Remote startups will win the war for top talent • Hacker News Board

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#221

Post by woeh » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

bearjaws wrote: post #16

I never really understood why people say productivity and socializing is difficult remote. It's difficult because people aren't putting thought into it. At my last big-co job the leadership just kept waiting for 'covid to be over' and not improving our remote work culture. Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. My company is fully remote, we embraced the GitLab model…

Where I work we used to do stuff during breaks, like play football in the park next to the office. Or fly around with tiny toy drones, or do other silly stuff. On Friday we used to have drinks, which more often then not resulted in a subset of the group having a bite to eat together. All of the above cannot be replaced digitally.

When working from home you can decide to meet up, which does happen, but since it involves getting your calendars together, it hardly ever happens.

I know lots of people want to keep business and personal split in their lives, and I respect that. For me though; I decided that since I spend 40 hours a week working, I better do this with people I like and enjoy spending time with.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#222

Post by jmharvey » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

shmatt wrote: post #171

ghaff wrote: post #26

"A study conducted on the main campus of a Fortune 500 company found that just 10 percent of all communications occurred between employees whose desks were more than 500 meters apart. This suggests that once companies span multiple floors, buildings, or campuses, they’ve already lost much of the collaborative value of being “in the office” together." This point often seems to get missed. If you're at a large company,…

This hits home for me for a completely different reason. I'm currently hybrid and notice some issues do get fixed faster in the office following that same 90% rule In the office people don't mind tapping their neighbor on the shoulder 10 times a day to ask how to find/do something. On Slack they feel self conscious about zooming/slacking with someone 10 times in 1 day with questions. It's more about being in your hea…

> Our stronger engineers work much more efficiently at home

That depends on how you measure efficiency. On many teams, the strongest engineers maximize their impact by helping other people.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#223

Post by dixie_land » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

ghettoCoder wrote: post #107

rngname22 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that those of your view and those espousing that remote is more difficult might have different personalities, levels of need of social interaction, or lifestyles? Have you considered that your company is self-selecting for those who flourish in remote, but that those whose personalities differ are self-selecting for working in an office environment? It's OK for there to not be a one size fits all…

Throughout my career it's been my experience that the type of people you describe are never the top performers, and seldom average performers. The ones craving social interactions often are just looking for distractions (like spending too long at the water cooler chatting) cause either they hate their job, hate the work, can't do the actual work or view work (exchange of labour/time for money) as a predominantly soci…

yup. Those are the kind that excels at "networking" but can't code a main function without an IDE if their lives depend on it

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#224

Post by dudul » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

aronowb14 wrote: post #165

As someone who took their first software engineering job as a junior during covid, I have to say I definitely struggled to learn and execute on tasks in a way which I know I wouldn't in an in person setting. I found asking for help as a junior is definitely harder when you don't have people around (walking up to someone's desk vs slack message with ~20-60 minute delay then zoom call): and I often found myself blocked…

I'm sorry you had this experience, but I will put the blame on your company's onboarding.

This was your first job so you may lack data points, but if you ended up not getting helped/being supported as a new, out of school, engineer in a remote setting, I strongly doubt that it would have been any better in an office.

I've been a manager/director working with distributed teams for the past 6 or 7 years, I've onboarding dozens of folks for whom it was their first or second job and they all had a really good experience.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#225

Post by jcims » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #115

jcims wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this will continue to evolve until we get something akin to virtual countries, where I pay fees/taxes into some virtual substrate that manages my access to services regardless of where I am.

> where I pay fees/taxes into some virtual substrate The thing is that you're supposed to be tax where you live to finance the public infrastructure you use, pension schemes of locals, &c. I know a few of wantrepreneurs who live abroad, bill under an Estonian "e company" , don't pay taxes locally and on top of that illegally get unemployment benefits from their home country This trend has to cease and with the new "r…

Sure that happens today, in part because it's so painful to 'do the right thing'. I stayed in San Diego for a month last year and didn't pay a single penny of income tax to the city. Meanwhile my home city was paid for my income and I was a lightweight customer during that month.

