To be on the safer side, I try to consider only offers from company that have no physical office at all, so it's quite impossible that in the medium term they call a "return to office" policy... I mean, they could always decide to buy office space out of the blue, but usually in those company all the upper management is there exactly because they want to WFH for life

This has been every place I've worked for the last decade, honestly. Even before WFH was a thing, all meetings took place over videoconferencing and most discussions took place over email and chat even with the people in the cube next to yours.

Working from home didn't seem like a major shift to me because no work or communications flows changed with it.

It is only now that I am restarting my normal body cycle again. I should not have to put up with that bs.

If you have never worked in that way, let me tell you it's the absolute worst situation.

I'd rather go back to the office instead of having it work like that.

People at the office will have hours of discussions that are not recorded anywhere, might even make decisions without your input and you are always playing catch up.

If a company has remote workers, the company ought to be remote first otherwise it's horrible for everybody and resentment is the only thing you reap from it.

That happened a lot even during the in-office days as well. People with more seniority and influence would whiteboard new ideas and then bring you up to speed on the next daily standup on what they decided.

If you were indeed that vital to the engineering effort they would definitely rope you in for the whiteboard session. It's not the end of the world if you find out the decisions the next day.

And honestly, roping in everyone to attend every single impromptu meeting just so you're up to speed on everything would be a huge time sink in terms of interruptions and I assure you you would complain about that too.

Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You just can't win.

Not who you are replying to but sure - I am actually in such a position where I get the summary of what I need to do second-hand; it is great - mainly because the person I get it from is another senior developer so he knows the pitfalls; that also means he is able to lay the roadmap of what I need to do which makes things so much more easier.

Another time, it was a manager who was originally a developer and was quite hands-on - same experience.

> And honestly, roping in everyone to attend every single impromptu meeting just so you're up to speed on everything would be a huge time sink in terms of interruptions and I assure you you would complain about that too.

100% agree.

> Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win.

> Developers should cut out the Mary Sue, and come down to earth for a bit, we're just cogs in a machine doing work for a paycheck, that's it, and even without you, your company and projects will still go on. You're most likely not the be-all end-all of your company as you imagine.

When you have decision makers that neither have the technical chops nor consult those that have them, things usually get complicated. Because then they miss the technical perspective, don't know what is feasible and what is not, commit things that are technically not prudent, forget to take into account the potential pitfalls etc etc - all of those things have a significant impact on the hands-on person down the line i.e. the developer. All decision makers are obviously not like that - those with the awareness and humility about not having the technical insights, include developers in the meetings to cover such aspects and that solves many issues upfront for both the project and the developers.

Speaking for myself, I don't love being in those meetings but sure appreciate that being present provides the opportunity of handling things at design stage so that they don't come back and bite me closer to delivery. Are there power-hungry limelight-seeking developers who do it for visibility/building image? Sure, but I haven't seen as many of them as I have seen managers with such tendencies. And if we say that there is nothing wrong with vying for visibility and image building etc and all those things are just signs of healthy competition/ambition - well, then that applies as much to developers as it does to managers.

> > Seems like you can never please developers: If you don't invite them to attend all the meetings, then they're offended because they feel left out from important decisions. If you invite them to all the meetings then they're angry because you're interrupting their productivity with useless meetings. You can never win.

Why aren't your developers empowered to say "I don't need to be there" to a meeting?

Why aren't your developers in the loop enough to know about upcoming conversations so they can ask if their presence would be useful?

Every job where I've grown responsibility, I find that not only did those interactions become possible, they've became expected of me.

But then again, my experience was built at mission-focused companies. I know a lot of "tech" these days is stay-in-your-lane companies.

That's incredibly condescending and reductionist, and it says a lot more about you than it does about "developers", either any individuals or in the aggregate.

Maybe try thinking of people as individuals, rather than lumping all "developers" together as one unreasonable bundle of pointless complainers...?

I think you might be a bit overly sensitive and overreactive (the Mary Sue I was talking about).

I also think you might need to look up what a Mary Sue actually is[0]. Hint: It's not "someone who reacts poorly to criticism," nor even "someone who wants unrealistic things for themselves." (It also has an extremely loaded and sexist history.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

Er, they've been doing that even pre-pandemic, and even when I'm in the same room.

But having half the team in one office and the other half remote seemed to be the worst of both. When I was remote I felt relief when everyone else in the discussion turned out to be remote as well, and when I was in-person it was similarly nice when we realized that everyone in the meeting was physically present.

So it's not surprising to me that companies would gravitate one way or the other.

It doesn’t unless the company makes the decision to let it “win.”

Some people prefer working at companies that are 100% in person. Some prefer 100% remote. Some are OK with some type of hybrid arrangement.

If a person is working at a company with policies they don’t like, either they work to get the policies changed, they find a job with policies they do like, or they live with the policies they dislike and keep the current job.

Just like people who prefer in-person work aren’t going to get their way at all companies, people who prefer remote work aren’t going to get their way at all companies.

If only it was that simple. There's pressure everywhere. Even governments try to push people back to the office with some mantra about e.g. saving the city.

If only it was just a choice.

At the end of the day most management never come into the office all the time. They do what they like. They have 0 implications so if they have dinner with a government official and was told it's best to ask the staff back then they do it. That's all.