A recent poll of employees who are working remotely • Hacker News Board

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#61

Post by macksd » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

bendauphinee wrote: post #28

macksd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I'd want all-or-nothing to be the norm. I was a full-time remote worker before the pandemic, but I think one of the reasons it worked so well for me is because I had been able to build up a lot of the working relationships I have now in person. I made the decision to go remote because it was just going to work better for me, and I was fully aware that I would have to work at not being forgotten by the pe…

> is because I had been able to build up a lot of the working relationships I have now in person I’ve been remote only for a decade, and built those same relationships while doing so.

Yeah it's definitely doable. I suppose in addition to the relationships, I especially appreciate having been in the office because it was very early in my career. There's a lot of stuff I know now that I didn't know then about how typical software companies work (where my previous jobs had been very different). I suspect I would've had a much harder time picking up a lot of unspoken understanding if I had been remote right off the bat. Meeting random people (big fan of Donut in Slack now) and being in hallway conversations was a really big deal for me, even though I don't much care for that when I have a choice.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#62

Post by bluedino » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:11 PM UTC

geoelectric wrote: post #45

ghaff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of outsourcing was basically done with the difficulty set on hardest to get at perceived lowest labor costs. So you ended up with big time zone differences, cultural and language issues, etc.

Yeah, exactly. Back in the 90s-2000s, though, it was easier to deal with an office-based outsource hub that had its own line manager, etc, mostly because things were so damned slow to send back and forth that you wanted to chunk project coordination. Those were comparatively rarer in the US, since anywhere you could put one together had enough tech industry to make the costs there prohibitive. Nowadays, you could jus…

>> you could just hire from the flyover states, find all the good techies that didn't make the pilgrimage to one of the traditional hotspots

How many are there, though, really?

And what happens when you now have to compete with _every_other_company_ that also wants to hire them?

They'll make more money, good for them. But the majority of companies will just have to settle for hiring C-level talent.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#63

Post by djrogers » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

While I love wfh and have done it for the past 20 years, there are some jobs and some times when face to face in an office is far more effective.

I’d love it if my office went to a 1-2 days/week on-site schedule, where face to face time is predictable and regular, and we can all be productive and relatively zoom free the other 3-4 days.

A hybrid approach, if managed right, would be ideal.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#64

Post by wjamesg » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:13 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #26

Simply put, if my employer told me I needed to be in the office more than 5 days per month, I would find a new employer. I'm more productive than ever. I'm happier than ever. I'm eating healthier. I sleep better. My marriage is stronger. My finances are kicking ass. I won't give this up.

You are quite privileged

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#65

Post by ht_th » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

deeeeplearning wrote: post #25

antonzabirko wrote: post #9

Weird sentiment in this thread. Regardless of the survey i have only seen positive reactions to working remote, and hope remote is here to stay.

No amount of "camaraderie" or "social interaction" is worth the soul killing experience of commuting to and from work >200 times a year.

I miss my 20 minute bike ride between work and home. That bike-ride truly separated work-life from home-life. It cleared my head, and I got some exercise in. I really miss that.

And no, just going cycling or walking for an hour or so during the day isn't the same. I don't know why.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#66

Post by majormajor » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

geoelectric wrote: post #60

ghaff wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logically, to the degree that a company really is indifferent to where in the US people live, I'd expect a new equilibrium to develop that's somewhere between the Bay Area and Arkansas. But, as you say, there's a lot of inertia and Google isn't likely to one morning announce an across-the-board pay cut in the Bay Area so they can redistribute it to workers in other locations. But you could certainly imagine things li…

Equilibrium is what I expect. That may have a more sharp effect than the math would suggest, though. Bay Area SWE salaries inflated via competition in a way I suspect completely deflates with area pressure off. The cross-effects of a limited pool tend to be multiplicative, not additive. The fact that the people doing the hiring probably enjoy those salaries too is maybe the biggest counterargument I'd have to my own…

> Bay Area SWE salaries inflated via competition in a way I suspect completely deflates with area pressure off.

