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Programmers are most likely to work from home

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Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#91

Post by roughcoat »

pkaye wrote: post #55
hamandcheese wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a 100% remote company and I have no trouble getting the mentorship I desire/need from more experienced folks. Maybe the key is 100% remote though. I hear remote sucks if it's not ingrained in a companies communication patterns.

How do you handle discussing complex code, data structures and such concepts over online? In such cases, I find that being in the same room and using a white board makes it easy to communicate across. Maybe some programming domains that type of issue if less common?

Some kind of screen sharing app with Krita = virtual whiteboard. You have a lot more room than a real whiteboard offers, since Krita has a "pseudo-infinite" canvas, so you don't need to erase things. And you can save the file for reference, or to send it other people.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#92

Post by Const-me »

pkaye wrote: post #55
hamandcheese wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a 100% remote company and I have no trouble getting the mentorship I desire/need from more experienced folks. Maybe the key is 100% remote though. I hear remote sucks if it's not ingrained in a companies communication patterns.

How do you handle discussing complex code, data structures and such concepts over online? In such cases, I find that being in the same room and using a white board makes it easy to communicate across. Maybe some programming domains that type of issue if less common?

Sometimes (not too often) I do such things remotely.

In my case, voice call + screen sharing works OK. On the screen sharing I can use whatever software I find adequate, be it Word, Visio, Paint.net, balsamic mockups, etc.

As a side effect, we can continue working on those documents/diagrams/whatever after the discussion, e.g. include it in the documentation. Much harder to achieve with a white board as someone needs to digitize those drawing. In my experience working offline with whiteboards, no one actually doing that. In the best case, a digital photo is kept somewhere no one will be looking, in the worst case the board is just wiped clean.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#93

Post by 01000001 »

BeetleB wrote: post #82

I work in a big company. It's easy to see all the useful things I would have missed out on if I worked remotely. Examples: - Networking: Serendipity plays a bigger role than anything else. And you get a lot less of it the fewer people you interact with. Simply bumping into people at the cafe is quite valuable. - Career coaching: Lots of classes, talks, invited speakers, etc. Some can be done remotely, but roughly hal…

True, but there are also a lot of benefits to working remote.

I work full-time remote. Previously I worked full-time onsite.

The onsite:remote benefits directly matches up to the work:life ratio. I get benefits to my life that onsiters don't get, and vice versa. It's a personal choice.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#94

Post by debt »

humbleMouse wrote: post #15

There is a dirty secret that nobody talks about and the real reason that companies want programmers in the office. Companies want their top performers in the office so they can serve as trainers/mentors/teachers to the new college kids and the incompetent older people they hire. I think this is the real reason companies crack down on working from home. It's infuriating as a top performer - I just want to get my assig…

what did you do bro

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#95

Post by akingabramson »

qandb wrote: post #77
pc86 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a horrible attitude. I hope you're just having a bad day and this isn't how you typically act around other because I wouldn't even want to work in the same building as you when as a supposed "top performer" you don't feel the slightest obligation to share your knowledge, your skills, your experience, etc with "shitty college grads." I'm sure you were born knowing how to code so you can't relate, but for everyone…

> you don't feel the slightest obligation ... No morality whatsoever emanates from a company's bottom line. It can certainly not compete with my own bottom line. How can you expect people to agree to train their own competition? Publishing general open-source code is ok, but telling other people how the code works that you write and maintain for a living ... why would anybody do that?

One compelling reason: if you need to hire down the road (once you're CTO/manager/equivalent), it makes much more sense to hire devs who you've trained and invested in at a previous company.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#96

Post by urda »

fsociety wrote: post #50
humbleMouse wrote: post #15

There is a dirty secret that nobody talks about and the real reason that companies want programmers in the office. Companies want their top performers in the office so they can serve as trainers/mentors/teachers to the new college kids and the incompetent older people they hire. I think this is the real reason companies crack down on working from home. It's infuriating as a top performer - I just want to get my assig…

As a junior software developer, it's sad to hear this point of view. Many of us put an extraordinary amount of time towards improving our craft. On the other hand I've worked with many people who have very similar opinions as yours and they suffered from reality distortion. Their code was poorly implemented and poorly tested, despite what they say, and caused many headaches. Are you actually a top performer in the so…

As a more senior individual myself, don't sweat it there's plenty of us who love to expand our tool belt and mentor those following the path.

> Are you actually a top performer in the software world?

Having to ask that question should be an answer in of itself, a resounding "no".

