actors are not physically present? It’s superstition.

So you would be fine with keeping all your platonic relationships strictly digital? If not, why?

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#414

Post by bradlys »

rytis wrote: post #217
null_object wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't wait to get back to the office. > being home and having no external pressure to keep working > it was easy to get out of the bed and go work out > I get to just eat lunch from office's cafeteria > still in my underpants at home after work it is way harder to dress up and go do stuff The paradox in this situation, is that some employers are considering cutting the pay [0] of people who have the self-discipli…

Intuitively, I'd think, it should be the opposite - no need to pay for the office space, money saved, can give that to the employees. But no, instead - save money on the office, and then save even more on the salaries. Just wow.

> Intuitively, I'd think, it should be the opposite - no need to pay for the office space, money saved, can give that to the employees. But no, instead - save money on the office, and then save even more on the salaries. Just wow.

Capitalism in a nutshell. :) Don't have to compete for your labor as aggressively because there are more candidates available for a lower wage.

Until companies are fully socialist entities (I think the Starship Enterprise will come first), you're gonna keep seeing whatever saves the company the most money (or whatever goes straight to the execs pockets at least).

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#415

Post by dheera »

barry-cotter wrote: post #391
dheera wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What the hell is America going to do if there is a cataclysmic event that takes out this region? The east coast isn't much better off either. If a tsunami hits the Pacific, there are enough hills and mountains between the coast and say, Palo Alto or Mountain View, that not that much will happen. Half of SF is probably safe from tsunamis too just because of the high hills. Corporate offices are probably built earthq…

> Nuclear power stations in Newark would become the next Fukushima disaster. Note, we’re not sure anyone died from radiation from Fukushima. We can be certain more people died from the evacuation though.

Oh yes, and a tsunami of that magnitude would just plow right through the streets of NYC or Boston.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#416

Post by cudgy »

Cookingboy wrote: post #148
onion2k wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 years ago people said it was human nature to socialize face-to-face, and that chatting on the Internet or playing video games with people remotely would never really catch on.

But guess what, chatting online and video calls augmented our communication, instead of replacing face to face. The fact that even in this day and age, we still hold major online videogame tournaments in person shows you how important meatspace is. The International, the videogame tournament with the largest prize pool, was canceled last year when the entire game (Dota 2) was an online game . When it's held each year…

“The fact that even in this day and age, we still hold major online videogame tournaments in person shows you how important meatspace is.”

This is likely because the prize money is significantly funded by the tickets sold to the “meatspace”.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#417

Post by velcii »

Cookingboy wrote: post #401
velcii wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Even for the best employee who do the most amazing kind of work, being in person and take advantage of politics and "ass kissing" would only help, not hurt. I find this statement so out of reality. Because often what happens is that this "best employee" gets side tracked by someone who is not actually productive, but just good at playing politics. So our hypothetical "best employee" will have to play politics in add…

There are a ton of productivity to be gained for people who otherwise cannot be as productive working alone remotely, that’s something you seem to not realize. There is so much to measure how much an engineer contributes other than how many lines they churn out or how many PRs they merge. Things like training, mentorship, organizational level influences are critical to a company’s success. In fact, companies values a…

Yea, you can move goalposts all you want, but the bottom line is companies that permit remote work are going to get the best talent, from all over the world, and those companies are going to blow the ones that does not allow remote work, right out of the water...

All this romantic "oh I have to look you in the eyes" sentiment will disappear when push comes to shove, that it when you see your best people leave for competitors that allow remote work...

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#418

Post by dang »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #42
the_cramer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that some of HN people don't like this. The more popular it gets the less quality (or more mod work) will HN comments have. But since the article is paywalled... maybe it's protecting HN :)

Indeed I don't want to sound like a 'get out of my lawn' kind of person but I am increasingly noticing an overlap between submissions on HN and posts on r/worldnews. Again I think for the most part the moderators are doing an amazing work but there is definitely a risk of just becoming another frontpage of the internet instead of sticking to the original ethos of submissions about 'anything that gratifies one's intel…

Comment about this from a couple days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28122734

From my perspective the baseline is pretty stable but the fluctuation around it has a fairly large amplitude. That makes for phases when certain types of story are more or less represented than others. If there were significantly more worldnews stories now than in years past, I'd be surprised. That's certainly not our intention.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#419

Post by Cookingboy »

cudgy wrote: post #416
Cookingboy wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But guess what, chatting online and video calls augmented our communication, instead of replacing face to face. The fact that even in this day and age, we still hold major online videogame tournaments in person shows you how important meatspace is. The International, the videogame tournament with the largest prize pool, was canceled last year when the entire game (Dota 2) was an online game . When it's held each year…

“The fact that even in this day and age, we still hold major online videogame tournaments in person shows you how important meatspace is.” This is likely because the prize money is significantly funded by the tickets sold to the “meatspace”.

>This is likely because the prize money is significantly funded by the tickets sold to the “meatspace”.

Absolutely not. The prize money was exclusively funded by the sales of in-game battlepass, which is purely digital.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#420

Post by jusssi »

thorin wrote: post #383
jusssi wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like I to explain the background a little bit more to be not mistaken for a troll. I know how to prepare meals, in fact we make over 90% of our dinners ourselves from ingredients. Having something else for lunch is for me an important escape from our own cooking, for both the effort and the taste. Not that it's bad, just that it also gets repetitive. We also have the small child aspect to consider for the stuff…

Generally 99% of people I worked with in IT (UK) over the last 20 years either make a sandwich for lunch, eat leftovers or eat at the work canteen which isn't free and normally isn't great either. They have their main meal in the evening. Of course people have the occasional lunch out but it's normally once or twice a month. In big cities of course this is often pretty different. I used to eat lunch at the canteen fa…

Ok fair, it's a culture difference. Here in Finland, a sandwich is what you'd have for a coffee break snack, and a salad for lunch means you're worried about gaining weight or about to go out with someone for an actual lunch later. =D

I did once work in a place where all of the tech team would bring lunchboxes or microwave meals (ugh). Normally the percentage is much lower, I'd say maybe 20%. Of course it depends on what options are available.

If the canteen is the only option around and it serves crap, it'll get fixed pretty soon, because the bosses eat there too.

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