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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

#621

Post by _ph_ »

sylens wrote: post #615
_ph_ wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is different. Yes, there are some colleagues with whom I have regular online contact, some of them I really only got into contact with during the pandemic. We have regular calls and exchanges. But I also have a lot of colleagues, which I don't have close contact with and contact to those has mostly evaporated during the pandemic. That are those people, I might talk to when meeting them in the coffee room, but real…

> In the office you walk to the coffee room in that time and there you meet people in the same phase. They are taking a break and you don't interrupt each others work when having a chat. Except those whose assigned desks happen to be close to the coffee room/kitchen. That's the problem with the way offices have been designed - there is always going to be some subset that has less than ideal conditions. The worst open…

Where I work, the coffee room is pretty isolated. My office is actually the closest one, but I can close the door. When I am talking about the advantages of offices, I am thinking of good offices. No doubt that bad offices are almost always worse than working from home. Unfortunately, many companies have no idea (at least their upper management), about what makes a "good office". Otherwise the nonsense of "open space" would have stopped long ago.

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

#622

Post by phantomathkg »

uwuemu wrote: post #619

I don't really get the debate. Surely people recognize that Apple is one of the most left-wing friendly (worker rights etc., you know the deal) and accomodating places to work at, if you care about such things. Surely people recognize that Apple was generous with the whole work from home thing. So now some people don't want to go back to the office, which is understandable, but there's one little problem from Apple's…

Are you an insider in Apple that have any proof to tell the productivity has gone down?

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

#623

Post by ZephyrBlu »

twayt wrote: post #578
montalbano wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've skipped over an important group of people here: in any healthy workplace, new starters, graduates and other junior developers benefit massively from being in the same office as their more senior colleagues. The amount they learn from accumulated small interactions that would not happen in remote working cannot be overstated.

What exactly do you learn from your coworkers? It isn't like you are pair programming constantly with senior devs all the time. I've learnt way more reading papers and documentation than being in the same physical space as more senior colleagues. People sometimes bring this point up re: onboarding but I don't quite understand what people learn that they can't do otherwise remotely.

More chance to chat about random things or casually ask work-related questions.

> I've learnt way more reading papers and documentation than being in the same physical space as more senior colleagues. People sometimes bring this point up re: onboarding but I don't quite understand what people learn that they can't do otherwise remotely

It is much harder to gain tacit knowledge (The important stuff) when you're remote. I read a lot, and it's no match for picking a skilled person's brain for even just 30min-1hr.

I've found I generally have to explicitly ask if I want someone to explain what they're doing and why. There is very little 1:1 teaching/mentoring. In an office I think there is more informal mentoring.

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

#624

Post by nevermindiguess »

manuelabeledo wrote: post #572
maratc wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remote fans force everyone to use tools to accommodate their remoteness. We used to have a stand-up meeting each morning at a time "when everyopne's arrived" and we used to have a whiteboard on the wall with the most current tasks. None of this can work with even one remote worker, so it's gone to scheduled Zooms, online task managers, and endless Slack messages.

In exchange, now you have proper record of everything said and done. I love the fact that I can always go back to Slack and say “See? This is what we agreed upon”, instead of having to recall the specifics of a meeting where notes weren’t taken in detail.

So you like the written “proof” so you can face off your colleagues in case of disagreement? You seem to have negative feelings about your work environment. You should consider changing jobs.

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

#625

Post by nmfisher »

bluescrn wrote: post #580
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…

It's not about the office, it's about the commuting, which can often increase the length of the working day by 25% or more, and can add a thoroughly miserable start and end to that day (stuck in traffic, or on delayed/overcrowded trains), and make life seem much worse even if you're doing enjoyable work with great people in a really nice office. Offices have their pros and cons (WFH can be a horribly lonely experienc…

Exactly this for me. I actually think an office environment is much better for many (if not most) aspects, but it’s difficult to argue with eliminating 1-2 hours of daily commute.

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

#626

Post by manuelabeledo »

nevermindiguess wrote: post #624
manuelabeledo wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In exchange, now you have proper record of everything said and done. I love the fact that I can always go back to Slack and say “See? This is what we agreed upon”, instead of having to recall the specifics of a meeting where notes weren’t taken in detail.

