Senior ICs are split on WFH. Managers who can code are split.
Managers who can’t code are unanimous.
It is a real issue though and the answer isn’t obvious. I tend to think that something like A16Z’s model will wind up as the end state: modest amounts of flex office space, geographically distributed, with frequent, family-friendly off sites.
Pair-programming software infrastructure will have to improve, and maintaining a hub of urban office space where Senior ICs get a COL bump to be near the young folks will probably be part of it.
It’s a new world, and there will be an adjustment, but there’s enough critical people who simply aren’t going back that it’ll be management’s job to figure it out. I imagine figuring it out well will pay commensurately well.
> but there’s enough critical people who simply aren’t going back that it’ll be management’s job to figure it out
Pendulum is swinging, my friend. With a big recession looming, companies will have all the leverage. Elon has already paved the way and other big companies will soon follow. On the other end of the spectrum, a lot of startups will be bootstrapped in this recession and a majority of startup founders want to have the initial bootstrapping team to be together[0].
[0] Based on my first hand observation working as an advisor for a VC firm.
With that said, we've been through this before: companies always have leverage with many/most of their employees, and that is going even further up for awhile, but Google Search doesn't stay up without a meaningful number of people who have made enough money to not be pushed around.
This is the flip side of being one of the "CEO/VC class" and having a boom decade or two: most of the real pros made some serious money on stock and can't be herded like cattle the way new grads can be.
The American economy has become an experiment in how close you can get to indentured servitude for your working people without calling it that by twisting the macroeconomic knobs until the kid doesn't get medicine unless you hump that bullshit job. I'm sure the money guy who figures out how to do that to hardass infrastructure hackers or founder-caliber kids will be hailed as a hero (in private), but it hasn't happened yet alhamdulillah.
If you try doing that remotely you need permanent surveilance with a webcam, and people get all uppity about it when that happens in their own home.
Jim sits and watches cat videos on youtube all day - is 0x plan, and will be promoted to being your boss next year.
The tactic never seems to be to hire more people to do the actual work though, curious!
In my experience, it's the exact opposite. WFH creates more of a fog of war, so companies end up hiring more managers to stay on top of it.
Some employees are great at self-directed WFH, but many others struggle without the physical, social context of the office to get them focused. Again, companies rely on more managers to compensate for those employees who struggle more with WFH.
I know people will say "Just hire people who are good at WFH", but if we transition large amounts of the workforce to WFH then you can no longer pick-and-choose just the good WFH people. You have to deal with the realities of managing WFH at scale.