What’s the general consensus among software engineers who are below 35? Does anyone feel the collaboration that happens in office environment can be replaced by being wfh forever? Gauging the interest post covid. Thanks Are you ok to work remote forever ? #remotework #wfh Edit 1: I see a lot of people asking why not a option for work from office 5 days a week. Well given how people have become used to wfh, it’s not going to be easy to enforce a full co-location policy. When I spoke to my previous CTO very recently who is changing the company, he mentioned many VC’s he’s talking to are already considering the future to be a 70-30 model and every company will need to adapt to the policy of having wfh few days a week if not full remote. Edit 2: Salesforce declares employees will work 1-3 days in office post pandemic https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/02/09/salesforce-says-most-employees-will-only-be-in-office-1-to-3-days-a-week-after-pandemic/
How about an option for office 5-6 times a week?
That is "old normal". And personally I'd like it more than hybrid (2-3 days in the office). Work all days from office as we used to gives clear expectations on whom you meet there, and also the opportunity to live in a smaller place next to your office (if you don't need to maintain your home office and share it somehow with your partner).
I like a physical separation between work and home. Plus our office is awesome! Awesome food, free beer, events - I miss the office 😩 If you don’t love your job, move.
Unsustainable arrangement for sure, but my ideal situation is WFH 3 weeks out of every month and then visit the office for a week. It’s what I was doing pre-COVID between HQ and Seattle.
That’s actually a good thought as well. One of my friend used to do it before covid. He is being remote for 3 years now and he thinks being remote all the time is not the best thing for him. He liked visiting the office one week per month.
I mean you're basically WFH forever. Most people who are remote also go into the office for sync ups once in a while.
It's great WFH, especially when you make Bay area salary but live in Atlanta. Shit is unreal the amount of debt I can payoff. Plus, I can always visit the Atlanta office if I want to see people
What if the company changes your pay to Atlanta market pay and not Bay Area? Will you still prefer it? I don’t even see companies keeping Bay Area offices. Might most move to Texas to lower taxes just because everyone is remote.
OP, not sure how it works at Google but at Microsoft you get just 12-15% reduction in your *base* salary, no stock adjustment. So it's an adjustment that doesn't really affect all that much, you'll save a lot more on your mortgage if you buy the same quality house for $500k instead of $1M+.
Only want to go back to the office for free food
It’s not free
Well it’s not currently added to my compensation
One need to understand that remote working will also come with so many disadvantages. If you are early in your career, networking & personal interaction is the key and will always be the key for long term career and opportunity. I just can’t imagine getting where I am today without that. And by working remotely in isolated rooms & talking to machines all day, the work life balance can become very toxic inducing more mental health issues even for very healthy people. There is no clear separation of my personal & work life no matter how much I try. There is already lesser & lesser human interaction/touch in our lives year by year with increased digital engagement. This will be devastating and will have serious consequences on us as well as upcoming generations. Does work from home save money by letting them work from anywhere? Yes it does. Does it give more flexibility to employee? Yes it does. Does it save money for the firm? Yes it does. But just not totally worth it, atleast for me. I enjoy personal interaction & building those relationships. But do I want to go to work all 5 days a week? Probably not. 3-4 days at office will be the right balance. Unless you are retiring in next 4-5 years, it will be a dumb move to move completely remote. If you are young & want to work remote 100%, rip your long term career. You are encouraging company to hire workers else where they can hire 6 people at the same cost. When u r a lil old & lose your job to outsourcing, you are to blame not the company for encouraging virtual culture in first place for your temporary benefit. This will happen in huge scale in next few years as companies try to increase margins
Totally Agree and plus it will end up people getting depressed more than ever...
I agree. But why can't we just shrink the work week to 4 days and 3 days off. I bet when people decided to take the weekend off they didn't say "oh I'll work 5 days in office and 2 days at home". I know it's a lame example but still, we are getting more and more productive yet expected to put more hours instead of benefiting from all the automation and productivity growth. I feel like only the rich are benefiting, cause the US have one do the most productive population yet we take the least PTO.
I like the hybrid model only because I absolutely love living in the Bay Area and wouldn't want to leave
Are you a landlord? Or do you own property that has appreciated insanely in the last decade?
Rather go to office two three weeks a year and work rest remotely. With hybrid need to live close to office so whats the point bay area sucks
U suck man
Not sure what VMware’s problem is. I agree with living where you want. I’ll happily drive/fly out once a quarter or something for team building and roadmap planning etc.
Young guns underestimate why people buy houses in expensive areas. No matter how much I tell you, you won’t get it. You will get it when you are married, have kids, grown a social connection among your friends in your community. Once you are in that position, you will realize, moving to cheaper areas and save money is not in your priority list. You will stay where you are. Maybe a few miles farther than work location but you won’t leave the city. Not like move from seattle to Idaho. That won’t happen. Young guys who would move far, will fall behind in career progression.
I agree with you! The social connection is building so many career connections my boss kids are studying as same school peer manager and they have a good camaraderie.
I like Wfh because there is less politics and less water cooler talk. I like we work and we build camaraderie over work not on what I did over weekend or what clothes I’m wearing.
Depends on your role. If you code all day, that might be different. I'm in R&D, to be efficient we need to talk to other researchers and scientists and having a ton of zoom meetings instead of a few productive in-person ones is not optimal for us.
I don't agree with you. I find that research works perfectly well with remote work and video calls. I found this also to be true in academia.
I'm okay to WFH forever. Definitely better than "hybrid" model, which implies you have to buy an overpriced house within driving distance to your office, and on top of that to see your colleagues just a few times a month. Because, guess what, people will pick different days to WFH.
Agreed, but Why can’t the team unanimously decide a specific day for the team meetings and company wide events so that it does not become like what you said, people picking different days to come to office?
But you still have to live near the office. 🤷🏾♂️