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Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

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Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#481

Post by csande17 »

astrange wrote: post #468
csande17 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does that mean I don't deserve to have the bargaining power for the best deal for myself? No, I do not believe you are entitled to a wealth transfer from people who are better at your job than you are. (Or, to put it another way, you're certainly free to do a little collective bargaining if you'd like, but the World's Greatest Widget Engineer has no reason to join your union.)

Why hasn't he been promoted to management? Most companies don't have a career track for the single most productive IC ever, and he's probably capable of improving other people's work anyway if he managed them.

Because being an effective individual contributor and being an effective manager require different skills? Because the goal of a software company is at least nominally to produce software, and paying people who are good at producing software to produce software is how you produce software?

Even if you did promote your best engineer, that just means that a different employee at your company is now your best engineer and the same dynamics apply. (Until, of course, you promote everyone competent to management, and then your organization is doomed to slowly suffocate itself. Then it's beyond saving, union or no union.)

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#482

Post by antirez »

Worked remote 80% of my career. I understand the advantages, but here there is, I fear, an undervaluation of the advantages that seeing other coworkers at least a few days every week brings on the table. Especially if you are doing innovative, design work, to be on the same table from time to time, take the coffee break together, allows to "multiply" the ideas.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#483

Post by malwarebytess »

Warning: Hot Take.

I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives. Also seems like most of the people clamoring for a return to the office are also climbers & middle managers.

For some work a physical presence is required not just preferable, but for most of a software engineer's day to day there really is no unquestionable upside.

I'll quit before I go back full time. I've never been happier or more fulfilled with my work/life balance, and I've never been more productive with my time. I'll even take a different remote position at a 20% pay cut and a reduction in equity, at least, to retain WFH. Most I'm willing to give is a day a week in office, and maybe temporarily longer in rare circumstances where the benefit in performance is clear.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#484

Post by ddingus »

andrekandre wrote: post #286
prirun wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have much more bargaining power about your work conditions as an organized union. You also give away your power as an individual to those running the union.

> You also give away your power as an individual to those running the union. ideally it would be run by the members, not necessarily by another boss

Indeed.

One indicator as to whether members are running the union is to see whether the strike fund is well funded.

If it is, that union is very likely to be at a minimum involving the rank and file in it's operations and negotiations.

No strike fund? Be careful. A union without a well funded strike fund basically has very little power.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#485

Post by ddingus »

ben_w wrote: post #160
qbasic_forever wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We deserve to have input into how we work best and if that means walking away from companies run by egomaniacs that need to see butts in seats, then so be it. The logical conclusion of this line of thinking is to organize your coworkers. You have much more bargaining power about your work conditions as an organized union. The history of unionization stems primarily from workers demanding safe working environments.

I now try to convince anyone who cold-calls me to join a trade union. The employer can’t be all that good if they’re ignoring the do-not-call registry. And I think it slightly increases the chances of bad actors ceasing cold-calling.

I love this. I used to try and get them to quit. Help them score other work, etc...

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#486

Post by astrange »

csande17 wrote: post #481
astrange wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hasn't he been promoted to management? Most companies don't have a career track for the single most productive IC ever, and he's probably capable of improving other people's work anyway if he managed them.

Because being an effective individual contributor and being an effective manager require different skills? Because the goal of a software company is at least nominally to produce software, and paying people who are good at producing software to produce software is how you produce software? Even if you did promote your best engineer, that just means that a different employee at your company is now your best engineer a…

First level managers still write code where I'm from. In the Peopleware system, you'd give an expert like that direct reports to act as assistants.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#487

Post by mise_en_place »

zo1 wrote: post #456
nomdenator wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what I'm missing in this concept. You would think that the people in charge would see that real estate is an unnecessary expense, where applicable. Also, I've been to a lot of meetings where we were told "there are other things people value in work besides money". Maybe being able to manage your own work environment and save gas and time fits in that slot. A content, well rested workforce would be better IMO…

Eng manager here. Honestly not everyone is sold on remote being better much less equivalent in productivity or output compared to being in an office. Remote also requires a lot of rethinking of team dynamics, work allocation and just plain old making sure stuff is done. Make no mistake, WFH may be arguably better and more pleasant from the employee perspective, but it makes projects more difficult for the rest of the…

You’re the one playing politics by trying to make your horizontal IC colleagues out to be slackers. Trying to justify the usefulness of your own role?

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#488

Post by laingc »

hobofromabroad wrote: post #478
gorgoiler wrote: post #466

If you are part of a team that can be productive, remotely, then you are very lucky. I am not. We are in trouble as a tech business and have a very large piece of tech debt that we need to get over, this year. (We also have an amazing product and smart people invested in our growth. It’s one of those good problems to have , but it’s still a problem.) We experimented (a long time ago, before I joined) with an “open so…

It sounds more like the team is rather inexperienced for that kind of work environment. Communication, the overarching priorities and alignment are super important. I work for a German insurance company and we rolled out crazy amounts of stuff over the last two years and started a re-org that is actually going well. Also, emotional investment can be quite problematic. All the teams need to work on the overall goal. H…

Allianz Global Digital Factory, or whatever it’s called these days?

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#489

Post by jstx1 »

malwarebytess wrote: post #483

Warning: Hot Take. I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives. Also seems like most of the people clamoring for a return to the office are also climbers & middle managers. For some work a physical presence is required not just preferable, but for mos…

> I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives.

You're implying that this is a bad thing and I don't get why it should be.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#490

Post by NikolaNovak »

zo1 wrote: post #456
nomdenator wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what I'm missing in this concept. You would think that the people in charge would see that real estate is an unnecessary expense, where applicable. Also, I've been to a lot of meetings where we were told "there are other things people value in work besides money". Maybe being able to manage your own work environment and save gas and time fits in that slot. A content, well rested workforce would be better IMO…

Eng manager here. Honestly not everyone is sold on remote being better much less equivalent in productivity or output compared to being in an office. Remote also requires a lot of rethinking of team dynamics, work allocation and just plain old making sure stuff is done. Make no mistake, WFH may be arguably better and more pleasant from the employee perspective, but it makes projects more difficult for the rest of the…

Can you elaborate? I hear this line of thinking a lot, but never explained fully. In particular, what about being in same office helps with unproductive ICs? E. G. you mention tickets - it's not by being in the office that I will notice tickets aging or not being tackled efficiently. Fully recognizing the slacking instinct, I don't see being in office addressing it effectively. You don't stare at any given person's screen 8hrs a day.

(other issues such as social and emotional preferences are also valid but I feel separate and may hash out either way).

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