Who said anything about a door? We dont have two spare rooms really.
I suspect anyone that enjoys living in a high cost of living city (SF, NYC, etc) and isn’t obscenely wealthy is working from their living or bedroom. If you’re not living alone, WFH becomes a lot harder.
I would prefer to live in SF and go to the office (because my house/apt is too small) than live elsewhere but be able to afford a house with a dedicated room for an office.
Still EXPENSIVE as hell, and no big open spaces to yourself, but also still not a quick stroll to all the world-class amenities of SF.
Maybe it varies for other people, but when i think of "live in to enjoy the city" i think 2 blocks from enough food to never cook again, new bars every friday, a quick transit ride to almost any activity i could want - and no car ownership needed. Its a lifestyle of living out of the city as a communal space, not a destination to visit on weekends.
Combining that with the fact that we don't do bars, we cook and need car ownership so we can do hike-trips...
I still live in the Bay Area, but it's a 45min (no traffic) to ~1:45hr (typical) commute to the South Bay. It'd be hard to do this every day, but I don't have to.
As a result, I get to live on huge chunk of land, with an office to call my own, for the same $$ I'd spend on a 4br/3ba 'normal' house in San Jose.
We are actually moving soon primarily so that I can have an office.
Simple solution, put a sign on the door that indicates you are working and only to interrupt if it's important. You can still set boundaries here without it being an issue. Be creative, talk it out with your SO.
This can help when kids get old enough to understand as well, but admittedly won't work with small children.
> miss software design sessions with my team, we would go thru issues 2x faster being together.
I think this is something that can be solved with software but it'll take some time to develop workflows that work for everyone. Talk to your team to try to find ways you can optimize.
> - Onboarding new team members is a lot harder and they feel less part of the "team"
This comes down to the culture, which is your last part.
You can help new members feel included in simple ways. Or simply include them in decisions and discussions is helpful. Really it's the same as when you're working in the same location. You just have to be proactive about including someone that you're not seeing. This is more on you and less on the new person.