In our remote team we have occasional virtual beer sessions, and better yet, we plan for bbqs every now and then. Also we sometimes play starcraft or just call each other. But we do this voluntarily as opposed to being forced by our peers. I absolutely dont mind making friends at work but voluntarily.

Clearly people who want to go to an office should join companies/teams that go to an office and people who don't should join companies/teams that don't.

Or there could be, ya know, a mix. Again, you are trying to impose either or, whereas those of us who work from home want to be accommodating. Perhaps because we, despite working just as hard, are a bit more laxed in how we view the world around us.

Ever tried meetups&co ? There is a life out of work

Some people want to enjoy their time at work as well.

There is life outside of work, but that doesn't mean work needs to be lifeless.

Yes but that's none of my business, I'm not here to be your social circle at work, I have other things to do

Thats fine, You don't have to apply to my workplace.

I will value positions that fit my needs, and you are free to do the same.

When hiring, I will select employees that meet the onsite requirements and fit the culture.

Well you dont own the place so you might have to hire remote if your employer wishes to attract talented and productive people.

Sure, we sometimes do.

In my my experience it is a trade off. I find most full time remote employees not to be very productive. I would rather pay more to hire local in office.

In some instances it is so bad that I would rather pay more to hire a local novice and train to the role.

My guess is that your employer is mistaking remote work for cheap outsourcing. Probably budgeting for less and thats reflected in the quality of work. Otherwise i cant see how local junior devs can perform better than senior remote engineers. Either that or its your own conscious bias that impedes delivery.

Not software devs but engineers with pretty good offers for the industry ~200k.

The main challenges are onboarding and building an internal networking so that they can get the information they need.

Things you would ask a coworker in 5 minutes take months to figure out.

Some of this is obviously company specific, but 20 new hires in a room learn 20x as fast as one alone.

This changes things a bit as it seems like the issue is not remote workers and their skills. When i was a hiring manager i specifically asked new hires to get things up and running on their own, as a means to review our documentation. If they couldnt then we needed to improve. If you needed to “network” to get things done then that was a sign of bureaucracy. I kept teams small so that they could self service. Code was also split so it was manageable from a cognitive perspective not just technical.

But there is nuance to everything and varying levels of complexity, however people maintain kernels such as linux or operating systems such as freebsd or other massively complex and successful open or commercial products without ever meeting face to face.

Many years ago when i heard people talking about remote i simply couldnt get my head around it. I wanted buts in the seats and people in front of whiteboards. I just couldnt comprehend how entire companies operate without even having an office and they weren’t mom and pop size. Until it clicked. If a company can have offices spread across continents, let alone remote customers, then it surely can hire remote employees.

I would take everything you listed above as signs that things need to improve. Remote is not the issue here.

Also if you dump me in a room with 20 people just to get your code up an running i might think i am at a highschool not a proper workplace. Similarly if i need to jump through hoops to get things done then thats not a desirable place to work at regardless of pay or remote work.

I didnt mean to imply that the remote workers themselves are any inferior than local. I think you are right that it comes down to complexity and the degree to which projects and tasks can be compartmentalized.

I work in biotech and of my projects has probably 200 engineers and scientists working on interdependent tasks, and 10 years of accumulated knowledge. Requirement and knowledge management can only go so far, so networking becomes critical to find subject matter experts, or someone can point you to one when you need answers.

I think there is some threshold of work scale or interdependence where remote work breaks down. That is to say, any productivity benefits from remote work scale linearly and communication challenges scale exponentially. This of course assumes that there is some communication friction for remote relative to in person.

I see your point. Cross domain setups may struggle with remote work, as indeed devs needs to sometimes sit next to domain experts to better understand what they are aiming to achieve. Wondering if some of that can be mitigated by better story writing and specing or hybrid work, but either way i dont have a solution that makes sense as i have never been in your position. You did however show me a new perspective, as i assumed a tech company or the crud types that dont need that level of interdisciplinary communication.

Happy to provide my perspective. Of course I acknowledge that you are certainly right that some types of work can be fully remote or even benefit from it. After all, there's always been types of work with clear requirements that can be shopped out or contracted.

Anyone who claims that everything can be work from home or everything must be in office is missing the big picture.

It's amazing how daft these guys are, socializing at work is a fundamental way of building better relationships and being able to deep dive into more complex and controversial issues. Humans operate off of trust and treating everyone as an anonymous worker bee is only a recipe for getting basic work done that streams down from management.

Following your logic there should be no ecommerce, since you cant step into a building and establish trust. Also there should be no companies distributed geographically since people cant “deep dive” into “controversial issues”. Such a dated concept and so not fit for modern day.

But the notion that people cant convey ideas while remote shows you either havent worked with experienced people or are inexperienced yourself.

I specifically mentioned socializing at work and working with complex and controversial issues, how does buying something online relate to that? I also never said that people can't convey ideas while remote, the post I replied to made one vague mention of on-site requirements, I made none. Just the implication that on-site leads to better building of trust.

I would never personally advocate for full on-site and I am actually a supporter of full remote work. I just don't pretend it's already perfect and that we can function by just purely conversing about work like we are JIRA ticket machines.

Also, geographically distributed companies will still tend to have the majority of people in a team or sub-team in one area but nothing is 100%. Different geographies usually have different responsibilities. Companies will also do all kinds of other methods of team building that is mostly social to compensate like flying everyone to a singe location occasionally or remote activities.

> treating everyone as an anonymous worker bee is only a recipe for getting basic work done that streams down from management.

I might blow your mind but there is a whole spectrum between being stuck with colleagues in an office 2000 hours a year and being an anonymous working bee

Yes, there is a spectrum to everything and my comment was not absolute about working hours either. I was not proposing we go to the office full time, simply that socialization at work is a core piece of building trust at work which is fundamental to deep collaborative efforts.

And the implication obviously is that socialization works better in person, but I didn't say it was exclusive to that. The person I responded to did say something about on-site requirements but it was vague.

But why at our expense, both financially and mentally? The desire to work onsite, if you think about it, demands that others are in the office with you - since what you need is other people to make it enjoyable for you.

As i said, i dint mind people wanting or working on site. But that demand seems to either directly or indirectly mandate that others work onsite as well.

So why should earn less and live in worse conditions just so that you can chat with me in an office?

Im not demanding anything of others. I will seek out companies that fit my needs and you are free to do the same.