Side note to the remote founders/employers out there:
Have you been plagued by applicant fraud? We've found for all of our remote engineering roles, we get 100's of amazing applicants who are all fake (clearly not actually in the US) once you get them on a screening call. They're often reading from a script, broken english, and say strange things like they're born and raised in Texas, yet can't speak fluent English or have a heavy accent.
My best guess is it's dev shops overseas who are using an English-speaking "front" person who then delegates the work to other people with the "front" person being the one who joins company meetings, etc.
Really frustrating because it's making us have to do silly things like require photo ID verification over video on the first screening call (which I would rather not inconvenience applicants with, but there are just SO many candidates lying about residing in the US).
With our most recent role, about 60-70% of applicants were fake ("fake" = candidates who lie about living/residing in the US)
Yes! We catch them in the screening stage, but it's scarily common. I thought we were being targeted at first until I talked to other people with the same problem.
I've also heard of situations where one person is hired to do the job, but then after a while their work changes for the worse. They start "forgetting" things you've talked about recently, or they'll "forget" how the code they submitted an hour ago works.
They're either a front person for a dev shop, or they're trying to outsource their work. They don't care about doing a great job because they know most companies will take a long time to fire people. If the company PIPs them, they might suddenly become a great performer again until the heat dies down, then it's back to the same game.
Before the "if they're getting their work done, why does it matter?" comments: Having someone take our codebase and send it to random contractors is a huge security breach. Even ignoring that, these people aren't selecting world-class developers to outsource their work. They're outsourcing as cheaply as possible so they can pay as little as possible. It's never an okay deal for the company.
I have been on the other side, people wanting to hire me to be the front-door either take interviews or the front-door with customers, the last time I was offered $xx/h + 20% from each project's revenue.
It's a real problem which makes it harder for people like me that are legitimately working remotely. This has existed for a long time but it wasn't as popular because remote working was unpopular before the pandemic.
> Really frustrating because it's making us have to do silly things like require photo ID verification over video on the first screening call
Unfortunately, this wouldn't solve it, a person can join the calls and get someone else to do the work.
Same here - I was recently offered an "interview support" job by one of these body shops in a far away Asian country, which I immediately rejected. The role would've been to help candidates pass interviews using tricks (cheats, really) like the ones that've been brought up in other discussions before.
Someone wrote about this in a previous discussion. The grift is to bilk you until you realize the charade. Even one American paycheck is golden in the developing world.
Think logically about it, of course this will happen. The labor market for office jobs is completely broken to the point that many or most companies have no control of whether their employees are doing anything productive. Corporate work is mostly a charade and a wealth distribution scheme, also when it comes to software engineering - as evident by the many single individuals shipping software with better quality than huge corps employing thousands.
The hope of these fake candidates is that they can sneak in and get a few good paychecks from a corrupt and disorderly employer. And it costs then almost nothing to try.
i did some contracting for a place that i think hired one of these guys.
in his case i think he more or less knew what he was doing, and showed up on calls, but delegated the work to some other people.
we’d hear people in the background of his audio discussing things really oddly similar to tasks he’d been assigned and had outstanding. he was putting in (bad) PRs at all hours of day and night, and never had any recollection of any email, slack conversation, or his own PRs.
Accent aside (if they can't be understood at all they're obviously not qualified):
What's the difference between a foreigner with an accent in your onsite team VS a foreigner that's remote in US timezones (LatAm)? Why just open the job for US-remote?
Compliance? Deel/Remote can help you with that.
Security? It applies if you're working on defense software, but other than that...?
> What's the difference between a foreigner with an accent in your onsite team VS a foreigner that's remote in US timezones (LatAm)?
If I give someone in the US access to my code, systems, and, inevitably, customer data then I have a lot of legal recourse against that person if they do something bad. They have a lot of incentive to be careful and follow the rules. Their desire to maintain their reputation and avoid legal liability aligns our interests.
If I hire someone in the US and they hand everything over to a random person in a foreign country who doesn't care in the slightest about US laws, then they don't care about anything other than keeping those paychecks coming for a while. They don't care about anything, especially once those paychecks stop coming. It's even more complicated because the company isn't the one sending the paychecks, it's the person you hired. If that person has a falling out with their outsourced counterpart and the outsourced counterpart decides to take revenge on the company as leverage over their front-person, it gets bad.
> Security? It applies if you're working on defense software, but other than that...?
Are you suggesting that security only matters to defense software? You've never worked on a project that involves customer data? You've never worked on proprietary software that your competitors would love to have?
Do you not get annoyed when companies leak your personal data?
If you can imagine the difference between hiring one single developer to work on your application vs. hiring dozens of different developers each to handle some small part of it...and it's still worse than that.
Typically the person "hired" is the senior and the person doing the work is _extremely_ green.
The happy path between local vs foreign often looks the same. That's not the problem for anybody.
The edge cases are common and often legally ambiguous. When things go wrong, it can be extremely hard for a company to resolve the situation when it crosses boarders. Heck, even just operating in a different state can open a company up to legal issues.
Once you start opening up to different legal jurisdictions, you basically have to run company policy in a way that accounts for the worst situations across all jurisdictions.
Some things that I'm aware of:
* Import/Export law for software. It may seem mundane, but having any encryption can cause significant scrutiny.
* Import/Export law for hardware (like getting a company laptop to an employee)
* Ability to track/down or recover lost/stolen hardware
* Variations in labor laws.
* Variations in copyright/IP protection laws.
* Variations in digital hacking/data integrity laws.
* Government level data monitoring/tracking
* Local data protection laws that you might not be subject to without a local employee.
* Scrutiny from your customers about foreign workers.
* Accidental sanctions violations.
* Potential for customer data to leave legal boundaries via a foreign employee.
- IP protection - some countries make it super hard if someone breaks the NDA and steals their employer's IP. At least in the US, the employer can go after the IP thieves as a last recourse.
- Secure devices - lot of companies give laptops which come with all sorts of tracking software (eg. to force security updates). It is hard to ship laptops all over the world due to customs requirements.
You do not want the Treasury Department knocking on your door to ask you why you're sending money to a North Korean front company in exchange for slave labor.
Y'all always forget Canada exists :) I worked with a US company in Houston for 11 years, and we had other people located outside the US on the dev teams as well. Cultural match is more important than strict geo imho.
I don't know about residency, but we get tons of applicants that know nothing about what's on their resume. If you get them into an interview they try to talk around your questions in generalities. There are also a few "job parking" companies that we've identified. I'm convinced that these companies aren't real (their websites are generic fluff and the applicants that we've talked to don't know anything.) If anyone has those companies listed on their resume it's straight to trash with them. Hiring is not easy.
Again it’s a trade off. The same risks with remote existed in offshoring also. Nothing new. You got to have a solid contract and good project management and work with reputed companies. But sometimes it will just make more sense to not do remote remote hiring. One size do not fit all.
And yet I get flat out rejected without a phone screen after 300 applications. What is even going on?
I was under the impression that every job posting right now is instantly buried with a glut of top quality candidates, and that you simply pick your favorite, lowball them and you're done.
