I hope someone with authority over their company's office leasing/layout planning see's this and the various replies- th overwhelming sentiment is approximately

I hope someone with authority over their company's office leasing/layout planning see's this and the various replies- th overwhelming sentiment is approximately "engineers hate dreary corporate office design to the point where they'll quit over it." Set up an office in a nice building with high-quality architecture[1] and you'll be able to retain a much higher degree of engineer, per-dollar. Maybe the tradeoff doesn't work in SF's insane property market, but anywhere else it seems like a no-brainer. [1] Which for some reason almost always means buildings that are more than half a century old- our culture has gone big into the dreary corporate office building thing.