How to set junior employees up for success in remote • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by phoehne » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 4:51 PM UTC

mgfist wrote: post #290

ospzfmbbzr wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not personal unless you take it that way -- instead take it as a challenge and show him he was wrong about you. Programming well is difficult and takes time and effort to get good at, but it's worth it. Being junior and learning while remote is not ideal at all. I work very well remotely but only because everything is second nature to me now after so many years. If that makes me a 'top performer' then it's only becau…

You're totally missing the original point. > I work very well remotely but only because everything is second nature to me now after so many years. This is coming from the narrow view that people who struggle remotely only do so because they are inexperienced. I know people who struggled because they lived in a small NYC apartment where their desk was 2 feet from their bed, and the lack of movement or change of enviro…

Or they might just suffer from the basic problem that people find remote work over teams and periodic meetings depressing. I don't like bull-pen style team rooms. The distractions and everyone sitting there with headphones on, tuning each other out. It makes going to an office seem counter-productive and, for lack of a better word, stupid. There has to be a happy medium. Like having an individual room like a home office but at the company offices. Where you could set up a permanent desk the way you wanted. I wonder why no one's thought of that...

I was an essential worker through the pandemic and had to go in. I never could go remote but I think I was happier than most people I knew. I had gripes. I had fast food, to-go options for lunch (for the most part). I still had work friends. We even started a subversive happy hour at the office, when everything else was closed. (Masked up and sitting apart, because on one wants to be the one who takes out the whole ops center with a quarantine, but enjoying a cold brew and some commiserating is hops lubricated therapy.) I watched some of my co-workers go to "on line happy hour" events and it looked weird with fake backgrounds. No thanks.

I've worked remote before. It was okay. But I still went into the office a couple of days a week. For brief, informal chats with may boss and peers. It was a happy medium, but I still found it a little isolating. It was great at first, but slowly became 'meh' and then I was happy to go to another, more normal gig.

I'm taking a new role at my company, one where I could work remotely. But I'm going to go into the office. I don't like the bull-pen seating but the corporate overlords are putting in more focus rooms. If I find I really need a break, well, I can put in a couple of days at home. Fortunately, that's much easier to do now. I know myself. I don't need someone to watch over me to be productive. That was never the issue. I need to be around some number of people because I'm a human fucking being and, a number of counter examples aside, we're largely social animals.

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

#332

Post by mgfist » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

ospzfmbbzr wrote: post #322

mgfist wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're totally missing the original point. > I work very well remotely but only because everything is second nature to me now after so many years. This is coming from the narrow view that people who struggle remotely only do so because they are inexperienced. I know people who struggled because they lived in a small NYC apartment where their desk was 2 feet from their bed, and the lack of movement or change of enviro…

I don't think I'm missing the point... it's just that those seem like excuses and self-employed or self-directed workers are only making these excuses to themselves (as they fail). > This is coming from the narrow view that people who struggle remotely only do so because they are inexperienced. I know people who struggled because they lived in a small NYC apartment where their desk was 2 feet from their bed, and the…

> If YOUR environment isn't conducive to getting work done -- fix it!

You listed a bunch of ways one can do this. I'll list one more: going to work in-person!

I think we're in agreement here: environment plays a huge role in productivity and one should make changes if an environment is not conducive to productivity. I posit that changing your working model to one that suits you is just as valid a change as getting a dog or hobby.

Importantly, I don't mean to say that in-person is better than remote. Just saying that people have different preferences, and the fact that not all people excel in all environments doesn't make them inferior. You just need to have one environment that works well.

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

#333

Post by Elinvynia » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 4:56 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #84

mfer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect it’s harder for a junior to succeed anywhere today vs 2012 When I was a jr engineer I was paired with some senior people who showed me the ropes. They expected it would take some time to come up to speed and intentionally worked to help me get there. They took my college degree as "proof I could learn" and then taught me what I needed to know. Over the last decade, I've seen less and less mentoring. Even…

IMHO it's turnover that's the problem. Companies get engineers for an average of like 24 months and it might be even less for junior employees. Taking the time to train someone up doesn't make as much sense when you're not going to get return on your investment.

That's because their raises, if they happen, are factually pay cuts (aka lower than inflation).

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

#334

Post by theonething » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

lettergram wrote: post #101

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #46

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…

> People commit to their work and tell us when it’ll be done, if they fail we talk about it as a team

That sounds horrible. Software estimation is not a science and some say is impossible. To hold people to their estimates or else they've "failed" is toxic.

