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Remote startups will win the war for top talent

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Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#331

Post by bart_spoon »

mbesto wrote: post #83
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…

> Hybrid models will always struggle and 1/3/1 is going to be probably the best you can do. I think you should elaborate on why the hybrid model is a struggle, I personally don't see it as one.

Its the worst of both worlds. The benefit of remote work is that it gives employees the flexibility to live where they want, and eliminates daily miseries like a commute, both of which the pandemic have proven to be massive priorities for employees. It opens up potential hires to anywhere in the country (or even world). It also allows you to focus on investing in software and practices aimed at maximizing remote effectiveness. You also can potentially greatly downsize or even eliminate a physical office.

In office work benefits are often said to include the socialization, and in particular "water-cooler talk" that is supposedly better for collaboration. When everyone is going to the office, the company can also invest into more extensive facitilites, including amenities that make being at the office more pleasant (a gym, catering, etc).

With hybrid, you are simultaneously eliminating the ability for employees to live somewhere where they don't need to commute to the office regularly. You also make it so that investing in remote-friendly tools, and office amenities, are both required and less beneficial than if you just picked one. And if "water-cooler talk" and in person collaboration really is that much more effective, then you are still reducing the capacity for that happening by 40+% or more by letting employees work from home 2 or more days a week.

I personally vastly prefer 100% remote, but I don't really see the point of hybrid if the company is going to insist on people coming back to the office. And in my case, it would literally be impossible since I (and many others who have been hired since the pandemic started) are hundreds of miles away from the office.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#332

Post by davidhunter »

What is more rewarding?

1. Relocating to an obscure town in Texas to work intensely with ambitious engineers on hard space exploration technology.

2. Building a truly breakthrough software system (eg metaverse/gaming/crypto) with ambitious engineers in a fully distributed company?

I find it hard to see how a company doing (1) would lose against a competitor doing (1) in a distributed fashion. I also find it hard to see how a company doing (2) would lose against a competitor doing (2) in an onprem fashion.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#334

Post by vorpalhex »

sbf501 wrote: post #127
TOMDM wrote: post #22

Okay, how about a tad more nuance though. The better headline would be "Remote Startups will win the war for top talent among employees who prefer to work remotely" Not quite so sexy. Sure some; probably even most software devs prefer remote/hybrid work, but there are still plenty of incredibly talented people out there who prefer being in the office every day.

I enjoy intense brainstorm jams on multi-wall whiteboards. In person. I guess I'm old. However, it seems like most programmers here are just javascript pushers. So dinking with a front-end button click handler for hours on end is something that doesn't really require collaboration.

Distributed systems architect reporting in. No I don't need you to show off how brilliant you are by "brainstorming" on a whiteboard in front of me. Please just prototype your solution.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#335

Post by goodpoint »

FalconSensei wrote: post #269
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> levels of need of social interaction That's what your personal life is for. Related: https://archive.ph/Ji4nM (WSJ - Americans Are Breaking Up With Their Work Friends)

Maybe in 1950 when only half of the population was working out of home. Now everybody goes to work and evenings and weekends are spent doing house chores.

[And no, I don't want to go back to 1950 at all, don't get me wrong.]

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#336

Post by escanda »

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…

I heartfully agree. My experience with remote working for US companies has been: 1. been hired, 2. work for 3 or 4 months, 3. the company demands a local team in your site to continue working.

Yep. Outsourcing work to other countries might be cheaper but from what I have seen there is no the same level of involvement of all parties. Much of the time both contractor and company are expendables. And yes, if you are lucky, you get to form a team and let them work for 6 months tops before client's dissolution.

Perhaps in US market startups are an attractive thing but most senior (over 30+ years) talent will prefer a solid company at least here in Europe. YMMYV

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#337

Post by josephg »

FalconSensei wrote: post #269
P5fRxh5kUvp2th wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> levels of need of social interaction That's what your personal life is for. Related: https://archive.ph/Ji4nM (WSJ - Americans Are Breaking Up With Their Work Friends)

There are real benefits to having personal relationships with your colleagues at work.

I started a job a few years ago and spent the first 4 weeks in the office in SF, then moved back to Australia. The relationships I established in that first month were invaluable for the first 6 months or so of my work there - lots of things were easier for me as a result because I knew who to message or connect on slack to get things done.

After about 6 months those relationships faded to the point that I couldn't rely on those social connections any more. It was difficult knowing who to message when I needed something done outside my team; and they had no idea who I was any more.

I don't think you need to be in the office every day, but I miss going to an office at all. Those casual social connections are crazy valuable. Zoom and slack don't give you the experience of sitting at a table with people over lunch and chatting. We dismiss those relationships at our peril.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#338

Post by echelon »

dont__panic wrote: post #247
echelon wrote: post #55

There are so many forces pulling in so many directions. The world is being re-shuffled. Ultimately, I don't think it will favor labor at US/FAANG talent prices. - Young workers typically want to socialize with other young workers - Older workers prefer to be alone, with family, etc. Have funds for larger homes and at-home amenities - Nearly everyone hates commutes - Cities are expensive and small, but exciting. Rural…

Companies could hire and replace workers outside of American borders for the last... century at least? Video chat and conference calls have been a thing for decades at this point. Why does remote change this equation? If American real estate and salaries are expensive, businesses could always just open an office in a cheaper country, somewhere in Eastern Europe, India, or Asia, etc. I'm a little confused how the bull…

To many businesses, remote workers are faceless and fungible, regardless of where they are located.

There may be time zone, educational, language, regional/cultural, tax/ITAR/regulatory, or other differences between workers located in different countries, but ultimately these differences probably do not amount to much.

If that's the case, then these differences do not support a six figure salary differential based on location or nationality. The switch to remote work in the US places US workers into the same pool as the worldwide talent market. If the only interface between workers is text and occasional video chat, then a command of ESL English is pretty much the only barrier to entry for having workers communicate with one another.

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#339

Post by MisterBastahrd »

rngname22 wrote: post #37
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…

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…

Have you considered that we live in the 21st century and if you can't handle modern social conventions, you're going to be left behind in an increasingly shrinking group just like everyone in previous generations who failed to adapt?

Re: Remote startups will win the war for top talent

#340

Post by purpleblue »

I worked at an all-remote company. I've never suffered such poor productivity in my career. This was a company dedicated to remote work, so the processes were streamlined for it, but I found that I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels.

Onboarding was especially hard, and trying to get the attention of my coworkers was where I spent most of my idle time. Something that would have taken 3 minutes onsite now meant first scheduling a meeting and waiting until I had their dedicated time.

Things like slack didn't work for more complex issues. I remember being in a technical disagreement/conversation/argument for about 1.5 hrs on slack, and I drew a picture and uploaded it and everything got resolved almost instantly. We didn't go to a meeting because it started as a simple slack conversation and it snowballed into a bigger disagreement so we never thought "okay let's have a meeting". Once it was resolved we went about our way but having slack as the primary way of communicating is exhausting and very slow.

I quit and joined a brick-and-mortar company and am happy again.

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