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Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

economist.com

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Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#71

Post by EMM_386 »

icelancer wrote: post #46
EMM_386 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yep. I've said it many times here and basically anywhere I can: Clamoring for remote-only work, maximum-introvert, never fly somewhere, don't value in-person communication/meetings/etc is a dangerous game to be playing. What's interesting is that I flew in for a meeting with my company recently, the first I've had since I've been hired. This took hours upon hours of my time. Time I could have spent working. We spen…

>> This took hours upon hours of my time. Time I could have spent working. What engineers and people on this site seem to not grasp is that "working" is not a strict definition that maps to "writing code" to management, business operations, marketing, sales... basically every non-engineering department. If that concept starts to take root in the mind, then it becomes a bit more clear why people like the office. Engin…

> Engineers on HN seem to be incapable of considering that the social aspect of work is important to most non-introvert non-engineers in an office and that a lot of "work" is forming bonds, developing relationships, and yes, "playing politics" to some extent.

I do this all day in private Slack communications, 1-1 video conferences, and everything else.

This "watercooler effect" myth may seem important to some, but I know my team members closely because I am talking to them all day, whether we're staring at each other face to face or not. I already know their kids are in college, or the sports teams they are interested in, or the typical company rumor mill.

I'm 2+ decades in this game and I am familiar with the office. I spent 10 years driving an hour-each-way commute to spend 10+ hours in an office to help start a company with one other person. Which ended up growing to 20+ employees.

What is the purpose of "in person"? I have friends and a life outside the office. That doesn't make me an "introvert", it makes me a person who wants to spend the company's money wisely, especially against tight deadlines.

They need me writing code, or architecting a project, or leading a team.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#72

Post by ootsootsoots »

EMM_386 wrote: post #19

Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…

This could be made into a problem for corporations too.

Stop going to work.

Switch to open source projects.

Let social media crash.

K8s clusters with Kilo hosted on laptops, desktops.

We have the tools to blackout the web and bring a whole huge part of the economy down.

Zuckerberg could be Pauperberg if the internet gathered round chanting “this is the new way”.

I mean you know DC has no clue how anything works beyond quid pro quo.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#73

Post by outside1234 »

We’ve been through this multiple times and each time we discover how important communication is in software engineering.

I don’t doubt that some people will be remote - but the ones that get ahead will be local - and that will draw people back.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#74

Post by theshadowknows »

ramesh31 wrote: post #15
sydthrowaway wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share which company?

Not at liberty to post PII, but we operate many web properties you've heard of. TBH, they've been really fantastic about everything from the very beginning of covid. I think as more large companies get on board with this, we're reaching a tipping point where the B tier organizations are starting to realize they can use remote as a powerful bargaining chip to lure talent away from FAANG. Most companies don't need the…

That’s one thing that I am so curious about. I’m just not sure what problems Facebook engineers have to deal with. I hear all these stories about the hiring process and people being asked to implement wildcard regex matching or something. The projects I work on are like “here’s seventy five different databases go figure out how to individualize the members from these datasets oh and data x, y, and z must be anonymized before it’s commingled.”

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#75

Post by tjr225 »

notadoc wrote: post #65
tjr225 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you worked with someone in Bangalore? No offense my Bangalore homies, but I’ve only had bad experiences. Same with Bulgaria. Weird communication issues and bad work. This was especially the case in customer facing work. Ive had better experience with people in the NL but still obvious communication issues, bad experiences with Australia and Asia. For better or for worse(I think worse) engineering culture is heav…

Similar arguments were made with why factories, tech support, customer service, etc couldn't possibly leave the USA. And they did anyway.

Yeah; for sure. But still aren’t all of your examples memes of bad, low quality, off shoring? Almost to the extent of being a meme?

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#76

Post by athenot »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #31
EMM_386 wrote: post #19

Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…

I think time zones and tax laws may slow this a little. I find it a real pain to work with people whose time zones are 10 hours away from the company timezone. When things need to get done quickly or a problem can only be resolved by talking directly somebody has to work late in the evening or night. I guess the companies don't care but it's very hard for the workers in the long term. In my company it's also very dif…

This time zone difference can also be an asset if your business is 24/7.

