Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 623 posts

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#111

Post by bradlys »

UncleMeat wrote: post #95
swat535 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're 30-40 married with kids, you don't have the time to do leetcode for 6 months to pass the interviews..

Some people leetcode for ages to get lucky in interviews. But loads of people just interviewed and are highly skilled and qualified. I think I did a week of prep ahead of my interviews.

Some people also get lucky. Luck is a huge factor in FAANG interviews. I've seen people who are definitely no more intelligent or better at LC type problems than average Joe just get lucky with their interview loops - while others who have won competitions just get the inverse luck and don't get an offer.

It's a numbers game overall.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#112

Post by 01100011 »

azurezyq wrote: post #32
tyingq wrote: post #4

That's interesting, since my assumption is that Google would be fairly data driven. I'd be curious if Googlers feel like this is because they are really seeing reduced productivity, or if there's a different motivation.

Disclaimer: Googler managing a small product engineering team. I have to say WFH has a considerable impact on productivity. Coding is actually fine, but the problems are: 1. Designing over VC is very difficult, especially for something entirely new. 3~4 people working on a single whiteboard is far more efficient. 2. Personal relationships are difficult to grow, especially for newbies. Usually those things got grown v…

This depends. The problems we've been working on as a team are really too big to work out on a whiteboard. I think for my team, WFH is just fine. I'm nearing the end of one of the most complicated software projects I've ever worked on and don't feel like any of our issues were related to WFH.

Over the last year I've actually started to connect with my team. We have weekly video chats and spend hours socializing. As an older engineer with bad hearing, video chats are far better than crowding around a big table in a cavernous, modern office.

My only complaint is the environment I have to work in. Silicon Valley real estate is sub-par and high priced. I've been looking for a new apartment with a spare bedroom for months but the only units available are far away or run-down. If I knew I could WFH forever, I'd have left already. Here I am, waiting, because I have no idea when I'll be required to go back to work.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#114

Post by toomuchtodo »

person_of_color wrote: post #105
tyingq wrote: post #104

And, now that they don't have to be first, Amazon is in: Amazon updates remote work guidance, plans to ‘return to an office-centric culture as our baseline’ https://www.geekwire.com/2021/amazon-updates-remote-work-gui... oof.

Today is a big disaster for those who foresaw changes in the workplace. Now we have only tier 2 companies (Dropbox/Spotify) who have gone full remote.

Salesforce?

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#115

Post by drewg123 »

0xy wrote: post #22

Remote work is terrible for productivity especially if the company was not already remote first. In my employer, we've noticed a 30-40% productivity dip across the board. Not only that, but people are reporting more stress and are working unhealthy hours. Replying to emails at 9pm, etc. The communication breakdowns are constant. Previously you'd absorb information through osmosis, but the watercooler chat about proje…

In the last 21 years, I've worked 2 years in an office, for Google. Those were by far the least productive I've ever felt. I resorted to getting into the office at 5:30 am to have some quiet time before the obnoxious group next to us in the office arrived and started joking around and flying RC helicopters in the building.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#116

Post by Mandatum »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #114
person_of_color wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today is a big disaster for those who foresaw changes in the workplace. Now we have only tier 2 companies (Dropbox/Spotify) who have gone full remote.

Salesforce?

It's a lie. The offices are open and very full where they are allowed to (SK, JP, AU, NZ).

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#117

Post by dboreham »

Datapoint: long ago (decades) I worked for a large well known valley software company, for several years. During that time I worked with many colleagues who were somewhere on the same campus, but I never physically met them. Obviously I was around my team mates, manager, and I attended many cross-group in-person physical meetings, but the number of people I interacted with online only was large. This was before video conferencing existed, just email phone and IM.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#118

Post by titzer »

tyingq wrote: post #4

That's interesting, since my assumption is that Google would be fairly data driven. I'd be curious if Googlers feel like this is because they are really seeing reduced productivity, or if there's a different motivation.

Xoogler here, left pre-pandemic. Google has always been very data-driven. It just seeks data that support management's ideas of how they want to run the company. Despite ample evidence showing that cramped, loud working spaces both decrease productivity and increase sick days for coworkers (because flu and the common cold, and other reasons), management went for densification to meet growth targets and cut real estate outlays. Google workspaces would have been the absolute perfect super spreader spaces for COVID. TBH I feel a bit of schadenfreude for their deliberate choice to create that environment, and this article saddens me to see that Google hasn't learned much.

I, for one, hated the densification and tight working environments, but I didn't have the "data" to make a hill of beans difference.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#119

Post by mech422 »

mgkimsal wrote: post #14
TeMPOraL wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Couple days per week in the office" kind of defeats the whole point of going remote in the first place.

For some people, yes. For others, no. I've been 'remote' for... 12 years now, but do travel to offices sometimes, and do enjoy being able to do some face to face time with folks, even sometimes for multiple days or weeks at a stretch. The core matter is who decides when I need to be in an office. If it's me or mostly me, it's great. If it's solely at the discretion of others, that's where problems often are (regardle…

Personally, I'm over 20 years WFH now and love it. The last 5 years have been working with people on other continents, and I actually had the choice of time zones to work (I usually work nights for this, as I'm a night owl and it lets me sleep during day time when Arizona summers get hot). I haven't had any of the issues people seem to encounter. I don't work to socialize, so I don't miss lunches and such. For programming or devops stuff, you can definately do 100% remote. I understand people have different tastes, so I find it funny how polarized people get about it. In-office to WFH is a spectrum - just pick the spot your comfortable on it.

Re: Google is accelerating reopening of offices and putting limits on remote work

#120

Post by jayavanth »

UncleMeat wrote: post #100
rllearneratwork wrote: post #53

"a maximum of 14 days remote per year" -- WHAT? They need to apply for that?

It's not true. The article is not correctly describing the policy. I don't know if the journalist just didn't get the entire email from their source or if they put this out too fast but what is written in the article isn't correct.

What is the policy?
Post reply on HN