We ran into the same thing with our new recruiting tool, discovered hundreds of fake applicants for the first remote engineering job we posted. We initially noticed that a large number of job applicants were using ChatGPT responses with our virtual recruiter, and showing drastically different scoring from non-fake candidates.
We started scheduling video chats with the candidates clearly using ChatGPT with our virtual recruiter, and they all got on the call and began reading scripts, and could not answer more unique phone screen questions like: What engineering principle is important to you?
It’s the most frustrating thing, taking up so much of our time and taking time away from strong engineers who deserve our time.
We’re testing a solution for this to keep our own product operating fast and delivering amazing candidates.
We’re also keeping a list of red flags:
- LinkedIn profile was created in the last year
- GitHub link has a generic identity, 0-2 followers, very little activity
- Candidate will say yes to a phone screen immediately, literally right now
- Or candidate will ask if the meeting is a technical screen
- Candidate will go quiet if you ask them if they are available to fly to HQ to meet the team for their final interview
- Job history includes large, non-tech enterprises where employment would be hard to confirm; think CVS, The Home Depot, Best Buy, etc
- LinkedIn About Statement is written in the third person
- LinkedIn profile uses generic language like “cutting edge technologies”
- Profile photos may be avatars, or look like stock photos
None of these things individually can indicate a fake applicant, but taken all together with language used with our virtual recruiter we’ve gotten good at identifying the fakes. We’re still doing a lot of tests to prevent discrimination on our part.
If anyone wants to chat, my CoFounder and I have become obsessed with solving this.
It also seems like you have to be wary of the tax consequences here. Who do you pay on the payroll? If it's a US Citizen in America it's one thing, but if it's anything else, then you may tax issues.
These people have a US-based front person, or at least a stolen identity. The stolen identify is particularly bad because the tax consequences are attached to the stolen identity.
If someone tried to claim they were from the US but didn't have any tax ID and we needed to send their paychecks to an obscure address in Europe for reasons, that wouldn't work at all.
Hey,
what do you think - how can we "repair" this process? I mean, what would be a perfect solution to not require photo ID verification video and get rid of scammers?
I'm pretty sure it's an EEO violation to request ID or a photo before hiring.
"Similarly, employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant. If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted."
I was wondering the same thing as an infrastructure engineer making Canadian peanuts compared to my friends who moved to the US.
I guess it’s mostly my own fault for being nervous about switching jobs, but hearing them accidentally hiring obvious frauds makes me think it’s not as daunting as I feel.
Idk if this is an actual signal of anything, at least with mexican-american people I noticed they still have a unique accent. First gen americans can live in ethnic bubbles, and not speak english primarily, especially if their parents didnt put in any effort to speak english.
The most important subtext. There are engineer friends of mine laid off from remote companies that, almost 5 months later, cannot get work. These aren't braindead seatwarmers either. The software engineer market has shifted under our feet DRAMATICALLY. Any software engineer with a position should try to keep it for as long as they possible can.
Yeah, this is all anecdotal, but I'll add my 2c - been in the business for something like 15 years and was looking for work in May. It has never felt deader, remote or onsite. Usually recruiters are beating down your door. This time not even friends could get me any interviews.
The way I got a job was by writing some technical articles and establishing a relationship with a very energetic VC person. I asked him if he could introduce me to his portfolio companies and day later I had a few conversations lined up. I think I found what is probably the most interesting job I have ever had. I am usually nobody to hustle or advocate for it, but it sure paid back.
Got a decent position after ~4 months of looking. ~120 applications, ~10 interviews.
It was nuts, my resume and skillset have never been stronger but this was my hardest search by a huge margin. Referrals were not working, bulk applications were getting no response. What finally worked was just persistence and trying to add a lot of character to my cover letter. I had way more replies when I:
A. complimented what they were doing
B. Included a few little quips/jokes.
The huge number of fake applicants and AI generated cover letters/resumes is making recruiters jobs a nightmare, I think a few jokes and compliments can make it clear you are an actual person. One recruiter told me he had ~3000 applications for a pretty low paying remote position.
I've been in the business for almost 20 years. I've been hired for positions where I don't even code in the required language, and the employer depends on me to learn it on the go. Until recently I've never had trouble securing a job. But I've been on the market now for about 2 years. I often can't even score an interview, even for jobs that exactly match my qualifications.
I'm over 40, so I must assume ageism is a factor, but even in light of that, this tech job market feels like a desert.
How do I get myself out there to make these connections? I can make connections with coworkers, but I don’t know how to expand beyond my circle (like meeting VC folk)
This is what crash of 2000 was like for me. Multiple calls a day from recruiters.
Sometime around June or so, the calls Stopped. Just stopped. Six months later I was working at RadioShack.
Along with a number of engineers with 10-20 years experience.
I support remote work, but moving out to a rural area is putting yourself at risk if you expect to get high software engineer pay.
There’s a lot more competition for remote jobs and you’re also competing with highly qualified candidates in lower cost of living places outside the US.
Flipside: Staying in an expensive metro area puts you at risk to maintain your quality of life and pay mortgage/taxes/insurance on everything, when a lot of hybrid jobs don't pay enough to cover those expenses, and are also at risk of layoffs, which can be catastrophic when you have a high cost of living. If you're remote/rural, you don't need to make nearly as much just to skate by if something goes south. I moved out of the Bay Area, and I cannot imagine ever going back. Too much risk. I don't care if the pool of jobs is smaller and the pay is lower.
Im not sure why this is even getting downvoted. Top pay of market has significantly shifted to hybrid. Even once a week in office means you can't live anywhere in the country you'd like. Though i'm not sure if the original article counts hybrid as remote in this case
There are plenty of fully remote openings for senior software engineers looking for $100k TC right now. Every person can make their own calculation
people don't send me an offer after remote interviews
people do send me an offer after in person interviews
I have no problem getting callbacks and multiple rounds of interviews and busy work take home challenges
just in case anyone else is having a similar experience, also interview at hybrid roles or offer to do an in person one
I never hear anything back about remote roles after the first round. In many cases a recruiter even has perfect roles that they say they submit me for but I never hear from them again.
On-site stuff tends to progress further, but usually they want one to move to a more expensive location, which I was desperately trying to avoid.
What are you talking about without data? We know most of the big tech companies laid off tens of thousands of software engineers in the past year. The biggest market players went from net positive on jobs to net negative.
I've been working remotely for nearly seven years now. I've been able to enjoy all of the typical "firsts" for my youngest two, saved immense amounts of time with no commute, and have been able to pitch in more regarding domestic tasks.
I understand and empathize with those that value face-to-face conversations in the office, but for those that don't, remote work is an incredible boon.
There's arguments from both sides of the coin but, though I'm biased having worked remote for almost 5 years now, I think the remote-side usually wins the argument by simply being more reasonable. I see far fewer remote workers claiming that "everyone should work remote" and more in-office workers making sweeping claims that remote reduces creativity, reduces, productivity, or makes people lazy. The anti-remote folks even go as far as dismissing having the time to be around your kids or saving money by not commuting as being trivial benefits. Like, wtf mate? Nobody's telling you not to drive to an office every day.
Don't get me wrong, there are some remote fanatics that do the same thing, but they seem far fewer.