"When things need to get done quickly or a problem can only be resolved by talking directly"... and that problem occurs at night in my timezone, a team mate who's awake can deal with it with a rested head and no burnout in her or his day.

Admittedly, there are many companies who don't need 24x7 business continuity and are perfectly content with 10x5. For them, this is unnecessary complexity.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#77

Post by siva7 »

EMM_386 wrote: post #19

Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…

I can’t count the times how often i’ve heard this story in some variation over the decades. It never happened. You can replace Covid with any other catastrophic event, the story always read almost the same including the remote worker cliche.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#78

Post by jupiter90000 »

EMM_386 wrote: post #19

Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…

It could have been done before COVID so it would’ve already been done. Business people aren’t dumb and if they could have offshores development, they would have (and they also have been doing this for years anyway).

So why would they hire workers in their own country? People in this thread already have said it. Time zones, cultural business norms and understanding, native communication ability, tax and legal issues regarding employment (already annoying enough to hire employees in other states in the US for example), ability to connect with clients in the same locale, etc.

Now I’ll give you that this MIGHT shift things to a degree. I don’t think it’ll be the race to the bottom you and others are saying.

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#79

Post by MetricExpansion »

icelancer wrote: post #46
EMM_386 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yep. I've said it many times here and basically anywhere I can: Clamoring for remote-only work, maximum-introvert, never fly somewhere, don't value in-person communication/meetings/etc is a dangerous game to be playing. What's interesting is that I flew in for a meeting with my company recently, the first I've had since I've been hired. This took hours upon hours of my time. Time I could have spent working. We spen…

>> This took hours upon hours of my time. Time I could have spent working. What engineers and people on this site seem to not grasp is that "working" is not a strict definition that maps to "writing code" to management, business operations, marketing, sales... basically every non-engineering department. If that concept starts to take root in the mind, then it becomes a bit more clear why people like the office. Engin…

I think it's fair to say that HN can be a bit myopic. Both about this and other topics, there is a lack of understanding of the mindset of "the general population".

There can be a lot of ideas that a stated in way that makes it seem like most people would totally agree, like that "socializing at the office is obviously a chore that's a waste of time", that "work is about maximizing your programming output", or that "managers want employees back at the office is because they feel insecure about their value and don't trust their employees to get work done". But I don't think the vast majority of the workforce would necessarily agree to those ideas. As much as HN types like to make fun of MBAs and their bean-counting, there's the feeling that in their own heads the primary directive is to try to maximize the throughput of neatly parceled work units and would deride those who disagree as "time wasters".

The risk with this kind of thinking is that you end up not being nearly as objective as you think you are, and worse, you will fail to predict how things are going to happen. If you were reading Reddit during the 2016 and 2020 democratic primary; you would have been sure that Bernie was going to be the nominee. My workplace surveyed whether people want to do full-remote, hybrid, or full-office. Reading HN, you'd think the obvious top choice would have been full-remote, since most of us could actually work fully remote. As it turns out, it was not the winner. (Before saying that management fudged the numbers: The outcome was supported by my informal questioning of my coworkers as to how they voted.)

Re: Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why

#80

Post by InitialLastName »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #31
EMM_386 wrote: post #19

Everyone should keep in mind that water seeks its own level. And think of this on a global scale. I've been working remotely for almost a decade as a senior software engineer. Now, post-Covid, almost everyone realizes they can do the same. Salaries are going to drop in the "rich world", and it's not just because people are now fleeing places like SF/SV to lower cost of living areas. We are also beginning to compete g…

I think time zones and tax laws may slow this a little. I find it a real pain to work with people whose time zones are 10 hours away from the company timezone. When things need to get done quickly or a problem can only be resolved by talking directly somebody has to work late in the evening or night. I guess the companies don't care but it's very hard for the workers in the long term. In my company it's also very dif…

> When things need to get done quickly or a problem can only be resolved by talking directly somebody has to work late in the evening or night.

On the other side of this, I feel like I'm seeing I'm seeing "leverage time zone differences to accelerate the development process" in hardware engineering job postings with increasing frequency. I can definitely see where there's an efficiency gain for heavily sequential tasks like PCB design bring-up to have teams working in shifts without anybody losing brain power by working outside of normal hours.

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