Many of us SWEs believe the same!
I haven't observed any advantages to an office beyond overexposing the company to real estate (not really an advantage) - there is nothing I could do in person that I haven't been able to do faster in MS Teams (and better - now I have a written record and recording of everything). Another advantage of remote is that nobody ruins my train of thought by tapping me on the shoulder and asking stupid questions like "hey did you get that email." Best of all, no stupid pressure to go to lunch with anyone
Of course teams work better in person. So many factors that impact that though.
However, in my experience that is maybe 30-90% of software engineering, depending on environment, role and seniority. There are lots of relevant activities that are more challenging remotely, such as 1-on-1 mentoring, pairing for debugging or programming, or designing and collaborating a project or interface across-teams. Maybe you are "lucky" enough to never have to bother with that.
I find these quite easy or even better remote. I just fire up a screen share or even better a Visual Studio Live Share and both of us can see the same thing while we have our own developer environment.
Delivery works great remotely, probably better for me and many.
If you adopt a written RFC based slower decision making where people have time to fully articulate their thoughts and have time to respond to those comments then it not worst, just different.
If the house is burning and we need to come up with a solution now the first works way better. There is a reason why the military have war rooms. But for long term changes the second can be as good if not better.
I also know other teams in our organization in the same boat. Sooner or later leadership is going to realize it and the gravy train will end.
Most software engineers find themselves most effective in work from home. This breaks in favor at 3:4 or higher.
The software engineers that want to work in office are the odd-balls.
I am interested in the break down when one factors in whatever concept of '10x developers' -- which do the most productive of us prefer?
We have a remote of you want policy and the only two guys who use it also live in the nieghboring towns.
But when compared to the modern nearly-universal open office plan... yeah there's no doubt I'd much rather work from home as often as possible, and based on my experience in both environments I'll be far more productive doing the job from home. Everyone's mileage may vary.
Indeed. Give me a proper office with a door, like I had for the first 18 years of my career, and I'll happily go to the office every day.
But open office? Nope, nope, nope. Work from home or nothing.
But on that day all of those people might've chosen to work from home so you sit all alone in the office.
The hybrid solution only really works well if the office days are the same for everyone.
For my first few years of WFH, my office was my bedroom, so I just threw a KVM between my home PC and the work laptop and shared monitors and input devices. I eventually set up a standalone office.
> the generality; the common herd
GP was countering the possibility that GGP meant the above.
I also claim that I'm more productive but it's obviously a lie in order to continue WFH.
Edit: Clearly not so your assertion is bull.
Working full remote - everyone at home, communicating via slack and zoom, working hours roughly the same.
Vs 9-6 ish hours, some flexibility, where they all come into an office. That office is a small, modern, comfortable office in a workspace. The office has a closed door, and only the team are allowed in the office. The team chat amongst themselves as needed during the day. They take breaks alone or in small groups outside of the office in the kitchen space or on the sofas in the workspace. They chat with folks from other companies. But no one from outside the team ever enters the inner office. It’s their space.
Do you think remote will be more productive for the team as a whole? Do you think the startup will do better with the small office or the remote scenario?
You can add an hour extra at the computer for remote (saved from commuting), but you’ll need to surrender quite a bit of that to interruptions when remote - realistically, delivery men (in the office scenario, deliveries go to a reception), families or pets, a bit of domestic chores, making lunch alone where no work discussions take place.
And I find it very hard to believe. When I started working in the 1980s, everybody got a cubicle, we didn't even like cubicles!, but you had walls and it was quieter and people treated it like your personal space.
In my last job, I could've stood up and put my hand on seven different people's shoulders without moving my feet.
So your quiet shielded office doesn't sound like anything an actual company does.
> you’ll need to surrender quite a bit of that to interruptions when remote -
No, you get a lot fewer interruptions when working remotely than in an office. Deliveries do not take an hour a day, particularly when there are two adults who can split the task.
Pet interruptions take basically zero time per day because they aren't actually an interruption: I don't have to stop thinking about my problem for one second, but if I have to answer a single question about some other technical thing, I blow away my whole thought process and have to build it up again.
- no deliveries (i only order to a dropoff or buy in person)
- no pets
- able to exercise and clear my mind during small breaks
- able to have a homecooked meal or go to my favourite places for lunch
- __not__ talking about work on breaks is actually a huge plus for me
A small company is then going to have to lose the flexibility of hiring from anywhere in the country and have to compete for local talent. On top of that, one competitive advantage could be over larger better paying companies (especially now that hopefully most people have wises up enough to know that “equity” in a private company is statistically meaningless)
> The office has a closed door, and only the team are allowed in the office. The team chat amongst themselves as needed during the day.
That doesn’t alleviate the chief complaint about in office work - loud open offices - if I still have to listen to other people talk while I’m doing deep work.
I want a private space where I can close the door and have minimal visual and auditory disruptions. It does not have to be large, enough space for my monitors + chair. If I need to talk to someone else, we can do it in a different location.
It is a strawman argument to claim that people who want to go to the office have no social life. It is in fact easier to claim that "only antisocial people want to hide at home like a hermit with their webcam shut off."
