Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#61

Post by sokoloff » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:01 PM UTC

I think there will be plenty of traditional “come to the office 200+ days a year” tech jobs once COVID is endemic. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if over half of tech jobs offer an in-office experience for employees who want it. For those companies that do, I’d expect over half of employees will choose 100+ days a year in office.

If you want a 5 days/week mandated in-office in Jan 2022, you’re going to have slim pickings. If you want that in Jan 2023, I sure hope that’s fairly common again (just for the implications on C19 endemic status, not because I want to go to an office).

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#62

Post by someelephant » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:04 PM UTC

So funny to read this. I'm thrilled that I have more free time and have been able to meet so many more people outside of work. The last thing I want is to feel more tied to my employer.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#63

Post by techcode » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

xwolfi wrote: post #48

terminalcommand wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is true. When I say people I'm working from home, they look with pitty. When I say, I'm working remotely, people's impression change. I don't know why this is like this, but it is true for me.

But then what s the point ? We re forced to work from home to avoid contaminating our colleagues but it s fine to crowd a coworking space ? Sounds very inefficient to me but I guess people like us are a minority. Gladly in my country we have 0 case (Hong Kong) so we work at the office now, thank God.

The point of co-working space combo with "WFH/Remote" is that you potentially get benefits of both WFH/Remote and Office.

Being in co-working space/office gives you some social interaction, less chance teenage neighbor is blasting latest trance tunes on really loud speakers on one side and another neighbor is tearing down/renovating his apartment with loads of jack-hammer action, perhaps you just don't have enough desk space at home, maybe it's easier to switch between work and personal life by having some (short) commute ...etc. Some of those might be all the time - and some might be every now and then.

Meanwhile not being in same "central" office with colleagues give you more independence/autonomy. Beyond having less interruptions (e.g: it's easier to avoid/ignore a chat/email than a physical shoulder poke), some people prefer (or actually perform better) when interactions are less "real time" and more async, or perhaps they just concentrate better at 4am or 10pm ...etc.

And in general idea is that co-working offices don't need to be as big/crowded nor as far as big company offices.

Though I'm not sure how much last part applies to places like Hong Kong (many people, relatively short distances)

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#64

Post by F30 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:07 PM UTC

niemenmaa wrote: post #24

Before pandemic I started working remotely and soon noticed that, like OP, working alone doesn't suit me. I solved this by joining a co-working hub that offers offices to remote workers / entrepreneurs. My employer pays for the hub membership. I drive to our offices around once a month, but rest of the time I sit in a room with an accountant and gym owner. They are fun to chat and go to lunch with but they don't inte…

How many (online) meetings do you (and the others) typically have? How do you manage the resulting conflicts around quietness, background noise, or even confidentiality of meeting contents?

While I like the idea of shared co-working, the reality is that my current job works best in a room on my own. And it doesn't even involve more than 10 % meetings plus some ad-hoc calls with coworkers.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#65

Post by WJW » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

lexapro wrote: post #38

FpUser wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"really miss leaving work early on Fridays to go to the pub" I used to have this when I was employed (about 20 years ago). Somehow my personal take was that it gets tiring pretty fast. I've had enough friends outside of employment and wit the very rare exception would very much prefer to socialize with them rather than coworkers. I then went on my own and have never looked back. The fact that I am doing quite ok mea…

A lot of people don't have enough friends outside of employment.

Surely OP, who is "very extraverted" in their own words, would not lack friends outside of employment. Even if they did, they could always go out and make new ones.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#66

Post by bencollier49 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #55

bfung wrote: post #14

> Are those days just over? Depending on your job function and industry. For tech, yes, those days are over for at least for another 5 to 10 years, is my guess. COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees that productivity doesn't drop that much. It will also weed out bad people managers who need to "see" people physically who need to "get a feel" as a management metric. The only major factor that woul…

> COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees that productivity doesn't drop that much. I know this is the popular sentiment pushed by remote work fans, but in offline contexts I hear the polar opposite: Productivity struggles are ubiquitous during COVID WFH. Even the most pro-remote people are quick to admit that COVID WFH is not like normal WFH. Some places even had school closures which meant parent…

I completely agree with this.

