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Working from home for years now, I've found that I get more deep and meaningful , uninterrupted work done. I've also found that I have a harder time working a '

Working from home for years now, I've found that I get more deep and meaningful , uninterrupted work done. I've also found that I have a harder time working a 'full' 8 hour day because it's more obvious at home that there's more to life than just working. Offices are designed to keep you there and focused on the work as much as possible. At home I have my pets, wife (when she's not at work too), things I like, in a location I chose to live. People call these distractions but they're your life at least as much as your job is. At some point, working at home, I'm going to stop and pet my cats, go for a walk with my wife, sip coffee and read a book, visit a friend, whatever. When I have kids, I will get to be there and see them grow up. When you're able to get a good amount of great work done because you have that uninterrupted time, it makes the idea of working 8 hours 'just because' seem stupid and opposing your productivity and your happiness. I get more and better work done these days. I make more money, for both myself and my clients, working from home, and I much more rarely need sick/mental health days because I'm basically happy and healthy all the time as a result of working from home. The things I miss, like socializing with a team, I can get other places. I still talk to other devs during the day, just on the phone, over video chat, or something like slack. I go to meetups dedicated to the things I'm interested in, chalk full of smart and interesting people. I have friends to socialize with, many of whom are from those meetups, so I get to talk about tech even more if I want to. Basically, the downsides for the employee/worker are heavily, heavily outweighed by the benefits in my opinion. I also think that's the case for companies as well, but only have my own small experience as a very small employer to back that up so maybe someone else could comment there.

biztos 9y ago
As a remote worker for a not-small company one downside I've noticed is that I have basically no idea which way the wind is blowing corporate-politics-wise. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but once in a while it does matter and one is caught by surprise. When I worked in the office that was way easier to gauge. Another is that you don't have any chance to rub shoulders with the higher-ups, so to the extent you are on their radar at all it's usually because you either delivered something awesome very recently, or they see your name next to a figure they'd like to spend on something else. This can negatively impact career development. Also, depending on where your remote work is done, you can end up with an advancement problem: much career development in tech is done by changing companies, and most significant salary increases are backed by the prospect that you might leave for more money. If you work remotely, or work locally from home and insist on keeping it that way, then your options for changing jobs are much more limited. In terms of the company I think they lose out in two specific areas: 1) Brainstorming, which I think is better done in person. 2) Mentoring, which ditto. However I agree that WFH, with the right people, is a win-win situation for the employee and the employer.
campbelltown 9y ago
I've found this to be my experience as well. Although, I've witnessed a few cases of co-workers taking advantage of the freedom. I suspect the software engineering field is less prone to employees taking excess advantage of their employers, mostly because the field selects against people that don't actually like the work, more so than in other fields. Spending an entire work day on a bug that later turns out to be trivial and then being asked why you didn't finish the specs in time is only worth it to the people that love it too much to give up. Obviously, this happens less and less the more experienced you become, but those first few years developing your craft are incredibly rough.

biztos 9y ago

As a remote worker for a not-small company one downside I've noticed is that I have basically no idea which way the wind is blowing corporate-politics-wise. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but once in a while it does matter and one is caught by surprise. When I worked in the office that was way easier to gauge. Another is that you don't have any chance to rub shoulders with the higher-ups, so to the extent you are on their radar at all it's usually because you either delivered something awesome very recently, or they see your name next to a figure they'd like to spend on something else. This can negatively impact career development. Also, depending on where your remote work is done, you can end up with an advancement problem: much career development in tech is done by changing companies, and most significant salary increases are backed by the prospect that you might leave for more money. If you work remotely, or work locally from home and insist on keeping it that way, then your options for changing jobs are much more limited. In terms of the company I think they lose out in two specific areas: 1) Brainstorming, which I think is better done in person. 2) Mentoring, which ditto. However I agree that WFH, with the right people, is a win-win situation for the employee and the employer.

campbelltown 9y ago

I've found this to be my experience as well. Although, I've witnessed a few cases of co-workers taking advantage of the freedom. I suspect the software engineering field is less prone to employees taking excess advantage of their employers, mostly because the field selects against people that don't actually like the work, more so than in other fields. Spending an entire work day on a bug that later turns out to be trivial and then being asked why you didn't finish the specs in time is only worth it to the people that love it too much to give up. Obviously, this happens less and less the more experienced you become, but those first few years developing your craft are incredibly rough.