I think the idea would be something along the lines of creating virtual citizens that live in the locality and meet all of the obligations of the locality, and the company just handles swapping the association of these citizens to real people when the time comes.

So then when you show up with your passport from Roamatopia all of the paperwork has been done to make sure you are pulling your weight.

Obviously this can be gamed as well but I like the idea.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#226

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

asoneth wrote: post #195

ekianjo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay as much as you want but after a certain threshold having the possibility to work from home is paying for itself in many ways. No stress from commuting, more flexibility and more focus.

> You can pay as much as you want but after a certain threshold I'm curious if there is a multiplier a company could pay you personally to convince you to endure the commuting stress and inflexibility of an in-person office? I.e. would you go back to a commute for 1.2x, 1.5x, 2x, or 3x your current salary?

You know what.. at three times the salary, I can rationalize a lot of corporate idiocy. There is indeed a number, but between hour commute and higher prices on everything, WFH is ideal ( and some employers muse they can lower those salaries ).

All I can say is, good luck. Bar a heavy economic disaster ( its possible ), it looks the odds favor WFH crowd now.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#227

Post by dont__panic » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

jrgoff wrote: post #191

ghaff wrote: post #26

"A study conducted on the main campus of a Fortune 500 company found that just 10 percent of all communications occurred between employees whose desks were more than 500 meters apart. This suggests that once companies span multiple floors, buildings, or campuses, they’ve already lost much of the collaborative value of being “in the office” together." This point often seems to get missed. If you're at a large company,…

My (somewhat limited) experience working at semi-large tech companies (several thousand employees) was that my team and closely related teams were mostly located close together (same floor, often same area of the floor). I imagine certain roles need to collaborate across a broader number of teams and so maybe they derived less value from being in the office together, but it seemed like for most of engineering we were…

In my anecdotal experience, anything above 1000 employees and it just isn't possible to colocate anymore. You might be able to colocate certain specific teams, but if you work on a team that works across domains... good luck. You'll spend all of your time in video calls anyway!

The video conference room environment is so unpleasant (always craning my neck; crappy video quality; speakers with poor balance that frequently hurt my ears; awful reflections on TVs; the perennial "hoverer" outside the meeting doors for the last 5-10 minutes of the meeting) that I'd just rather work at home if even one or two hours a week are online via video.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#228

Post by throwawaysleep » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

Even as someone who refuses to go back to the office, I can see in person serving as a filter for passionate people who actually care about the product.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#229

Post by a2tech » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #128

rngname22 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that those of your view and those espousing that remote is more difficult might have different personalities, levels of need of social interaction, or lifestyles? Have you considered that your company is self-selecting for those who flourish in remote, but that those whose personalities differ are self-selecting for working in an office environment? It's OK for there to not be a one size fits all…

I wonder if those personality differences get considered when they throw everyone into a single room with a few low cubicle walls. I wonder if the market gives a shit about being fair to those who have personalities that thrive in said cubicles. Thirdly, I wonder if those who thrive in remote give a shit about being fair after having dealt with cubicle farms for so many years.

I wonder if those personalities include things like 'middle managerness' and 'desperate need for people to see me working'.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#230

Post by stackbutterflow » Tue, Aug 23, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #157

fjabre wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polio, Monkey Pox, Covid variant x, environmental concerns, inflation. The office isn't coming back unless we fall into some dystopia where they force people back in. People had a taste of life WFH during the pandemic. Overwhelmingly they loved working from home even though there were a minority who wanted a return to the office. The hybrid model or remote work will be the only real possibilities going forward. Top t…

> Polio, Monkey Pox, Covid variant x I don't really think these are reasons to work remotely, at this point. Until we eradicate disease, we have and will continue to operate in a world with small but not-insignificant risk of disease transmission.

Lower pollution. At this point it's almost criminal to force people to go to the office. Companies should be required to apply and get approval from the government on a case by case basis and explain why that employee needs to commute to the office and add pollution to the air we share.