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Let me take you through my dream office

blog.coderbyheart.com

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Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#71

Post by mdekkers »

Arizhel wrote: post #5

This has a lot of problems. First, legal problems: you can't have a unisex multi-stall bathroom in the USA. I'm not sure if it's actually illegal (it probably is in many states), but it'll never fly even if it is. Honestly, what you really need is a male restroom that's about 5 times the size of the female restroom. Again, that won't fly politically, but practically it makes sense because there's so few women in soft…

You don't need daily stand-ups, that's a patch for lousy management

Interesting. Care to elaborate?

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#72

Post by noir_lord »

sq_ wrote: post #64
noir_lord wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was offered a tricked out iMac or similar but I'm a linux user through and through so I'll self-build. Current plan is Ryzen 1700(possibly X)/32GB DDR4 (2x16GB, board supports 4 slots so can upgrade if needed) (going to need a lot of virtualisation capability to handle dealing with multiple legacy systems, windows for interop and 8 cores with 16 threads at that price is a hard match from Intel), 500GB SSD with 1TB WD…

That sounds like a great dev build and a really wonderful job/company/work environment. Hope that everything turns out well for you.

Thank you, that's nice (I love HN for that, not much nice left) I hope so too, I'm coming off the back of 4yrs of crushing workloads and a failed (though not for technical reasons, government killed the renewable installer incentives which killed the market for the product) startup so getting to work on interesting technical problems in a much lower stress environment is something I really want!.

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#73

Post by dasmoth »

Kiro wrote: post #61

Am I the only one who actually likes open offices? I like the vibrant feeling and never have any problems with distractions. I just put my headphones on and zone in.

You're definitely not the only one.

Here's a question though: in a workplace with lots of space that's able to offer a choice of a small private office or a well-set-up desk in an open office for every developer, would you still choose the open space? And would you be comfortable seeing people who are junior to you disappearing into private offices?

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#74

Post by dasmoth »

carlob wrote: post #59
tckr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 30 people team If it's a product team, you can easily have a company with 4-5 teams (design, development, marketing/sales, support, content) so it's not to uncommon to have a team grow to that size. And this size is still manageable, if they are not all doing the same. For me 30 is the max, I prefer it smaller, too. > 3 person office For me that's the ideal tag team: a junior, a medior and a senior working hand in…

> a junior, a medior and a senior first time I hear the word medior. It's a fun neologism, but it's technically very wrong in Latin: senior and junior are comparatives (older and younger), so medior would be more medium?

It sounds uncomfortably close to "mediocre".

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#75

Post by dasmoth »

tckr wrote: post #38
dasmoth wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree -- it's better than most (and good job fleshing out the design), but there does still seem to be an air of "let's make 1-person spaces undesirable because we don't really trust the minions to work without someone watching them."

I actually imagined having a second floor which is even more quieter, just with offices. There you could have single person rooms. Joel Spolsky built this type of office: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/

Yep, if you need to have developers working on-site, a Joel-esque layout is going to be hard to beat.

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#76

Post by cies »

I'm feverishly anticipating for e-ink displays (same stuff as your e-readers), to be plugged in as second monitors. These displays work "outside", and then _my_version_of_the_dream_office_ can become reality: working in NATURE.

This of a beautiful garden when many spots: open sun or shady, in a glasshouse or in an airconned glass covered veranda. And "office workers" just find themselves a spot!

Besides that I also thing standing desks are a must. This is the least you can do to mitigate early death by desk-job. On top of that I think that under desk treadmills are another huge step forward. And a spot where you can do a few stretching exercises (with a pull-bar) is also not a luxury in my opinion.

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#77

Post by reitanqild »

dasmoth wrote: post #73
Kiro wrote: post #61

Am I the only one who actually likes open offices? I like the vibrant feeling and never have any problems with distractions. I just put my headphones on and zone in.

You're definitely not the only one. Here's a question though: in a workplace with lots of space that's able to offer a choice of a small private office or a well-set-up desk in an open office for every developer, would you still choose the open space? And would you be comfortable seeing people who are junior to you disappearing into private offices?

I chose to sit in the hot equipment room for months at some place because i needed quiet and some people just didn't get it.

Now I have my final day in a open floor plan. For the second time in my life it has worked well, -IMO mostly because everyone is really nice and busily working on their own stuff.

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#78

Post by xixixao »

tckr wrote: post #58
loteck wrote: post #36

As a technologist working at a company that helps businesses design & build office space, one item I notice always lacking in conversations about office space is growth. The article brushes off growth by suggesting you just open a new office when you've grown. This suggestion lacks understanding of how growth happens. It's rarely an instant doubling of headcount. Most organic growth creeps up. So let me invade your "…

Ok, so I would ask an architect: build me an office that can scale. What would they answer? We have shitty offices because there is no solution, so allow me to at least say: if you want me to work in your office (which I think is not necessary at all) build me one, that suits my productivity and not the constraints of the real estate market. Realistically, as a company you would start with one floor, and once it fill…

An open plan office, starting with 50 desks, can grow to 75 or even 100, by gradually increasing desk density.

You cannot evict ppl from floors you own on the spot. Growth is hard to predict.

Hence the dream office will stay a dream unless you are working for a no-growth company doing the same things all the time.

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#79

Post by jay_kyburz »

noir_lord wrote: post #57
jay_kyburz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested to hear what hardware you will buy. What's your ideal hardware? Just a MBP or something more interesting?

Was offered a tricked out iMac or similar but I'm a linux user through and through so I'll self-build. Current plan is Ryzen 1700(possibly X)/32GB DDR4 (2x16GB, board supports 4 slots so can upgrade if needed) (going to need a lot of virtualisation capability to handle dealing with multiple legacy systems, windows for interop and 8 cores with 16 threads at that price is a hard match from Intel), 500GB SSD with 1TB WD…

Thanks for the write up. Interesting.

Re: Let me take you through my dream office

#80

Post by hvidgaard »

loteck wrote: post #36

As a technologist working at a company that helps businesses design & build office space, one item I notice always lacking in conversations about office space is growth. The article brushes off growth by suggesting you just open a new office when you've grown. This suggestion lacks understanding of how growth happens. It's rarely an instant doubling of headcount. Most organic growth creeps up. So let me invade your "…

If you need, and ancitipate this growth, you need empty space. Plain and simple.
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