As somebody who worked in IT before and who had to wrestle a bit with policy in the past - I recommend you don't see your work MacBook as your "own computer". Because it's not. The company shouldn't restrict you from doing your job and reasonable and competent IT departments know which users needs what access (including root access) to perform their role, but they do also have a duty to the company and its equipment and frankly have the right and resoanable need to install admin tooling.

Try and see it from their perspective.

From their perspective:

Worker cost 50 money. How company get 50 money? Worker not work so much, maybe? How to quantify? What if spy? Company tell IT monkey to give developer monkey spy. Our computer, company can do a little spy. Company catch smoke break. Company catch walk break. Company give worker "performance improvement plan." Company fire worker. Company now have 100 money. Company smart. Company efficient. Company legally protected from retaliation. Company give executive monkey 30 money as reward for small overhead. Company offer manager monkey 7 money. Company offer IT monkey 3 money. Company brag about in annual report.

It's not merely about who owns the device though. It is also about the environment a person has to work in and that, I would say, is more relevant here. Do I want to be spied upon while working? No. Do I want to feel like in a surveillance state for 8h of my day? Do I need this feeling in my life? No and no.

> I recommend you don't see your work MacBook as your "own computer". Because it's not.

This entirely depends on whether the company supplied or paid for the device. Given they're trying to install MDM after the fact, it sounds more likely to me that they didn't. In which case if they want that level of control they should buy their own company equipment.

>Try and see it from their perspective.

Just no. Our IT department is 100% Windows focused. I can't get help to anything that isn't "a Windows problem". I can't get ports open in the network, I can't get simple things like mosh to work, because again it is not "a Windows problem", so I am not going to let them screw my perfectly fine machine with some Windows bloat ware there is a reason why no one is dev is running Windows.

This actually is a hill I am willing to die on. If I can't use my machine how I see best then I can start accepting any of the interview offers my spam folder is full of.

I had the same problem recently. Just ended up buying a new computer just for work stuff. They pay me a lot so I can afford to buy M1 Air which is still really really fast.

Is it ecological? No. But the compliance beast must be fed. So fine.

If an employer requires device registration (MDM etc), they should provide the hardware.

Yeah well, they should, but again they pay so good that it’s not really worth arguing about.

Even then what is the purpose? Say IT department closes VPN to some Windows proprietary solution. I am just going to get a laptop from work that only runs the VPN and pipe my actual working machine through that laptop.

This is exactly the kind of waste we should get rid of, but sadly this is exactly what we get by offshoring IT into India where people just do exactly what some consultant tells them to do without any critical thought if it is appropriate or not.