Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews • Hacker News Board

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#61

Post by jleyank » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 1:53 AM UTC

biohax2015 wrote: post #59

jleyank wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they could have done it 10-20 years ago, they would have and Covid would never have been an issue. Was in a company in the 90's trying to do that with Russian developers, and didn't Sun hire 50 when the wall came down? Paid them in Levis and the like. Outsourcing/offshoring is old news.

They are doing it. Slowly, but surely.

True, and the location of your posterior (unless you're in Asia or Eastern Europe) won't matter in the least when the flush your group and move it offshore.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#62

Post by extr » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 1:54 AM UTC

turdprincess wrote: post #51

extr wrote: post #20

After going back and forth between in-person and remote jobs, my conclusion: * Remote work is much better if you know what you're building and "just" need to execute. * In-person is much better if you don't know what you need to build, are trying to "figure it out as you go along", and are relying on the implicit fast feedback loop of standing next to each other. Obvious, right? But I think what I've realize is the d…

With your Meta experience I am curious - would the people you had to talk to been in the office near you anyways, even if everyone was in office? It seems like with a huge global company the people who would be hard to get context from (so not the people you might have a video standup with daily or weekly) might be in a different office or building requiring a video call anyways

Not everyone, but there would have been enough people around to have dramatically improved my experience. The problem there was Meta does not have a strong culture of documentation, and I didn't know what I didn't know. It was common to spend 2-3 days working on something only to find out on a random zoom call there was an entire team working on the same thing. Discoverability didn't exist. I found the environment untenable for doing anything of value.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#63

Post by extr » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 2:00 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #55

extr wrote: post #20

After going back and forth between in-person and remote jobs, my conclusion: * Remote work is much better if you know what you're building and "just" need to execute. * In-person is much better if you don't know what you need to build, are trying to "figure it out as you go along", and are relying on the implicit fast feedback loop of standing next to each other. Obvious, right? But I think what I've realize is the d…

> implicit fast feedback loop of standing next to each other. I have a hard time grasping this one. Is it brainstorming ? For things like pair programming or specification of a product, having separate screens and independent access to the same documents makes things a lot faster and efficient. Same way meetings tend to go smoother all participants can access whatever data they need independently from the presenter,…

I wouldn't call it brainstorming. More like "alignment". Fleshing out the vision you have for what you need to do, and putting that up against your coworkers vision, and figuring out where the disagreements/gaps are. You can do this quickly if you have an experienced and disciplined PM guiding the discussion, but most people don't, so they just have long conversations. Which works fine IRL, but it's very uncomfortable to be on a zoom call for more than about 45 minutes at a time.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#64

Post by extr » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 2:07 AM UTC

beoberha wrote: post #50

extr wrote: post #20

After going back and forth between in-person and remote jobs, my conclusion: * Remote work is much better if you know what you're building and "just" need to execute. * In-person is much better if you don't know what you need to build, are trying to "figure it out as you go along", and are relying on the implicit fast feedback loop of standing next to each other. Obvious, right? But I think what I've realize is the d…

I think you articulated a sentiment a lot of people have very well. For the non-decision makers, there is a strange dichotomy I see with coding. Remotely, I’m vastly more productive in getting coding work done. I’m sure most people would agree. But that productivity is almost erased by onboarding new hires. There are so many aspects of software engineering where it’s so much easier to be sitting next to someone, poin…

Yes, I am going through this right now as a new hire onboarding to a boutique codebase. As soon as you are 100% reliant on internal docs, you realize just how large the gap is between them and mainstream OSS libraries.

I think a decent middle-ground between "Document everything" and "Organically relay all information" is to just write "doc-stubs". Just a list of everything out there with no real content. It gives people a jumping off point to ask questions and lets them know what they don't know.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#65

Post by makeitdouble » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 2:31 AM UTC

extr wrote: post #63

makeitdouble wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> implicit fast feedback loop of standing next to each other. I have a hard time grasping this one. Is it brainstorming ? For things like pair programming or specification of a product, having separate screens and independent access to the same documents makes things a lot faster and efficient. Same way meetings tend to go smoother all participants can access whatever data they need independently from the presenter,…

I wouldn't call it brainstorming. More like "alignment". Fleshing out the vision you have for what you need to do, and putting that up against your coworkers vision, and figuring out where the disagreements/gaps are. You can do this quickly if you have an experienced and disciplined PM guiding the discussion, but most people don't, so they just have long conversations. Which works fine IRL, but it's very uncomfortabl…

> Fleshing out the vision you have for what you need to do, and putting that up against your coworkers vision, and figuring out where the disagreements/gaps are.

