Any software company that’s ending remote work right now is basically risking its entire existence. There’s no possible way, in this market, a company will be able to replace 10% of its workforce in a reasonable time. I can understand why management wants to go back to the office, but why would you ever take the risk of being one of the first, before gauging how the market will react.

It's a big company and they are an ERP vendor thus rooted in old fashioned manufacturing ideas. They think their size will protect them.

These companies are probably right that their size will protect them. People who are currently employed know better than to take the abuse. That's why these major companies recruit so heavily at colleges and rope in people who have zero perspective on work who don't know any better.

I had a poor college GPA. I missed a lot of good job opportunities because of this. However, it made me un-hireable at a lot of large companies that I might have considered at the time.

Especially more senior developers.

I mean things will probably settle down in 6-12 months. But that's a problem for companies trying to hire today, who need to get shit done in the next 6-12 months

Mostly for more junior people, be very careful with this. Even if companies make sure promotions happen equally for on-site and remote, you'll learn everything slower. This could be new technology, a new language, or things about the company's infrastrucutre, but it will all be slower, and don't be surprised when people who are on-site seem better at their jobs.

Depends on how you learn. Personally I've alway been ultra self taught. Even in university would only show up for lectures if I didnt understand the material in the text book. Else I basically just followed the syllabus and got reasonably good grades.

Some are more hands on though and prefer social learning ("show me how to do it..."). To each their own, but I personally learn faster when left alone than when someone tries to put me through their "course".

It also depends on what you are learning. I'm sure a junior engineer would get by just fine if all they had to do was learn a language, but if you have to look at a 10-year-old system where only senior co-workers know the context for, I wouldn't blame them for needing some hand-holding.

yeah, in that case the Senior co-worker literally is the text book.

That being said, just reading the source code is under untilized these days. Engineers sometimes ask me how the system works, I send them to the repo. It's all right there, just have to learn to read the story it tells.

One risk is that often times the co-worker knows the business logic in "how it ought to be" not the reality of the underlying code. I've had engineers say "It works like X" and I have to say "well, only sometimes. The code says this..."

Please don't spread FUD. I was onsite and still learned slower. It all depends on your team and documentation. I mentor people remotely and they have been successful

Mine is returning part time on July 19th. When asked if we're more productive in the office vs at home we were told flat out "we don't have that data".

My commute is 5 miles. 30 minutes by bike (on a few sketchy roads) or 15 minutes by car. I need to time out which is actually faster end-to-end. I setup an office in my house pre-pandemic (It's gaming room with dual monitors on a desktop PC I built in college) 3x the space, a couch and much closer walk to the bathroom. I'm sad to give it up now.

don't give it up, is the simple answer.

As in just stay remote? Not sure how to execute on that