That's very interesting. My experience has been the opposite, that people who are pro-remote are intense about it, that they often deny there being any benefits to working in an office and get angry and dismissive toward anyone who says they want to work in-person.
I would argue that the reason "remote wins" is that to get the full benefit of working in person you really need 100% of your team to work in the same building on the same hours. As soon as one person goes remote, the in-person experience is significantly degraded for everyone else.
Thus, as soon as company allows "hybrid", the people who prefer remote go remote and the in-person experience quickly degrades. This starts a spiral where people on the margin -- who still prefer 100% in person! -- decide it's no-longer worth coming in, which in turn degrades the experience further and pushes more people to give up on the office, until there are very few people left coming in.
It doesn't take very many people to set off this spiral: in my anecdotal experience, once a team goes 10-20% remote, the office is pretty useless.
So what I see is there's a "tyranny of the minority" effect. I think the long-term response is going to be more sorting of companies into all-remote or all in-person, with fewer companies in the "hybrid" space that's so common today.
Completely agree. I've long believed that society is just "wrong" with the work/life balance these days. Socially i think we could drop to 6h days and life would improve dramatically (just looking at home time, that is) for most people.
For me, just giving up commutes and being able to do some basic chores on breaks or lunch alone brings a ton of this balance back into check. I work 8h but i gained so much "me" time back that it's like working 6h with a commute.
I would give up WFH if needed, but i'd be pushing for 6h days as a trade off. I now feel the added time in my life by not commuting is a massive boon. One that i can't give up. Do i prefer WFH? Yes, i'm on ~8years of it now. But the life that i clawed back by simply not commuting is by far the most valuable thing. One i am never giving up in i have options.
> Nobody's telling you not to drive to an office every day.
reminds me of this meme that was going around Facebook during the last US election. It was an image of a line at a store like Target. The caption was something like "you stand in line at the store, you can stand in line to vote." You know, one of those absolutely stupid republican anti-mail-in-voting things. They apparently forgot that Amazon, one of the largest corporations in the world, exists. So no, I and the entire world do not stand in line at the store. And if you want to go stand in line all day to vote, you still can asshole. But I'll be dropping my ballot off at my mailbox.
> I see far fewer remote workers claiming that "everyone should work remote"
The presence of a remote worker on a team means everyone is working remotely, in that all meetings have to be video conferences in order to include them. It's just that some might be working remotely from an office.
You know what might make an incredible industry "remote Work Pods"
Recall all the "phone-closets" we installed in many large corp tech environs (I wasa designer on many large scale offices (FB, Goog, Salesforce, NAMCO, Lucas - to name a few - aside from hospitals, I have millions of SqFt under my belt)...
If a company wanted to focus a remote workforce, while reducing realEstate facilities costs, maybe a deliverable cubicle (returnable cubicle) - that was a sound box with all the tech req'd for job, might be a thing - think of it like the "ON AIR" red-light sign... (IF PERSON IS IN THIS CUBE, THEY ARE FOCUSED ON WORKING - DO NOT TOUCH, FEED, OR OTHERWISE ENGAGE WITH SAID PERSON IN THIS BOX)
> Nobody's telling you not to drive to an office every day.
This argument doesn't work because it's not about being in aspecific physical location, it's about being in the same physical location as all the other workers.
When half the people you need to interact with are remote, there's no point going to the office.
One could easily argue the side that is saying we should stick to the working conditions we had all this while under which most people were hired, and only moved away from as an exception for a global pandemic, now that the pandemic is over.
Reasonableness has a pretty subjective definition in this context.
And even if we could all agree how reasonableness should be defined then it’s still a terrible metric to make a decision by.
I'm in a similar boat, working remotely since 2017. I don't even have kids, and just enjoy my local parks with my dogs, my wife, etc. My social interaction tends to not involve work, which I actually think is healthy, and gets me away from the echo chambers I've experienced in major tech hubs.
My biggest wish, or obstacle, is finding a team that truly values writing. So many times I've sat in meetings where the discussion largely focuses on
everyone just clarifying their own ideas. Or status meetings. It's led me to believe that a lot of "in office is better" folks just value the instant gratification of face-to-face conversations.
I suspect HN's a community of early adopters, but I'd be curious how that actually plays out over time.
My team values writing . We killed our meetings for 2 weeks to see which ones were too painful to live without and retros are the only ones we took back.
We've shifted our work discussions almost entirely to async threads on our ticketing system, we frequently hand tickets over between timezones and our manager types can find out what's going on to the nearest couple of hours in a few minutes any time they like. If we need sync conversations (which does happen of course) we record the outcome for async consumption.
We do frequent pairing, it can be quite pleasant to spend quite a while on the phone doing work when you don't need to sit in 15 hours of meetings a week!
Honestly I'm not sure I could go back. Standups for sure would be a huge turnoff for me at any new job.
I've been remote for a similar amount of time. Likewise, I've enjoyed the time saved on commutes.
Since COVID I've felt like the dynamic of my remote work experience has changed. I've worked with two remote companies since then and both were struggling with a lot of inexperienced or absent remote workers. Dealing with them on a case-by-case basis is the right call, of course, but it takes a toll on management's trust of remote workers in general.
Fortunately I haven't had to install any overly intrusive monitoring software, but I did learn that my company now dedicates a significant amount of business analyst time to analyzing activity of remote employees now. Apparently they had so many problems with remote employees (and their managers!) barely getting any work done that management has soured on remote work in general, so new hires have to be on site unless someone can vouch for them being excellent remote workers.
The competition for remote work has also gone way up. Every remote job opening we posted would get literally thousands of applications.
The combination of increasing competition for remote jobs and declining sentiment toward remote work (see: Amazon and other big companies) does not bode well for those of us who were successfully working remote for many years, IMO.
> Apparently they had so many problems with remote employees (and their managers!) barely getting any work done
This was most likely also happening in the office, it was just masked with the appearance of work in the form of in-person meetings and people zoning out at their desks. When you have a bunch of people in a room together progress grinds to a halt because it becomes completely about performance.
I found my current employer prior to COVID, and they had been almost exclusively remote since their inception in the early aughts. Companies with remote-first culture that predate COVID are far better equipped for the cons regarding remote work (IMO), of which there are plenty.
Your experience almost exactly mirrors my own. I moved from Boston to the Midwest USA in 2016 and kept working remotely until a RIF in 2019. I found a local job that did require a commute but a few months later, we all became remote. In between, I started a family and had 2 kids who have always interacted with me at home. And I am very thankful for that opportunity that many do not have. Our company has since mandated hybrid work now but my team has been categorized as a remote-first distributed group. Now if I go into the office, I would be the only one there. Having said that, I do long for a physical whiteboard where my movements can help me convey my points or understand others better. The current technology is not so adequate in this area yet.. We use google workspaces/chat and meet. I curse it every week..
> The current technology is not so adequate in this area yet.. We use google workspaces/chat and meet. I curse it every week..
I think this is the one place AR/VR is almost ready to really help out. "Teleport" your chair to someone else's space while they "draw" on the "whiteboard" to show you things—with their actual body and hands.
