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Coinbase will be a remote-first company

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#41

Post by rainyMammoth »

dannyw wrote: post #38
rainyMammoth wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. Offices are needed for "controlling" reasons. Bosses and middle manager types want to make sure you are around doing your thing. You also need to realize that offices are not made to be productive but are made so that people can escape their daily life: Kids at home, or wife that you don't want to see anymore. Just check all the people with kids that cannot wait to go back to the office.

That’s so cynical. Offices are made to be productive, including by aggregating everyone into one physical place and fitting it out with functional, ergonomic and productive equipment — beyond your desk, it also includes whiteboards, meeting rooms, and even the water cooler. It’s also a place of team and social bonding. Am I the only one that misses drinks with my colleagues, or dinner at a local restaurant after work…

> Offices are made to be productive

I would invite you to revisit that assumption. Offices are made to FEEL productive. Who decides on getting an office? All the research shows that open spaces are a huge fad and make people on average less productive (for work that require deeper stretch of concentration).

> Am I the only one that misses drinks with my colleagues, or dinner at a local restaurant after work?

I am missing those things but as you said yourself they are AFTER WORK

Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#42

Post by lawn »

Cookingboy wrote: post #7

I'm really curious, how many people actually prefer WFH permanently vs. just having the flexibility to WFH when wanted. If I wanted to stay home forever I'd have just taken a remote consulting job a long time ago, but I enjoy going to office and there is a lot of benefits that you don't get from being remote 100%. I've also made very good friends at work and I see my coworkers as much more than just another GitHub ac…

I currently work from home permanently but visit the office 5-6 times a year or so. I think it works great and wouldn't have it any other way.

Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#44

Post by sverhagen »

LB232323 wrote: post #20
Cookingboy wrote: post #7

I'm really curious, how many people actually prefer WFH permanently vs. just having the flexibility to WFH when wanted. If I wanted to stay home forever I'd have just taken a remote consulting job a long time ago, but I enjoy going to office and there is a lot of benefits that you don't get from being remote 100%. I've also made very good friends at work and I see my coworkers as much more than just another GitHub ac…

I have been working remote by choice for years. You don't have to stay at home, you just need internet access. This means you have the freedom to work from anywhere on the globe as long as you can access the web. This is a pretty straightforward advantage of the internet. Some jobs have always been "remote". For example, writers still type their manuscripts from anywhere and mail them to editors. However, only some j…

> I do not want a hip fancy office full of zany perks and a weird cult.

Notice taken. Good for you (not sarcastic). This is why you "have been working remote by choice for years". But as the OP said:

> If I wanted to stay home forever I'd have just taken a remote consulting job a long time ago

...and he didn't. Neither did I. In the past I have worked remotely for about a year, it wasn't great (admitted that company wasn't set up for it). I am doing it now, and I'm miserable about it.

So, OP's point seems not that something is inherently wrong or bad with either mode of working, rather that people who used to be going to the office may not necessarily be happy, or interested, to become remote workers. (Not even because it works well for you.)

I did a nothing little survey during our past team retrospective, and from a dozen of folks 1) most of them want more days working from home than pre-pandemic, 2) most of them would then want more work time in the office than from home, and 3) all of them are desperately looking forward to going into the office again for any sort of time.

Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#45

Post by peteretep »

Cookingboy wrote: post #7

I'm really curious, how many people actually prefer WFH permanently vs. just having the flexibility to WFH when wanted. If I wanted to stay home forever I'd have just taken a remote consulting job a long time ago, but I enjoy going to office and there is a lot of benefits that you don't get from being remote 100%. I've also made very good friends at work and I see my coworkers as much more than just another GitHub ac…

> I enjoy going to office and there is a lot of benefits that you don't get from being remote 100%. I've also made very good friends at work and I see my coworkers as much more than just another GitHub account that reviews my Pull Requests.

I've found I can almost all of the benefits of going into an office by having a nearby coworking space / community which I like, often more-so.

Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#46

Post by dannyw »

rainyMammoth wrote: post #41
dannyw wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s so cynical. Offices are made to be productive, including by aggregating everyone into one physical place and fitting it out with functional, ergonomic and productive equipment — beyond your desk, it also includes whiteboards, meeting rooms, and even the water cooler. It’s also a place of team and social bonding. Am I the only one that misses drinks with my colleagues, or dinner at a local restaurant after work…

> Offices are made to be productive I would invite you to revisit that assumption. Offices are made to FEEL productive. Who decides on getting an office? All the research shows that open spaces are a huge fad and make people on average less productive (for work that require deeper stretch of concentration). > Am I the only one that misses drinks with my colleagues, or dinner at a local restaurant after work? I am mis…

Open offices cost less. Real estate in SF, NYC, etc are incredibly expensive.

