It's funny to hear all this hand wringing about the loss of spontaneous collaboration in offices, because in 10 years of working in tech offices in NYC, this was by far the dominant pattern: dozens of people sitting in a big open room wearing noise canceling headphones, talking to each other on Slack.
I have. Happens all the time.
> The famous "whiteboarding sessions where ideas are born" can be easily done remotely
Really? How? All the tools are garbage and none have the tactility of a marker.
you just made the case for losing the non-remote team and outsourcing everything to a cheaper time zone or even a cheaper country, because why not? after all, remote is so efficient. So why waste money on extremely expensive western labor?
> As I've already developed personal connections with my coworkers
there could be people that, you know, haven't yet done that, like juniors or newhires
They are distinct things, and knowledge workers aren't the most fungible things.
A good team is a good team, regardless of how they communicate and collaborate. Replace one person in that team, and you have a different team.
Replacing a team just because they're remote is phenomenally destructive, just like the layoffs are.
> because why not? after all, remote is so efficient
That's not the point of remote. It is a preferred way of working for a significant portion of the industry.
But you suggested getting rid of the existing team in favour of a remote team in another country, because remote is more efficient. You lose more than you'll gain in the cost savings.
I'm fully on board with remote teams across the globe, especially when it means engineers can be on call while the sun is up.
Do it becuase it gives you access to talent, not because it's cheaper or remote is "efficient".
In fact, it's even more of an illustration for what i'm trying to say. Let's assume all remote hurdles have been lifted, 100%. So, if I'm hiring for a new group initially based in Australia, what makes me recruit from a pool of 25mil people vs. 250mil people in Pakistan and 1400mil in India? Why in this case even have an Australian engineering team, ever?
My point was that remote teams across countries, and in some cases timezones, can work. But replacing a team just becuase you can get cheaper engineers is destructive.
Build a remote team on purpose, or let your team move to locations that requires them to work remote.
The point I'm trying to make is focus on the team and what's best for them. If it's a new team why limit yourself to one country.
> Why in this case even have an _________ engineering team, ever?
The same reason some engineers command more renumeration than others (in the same market), you find good talent and want them on board.
On the days I go to my office, all I observe is people wearing headphones to be able to focus. Team lunches are nice, but we never talk about work. As I've already developed personal connections with my coworkers, I could go months without seeing them in person (as a matter of fact, that's what happens with my coworkers who live across the country).
The famous "whiteboarding sessions where ideas are born" can be easily done remotely, or in one off events in the office if people who believe in office work insist. I found shared docs and basic digital whiteboards allowing me to draw rectangles, arrows and labels as efficient than physical chalk/marker boards. Why? Because the hard work is on the ideas and conversations, not the drawing.
Also anecdotally, in 10+ years of office work, I've never observed a single "watercooler conversation" leading to a particularly interesting idea. I generally hear sports, weather chat and complaints about the food by the watercooler. Oh, have you seen that? I'll counter that with the dozens of non-watercooler conversations that led to interesting ideas.