Rigs anywhere near good enough to make this non-terrible are gonna be expensive for some time, and maybe don't quite exist yet (but are the one valuable use-case within striking distance of current hardware, I think), sure—but isn't the claim that this kind of interaction is incredibly valuable? Four-figure cost per six-figure worker should be a no brainer, then (unless companies/managers are just bullshitting about that...). And meeting rooms ain't cheap.
> saved immense amounts of time with no commute, and have been able to pitch in more regarding domestic tasks
Same with my kid. Another big win of remote for me is that I can go where I'm treated best. I can pick a country (anyone could pick my country and I had to welcome them with open hands, so it's only fair game that in exchange I'm allowed to go wherever I feel like going) which welcomes me and my family and where the taxes are reasonable and where the people are nice.
I'm at my fourth country in seven years and this time I think the family shall stay for quite a while.
Remote work has benefits, but it also has significant drawbacks. I say this as someone who as worked exclusively remotely for 15+ years.
1. The quality of remote workers seems to have dropped significantly post pandemic. I think this is because, in the past to work remote at an in-office company you need to be pretty valuable. Now people who can't work well without the structure of an office are able to get remote work and coast. This means the good people are carrying a lot more dead weight.
2. Juniors simply don't learn as much or as quickly in a remote environment. Many of them just go dark when they can't figure something out.
3. Perhaps you save money by not commuting, but my wife and I both work remote. That means our companies have basically colonized 200 square feet of our house rent free. We could be using these rooms for something else. It almost feels like a 3rd amendment violation sometimes.
I started a remote job last September but it hasn’t been as good as Covid work at my previous company. The difference is the company structure. The new company is organized regionally with silos and duplicates roles by city/region. This means there’s less natural remote-like communication outside of a given office.
Further, my new boss is an extrovert and has found that she can’t stand working from home and prefers the office. I was hired fully remote, but there’s more and more in-office meetings held, where I might be the only person on a giant 96” conference room screen. This really makes remote feel like being an outsider and I feel less involved with the team. My role was supposed to be managing and strategy but it’s more of a taskmaster at this point. I can have one-on-one discussions with leaders, but the decisions are not made in a video call, they’re being made in an office face-to-face.
I think if I were a remote contractor this would be fine and I wouldn’t care so much about the dynamic. However, trying to be a genuine employee in a non-remote first and locally focused company is proving difficult.
I have been working full time remote since Sept 2021 (correction, 2020, just before pandemic).
It's not even that I don't value the face-to-face conversations and human interaction, I absolutely do. It just doesn't come close to the immense value I gain by WFH.
A side benefit: I was able to move closer to my church community, so my "human interaction" need is being fulfilled richer than ever now.
(One of the most frustrating things in all the WFH vs RTO discourse is that there is this false dichotomy being presented. It's either extroverted people who are energized by others, or introverts who'd rather be in the dark closet by themselves. I am as extroverted as they come, and I thrived in the office environment. Still wouldn't trade WFH for the world.)
> I was able to move closer to my church community, so my "human interaction" need is being fulfilled richer than ever now.
This is what the "but you need human interaction" return-to-office crowd doesn't understand.
WFH !== Being alone
WFH means surrounding yourself with the people you choose to be around.
Whether that's your church community, fellow hobbyists, intramural sports teams, the local co-working space, etc.
Plus, that can include "my coworkers" for anyone that wants to make work a bigger part of their life, like those working in startups. However, this should be the exception, not the rule like it has been.
> One of the most frustrating things in all the WFH vs RTO discourse is that there is this false dichotomy being presented. It's either extroverted people who are energized by others, or introverts who'd rather be in the dark closet by themselves.
Perfectly stated. I can be quite outgoing when I want to be, and in many of my previous jobs I enjoyed many of my colleagues, but now I can devote my energy to the relationships I value most.
I have four kids, time is undoubtedly my most valuable commodity. I don't think I'd be able to foster as many friendships if I was working in an office. I'm sure I'd have friendships with a few colleagues, but WFH enables me to devote myself to friendships as I see fit.
I have a question for people here. I absolutely value the time with my daughter and I actually enjoy working for home, I had been for the last couple of years, but it's becoming increasingly unbearable to do that with a nagging and micromanaging partner by my side who's life is COMPLETELY unstructured.
So I find myself longing for office time, not because I like office time, but rather because I feel like it might bring back some sanity to the relationship.
Am I the only one in that situation? What do you do? It's not like I can structure another individual, it would only work if they themselves recognize that they need structure, which they don't.
Do you mean Sept 2020? I believe everything shutdown (in most US states and European countries) in March 2020.
Only wondering because ~3 years versus a little less than 2 years seems like a potentially big difference, so wondering if that feeling of fulfillment has is still going strong that long
>(One of the most frustrating things in all the WFH vs RTO discourse is that there is this false dichotomy being presented. It's either extroverted people who are energized by others, or introverts who'd rather be in the dark closet by themselves. I am as extroverted as they come, and I thrived in the office environment. Still wouldn't trade WFH for the world.)
I believe the extrovert vs. introvert division is a false dichotomy in the first place.
Commute time, environment at home, career seniority - these are the most important factors in this discussion
> I understand and empathize with those that value face-to-face conversations in the office, but for those that don't, remote work is an incredible boon.
I value face-to-face time in the office but still prefer remote work and its not even close.
It would be nice to have an office very close by and be able to go when I want. But there is nothing good nearby and im not moving.
I work remote, and we talk about this topic among the team from time to time. One thing I always add to the conversation is the importance of simulating a work day. I wake up 30 minutes before work and get ready. I raise my desk and work standing the first 4.5 hours every day. I greet the team in work chat on the dot, and begin working on tasks for the day.
Being successful at remote work as a developer and creative is using the right tools when it comes to collaboration. This means having a good A/V setup that doesn't need regular futzing with to work. Know your OS's sound and camera settings. Know your team tools inside and out. Another thing that I work on daily is better written communication skills, specifically, better commit message, taking that extra 5 minutes to write up a concise PR.
Screen capture is another tool I regularly use, and have refined my skills in. I often screenshot things and add drawn and text annotations to highlight important information and supplement with a chat message. That can often help solve problems much faster. I have us all using more digital whiteboarding tools. We're learning what too much or too little Kanban board granularity is. Adjusting workflows both in project management and remote communication is super important. Finding the inefficiencies and efficiencies requires a lot of open-mindedness and humility.
We had an employee who wasn't finding success in remote work and I realized a lot of his struggles were with not knowing how to use core desktop publishing and digital communication tools. He was from the save it on your hard drive and email-it-to-me generation. He missed standing at the coffee machine and chatting. He didn't care to learn advanced features of the Google Suite, or get OBS up and running. Those factors combined didn't help him succeed in remote work. It was unfortunate to see.
One thing that can be done to positively influence opponents of remote work, in your organization or in the industry in general is emphasizing the importance of core modern computer literacy. I think that being a highly productive remote employee requires one to develop and maintain a high degree of core computer literacy (using office productivity tools, communication software, and managing A/V hardware).
The no commute part is so powerful man. At times I get bored (I now know 70% of my area in a 5km radius) but god the added bedtime and road / train free life is really a damn luxury.