Certain phases of work and types of teams do alright remotely - typically a team with a lot of senior engineers in mid-project flow with few external dependencies. But a team with a significant number of juniors, faced with multiple blockers or external dependencies will underperform badly compared to in-person working.

Whole days will go missing because of a lack of effective communication - the simple ability to lean over and check or ask how someone is doing. Not to mention the inability of learners to just pick up information through incidental conversation and overhearing other people talking.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#67

Post by aix1 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

conformist wrote: post #36

caffeine wrote: post #32

HFT and finance are still mostly in-office. If you join as a front-office dev on a trading team, chances are you will not be remote much and people will be in the office trading.

Generally true, but working from home is also becoming increasingly common even for front office roles (at least in the UK, not sure how that generalises).

And also front-office dev isn't everybody's cup of tea (though I am sure this can be said of any type of role).

(Source: worked in finance/trading for 10+ years before jumping ship.)

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#68

Post by fy20 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

F30 wrote: post #64

niemenmaa wrote: post #24

Before pandemic I started working remotely and soon noticed that, like OP, working alone doesn't suit me. I solved this by joining a co-working hub that offers offices to remote workers / entrepreneurs. My employer pays for the hub membership. I drive to our offices around once a month, but rest of the time I sit in a room with an accountant and gym owner. They are fun to chat and go to lunch with but they don't inte…

How many (online) meetings do you (and the others) typically have? How do you manage the resulting conflicts around quietness, background noise, or even confidentiality of meeting contents? While I like the idea of shared co-working, the reality is that my current job works best in a room on my own. And it doesn't even involve more than 10 % meetings plus some ad-hoc calls with coworkers.

I'm also in a co-working space. Mine has two main rooms, one is a free for all and the other is a silent area. I'm in the silent area, and if I need to take make a call I take my laptop to the other side so as not to disturb anyone. I get very irritated by office noises, and this works pretty well for me.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#69

Post by aix1 » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

kjgkjhfkjf wrote: post #26

Apply to work at Google. They have never embraced WFH and probably never will.

I am not sure that's true anymore. Every single application to work remotely that I know of (including mine[*]) has been approved.

That said, most people are choosing to continue being based at whatever office they were based pre-COVID and will return to office once the public health situation permits (some already have been choosing to come to the office, though the situation is obviously highly location-dependent and fluid).

[*] In my case to relocate to an office of my choosing, though the outcome would have been the same had I applied to permanently WFH.

Re: Ask HN: How to find a job in 2021 if I dislike remote?

#70

Post by PragmaticPulp » Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 1:20 PM UTC

bencollier49 wrote: post #66

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> COVID has generally proven to both employers and employees that productivity doesn't drop that much. I know this is the popular sentiment pushed by remote work fans, but in offline contexts I hear the polar opposite: Productivity struggles are ubiquitous during COVID WFH. Even the most pro-remote people are quick to admit that COVID WFH is not like normal WFH. Some places even had school closures which meant parent…

I completely agree with this. Certain phases of work and types of teams do alright remotely - typically a team with a lot of senior engineers in mid-project flow with few external dependencies. But a team with a significant number of juniors, faced with multiple blockers or external dependencies will underperform badly compared to in-person working. Whole days will go missing because of a lack of effective communicat…

> Whole days will go missing because of a lack of effective communication

A friend in the construction industry has been dealing with this since COVID WFH started. He works with a lot of different architects, designers, suppliers, and so on that have to coordinate work. He also has to track the costs of mistakes and extra time lost due to drawing issues, errors, missed change orders and so on.

As soon as COVID WFH started, the rate of errors spiked upward. It didn’t decline until companies brought their employees back into the office. He now goes out of his way to work with companies that have gone back to in-office work because it’s the simplest and most predictable way to reduce the amount of money he loses to simple errors.