Just a personal opinion, but I hate daily standups. It's agile theatre. Nobody listens to what others are saying; they're too busy trying to make up good sounding stuff to say when it's their turn. I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but the general principle applies.

But sounds like it's working for your company so more power to you.

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

#335

Post by davewritescode » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 4:59 PM UTC

This is just fairly obvious and I've probably posted something about it before in HN. It's the same reason in-person school works much better than remote, students and junior employees need fast feedback while still giving them the room to work independently.

Real world example, I gave a junior engineer a bug that should take a day to research and 3 lines of code to fix. If I'm sitting a few desks away and I hear them furiously banging away at the keyboard, I might come by and ask how it's going.

Today in the remote world I have 2 options, needlessly badger the junior engineer or wait for a big PR that I'm going to have to reject or ask for significant rework, both of which are going to make that person feel a lot worse than if I had just walked by, asked to grab a coffee and talked about it.

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

#336

Post by prepend » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 5:00 PM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #254

prepend wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like they should fix this with better laptop encryption. There’s many cheap methods to make source code on a stolen laptop useless. Using this as an excuse may mean that the org is stupid or lies to employees. Since this is Google, I think this just means that they don’t trust employees. And that’s a bad situation. If you can’t trust employees to not do bad things with the tools required for their jobs, then i…

> Since this is Google, I think this just means that they don’t trust employees Since this is google, the repo is hundreds of terabytes. Not only that, having lots of copies hanging around on laptops is a big risk, even with encryption. Considering that google's likely threat model involves state actors, not having code on laptops is a reasonable mitigation. But I suspect the biggest issue is that most of the tooling…

As a developer, I don’t see a situation where I need the whole codebase, just the portion I work with.

State actors have security clearances for employees with equipment that allows them to contain state secrets on devices. This is a solved problem and Google not allowing any on device source code is not a security issue, it’s a control issue.

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

#337

Post by prepend » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #250

prepend wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like they should fix this with better laptop encryption. There’s many cheap methods to make source code on a stolen laptop useless. Using this as an excuse may mean that the org is stupid or lies to employees. Since this is Google, I think this just means that they don’t trust employees. And that’s a bad situation. If you can’t trust employees to not do bad things with the tools required for their jobs, then i…

"Sounds like they should fix this with better laptop encryption." I'm not aware of any security experts that share this reasoning, if the information is truly sensitive and high value. "There’s many cheap methods to make source code on a stolen laptop useless." Such as?

I have a security clearance and follow protocols on my device to process sensitive data. Here’s something that came back fro Google, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/iss_process/...

If my laptop is stolen and the thief doesn’t have my keys the data contained is worthless and isn’t a breach notification at all.

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

#338

Post by fknorangesite » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

parksy wrote: post #138

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #46

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 frustra…

> but when covid restrictions happened and I was WFH months on end, I really started to feel the lack of human contact and socialisation.

I've been working remotely for nearly a decade, and something I've been saying over and over for the past 2 years is pandemic remote is not normal remote. The first half of your sentence here is doing a lot of work.

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

#339

Post by Melatonic » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

jmyeet wrote: post #234

lettergram wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's so easy to conflate "top performers" with "people like me". Take someone who points out flaws in a system, things that need to be addressed before they become a problem. The exact same words from two different people can be interpreted differently. For example: - "X is a top performer who anticipates problems with their deep understanding of the system"; and - "Y is negative and simply points out problems rather…

I do not think that is entirely true at all - I am definitely very well liked at my job and probably most people would say I am also not like them at all.

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

#340

Post by Riverheart » Mon, Jun 27, 2022, 5:09 PM UTC

ospzfmbbzr wrote: post #322

mgfist wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're totally missing the original point. > I work very well remotely but only because everything is second nature to me now after so many years. This is coming from the narrow view that people who struggle remotely only do so because they are inexperienced. I know people who struggled because they lived in a small NYC apartment where their desk was 2 feet from their bed, and the lack of movement or change of enviro…

I don't think I'm missing the point... it's just that those seem like excuses and self-employed or self-directed workers are only making these excuses to themselves (as they fail). > This is coming from the narrow view that people who struggle remotely only do so because they are inexperienced. I know people who struggled because they lived in a small NYC apartment where their desk was 2 feet from their bed, and the…

> unless you want to fail

Nobody wants to fail. Life is complicated. Maybe they tried and couldn't. Maybe they have obstacles we don't. We should be more empathetic. We don't know their stories.