This is a part that probably varies a lot individually...I'm a slow thinker, and have a hard time reacting to fully formed ideas thrown at me thrown at me over a table. The other side coming with fully prepared for the discussion, while on the receiving end you need to do your homework realtime also doesn't help.

If it's random brainstorming it doesn't matter a lot. If it's an actually important topics, it feels like a DDOS on your brain when you actually want to take time to understand the implications. Then sure, some situations require speed, but I don't see that many of them in day to day life. "What you think about moving to X framework for our metrics ?" can probably wait for 30 min. and not be a realtime exchange.

> it's very uncomfortable to be on a zoom call for more than about 45 minutes at a time.

I've finding these meetings way more comfortable in remote...someone can be rambling for as long as they need, the effect on everyone's productivity is that much reduced. Same for people who speak very slowly actually, it's a lot less stress IMO and easier to engage when paradoxically you don't need to be 100% looking at them in the eyes.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#66

Post by pinewurst » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 2:53 AM UTC

fullshark wrote: post #37

pinewurst wrote: post #2

https://archive.ph/wJelE "A separate internal document showed that already-approved remote workers may be subject to reevaluation if the company determines “material changes in business need, role, team, structure or location.”"

What are you quoting? that link doesn't have that quote.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/08/google-to-crack-down-on-hybr...

Sorry, I mistook this topic for the one referencing the CNBC version of this story.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#67

Post by tjr225 » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 2:56 AM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #41

karmasimida wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that so? WFH is still a largely a COVID thing, even 3 times a day is still better than going to office 5 times week, as before?

Any number of days > 0 will require people to live near the office. Many people can't afford that anymore and moved away and moved away because of that or other reasons.

[dead]

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#68

Post by in_cahoots » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 3:15 AM UTC

hparadiz wrote: post #13

jleyank wrote: post #3

It might be useful to "all be in the room" when brainstorming. Once the coding starts, this is just a set of distractions I don't need. I suspect many/most of the developers reading HN want peace and quiet far more than the chance of magical hallway conversations. And it's only an anecdote, but we debugged a problem today where people were in two provinces of Canada and the UK. Were perfectly able to share screens, r…

Fully remote with 2-3 day quarterly in-person meet ups would provide tech companies with the in person collaboration they seek and be cheaper. Remote first companies do this all the time. Employees feel way better about it if the company provides hotel and accommodations when doing destination meet ups.

I haven’t found in-person meetups to be that useful. In my experience they only really started happening in late 2021/early 2022 due to the pandemic, and since then they’ve been severely curtailed due to the market downturn. So when you do meet up it’s more about finally seeing people in person, team building, and restating your team’s goals and mission. Any brainstorming I’ve seen happens in over-long sessions with 30+ people in attendance, where a ton of ideas are generated but there’s no actual momentum once everyone gets on the plane back home. The real collaboration happens in the interstitial times- lunch, breaks, and so on. Which again points to the importance of having at least part of the team co-located.

Full disclosure, this is at a company that is hybrid and not remote-first. But I’ve seen the pattern repeated enough times across various teams that I don’t think my experience is unique. And I say this as someone who personally prefers to work remotely- I’m just not unaware of what’s lost in that environment.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#69

Post by adamisom » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 3:16 AM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #29

acjohnson55 wrote: post #17

I never cease to be amazed the extent to which companies are trying to squeeze the remote work genie back into the bottle. They're desperate to find ways to make that expensive office space seem justified. "See, look! The people are using it. They love it." (Just out of frame, guns are pointed at the workers.)

I never cease to be amazed at the extent to which knowledge workers want to make "replace us with Eastern Europeans/Latin Americans/Indians" as painless a drop in as possible.

If that’s really going to happen, I guess I’ll switch careers.

If that happens to every career, I guess I’ll become one of the managers making those decisions.

Stay on top of change, don’t be victimized by it.

Re: Google uses in-person office attendance as part of employee performance reviews

#70

Post by locopati » Fri, Jun 09, 2023, 3:24 AM UTC

extr wrote: post #20

After going back and forth between in-person and remote jobs, my conclusion: * Remote work is much better if you know what you're building and "just" need to execute. * In-person is much better if you don't know what you need to build, are trying to "figure it out as you go along", and are relying on the implicit fast feedback loop of standing next to each other. Obvious, right? But I think what I've realize is the d…

having worked for a fully remote company that was successfully acquired for a decent sum by a much larger respectable company, remote depends on the top levels of management communicating the vision regularly and being transparent about direction, changes in direction, and reasons for changes. add in someone skilled whose responsibility is for facilitating remote culture and you have a recipe for success.

the problem is there is a ton of terrible leadership out there who want to rule by fiat, ignore their employees, and don't trust their employees (who they either directly or indirectly hired) to so their jobs.