Yea, I really don't mind the office. It's the "going to" part that I'm unwilling to do ever again. It's kind of nice to get a little in-person time with colleagues. The open-office system kind of sucks, but nearly every company has that now. If I could snap my fingers and teleport myself there, I'd do it often: at least any time I had a bunch of meetings and didn't have to concentrate or have work that needed silence. But it's a 3 hour drive (each way) away, so nope.
> Turns out to my surprise I like going into the office, but definitely not every day.
You're not alone.
The internet likes to talk about remote work as the only acceptable arrangement, but that's mostly because it's biased toward people who like socializing via internet comment sections.
The number of people who actually like going to the office (either part or full time) is far higher than you'd expect from reading Reddit and Hacker News.
> Turns out to my surprise I like going into the office, but definitely not every day.
Bingo. There is relationship building and other interactions that are simply not possible in any other way that I have found. I go in 3 days most weeks, and that makes a huge difference in lifestyle and flexibility. Since I work in robotics, 100% remote is never going to be a thing for me. Zoom meeting and software days, remote. Wrench days, in the lab. Works for me.
I can't imagine going into an office again. I've been remote for 2/3 of my career (long before COVID). I would be happy to go to a meet up or something once a week after hours. I never want to have an open office arrangement where I am bothered CONSTANTLY again. Remote has been such a boon to my life and my productivity you'd have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.
Same, I work much better from home. I have a tendency to talk out loud to myself when working on something and I feel like people would think I'm a bit annoying/crazy doing that in an open office environment.
Meta: I want us to appreciate that total number of job postings on HN have been steadily falling since 2018 [1] with what appears to be an outlier jump in 2021 (post-pandemic bubble). That seems pretty important...
Am I missing some big piece of context here that would make my analysis wrong?
Anecdotally, I've heard from HR professionals that posting on Hacker News isn't a particularly effective method for attracting candidates. Perhaps this could be the reason.
Yeah I mentioned it to our hiring department. They said they had tried it in the past for about 3 months, got plenty of applicants but none of them actually met the requirements. A lot of people who couldn't speak English or with only internship experience applying for a senior dev position.
I did some experimenting in the past with posting jobs on the HN who's hiring threads, and I found that I got about 10x more candidates when I included a salary with the post then without.
It's weird. I feel like you can get more done at an office at times... but then there's also a lot of downtime. Also the commute is always killer.
I honestly believe people work better when they get dressed and have some routine. No idea how people can work in their PJs, I'd feel so lazy, lol.
However. The commute is killer. Even if you get it down to just 15 min. (which is hard unless you live right next to work) that's 30 min. a day. Prob adds up to well over 100 hrs a year just commuting. I know some ppl do public transport with an audio book or something but for me, that's still 100 hours commuting.
If I could teleport to the office, I'd say in person 60/40 split. Since I have to commute, remote all the way except for important kick offs or brainstorming sessions.
I think there's a big difference between a walking commute and a driving commute. I'd welcome a 15 minute walking commute each day - even while WFH I like to take a 15 minute walk up and down my road before starting my day because it helps my brain and body wake up.
That's fair. I guess it comes down to routines. I love being able to wake up, walk to the gym (like 2 min away) do my exercise and be home, shower and sitting ready to work all in under an hour. 15 min walk would be 30 min of decent exercise, not bad at all.
If I could walk to the office in 15 minutes, I genuinely don't think I'd mind going in at least a few days a week. Unfortunately my actual commute would be 30-45 minutes in traffic so no thank you. I'm quite happy WFH. My apartment is kitted out better than any executive office, and best of all it's quiet.
Exactly. I don't know why people seem to sleep on hybrid. Some days going into the office works better, other days WFH is better.
If we just finished scoping out a project and I have dozens of programming hours, I'm def going to lock myself in my office with headphones and type away.
If things are slow and I need some motivation, I think going to the office would help.
My commute has always been an hour each way. If the job is going well this isn't bad (podcasts and Audible), but it's a time sink.
One day I realized I was falling asleep on the hour-long, 12-mile route home. (Los Angeles traffic is no joke.) I sold my car and now use metro/bus to commute, or do remote work.
ps: I also can't work from home in my PJs, I "dress up" by putting on jeans :-D
> Even if you get it down to just 15 min. (which is hard unless you live right next to work) that's 30 min. a day. Prob adds up to well over 100 hrs a year just commuting.
I need my morning commute. It's a kind of forced meditation that I can't get at home with three young children.
It would stress me out if I couldn't work a flexible schedule or if I had to deal with rush-hour, so I'm thankful that these stars aligned for me.
That's fair, honestly gives you an advantage that you enjoy it.
For me, anytime I'm commuting I feel is time I could be doing almost literally _anything_ else. My secret to getting away (its not forced though, lol) is a mini sauna. I don't really sit in there sometimes but if I say I'm going to it's everyone's clue to leave me alone haha.
I think it comes down to the person and their discipline.
Ultimately, I do get more coding done at home. However, being surrounded by colleges and a "business" atmosphere motivates me to actually do the coding, its hard to explain lol.
Also distractions. If you get distracted at home it can get pretty bad. At work you at least have to try.
Lots of work advertised as 'remote' ends up as several days in the office anyway. Also note that companies that are not 'full remote' may well revert their stance on this and go back to a butts-in-seats arrangement whenever they feel like. Some do this as a way to do lay-offs without announcing them as such. Companies that have a full-remote culture are usually much less likely to do this. A good way to gauge this is if the person that is hiring you is themselves remote during the hiring process.
I left the bay area to a fairly rural location thanks to being able to work remotely. I actually prefer the office or hybrid, but in the grand scheme of things, living here makes me the happiest. So I am very happy that remote is (hopefully) going to stick around.
I can relate to that. I moved out of a big city to the suburbs of a smaller one. Monthly expenses are roughly flat, but I own a house instead of pinching pennies in a small filthy apartment. I'd much rather work in person, but it doesn't feel possible to maintain a decent standard of living without scoring at least an average tech hub salary while working remotely from somewhere cheaper, at least not solo.
Readit News
Have you been plagued by applicant fraud? We've found for all of our remote engineering roles, we get 100's of amazing applicants who are all fake (clearly not actually in the US) once you get them on a screening call. They're often reading from a script, broken english, and say strange things like they're born and raised in Texas, yet can't speak fluent English or have a heavy accent.
My best guess is it's dev shops overseas who are using an English-speaking "front" person who then delegates the work to other people with the "front" person being the one who joins company meetings, etc.
Really frustrating because it's making us have to do silly things like require photo ID verification over video on the first screening call (which I would rather not inconvenience applicants with, but there are just SO many candidates lying about residing in the US).
With our most recent role, about 60-70% of applicants were fake ("fake" = candidates who lie about living/residing in the US)
I've also heard of situations where one person is hired to do the job, but then after a while their work changes for the worse. They start "forgetting" things you've talked about recently, or they'll "forget" how the code they submitted an hour ago works.
They're either a front person for a dev shop, or they're trying to outsource their work. They don't care about doing a great job because they know most companies will take a long time to fire people. If the company PIPs them, they might suddenly become a great performer again until the heat dies down, then it's back to the same game.
Before the "if they're getting their work done, why does it matter?" comments: Having someone take our codebase and send it to random contractors is a huge security breach. Even ignoring that, these people aren't selecting world-class developers to outsource their work. They're outsourcing as cheaply as possible so they can pay as little as possible. It's never an okay deal for the company.
