161–170 of 310 posts
Wow, the pro-corp tone in some of the comments is surprising. Software jobs are one of the few remaining ones where we still hold the means of production -- and can withhold them to our leverage. These folks are walking out for the right reasons -- big f-off to RTO, and even if a bit late, the layoffs.
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There are so many people that stand to lose if a fully remote work force came to pass. Building management, HR, middle managers, property investors, they're the ones you're hearing I'd guess. Pure software dev jobs are very easy to do remotely, it's not like we spend all day talking to people any way.
Amazon has a reputation of being frugal to the point of stupidity (e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-use-frupidi... ) so that tired conspiracy theory especially doesn't hold water for them. Amazon wouldn't give a hoot about the opinions of "building management, HR, middle managers", etc. if anyone there could make a solid business case that increasing WFH would significantly improve their bottom l…
The frupidity used to be a huge sore spot, but being honest, is no longer a part of the culture.
Sure, there are no catered buffets or massage chairs, but the old inflexible rigid frupid systems are all gone. Engineers get top of the line M1 Macbooks, nice monitors and good chairs. The desks are all adjustable sit/stand, not doors. You can get and expense whatever software you need. And yeah you gotta fly coach but nobody is going to bite your head off for expensing some peanuts from the mini bar at your hotel.
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A big part of the reason it failed for decades is because of the challenges of remote work. It can be difficult to onboard, you need higher documentation standards, more asynchronous communication processes. Now many people are gung ho on solving these problems to enable wfh. And I personally view that as indirectly solving a lot of the reasons that international offshoring failed. Even things like challenges with ta…
This is factually wrong. The only barrier isn't 'time zones' and will never be just time zones. It's cultural, environmental, political. The way a US-based team builds a product is different from an outsourced team in India which is different from having an actual office and team in India. Trying to get a team in a whole 'nother part of the world operate on a US time scale is incredibly hard because they are going to…
Returning to a team that was all (more or less) in the same time zone has been amazing for my sanity.
Wow, the pro-corp tone in some of the comments is surprising. Software jobs are one of the few remaining ones where we still hold the means of production -- and can withhold them to our leverage. These folks are walking out for the right reasons -- big f-off to RTO, and even if a bit late, the layoffs.
"Means of production" is a tribe signalling phrase imo.
Or "working class"
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Software developers lose due to increased competition. Instead of competing with just silicon valley you are competing with the entire world.
Surely that's a good thing though, if we're preaching meritocracy? Practically speaking it's not so different than how it is currently though (except maybe lower CoL areas in the same country), it's very difficult to have FTE's in foreign countries, I am in a position to feel this very much right now- either you have to do very complex accounting, become a multi-national or they have to be hired as contractors. There…
Have you looked into other services such as "remote.com" to handle international accounting/legal?
I am curious but from the employee's perspective.
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There are so many people that stand to lose if a fully remote work force came to pass. Building management, HR, middle managers, property investors, they're the ones you're hearing I'd guess. Pure software dev jobs are very easy to do remotely, it's not like we spend all day talking to people any way.
Software developers lose due to increased competition. Instead of competing with just silicon valley you are competing with the entire world.
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> Walking out to protest multiple rounds of layoffs may not be the power move you imagine. Sure it is, if you're unionised! I've seen decades of comments, even here on HN, from devs who say that unions are not necessary for software development. Welcome to the future, I guess?
Professional licensure would be great. The whole union thing is for people lower in the pay scale.
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You have a good point but software that exists with no one to sell it is more valuable than salesman with nothing to sell. Unless you are just trying to grift people, which a disappointingly large percentage of the tech/Silicon Valley/startup crowd are totally cool with.
> You have a good point but software that exists with no one to sell it is more valuable than salesman with nothing to sell. Never seen that happen. Software that exists with no one to sell it just doesn't get sold. On the other hand, a salesman with nothing to sell is Bill Gates when he signed on to provide MS DOS for IBM. In fact, if you look over the history of this industry, success has, with few exceptions, alwa…
Your point, correct me if I'm wrong, is that software is more the commodity and sales is differentiable?
I wonder how this stacks up against other software that yielded massive public utility, like UNIX, or the internet.
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It's so annoying that the vocal commenters on here assume that every engineer agrees with them that working from home is preferable to having an office. Nothing against other people working from home but please keep in mind that people's can differ greatly from your own.
As a software engineer, I needed to meet people for my growth in the start of my career, and I needed to meet people for character development. Old farts complain that younglings are not socially/emotionally independent and apt to talk to their computer all day, but that’s also a recipe for suicide.
also, just to make sure it's clear to anybody reading about remote vs non-remote. remote doesn't mean no meatspace meeting ever allowed. remote team members are not under chess king rules. we did meet IRL. for some jobs it was just 1 week in 10 months. (thanks COVID) but otherwise it can be a lot more. (1 week every quarter kind of makes sense, but so does anything that members are up to - especially if they live close to each other.)
This is long overdue. It is well past time for tech workers to organize and demand a larger share of the billions in wealth we’ve generated for the VCs and CEOs.
Yeah, well, thoughts like that only come from a context in which there is zero understanding of the realities of business and what it takes to profitably run one. I always find this interesting. Not sure if people just say this kind of thing to just be one of the bro's or because they really believe it. I hope it isn't the latter.
A while back one of my kids had a college-level business class in high school. Their final project was to put together a full presentation, financials and a pitch to get a loan for a mid size bakery ($5MM/year gross revenue).
He was absolutely astounded to learn just how difficult it was to make money in that business. When his team started on the project they pretty much assumed that with $5MM/yr the owner was just raking it in. It was nothing less than hilarious when he came into my office one day to tell me he could not believe what it took to be in business and make money. He had a revelation few people have. He had it at 15 years of age. Most adults don't have a clue about this their entire lives.
VC's? They risk millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions. And, guess what? Most of their bets might lose money or barely make any. People only see success, they never stop to consider and internalize what it took to get there.
CEO's? Try running a non-trivial company and see how it goes. Heck, even a medium company can put you in the hospital! My prior startup did that to me twice in ten years.
Our country would derive great benefit from delivering real financial education before we launch young adults into the world. Ignorance has consequences. Generational consequences.