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How to set junior employees up for success in remote

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Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#131
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's penny wise, pound foolish thinking. A good keyboard and mouse and monitor for your developers (who directly earn you revenue) is not going to break the bank. But the lack of them will reduce productivity and morale, possibly even causing (on the margin) some talented people to leave. RSI and posture problems are no joke! In other industries you need immense capital investment in equipment for workers to be pro…

Your comment reminds me of all the people screeching about their good school district, as if it is somehow capable of covering for them if they choose to be a crap parent. In both cases the stuff people are fussing over is basically a rounding error compared to the big factors. Beyond some basic utility, e.g. being able to compile the code in under 5min, the hardware one uses is of negligible impact to their success.…

I see your point. I believe that if someone is trying to do a job and their equipment is "glitchy" or some other technical issue it effects their morale.

Low morale = lower quality of work.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#132
post #2

While I can understand some of the arguments made about juniors getting some extra benefit from having everything close to hand, the sheer pace of the hit pieces against remote the last month or so is hilarious and very telling.

Good. I'm tired of having the presumed wonders of WFH shoved down my throat. It's great if you don't want to work and instead slack off at home but I don't believe this productivity increase myth a single bit.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#133

This is not a surprise to me. I think it also applies to some people who are senior and new on a project or team. Or people with a more synchronous working style. I think remote has been toxic to productivity in all sorts of companies and for all sorts of people. I think there's in general a "personality type" that does really well with remote in a certain kind of job and thrives with fairly asynchronous disconnected…

I think part of it is the 'junior' part. If you have a strong workflow and confidence with what you're doing then it's easier to be independent

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#134

"I think anyone who can’t work well remote, on average, will not be your top performers anyway." Ah, there it is, the bountiful blind arrogance I have come to expect from threads like this on HN. It's like you didn't even read my post, just looked for the hook to drop in and proclaim your superiority.

HN holds that mythical lone^W solo^W remote hacker in high regard.

Kinda ironic given most people I know who fit this description dislike the site.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#135
post #67

Very convincing methodology. Ask people on subreddit and LinkedIn a question. Then write another article based on 'I swear, dude'. Link it as a source for this 'article'. Write the rest of the 'article' by imagining what the world has to be like, given your poll is a source of truth. Follows my favourite format of 'journalism', where there is some arbitrarily chosen data source, followed up by series of 'interviews'…

The absolute worst ones are the "here's a crowdsourced treasure trove of information from 20 million users on Reddit" and it's literally a listicle of the top-10 all time posts in a sub

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#136
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, an expensive keyboard/mouse/monitor isn't necessary for a junior to succeed. Plenty of coders learned on much worse.

I actually find it hard to switch from my "bad" hardware, I'm so used to one single small screen and average keyboard that it's how I do all my coding, despite having enough money to buy an expensive set up. I find it distracts me from my actual job, which is thinking.

same. i've got 3 old monitors that just keep working. could I get a new widescreen to replace all three? Yeah. will I? Probably not.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#137

This is not a surprise to me. I think it also applies to some people who are senior and new on a project or team. Or people with a more synchronous working style. I think remote has been toxic to productivity in all sorts of companies and for all sorts of people. I think there's in general a "personality type" that does really well with remote in a certain kind of job and thrives with fairly asynchronous disconnected…

Driving is dangerous. It's no joke, you can get killed if you slip every time you go on a highway. Insanely dangerous. And more work than work itself, the commute is the worst part of people's days.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#138

This is not a surprise to me. I think it also applies to some people who are senior and new on a project or team. Or people with a more synchronous working style. I think remote has been toxic to productivity in all sorts of companies and for all sorts of people. I think there's in general a "personality type" that does really well with remote in a certain kind of job and thrives with fairly asynchronous disconnected…

As a senior developer, if working just in the office as was expected in the past I was distracted by things like a story about the weekend two colleagues are having in the background that sounds amusing, or the junior developer constantly spinning around on his chair to ask a question about something because "you're there". I always had time for that kind of thing but my productivity suffered and I was always frustrated by not getting enough done.

Working from home wasn't all roses either even though I got more work done. I was already doing a balance of WFH as a contractor before covid and that was working well for me, but when covid restrictions happened and I was WFH months on end, I really started to feel the lack of human contact and socialisation. That story about the weekend was something I suddenly craved to hear. My mental state would suffer because I had no life other than sleep, screen, sleep, screen, and then my productivity would start to decline as a result of declining perspective. I think I need some social contact just to stay calibrated.

Now I have a balance, a couple of days in the office, a couple of days at home, it works out well for me. I use the days in the office to catch up with the team, do any serious whiteboarding we need to do, and help out the juniors on the team with any questions they might have. I use my days at home to just crush out code with whatever music I want on in the background.

As you say I think it will shake out. I know some say that people have forgotten the value of hard work and there is a push to get people back in the office full time, but I think having people in the environment that suits their productivity the best is the way forward (edit - and to circle back to the point - taking care of mental states is important to maintaining productivity).

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#139

This is not a surprise to me. I think it also applies to some people who are senior and new on a project or team. Or people with a more synchronous working style. I think remote has been toxic to productivity in all sorts of companies and for all sorts of people. I think there's in general a "personality type" that does really well with remote in a certain kind of job and thrives with fairly asynchronous disconnected…

I think anyone who can’t work well remote, on average, will not be your top performers anyway. What I mean by that — as a manager and one of the senior engineers, I had insight across our organization to projects and employee performance. Those who thrived being remote were those who already were the top performers. Those who were followers; who lacked discipline, failed faster and more obviously. Most software engin…

> an always open video chat

What.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#140

This is not a surprise to me. I think it also applies to some people who are senior and new on a project or team. Or people with a more synchronous working style. I think remote has been toxic to productivity in all sorts of companies and for all sorts of people. I think there's in general a "personality type" that does really well with remote in a certain kind of job and thrives with fairly asynchronous disconnected…

I think anyone who can’t work well remote, on average, will not be your top performers anyway. What I mean by that — as a manager and one of the senior engineers, I had insight across our organization to projects and employee performance. Those who thrived being remote were those who already were the top performers. Those who were followers; who lacked discipline, failed faster and more obviously. Most software engin…

I agree, and have to wonder what would happen if pre-remote some researcher tried to break it down to 'Computer Science Graduate' and 'Taught themselves on CodeAcademy'

I would bet the CS graduate is having a much easier time self-learning at home than the no-degree person who usually stops peoples work 12-15 times a day to get them to explain concepts or show them around the code, again...

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