So you like the written “proof” so you can face off your colleagues in case of disagreement? You seem to have negative feelings about your work environment. You should consider changing jobs.

No, I want processes, agreements, and ideas, documented. Slack, Zoom and other tools make this easier.

As someone who had to train many junior employees, having a record trail is the best answer to the question “why the hell did we do this in the first place?”.

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

#627

Post by nchi3 »

thefz wrote: post #595
Closi wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Warning: Hot Take. I have similar logic, but reach an almost opposite conclusion. I genuinely believe many people who prefer working at home rather than an office have unfulfilling work…

Warning: Hot Take. Not all jobs require you to form meaningful relationships with colleagues and those relationships can be kept at a distance. I'd hate to have "friends" on the workplace.

Why? You'll spend a huge time of your life working, why is it not worth it to build relationships? You don't have to meet them in your free time to consider them friends.

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

#628

Post by ineedasername »

8organicbits wrote: post #525
ineedasername wrote: post #70

I'm trying to hire for a position right now and it has dragged on for months for two reasons: 1) WFH is now limited to 1 day per week, and a 3 month probationary period where new hires don't even get that. 2) Salary. It's still a job seeker's market and my workplace is not keeping pace. It's spec'ed for 3 years of experience but salary is about the median for a new graduate w/o professional experience. I'm happy to t…

You should resync with HR on that salary. If it's below market, the company is losing money while it's vacant, and your not able to fill it then you have proof the salary or other benefits are too low. Sort of an efficient market theory: if it was a good offer, someone would take it.

Yeah, I tried that, there's a small amount of wiggle room but not much, because they said "it wouldn't be fair to our current workers in that classification that aren't making as much". A poor answer. Ignores market conditions and says they know they're underpaying other people too, many of whom are probably looking for a new job as a result. I'm embedded in an operational division, but we've lost a very significant % of our core IT folks as well.

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

#629

Post by ineedasername »

dougmwne wrote: post #575
ineedasername wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very upfront when I schedule the interview, give them a range when we set the time and if they're still interested we proceed. It's education analytics, so there's a little bit of "doing it for the mission" that gets people who are willing to make a little less because the job really has a very direct impact on students' success and lives. My work reduces student debt and increases success rates and identifies th…

Maybe you need to re-pitch this role as a contract and hire a remote contractor. I think you would get plenty of interest from experienced analysts if you could hire nationally. I might even be interested with that generous PTO policy, but on-site is like going back to the stone age for me. Whatever metro area you are in that salary must be a show stopper. Many younger people are stuck with incredibly high housing co…

Unfortunately we don't like to hire contractors much, and when we do it's only for a 6 month period, has to be reviewed and reapproved every months. So I could lose someone just as they're starting to learn the intricacies of our system, because a lot aren't renewed as they're only supposed to be short term. I've got catch 22's all around me.

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

#630

Post by twayt »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #623
twayt wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do you learn from your coworkers? It isn't like you are pair programming constantly with senior devs all the time. I've learnt way more reading papers and documentation than being in the same physical space as more senior colleagues. People sometimes bring this point up re: onboarding but I don't quite understand what people learn that they can't do otherwise remotely.

More chance to chat about random things or casually ask work-related questions. > I've learnt way more reading papers and documentation than being in the same physical space as more senior colleagues. People sometimes bring this point up re: onboarding but I don't quite understand what people learn that they can't do otherwise remotely It is much harder to gain tacit knowledge (The important stuff) when you're remote…

> It is much harder to gain tacit knowledge (The important stuff) when you're remote. I read a lot, and it's no match for picking a skilled person's brain for even just 30min-1hr.

I have the exact opposite experience. During discussions, people are less informed with facts and speak conceptually. In a book or documentation, there's both. Thus is easier to get more reliable information. It is easier to follow logical chains constructed people but the constituents of said chain could potentially be fraught with approximations, thus obfuscating the entire story.

I've discussed topics with really smart people (experts in their field) for hours with many potential ideas but no conclusion. But I only had to read documentation/code for 30min to understand exactly what the real gist of the field was about.

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