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Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

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Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#401

Post by mikkelam »

Valakas_ wrote: post #388
mikkelam wrote: post #197

european single male pov: 1. I like my 30 minute bike ride to work 2. I like the social interaction, laughing, chatting and atmosphere of my office 3. I am less productive, but I'm not a machine. I (should) care about my well being more 4. I still work from home once in a while. Flexibility is key But, everyone is different. I totally understand many people have a lot more reasons than me to work remotely

You claim to like it. Let's see: If you were paid regardless of going to work or working or not, would you still keep going there and doing your job?

I would not, no. I fail to see how that matters though.

I would definitely leave this company if I was forced into a remote setting. I would go find another job. I would also take pay cut for keeping an office.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#402

Post by taude »

DogLover_ wrote: post #204
taude wrote: post #196

I'm curious if other's have been experiencing this. I'm at my second job now where there's a big push to off-shore to India. If you can be remote, to an exec, they might not see it too differently between you and offshore, except for how much better the bottom line is. We're even hiring roles that I thought I'd never see moved over there, too, like Product Managers. I bet we'll see this trend increase. Since this is…

Same here. What I found curious though is that the push is coming from the investors and not from the company itself.

I believe my situation is investor driven, too.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#403

Post by roguas »

TexanFeller wrote: post #399
lucidguppy wrote: post #203

I could be convinced to commute to a satellite office that's not affected by rush hour traffic. There's a lot of real estate available in the burbs. These don't really exist though, and their expense far outweighs their benefits. The problem is that companies expect employees to be mobile when they are not. It's called putting down roots for a reason. Pulling kids out of school, buying a new house is very disruptive.…

> Let people work from home. Suffer a 10-15% degredation in communications. In my estimation you're grossly underestimating the degradation in communications.

In my estimation he is not. I "remember" office for good and bad, for most of the time even when I communicated with folks next door/nearby i would still fallback to chat. Water cooler talks is what I miss actually, but if you meetup couple of times a year - you get the feel of those people. Also now that people got so used to streaming more, its often much easier to pair more effectively (if one person drives some stuff, the other person can do other checks etc.)

I do not think 10-15% degradation is underestimated.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#404

Post by Yizahi »

SyrupThinker wrote: post #27
andersa wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is? It's time you can't spend on your hobbies. Of course, if repeatedly driving the same route every day is one of those, then go ahead.

To be fair the grandparent post did not elaborate, but not everyone is locked into doing nothing during their commute. People using public transport might be able to do all sorts of things like reading or creative work. That’s of course hard if you need to drive yourself. But if you are able to make good use of that time one could consider it not lost. Maybe commute should be clocked in for jobs that don’t rely on ph…

The key word is might. I was commuting in a big city, 1+ hour one way, regardless car or public transit. So you'd think that in the latter case I had 40-50 minutes to do stuff? Wrong. First you need to wait for the transport, technically you can read something quickly while waiting, but you always need to watch for car numbers, not to miss yours, and holding a phone out in winder is fucking cold. In summer sun blinding a screen and causing it to overheat due to max brightness. Then you are riding in the overcrowded tram or bus, one hand holding the rail not to fall, so no typing, and reading is rather limited when you are packed like sardines. Then you repeat all that for the second leg of the trip (not many are lucky to have a direct line to work). So all in all out of 1 wasted hour you maybe read for like 10 minutes total in shitty conditions. Oh, and reading standing really hurts your neck (because you are reading face down), spine (because you are always in the asymmetrical stance), and hand (carpal syndrome from holding too wide phone and doing swiping gestures with the same hand).

Commuting in the car obviously makes impossible to do anything else.

Total efficiency of commute is about zero.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#406

Post by TexanFeller »

roguas wrote: post #403
TexanFeller wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let people work from home. Suffer a 10-15% degredation in communications. In my estimation you're grossly underestimating the degradation in communications.

In my estimation he is not. I "remember" office for good and bad, for most of the time even when I communicated with folks next door/nearby i would still fallback to chat. Water cooler talks is what I miss actually, but if you meetup couple of times a year - you get the feel of those people. Also now that people got so used to streaming more, its often much easier to pair more effectively (if one person drives some s…

> now that people got so used to streaming more, its often much easier to pair more effectively

People keep saying this, but the experience of quickly pairing on something is one of the things I feel has degraded the most. I can't point to a single cause, it's more death by a million cuts, but I absolutely dread pairing with a junior to help them over screen share where I would normally be happy to help someone in person. I'm not exactly inexperienced at it either, I worked fully remote for a couple years a decade before the pandemic.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#407

Post by Gordonjcp »

Yizahi wrote: post #404
SyrupThinker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair the grandparent post did not elaborate, but not everyone is locked into doing nothing during their commute. People using public transport might be able to do all sorts of things like reading or creative work. That’s of course hard if you need to drive yourself. But if you are able to make good use of that time one could consider it not lost. Maybe commute should be clocked in for jobs that don’t rely on ph…

The key word is might. I was commuting in a big city, 1+ hour one way, regardless car or public transit. So you'd think that in the latter case I had 40-50 minutes to do stuff? Wrong. First you need to wait for the transport, technically you can read something quickly while waiting, but you always need to watch for car numbers, not to miss yours, and holding a phone out in winder is fucking cold. In summer sun blindi…

> Commuting in the car obviously makes impossible to do anything else.

I don't understand why you'd think that.

Do you just sit motionless, thoughtless, and in perfect silence in the car?

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#408

Post by 3np »

jen20 wrote: post #288
shard wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what does that mean for the largest group in the bell curve: the medium skilled programmer, who does ok but nonmagical work? Not everyone has the ability to be one or two standard deviations above the median.

I’m not convinced software engineering “skill” actually follows a normal distribution. People tend to have a huge impact, either positive or negative.

Skill does not necessarily manifest as impact. Someone having positive impact in one org will have negative impact in the same role on another.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#409

Post by thirdsun »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #339
throwaway675309 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally ANYTIME else. Nothing prevents you from passively consuming radio content a few hours a day at home.

2am, when everyone else including a ridiculously energetic toddler is in bed?

Headphones.

Re: Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely

#410

Post by CapstanRoller »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #397
suprjami wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sample size of one doesn't prove or disprove anything.

Your sample size of X also doesn't delegitimize my personal experience.

Your personal experience doesn't permit you to make sweeping generalizations about "most people"
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