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There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

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Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#51

Post by pseudosudoer »

mike_d wrote: post #4

This is a bold claim made on a very shaky set of data. Most companies aren't going to explicitly post jobs for remote, just because a lot of talent management platforms don't really support it well. I think the goto is to post the job as available in every location the company has an office, and see what the applicant wants to do. Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dol…

Anecdotally this is true for me. I was looking for a new role a few months ago, and a friend recommended me for a position that wasn't posted as remote, but made it clear I needed a remote position. The company is slowly shifting to allow fully remote workers, but hasn't started listed the positions as such. I've been the (hopefully successful) experiment for remote first hiring.

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#52

Post by WWLink »

KronisLV wrote: post #48
dh2022 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic (we have billions in real estate investments that somehow we need to use. So let's use them by bringing people back to the office) is an example of cost sunk fallacy. The 3 multinationals I worked for are aware of this fallacy. Amazon is another example of company writing-off hundreds of millions right away (FirePhone). All this preamble just to point that there are other things beyond just "we must fill t…

> BTW - my current employer (big tech company) also wants to bring everyone back into the office, even though it increased the headcount during the pandemic and there was no campus expansion for 1 and half year due to COVID lockdowns and there is no space for everyone. My current company hasn't made such a demand, but I've also heard that in others in this country about 20% of people actually prefer to work in person…

> My current company hasn't made such a demand, but I've also heard that in others in this country about 20% of people actually prefer to work in person daily, everyone else seems to work remotely.

That 20% probably also expects/demands everyone else show up, because they prefer everyone else to be there, too! :)

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#53

Post by GoOnThenDoTell »

alistairSH wrote: post #22
mike_d wrote: post #4

This is a bold claim made on a very shaky set of data. Most companies aren't going to explicitly post jobs for remote, just because a lot of talent management platforms don't really support it well. I think the goto is to post the job as available in every location the company has an office, and see what the applicant wants to do. Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dol…

Or worse, a pattern I've seen is list a single job 3+ times - once for each office location and then again for remote.

Yeah it can be much easier to get it through some company internal processes like that and cancel the unneeded ones

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#54

Post by shultays »

birdyrooster wrote: post #11
mullingitover wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dollars in real estate liabilities that are effectively useless. If employers able to get productive work out of employees who aren't using that real estate, the real problem is getting the real estate costs off their books, not getting the butts back in seats in some arbitrary office location. This is a problem for landlords, not e…

What about employers that are also landlords because they bought their real estate to become more efficient?

They should try to rent it to other suckers

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#55

Post by sgtnoodle »

ghaff wrote: post #23
dh2022 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This logic (we have billions in real estate investments that somehow we need to use. So let's use them by bringing people back to the office) is an example of cost sunk fallacy. The 3 multinationals I worked for are aware of this fallacy. Amazon is another example of company writing-off hundreds of millions right away (FirePhone). All this preamble just to point that there are other things beyond just "we must fill t…

It's worse than that. It presumably costs more to operate a building than to mothball it and at least try to sublease it. If there's really no value in filling the building up with people, it's a bit like deciding to drive your car around aimlessly because "I own it so I should use it."

I'm currently on paternity leave, and I do need to drive my car every so often to keep the 12V battery charged up...

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#56

Post by marcus_holmes »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #14
mike_d wrote: post #4

This is a bold claim made on a very shaky set of data. Most companies aren't going to explicitly post jobs for remote, just because a lot of talent management platforms don't really support it well. I think the goto is to post the job as available in every location the company has an office, and see what the applicant wants to do. Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dol…

Seeing lots of people on teams very vocal about not wanting to work with remote people either and saying no to anyone that has the inkling of it. Something the remote crowd might not realize is happening.

Interesting from a dev perspective - every dev I've spoken to or read about is very against office working, and usually very against meetings (in-person or remote). And the studies have shown that devs are more productive when left alone, and especially when working from home and not put in an open-plan office where we're constantly interrupted.

If this is not shared with the non-engineering staff, then we'll end up with (even more of) a two-stream staffing problem - non-engineers will be social at work hanging out together, engineers will be productive at work being ignored.

And the implied threat of "you're less employable if you want to work remotely" is utterly pointless when applied to engineers. We're employable based on productivity not sociability. Thus it has always been.