So is that really a surprise?

Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#47

Post by GordonS »

LB232323 wrote: post #20
Cookingboy wrote: post #7

I'm really curious, how many people actually prefer WFH permanently vs. just having the flexibility to WFH when wanted. If I wanted to stay home forever I'd have just taken a remote consulting job a long time ago, but I enjoy going to office and there is a lot of benefits that you don't get from being remote 100%. I've also made very good friends at work and I see my coworkers as much more than just another GitHub ac…

I have been working remote by choice for years. You don't have to stay at home, you just need internet access. This means you have the freedom to work from anywhere on the globe as long as you can access the web. This is a pretty straightforward advantage of the internet. Some jobs have always been "remote". For example, writers still type their manuscripts from anywhere and mail them to editors. However, only some j…

> You don't have to stay at home, you just need internet access. This means you have the freedom to work from anywhere on the globe as long as you can access the web

I've been working from home for several years, but to be truely productive I need a separate working space with a good desk, good chair and multiple large monitors.

On occasion I've worked from an airport or a cafe, but the noise, seating position, table height, having to work on a small laptop screen etc just don't work for me. I would imagine this was the case for most people, and the image on sitting on a beach sipping pina coladas while making bank is an oversold pipe dream.

Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#48

Post by dannyw »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #39
dannyw wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t follow the second part of your argument. Here in Australia, plenty of grads are just as good as someone who might get hired at FANNG. How much are they paid? With the exchange rates taken into account, half as much. What I think we’ll see is a reduction in SF salaries and CoL, and an increase in ex-SF salaries and CoL.

Graduates are not “great developers” as mentioned in the second paragraph. Graduates can’t dictate anything, they don’t have the necessary experience and knowledge. Once you’re a professional and know your worth, then you know what’s a cheap salary and what’s not.

Your starting salary is the biggest influencer of your total lifetime earnings. That’s why I mentioned grads: it sets a benchmark and also is relatively commoditised and can be more directly compared.

What I’m saying is that “what you’re worth” is heavily influenced by the area you live, and a $X in SF developer is only worth $X in SF.

They are not worth $X in Thailand; you are welcome to try and get SF salaries for a remote role and see how that works out.

I think you’re speaking from a myopic high-CoL view. High performing FAANG engineers take substantial paycuts to work in lower CoL areas within the US, or overseas, all the time. We get a lot of them here in Australia.

As another example, leading machine learning researchers in China are making a fraction of leading ML researchers in SF.

If you’ve had a look at who’s leading in ML research these days, you’ll realise the disparity.

Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#49

Post by kjakm »

I've noticed a lot of comments from people who don't like WFH or want a mix of home and office life. I've done both so I understand this.

I'm curious though how this attitude will change if a lot more companies (and eventually a majority) move to remote work. Currently (pre-pandemic) when I WFH my friends are all at their offices. So is my partner. I'm alone. Therefore I like going into the office a few days a week for the social aspect, even if it's just a chat at lunch. If more people are WFH though I might be able to meet my local friends at lunch. Or meet specific people at cafés or other locations to work together for a couple of hours. I would be able to invest in a better home office setup too.

People see quite divided on this issue (I love WFH/I hate WFH) so maybe it's important to keep in mind that the WFH you are currently experiencing is nothing like a normal WFH (due to the pandemic) and if lots more people start WFH then WFH in general has the possibility to change drastically and be much less solitary.

Re: Coinbase will be a remote-first company

#50

Post by GordonS »

tjbiddle wrote: post #33
Cookingboy wrote: post #7

I'm really curious, how many people actually prefer WFH permanently vs. just having the flexibility to WFH when wanted. If I wanted to stay home forever I'd have just taken a remote consulting job a long time ago, but I enjoy going to office and there is a lot of benefits that you don't get from being remote 100%. I've also made very good friends at work and I see my coworkers as much more than just another GitHub ac…

More choice is always better, in my opinion. So I'd prefer flexibility to be WFH. My first "real" job had WFH options for T/H which I regularly took advantage of, and from April 2014 on I've been 100% remote. I rode out a few consulting gigs and then went full-time for a NYC company, my requirement was that I was able to WFH - and then I stayed living in Cincinnati at the time. I very thoroughly enjoyed my all-expens…

A bit OT, but you mentioned you are now living in Indonesia, and I gather you're a US citizen - can I ask what permit/visa you are on, or are you doing "visa runs" and staying on a holiday visa?
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