They are, I work for one - it imposes challenges but in aggregate it is a vastly preferable way to work for me.
Interestingly the people who do well 100% remote are quite different to the people who well 100% in office.
Fundamentally the people who communicate the most effectively in written text and can concisely convey their thoughts/opinions do well.
I love it but I can completely understand why some people wouldn't.
I'm a young programmer in my 20s and I get plenty of training working remotely.
You need to speak with your manager about this. There’s a lot of social contact and training that can be created without being in the office. If you haven’t spoken up and are just stewing about it at home, your team may be oblivious you feel this way.
There’s also no reason to assume you’d have gotten more training in the office. Many teams simply do not invest enough in training and onboarding new engineers. It sounds like you’re new to the industry and possibly haven’t realized this is common yet. The good news is communication can often resolve this to some degree if not fully.
Wouldn't it be the other way around? Sacrificing your career for social contact?
And to be honest, this might be a personal thing, but if a job isn't worth being in person for, then it's not worth pursuing at all. I know I'd much rather be with a few friends hacking projects together for pennies on the dollar than making 200k remote.
Agreed, except the biggest movers for my career have been social contacts made outside of work.
People incorrectly keep thinking about remote work only in a pandemic sense. Remote work doesn't mean zero social contact, it means more control over the social contact you have.
Frankly, I can't think of a single reason you would want to live in the South Bay. Even if you liked the lifestyle, you could find it in a sunnier suburb near Santa Barbara for a quarter of the price.
Pure remote companies are likely to be rare. But we may see a proliferation of hybrid companies that maintain office spaces but allow certain roles to work remotely most of the time.
I think your analysis here is one-sided and is ignoring all the major problems with 100%-work-in-office cultures. Housing costs are absolutely out of control in major urban centers, and newcomers are sacrificed at the altar of NIMBYism in order to make existing homeowners/landowners wealthier. People are wasting away commuting hours a day. Folks have been getting crammed into denser and denser open floorplans and bullpens for years.
People are willing to put up with these things when they don't have any other options. But when other companies are investing in supporting hybrid environments and you're stuck still requiring people to relocate to San Francisco permanently, you're going to start losing talent. Not supporting some kind of hybrid remote policy is going to become a serious competitive disadvantage in the talent market. You can still maintain your trendy urban office space to attract the college graduates who want that lifestyle.