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#57

Post by shultays »

syspec wrote: post #24
throw903290 wrote: post #19

Companies may ask, but usually people quit and productivity drops. For me return to office would be 60% pay cut. Good luck finding another developer :)

Everyone thinks they're a special snowflake, but the reality is that 75% of devs are easily replaced

Is it really? I feel like I can easily tell who is easy to replace or who is not in my team.

If you can't tell if you are a special snowflake or not, you can check if your company behaves you like one. Getting promotions, extra RSUs or very high bonuses should be an indicator

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#58

Post by nonameiguess »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #14
mike_d wrote: post #4

This is a bold claim made on a very shaky set of data. Most companies aren't going to explicitly post jobs for remote, just because a lot of talent management platforms don't really support it well. I think the goto is to post the job as available in every location the company has an office, and see what the applicant wants to do. Of course employers want people to come back. They have millions if not billions of dol…

Seeing lots of people on teams very vocal about not wanting to work with remote people either and saying no to anyone that has the inkling of it. Something the remote crowd might not realize is happening.

This seems a little ridiculous, probably a backlash against shittily-handled hasty retreats to full-remote for the pandemic, from companies and teams that didn't handle it well. Putting aside that my current company is 100% distributed, doesn't have offices, and I'm the only one in the company that lives in my city, so they can't ask us back, I haven't had a job since I managed a bar nearly 20 years ago that didn't involve remote teams.

Even my last fully-classified job, where had to be in office because we could only work from a SCIF, we still had SCIFs in Texas, Colorado, Virginia, and PA and that worked fine. Maybe because we weren't Scrum and there were only 2-3 meetings a week everyone had to go to? Theoretically, software development should be a job that is possible to do in a mostly asynchronous, largely work alone manner. Linux, GNU, and other gigantic open source projects seem to have gotten along fine for decades without needing offices. Even when I was last in the Army working in the 1st CAV HQ at Fort Hood, we had brigade HQs in Afghanistan, Lithuania, Estonia, and South Korea and that worked fine. And, of course, when I was at Platoon/Company level, I was a tank commander. Obviously, during maneuvers, you can only communicate with the other tank crews via radio. We managed somehow.

Unless you're sitting within speaking range of every person you work with, you're surely sending them messages via some chat platform or e-mail anyway, aren't you?

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#59

Post by mike_d »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #36
KerrAvon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen those posts on HN. Something the in-person crowd might want to consider is that a lot of interesting roles are going to involve lots of work with people who aren't in the room with you no matter whether you're in office or WFH. If you go in being highly vocal about no remote work, you may not be considered for roles that aren't fully remote but do involve a lot of videoconferencing. And maybe that's OK with…

As one of these people, that is explicitly why I don't want to work remotely. I don't want to spend my life doing Zoom calls. A quick telephone audio call for 5 minutes along the lines of "hey, are you nearly at the store" - sure. A call to avoid literally flying 5000 miles or something - if we have to. But in general, for actual communication I want to be in the room with someone, and I think that a combination of c…

The standard is 200 sqft of office space per employee (this factors in conference rooms, common space, bathrooms, etc). That means best case, you are looking at approximately 300 people per football field of office space.

Colocating functional teams together, and by extension the teams they need to work with, is a great idea but the math just doesn't work out for a company of more than a few hundred employees. At the minimum you are still traveling to other buildings on the same campus to have meetings.

None of us want to spend our life on Zoom. But I'll take a few hours a day of calls to get back 2 hours a day in traffic that I can spend having coffee with my wife and petting my dogs.

Re: There aren't enough remote jobs to go around

#60

Post by mullingitover »

WWLink wrote: post #52
KronisLV wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BTW - my current employer (big tech company) also wants to bring everyone back into the office, even though it increased the headcount during the pandemic and there was no campus expansion for 1 and half year due to COVID lockdowns and there is no space for everyone. My current company hasn't made such a demand, but I've also heard that in others in this country about 20% of people actually prefer to work in person…

> My current company hasn't made such a demand, but I've also heard that in others in this country about 20% of people actually prefer to work in person daily, everyone else seems to work remotely. That 20% probably also expects/demands everyone else show up, because they prefer everyone else to be there, too! :)

If there's an equal distribution of talent/productivity among the remote-demanding group and the on prem-demanding group, and only 20% demand on prem, the smart move is to cut the smaller group loose. They offer a smaller talent pool and most of the highest-performing talent will be in the remote group.
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