Darknet dairies has an interesting episode about this: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/133/
It's a real problem which makes it harder for people like me that are legitimately working remotely. This has existed for a long time but it wasn't as popular because remote working was unpopular before the pandemic.
> Really frustrating because it's making us have to do silly things like require photo ID verification over video on the first screening call
Unfortunately, this wouldn't solve it, a person can join the calls and get someone else to do the work.
The hope of these fake candidates is that they can sneak in and get a few good paychecks from a corrupt and disorderly employer. And it costs then almost nothing to try.
in his case i think he more or less knew what he was doing, and showed up on calls, but delegated the work to some other people.
we’d hear people in the background of his audio discussing things really oddly similar to tasks he’d been assigned and had outstanding. he was putting in (bad) PRs at all hours of day and night, and never had any recollection of any email, slack conversation, or his own PRs.
the company fired him after six months or so.
What's the difference between a foreigner with an accent in your onsite team VS a foreigner that's remote in US timezones (LatAm)? Why just open the job for US-remote?
Compliance? Deel/Remote can help you with that.
Security? It applies if you're working on defense software, but other than that...?
If I give someone in the US access to my code, systems, and, inevitably, customer data then I have a lot of legal recourse against that person if they do something bad. They have a lot of incentive to be careful and follow the rules. Their desire to maintain their reputation and avoid legal liability aligns our interests.
If I hire someone in the US and they hand everything over to a random person in a foreign country who doesn't care in the slightest about US laws, then they don't care about anything other than keeping those paychecks coming for a while. They don't care about anything, especially once those paychecks stop coming. It's even more complicated because the company isn't the one sending the paychecks, it's the person you hired. If that person has a falling out with their outsourced counterpart and the outsourced counterpart decides to take revenge on the company as leverage over their front-person, it gets bad.
> Security? It applies if you're working on defense software, but other than that...?
Are you suggesting that security only matters to defense software? You've never worked on a project that involves customer data? You've never worked on proprietary software that your competitors would love to have?
Do you not get annoyed when companies leak your personal data?
Typically the person "hired" is the senior and the person doing the work is _extremely_ green.
The edge cases are common and often legally ambiguous. When things go wrong, it can be extremely hard for a company to resolve the situation when it crosses boarders. Heck, even just operating in a different state can open a company up to legal issues.
Once you start opening up to different legal jurisdictions, you basically have to run company policy in a way that accounts for the worst situations across all jurisdictions.
Some things that I'm aware of:
* Import/Export law for software. It may seem mundane, but having any encryption can cause significant scrutiny.
* Import/Export law for hardware (like getting a company laptop to an employee)
* Ability to track/down or recover lost/stolen hardware
* Variations in labor laws.
* Variations in copyright/IP protection laws.
* Variations in digital hacking/data integrity laws.
* Government level data monitoring/tracking
* Local data protection laws that you might not be subject to without a local employee.
* Scrutiny from your customers about foreign workers.
* Accidental sanctions violations.
* Potential for customer data to leave legal boundaries via a foreign employee.
* etc
- IP protection - some countries make it super hard if someone breaks the NDA and steals their employer's IP. At least in the US, the employer can go after the IP thieves as a last recourse.
- Secure devices - lot of companies give laptops which come with all sorts of tracking software (eg. to force security updates). It is hard to ship laptops all over the world due to customs requirements.
Honestly as an American I would much prefer to hire Americans from Midwest or Texas, than someone outside my country.
https://www.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-inquiries-and-citizenshi...
I was under the impression that every job posting right now is instantly buried with a glut of top quality candidates, and that you simply pick your favorite, lowball them and you're done.
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We started scheduling video chats with the candidates clearly using ChatGPT with our virtual recruiter, and they all got on the call and began reading scripts, and could not answer more unique phone screen questions like: What engineering principle is important to you?
It’s the most frustrating thing, taking up so much of our time and taking time away from strong engineers who deserve our time.
I heard a good podcast about this, https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/133/
We’re testing a solution for this to keep our own product operating fast and delivering amazing candidates.
We’re also keeping a list of red flags:
- LinkedIn profile was created in the last year
- GitHub link has a generic identity, 0-2 followers, very little activity
- Candidate will say yes to a phone screen immediately, literally right now
- Or candidate will ask if the meeting is a technical screen
- Candidate will go quiet if you ask them if they are available to fly to HQ to meet the team for their final interview
- Job history includes large, non-tech enterprises where employment would be hard to confirm; think CVS, The Home Depot, Best Buy, etc
- LinkedIn About Statement is written in the third person
- LinkedIn profile uses generic language like “cutting edge technologies”
- Profile photos may be avatars, or look like stock photos
None of these things individually can indicate a fake applicant, but taken all together with language used with our virtual recruiter we’ve gotten good at identifying the fakes. We’re still doing a lot of tests to prevent discrimination on our part.
If anyone wants to chat, my CoFounder and I have become obsessed with solving this.
If someone tried to claim they were from the US but didn't have any tax ID and we needed to send their paychecks to an obscure address in Europe for reasons, that wouldn't work at all.
i think remote work is great, but some early face to face can fix a bunch of problems imo.
"Similarly, employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant. If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted."
https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices
Born in the states but currently living in Canada to take care of family, unsure if it is worth applying to the litany of US remote positions
I guess it’s mostly my own fault for being nervous about switching jobs, but hearing them accidentally hiring obvious frauds makes me think it’s not as daunting as I feel.
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Idk if this is an actual signal of anything, at least with mexican-american people I noticed they still have a unique accent. First gen americans can live in ethnic bubbles, and not speak english primarily, especially if their parents didnt put in any effort to speak english.
Dead Comment
The most important subtext. There are engineer friends of mine laid off from remote companies that, almost 5 months later, cannot get work. These aren't braindead seatwarmers either. The software engineer market has shifted under our feet DRAMATICALLY. Any software engineer with a position should try to keep it for as long as they possible can.
The way I got a job was by writing some technical articles and establishing a relationship with a very energetic VC person. I asked him if he could introduce me to his portfolio companies and day later I had a few conversations lined up. I think I found what is probably the most interesting job I have ever had. I am usually nobody to hustle or advocate for it, but it sure paid back.
It was nuts, my resume and skillset have never been stronger but this was my hardest search by a huge margin. Referrals were not working, bulk applications were getting no response. What finally worked was just persistence and trying to add a lot of character to my cover letter. I had way more replies when I: A. complimented what they were doing B. Included a few little quips/jokes.
The huge number of fake applicants and AI generated cover letters/resumes is making recruiters jobs a nightmare, I think a few jokes and compliments can make it clear you are an actual person. One recruiter told me he had ~3000 applications for a pretty low paying remote position.
I'm over 40, so I must assume ageism is a factor, but even in light of that, this tech job market feels like a desert.
Along with a number of engineers with 10-20 years experience.
Took me 3 years to get back into a tech job.
This is starting to feel the same.
There’s a lot more competition for remote jobs and you’re also competing with highly qualified candidates in lower cost of living places outside the US.
Thats true for anyone in the US. I find it far stranger to work remotely from SF or NY.