It will be very interesting to see just how big the pool of people who can pass the interviews[0] but weren't willing to relocate is.

The demographics (and housing prices!) in the tech hubs reflect a big influx of highly-paid developers. If only 10% of the folks who could pass those interviews and get those offers were willing to relocation, that'll cause a much larger downward pressure on prices than if, say, 75% were, in which case the pool doesn't expand as much.

[0] the usefulness of the algorithm interview can be debated, but I don't see remote work putting any pressure on this process

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#67

Post by wackk » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

antonzabirko wrote: post #9

Weird sentiment in this thread. Regardless of the survey i have only seen positive reactions to working remote, and hope remote is here to stay.

Personally, I hate being fully remote and will probably not stay at a job that is permanently full remote. I live alone in a fairly small apartment, and only have space to work at the same desk that I use for recreation. I find myself unfocused more easily, which leads to being less productive, which leads to working more, which leads to being less productive, etc. I have started going into the office alone just to get some separation.

For context, I'm also much more extroverted than the average developer - I suspect that also has something to do with my absolute dislike of full remote working.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#68

Post by bzbarsky » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

ange1a wrote: post #34

just wait until corporations realize that if your job can be done from kansas city... it can also be done from manila... and a whole new class of gigs just vanish.

There are a lot of assumptions going into that implication. My experience with working remotely, on globally distributed teams, for about 20 years now is:

* Synchronous high-bandwidth communication (read: meeting, ideally with a shared whiteboard) is pretty handy sometimes.

* Timezones really do matter. If you want a sync meeting that includes people in Europe, the US, and APAC, someone will have a bad time. If you want quick turnaround on code reviews, having 8-12 hour time zone differences is a significant barrier. Even a "4-hour" difference for meeting time purposes can be a huge problem in this sense: it's 9pm on Thursday where you are (US West coast), but your coworkers' weekend has started (in New Zealand), so any code reviews you ask for on Friday morning you won't see until you get back to work on Monday. And any code reviews they ask for on their Monday morning won't happen until you get back to work on their Tuesday.

* Language matters. Even if everyone involved speaks English to some extent, it's a _lot_ easier to follow some accents than others, especially on an imperfect (read: teleconference) audio feed. Which accents depends on which people.

* Shared context matters, just in terms of understanding requirements. This can be developed, but it takes time. People from more similar backgrounds often require less time to get to mutual understanding around this sort of thing. This needs to be weighed against blinkered thinking and lack of diversity in perspectives, of course.

I love working remotely, and am used to the scheduling issues around this sort of thing, but there are a _lot_ of issues that come with hiring someone halfway across the globe that you don't get with hiring someone also working remotely but in the same city or at least speaking more or less your accent of your language and within an hour or two timezone distance. The fact that the latter works for a particular position does not imply the former will.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#69

Post by 01100011 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

If we take global warming seriously, then all of us who can work from home will end up working from home. If we take global warming seriously, we will incentivize using less energy, at least until we have mostly replaced non-carbon neutral energy. If we incentivize using less energy, there will be pressure not to commute.

Unless there is an analysis that shows there are energy benefits to centralizing your workforce(more efficient coffee machines, lighting, HVAC, etc), the pressure will be there to let them stay at home.

Re: A recent poll of employees who are working remotely

#70

Post by tester756 » Thu, Jan 28, 2021, 7:17 PM UTC

corobo wrote: post #43

ska wrote: post #7

I suspect a lot of the "we're all going to be remote from now on" sentiment is overblown. It seems to me more likely that there will be a few more remote friendly companies, and a very few more remote-only companies after the dust settles, but the real shift will be for most "office based" workers will be the expectation of partially working from home. There is a big difference between "never going to an office again…

Oh yeah the real change will be that you now have to work when sick instead of taking the day off Just work from home :D

wtf? no, lol.

I don't think anyone sane would even suggest that unless very specific stuff