Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#311

Post by joelbluminator » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

freepor wrote: post #217

Ididntdothis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes sense. In my team it’s the same: the young guys like going out together after work and also often don’t have the space at home to set up a good workplace. They also need the most handholding. I remember some discussions a while ago where the conclusion was that it’s hard to onboard juniors remotely and remote is more suitable for experienced people.

If the seniors are remote who will onboard the juniors in person?

I don't know that in person always works better, lots of people in tech aren't good in person actually or hate it when you approach them. Could be that in writing they'd have better patience.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by erohead » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #197

redisman wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a win-win-win though? Salaries become more normalized across the country so people can work from where they choose, SF rents will go down as techies start streaming out of the Bay Area, hiring pools for companies become inclusive of people who don't want to move to the Bay Area (or the other 2-3 tech cities). The rest of the country also certainly doesn't pay 1/3rd of your salary.

Will people start streaming out of the Bay Area, though? The thing that always interested me about the Bay Area was that my friends in Mountain View would be posting long bike rides throughout the winter. Where it's snowy and below freezing in New York, it's 55 degrees and sunny there. I imagine people like that a lot, and is part of the reason it's a popular place to live. There are other places in the US that are w…

As a Canadian who moved to Palo Alto 10 years ago - this is the real answer! I love biking in the 'winter'

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by lordCarbonFiber » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

dddbbb wrote: post #137

I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I understand that must change drastically when you're middle aged, have a family to live around and a spacious house in the suburbs. But most younger people want to live in the middle of the city (i.e. small, often shared apartments but a short commute) and have no…

Im firmly in that demographic. Working from home has been pretty awful; don't have space for a secondary office in my 500sqft of nyc apartment, and have found the whole experience to be terribly isolating. Maybe it's different for people with families, but I'd never give up the perks of city living and office connections to be so alone (regardless on how much extra money I'd be saving).

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by lonelappde » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

freepor wrote: post #217

Ididntdothis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes sense. In my team it’s the same: the young guys like going out together after work and also often don’t have the space at home to set up a good workplace. They also need the most handholding. I remember some discussions a while ago where the conclusion was that it’s hard to onboard juniors remotely and remote is more suitable for experienced people.

If the seniors are remote who will onboard the juniors in person?

When I was a junior my mentor was remote. It worked fine.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#315

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

TomVDB wrote: post #222

andarleen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will have to shamelessly try and sway you. Get a large house, a swimming pool, a home office room with all the games and gadgets you ever wanted, a nice surround 5.1 system optically connected to a gaming pc, a nice couch to rest now and then and plan your code ahead. See if you still miss your cubicle (nothing wrong with that, but just what i wrote a thought). Thats my lifestyle since i starting working remotely.…

I have everything you list above, and I'm not swayed. I still looking forward to going back to normal. I've never been the social butterfly who sees tons of friends on a regular basis out of work, and yet I enjoy talking to others. Work gives me that, lunch at work gives me that too. Some of my colleagues are razor smart. I can have lunch time discussions about rocketry or special video coding algorithms or War time…

[deleted]

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by pb7 » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #247

fermienrico wrote: post #85

Then why pay $200k for a software engineer in the valley when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary? The question I have is what portion of the $200k salary is 1) due to the raw talent of the individual 2) because they live in the bay area.

I've had a related thought: is it ethical to pay a person less based purely on where they live? I understand that there are different cost of living factors for different places, but that's on the employee's side and should be none of the employer's business. If they employer can pay $200k/yr for a remote employee, it shouldn't matter where they live, and so scaling that value seems discriminatory to me. Anyone have…

Definitely an interesting point. What happens when you are remote in one expensive city then move to a cheaper city? Does the employer need to know where you presently reside? I would think not.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by lonelappde » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

amiga_500 wrote: post #230

ram_rar wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I perfectly fit the profile you described. I live in SF in a small apt. I can easily afford a much bigger place for the same amount. But working with collegues @ office is a soo much fun. if the company gets fully remote, its really hard to connect with coworkers and hangout.

What about if all of society did this, and you all had a great webcam, and for lunch you went out locally with your local friends, then when you knock off at 5pm you have all agreed to play soccer down the local park at 5:10pm ? We can have a nice local life that flourishes, once the utterly stupid situation of having everyone converge at the same time on a fixed point is forever slain.

Why would I have local friends? I spent half my day at work, obviously most people I know are at work. half of my home awake time is with my online friends.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by jedberg » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #233

lhorie wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that this has big tax implications (since presumably said low cost of living areas are outside of California). I would love to understand better what sorts of complications WFH bring to the table for those cases (and how they can be mitigated).

The company needs to do payroll in a different state and you, as an individual, now pay taxes in your state of residence which isn't where company HQ is. From a tax perspective it's mostly no different than if they had a small office in that state. For big companies, in particular, it's not that big a deal as they're probably using a payroll service like ADP anyway. There may be some paperwork--and certainly more so…

You’re vastly underestimating the work of “setting up an office” in a new state. Every state has a bunch of paperwork, like setting up your company as a foreign corporation in that state. Then there is state licensing. Also every state has its own worker’s compensation requirements and some have other requirements too.

Your payroll provider generally tells you that you’re on your own for all that stuff.

For every additional state there is a ton of overhead.

I’ve had employees in California, Washington, and New York. It took two years to unwind Washington after the one employee there left, and it took a year and 20 hours of lawyer time to unwind New York, who was trying to charge us $5,000 as a penalty for missing paperwork we didn’t think we had to file (we ended up being right after paying the lawyer).

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by ska » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #112

ska wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how your conclusion follows - it's undoubtedly true that more and more folks are involved in teams that at least partly remote. However, the skills needed to manage these effectively are mostly the same as co-located teams. To whatever degree "people person" was needed, it seems mostly the same to me.

If a coworker or employee comes in to work distraught for some reason, it's far easier to reach out in person and find out that their dog got ran over/relationship broke up/parent is in the hospital. It's not impossible remote, but it's harder, on all levels. A manager that has strong in-person skills but is weaker on digital communication skills may result in poorer outcomes all around. (I'm pro WFH but pretending i…

I guess I don't buy the idea that there is such a strong dichotomy between in-person communication skills and digital communication skills.

Sure, there are adjustments to new needs and technologies. But fundamentally, that's the easy part, I think. Communication skills are needed, and they mostly transition well. I find it plausible there are some people who don't make the transition well (in either direction) but that hardly points to a paradigm change.

Do you really think there is a big pool of people who would be effective at these roles if they just didn't need to communicate in person? Doesn't match my experience at all. Certainly agree that people are stronger or weaker on various types of communication, but in my experience that is definitely a 2nd order effect, compared to whether or not they are skilled communicators at all.

I totally agree that all of this stuff is harder remote, but if anything that leans harder on communication skills.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#320

Post by kelnos » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

throwaway713 wrote: post #182

dddbbb wrote: post #137

I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I understand that must change drastically when you're middle aged, have a family to live around and a spacious house in the suburbs. But most younger people want to live in the middle of the city (i.e. small, often shared apartments but a short commute) and have no…

If I could keep my current compensation and move to the low cost of living area where my family is located, I would reach financial independence 10-15 years ahead of my current trajectory with Bay Area rents/costs. I'll settle for the minor inconveniences of WFH any day in order to get a decade of my life to spend with family or to work on my own projects.

I doubt you'd be able to keep that current compensation, though. Most people I've talked with who have moved out of the bay area (or another HCOL area) to somewhere with a lower cost of living have either gotten an immediate pay cut, or their company has told them that they won't be getting pay raises until their pay is in-line with their new local market.