Anyone know of a forum where people like me can candidly compare notes about finding a job after layoff?
I'm learning so many lessons, but some could only be shared in an anonymous setting.
Also, I believe you can sign up without being currently employed.
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There are plenty of fully remote openings for senior software engineers looking for $100k TC right now. Every person can make their own calculation
For high values of "low paying".
$150-250k TC, instead of $300-500k.
it isnt “easier” to get an offer at lower ranges, those companies think they are taking a risk with their comp ranges too
people do send me an offer after in person interviews
I have no problem getting callbacks and multiple rounds of interviews and busy work take home challenges just in case anyone else is having a similar experience, also interview at hybrid roles or offer to do an in person one
I never hear anything back about remote roles after the first round. In many cases a recruiter even has perfect roles that they say they submit me for but I never hear from them again.
On-site stuff tends to progress further, but usually they want one to move to a more expensive location, which I was desperately trying to avoid.
I understand and empathize with those that value face-to-face conversations in the office, but for those that don't, remote work is an incredible boon.
Don't get me wrong, there are some remote fanatics that do the same thing, but they seem far fewer.
I would argue that the reason "remote wins" is that to get the full benefit of working in person you really need 100% of your team to work in the same building on the same hours. As soon as one person goes remote, the in-person experience is significantly degraded for everyone else.
Thus, as soon as company allows "hybrid", the people who prefer remote go remote and the in-person experience quickly degrades. This starts a spiral where people on the margin -- who still prefer 100% in person! -- decide it's no-longer worth coming in, which in turn degrades the experience further and pushes more people to give up on the office, until there are very few people left coming in.
It doesn't take very many people to set off this spiral: in my anecdotal experience, once a team goes 10-20% remote, the office is pretty useless.
So what I see is there's a "tyranny of the minority" effect. I think the long-term response is going to be more sorting of companies into all-remote or all in-person, with fewer companies in the "hybrid" space that's so common today.
For me, just giving up commutes and being able to do some basic chores on breaks or lunch alone brings a ton of this balance back into check. I work 8h but i gained so much "me" time back that it's like working 6h with a commute.
I would give up WFH if needed, but i'd be pushing for 6h days as a trade off. I now feel the added time in my life by not commuting is a massive boon. One that i can't give up. Do i prefer WFH? Yes, i'm on ~8years of it now. But the life that i clawed back by simply not commuting is by far the most valuable thing. One i am never giving up in i have options.
reminds me of this meme that was going around Facebook during the last US election. It was an image of a line at a store like Target. The caption was something like "you stand in line at the store, you can stand in line to vote." You know, one of those absolutely stupid republican anti-mail-in-voting things. They apparently forgot that Amazon, one of the largest corporations in the world, exists. So no, I and the entire world do not stand in line at the store. And if you want to go stand in line all day to vote, you still can asshole. But I'll be dropping my ballot off at my mailbox.
The presence of a remote worker on a team means everyone is working remotely, in that all meetings have to be video conferences in order to include them. It's just that some might be working remotely from an office.
If you work in an office but your team is remote, you work remote.
The strategy applies collectively: will the team work face-to-face or not?
No one is justifying commutes because of the kitchen or the view.
Recall all the "phone-closets" we installed in many large corp tech environs (I wasa designer on many large scale offices (FB, Goog, Salesforce, NAMCO, Lucas - to name a few - aside from hospitals, I have millions of SqFt under my belt)...
If a company wanted to focus a remote workforce, while reducing realEstate facilities costs, maybe a deliverable cubicle (returnable cubicle) - that was a sound box with all the tech req'd for job, might be a thing - think of it like the "ON AIR" red-light sign... (IF PERSON IS IN THIS CUBE, THEY ARE FOCUSED ON WORKING - DO NOT TOUCH, FEED, OR OTHERWISE ENGAGE WITH SAID PERSON IN THIS BOX)
This argument doesn't work because it's not about being in aspecific physical location, it's about being in the same physical location as all the other workers.
When half the people you need to interact with are remote, there's no point going to the office.
Reasonableness has a pretty subjective definition in this context.
And even if we could all agree how reasonableness should be defined then it’s still a terrible metric to make a decision by.
My biggest wish, or obstacle, is finding a team that truly values writing. So many times I've sat in meetings where the discussion largely focuses on everyone just clarifying their own ideas. Or status meetings. It's led me to believe that a lot of "in office is better" folks just value the instant gratification of face-to-face conversations.
I suspect HN's a community of early adopters, but I'd be curious how that actually plays out over time.
We've shifted our work discussions almost entirely to async threads on our ticketing system, we frequently hand tickets over between timezones and our manager types can find out what's going on to the nearest couple of hours in a few minutes any time they like. If we need sync conversations (which does happen of course) we record the outcome for async consumption.
We do frequent pairing, it can be quite pleasant to spend quite a while on the phone doing work when you don't need to sit in 15 hours of meetings a week!
Honestly I'm not sure I could go back. Standups for sure would be a huge turnoff for me at any new job.
It's not uncommon for me to interview him on almost every ticket, writing extensive notes with clarifications on his instructions and to fill in gaps.
I don't see anything necessarily wrong with having to write notes. I think that's part of a healthy work process. I just think it happens too often.
It's partly due to the fact we do not have a very organized system, but also due to him not valuing writing as a tool to enhance his work.
Since COVID I've felt like the dynamic of my remote work experience has changed. I've worked with two remote companies since then and both were struggling with a lot of inexperienced or absent remote workers. Dealing with them on a case-by-case basis is the right call, of course, but it takes a toll on management's trust of remote workers in general.
Fortunately I haven't had to install any overly intrusive monitoring software, but I did learn that my company now dedicates a significant amount of business analyst time to analyzing activity of remote employees now. Apparently they had so many problems with remote employees (and their managers!) barely getting any work done that management has soured on remote work in general, so new hires have to be on site unless someone can vouch for them being excellent remote workers.
The competition for remote work has also gone way up. Every remote job opening we posted would get literally thousands of applications.
The combination of increasing competition for remote jobs and declining sentiment toward remote work (see: Amazon and other big companies) does not bode well for those of us who were successfully working remote for many years, IMO.
This was most likely also happening in the office, it was just masked with the appearance of work in the form of in-person meetings and people zoning out at their desks. When you have a bunch of people in a room together progress grinds to a halt because it becomes completely about performance.
I think this is the one place AR/VR is almost ready to really help out. "Teleport" your chair to someone else's space while they "draw" on the "whiteboard" to show you things—with their actual body and hands.
Rigs anywhere near good enough to make this non-terrible are gonna be expensive for some time, and maybe don't quite exist yet (but are the one valuable use-case within striking distance of current hardware, I think), sure—but isn't the claim that this kind of interaction is incredibly valuable? Four-figure cost per six-figure worker should be a no brainer, then (unless companies/managers are just bullshitting about that...). And meeting rooms ain't cheap.
Same with my kid. Another big win of remote for me is that I can go where I'm treated best. I can pick a country (anyone could pick my country and I had to welcome them with open hands, so it's only fair game that in exchange I'm allowed to go wherever I feel like going) which welcomes me and my family and where the taxes are reasonable and where the people are nice.