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#97

Post by humbleMouse »

pc86 wrote: post #58
humbleMouse wrote: post #15

There is a dirty secret that nobody talks about and the real reason that companies want programmers in the office. Companies want their top performers in the office so they can serve as trainers/mentors/teachers to the new college kids and the incompetent older people they hire. I think this is the real reason companies crack down on working from home. It's infuriating as a top performer - I just want to get my assig…

What a horrible attitude. I hope you're just having a bad day and this isn't how you typically act around other because I wouldn't even want to work in the same building as you when as a supposed "top performer" you don't feel the slightest obligation to share your knowledge, your skills, your experience, etc with "shitty college grads." I'm sure you were born knowing how to code so you can't relate, but for everyone…

I'm not saying I don't enjoy mentoring people and sharing knowledge! I'm saying that it is unreasonable for companies to ban WFH, and I explained what I think is the true motivation behind that decision.

To clarify - companies are banning WFH so they can lower their hiring bar and take on incompetent people and not have to pay for or provide any company training. They just rely solely on their senior people to teach the new people everything.

The article was about WFH policies, and that's what I am commenting on. I'm not saying mentorship == bad or coming into the office == never. I'm saying mentorship can be done while working from home, and banning it is a terrible company policy.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#98

Post by jt2190 »

grardb wrote: post #52
humbleMouse wrote: post #15

There is a dirty secret that nobody talks about and the real reason that companies want programmers in the office. Companies want their top performers in the office so they can serve as trainers/mentors/teachers to the new college kids and the incompetent older people they hire. I think this is the real reason companies crack down on working from home. It's infuriating as a top performer - I just want to get my assig…

This comment doesn't read like it was written by a "humbleMouse" :) I don't think this is a healthy attitude to have towards less experienced developers. Literally every experienced developer was once inexperienced, and I think for the vast majority of people, it's hard to become a senior or even intermediate developer without some mentorship along the way. I believe this is especially true for aspects outside of wri…

> I think for the vast majority of people, it's hard to become a senior or even intermediate developer without some [on the job] mentorship along the way.

Doesn't this assume that the only mentorship (edit: We're really talking about "job training") is peer mentorship? What about classes, self-training, etc? Why should the onus be placed 100% on the senior employee? Why no onus on the junior employee?

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#99

Post by twobyfour »

eddieh wrote: post #12

I like working from my office. I don't understand people that like working from home. Possible confounding variable: I live exactly two blocks from my office and don't have to commute. Perhaps, in actuality, people don't like to commute?

Sure, the commute plays a role. You know what plays a bigger role? The peace and quiet to actually focus instead of the stress-inducing noise, motion, and interruptions of an open office. Remote days are my most productive and least stressful days.

Re: Programmers are most likely to work from home

#100

Post by freehunter »

grardb wrote: post #52
humbleMouse wrote: post #15

There is a dirty secret that nobody talks about and the real reason that companies want programmers in the office. Companies want their top performers in the office so they can serve as trainers/mentors/teachers to the new college kids and the incompetent older people they hire. I think this is the real reason companies crack down on working from home. It's infuriating as a top performer - I just want to get my assig…

This comment doesn't read like it was written by a "humbleMouse" :) I don't think this is a healthy attitude to have towards less experienced developers. Literally every experienced developer was once inexperienced, and I think for the vast majority of people, it's hard to become a senior or even intermediate developer without some mentorship along the way. I believe this is especially true for aspects outside of wri…

I completely understand where he's coming from in writing that. Sometimes it feels like my entire day is spent training new hires, repeating the same things over and over again. In jobs where being an expert is a requirement, it's very frustrating to see the company hire employees fresh out of college and expect the senior employees to feed them 10 years of experience in a matter of weeks. And then either they take that knowledge and leverage it into a higher paying job or they get discouraged that they were hired for a job they are woefully unprepared for (through no fault of their own) and they leave. And then the company hires more college grads for pennies on the dollar and the cycle repeats.

There's a real danger as a senior level employee that if you go out of your way to mentor younger coworkers, you become the go-to training guy. Your coworkers stop asking their peers or their manager for help and start asking you directly. Other coworkers send the new hires directly to you so your manager doesn't even see the amount of questions you're answering. And all the while your actual workload isn't getting any lighter. And if you complain, you look like an asshole. What kind of person won't help train new employees? Why are you so anti-social? Why aren't you a team player? It's just one or two questions here and there. And when it comes to performance reviews, your mentoring counts for a hell of a lot less than the number of projects you finished on time, so now when the company isn't doing so well, your output per dollar is a heck of a lot lower than the people you trained, so you're out the door. No one sees that the new employees never would have finished their project without your help. Your name isn't on that checklist, it was their project. What do you mean you helped? We gave you two weeks to train them, why are they still coming to you for help? Did you not train them properly?

So either you get laid off, or you quickly realize that you have to start turning away questions and mentoring. I love training new employees. But that's not my job. My job is finishing projects. If mentoring gets in the way of shipping, guess which one I'm going to drop first?

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