I'm at my fourth country in seven years and this time I think the family shall stay for quite a while.
Dead Comment
1. The quality of remote workers seems to have dropped significantly post pandemic. I think this is because, in the past to work remote at an in-office company you need to be pretty valuable. Now people who can't work well without the structure of an office are able to get remote work and coast. This means the good people are carrying a lot more dead weight.
2. Juniors simply don't learn as much or as quickly in a remote environment. Many of them just go dark when they can't figure something out.
3. Perhaps you save money by not commuting, but my wife and I both work remote. That means our companies have basically colonized 200 square feet of our house rent free. We could be using these rooms for something else. It almost feels like a 3rd amendment violation sometimes.
Further, my new boss is an extrovert and has found that she can’t stand working from home and prefers the office. I was hired fully remote, but there’s more and more in-office meetings held, where I might be the only person on a giant 96” conference room screen. This really makes remote feel like being an outsider and I feel less involved with the team. My role was supposed to be managing and strategy but it’s more of a taskmaster at this point. I can have one-on-one discussions with leaders, but the decisions are not made in a video call, they’re being made in an office face-to-face.
I think if I were a remote contractor this would be fine and I wouldn’t care so much about the dynamic. However, trying to be a genuine employee in a non-remote first and locally focused company is proving difficult.
It's not even that I don't value the face-to-face conversations and human interaction, I absolutely do. It just doesn't come close to the immense value I gain by WFH.
A side benefit: I was able to move closer to my church community, so my "human interaction" need is being fulfilled richer than ever now.
(One of the most frustrating things in all the WFH vs RTO discourse is that there is this false dichotomy being presented. It's either extroverted people who are energized by others, or introverts who'd rather be in the dark closet by themselves. I am as extroverted as they come, and I thrived in the office environment. Still wouldn't trade WFH for the world.)
This is what the "but you need human interaction" return-to-office crowd doesn't understand.
WFH !== Being alone
WFH means surrounding yourself with the people you choose to be around.
Whether that's your church community, fellow hobbyists, intramural sports teams, the local co-working space, etc.
Plus, that can include "my coworkers" for anyone that wants to make work a bigger part of their life, like those working in startups. However, this should be the exception, not the rule like it has been.
It should be your choice...
Perfectly stated. I can be quite outgoing when I want to be, and in many of my previous jobs I enjoyed many of my colleagues, but now I can devote my energy to the relationships I value most.
I have four kids, time is undoubtedly my most valuable commodity. I don't think I'd be able to foster as many friendships if I was working in an office. I'm sure I'd have friendships with a few colleagues, but WFH enables me to devote myself to friendships as I see fit.
So I find myself longing for office time, not because I like office time, but rather because I feel like it might bring back some sanity to the relationship.
Am I the only one in that situation? What do you do? It's not like I can structure another individual, it would only work if they themselves recognize that they need structure, which they don't.
Are you in Tonga or something?
Only wondering because ~3 years versus a little less than 2 years seems like a potentially big difference, so wondering if that feeling of fulfillment has is still going strong that long
I believe the extrovert vs. introvert division is a false dichotomy in the first place.
Commute time, environment at home, career seniority - these are the most important factors in this discussion
I value face-to-face time in the office but still prefer remote work and its not even close.
It would be nice to have an office very close by and be able to go when I want. But there is nothing good nearby and im not moving.
Being successful at remote work as a developer and creative is using the right tools when it comes to collaboration. This means having a good A/V setup that doesn't need regular futzing with to work. Know your OS's sound and camera settings. Know your team tools inside and out. Another thing that I work on daily is better written communication skills, specifically, better commit message, taking that extra 5 minutes to write up a concise PR.
Screen capture is another tool I regularly use, and have refined my skills in. I often screenshot things and add drawn and text annotations to highlight important information and supplement with a chat message. That can often help solve problems much faster. I have us all using more digital whiteboarding tools. We're learning what too much or too little Kanban board granularity is. Adjusting workflows both in project management and remote communication is super important. Finding the inefficiencies and efficiencies requires a lot of open-mindedness and humility.
We had an employee who wasn't finding success in remote work and I realized a lot of his struggles were with not knowing how to use core desktop publishing and digital communication tools. He was from the save it on your hard drive and email-it-to-me generation. He missed standing at the coffee machine and chatting. He didn't care to learn advanced features of the Google Suite, or get OBS up and running. Those factors combined didn't help him succeed in remote work. It was unfortunate to see.
One thing that can be done to positively influence opponents of remote work, in your organization or in the industry in general is emphasizing the importance of core modern computer literacy. I think that being a highly productive remote employee requires one to develop and maintain a high degree of core computer literacy (using office productivity tools, communication software, and managing A/V hardware).
Also I've only once had a commute longer than 20 minutes and it was such a burden (even though I carpooled) I gave that up after less than a year.
You're not alone.
The internet likes to talk about remote work as the only acceptable arrangement, but that's mostly because it's biased toward people who like socializing via internet comment sections.
The number of people who actually like going to the office (either part or full time) is far higher than you'd expect from reading Reddit and Hacker News.
Bingo. There is relationship building and other interactions that are simply not possible in any other way that I have found. I go in 3 days most weeks, and that makes a huge difference in lifestyle and flexibility. Since I work in robotics, 100% remote is never going to be a thing for me. Zoom meeting and software days, remote. Wrench days, in the lab. Works for me.
I'm more likely to try and get a $15/hr job with benefits here locally than haul my family back to the bay area.
Am I missing some big piece of context here that would make my analysis wrong?
https://twitter.com/AndrewKemendo/status/1683877057959272449
I honestly believe people work better when they get dressed and have some routine. No idea how people can work in their PJs, I'd feel so lazy, lol.
However. The commute is killer. Even if you get it down to just 15 min. (which is hard unless you live right next to work) that's 30 min. a day. Prob adds up to well over 100 hrs a year just commuting. I know some ppl do public transport with an audio book or something but for me, that's still 100 hours commuting.
If I could teleport to the office, I'd say in person 60/40 split. Since I have to commute, remote all the way except for important kick offs or brainstorming sessions.
If we just finished scoping out a project and I have dozens of programming hours, I'm def going to lock myself in my office with headphones and type away.
If things are slow and I need some motivation, I think going to the office would help.
One day I realized I was falling asleep on the hour-long, 12-mile route home. (Los Angeles traffic is no joke.) I sold my car and now use metro/bus to commute, or do remote work.
ps: I also can't work from home in my PJs, I "dress up" by putting on jeans :-D
I need my morning commute. It's a kind of forced meditation that I can't get at home with three young children.
It would stress me out if I couldn't work a flexible schedule or if I had to deal with rush-hour, so I'm thankful that these stars aligned for me.
For me, anytime I'm commuting I feel is time I could be doing almost literally _anything_ else. My secret to getting away (its not forced though, lol) is a mini sauna. I don't really sit in there sometimes but if I say I'm going to it's everyone's clue to leave me alone haha.
Ultimately, I do get more coding done at home. However, being surrounded by colleges and a "business" atmosphere motivates me to actually do the coding, its hard to explain lol.
Also distractions. If you get distracted at home it can get pretty bad. At work you at least have to try.