I work in industrial automation, with CNCs, robots, HMIs, and PLCs that have huge price tags and footprints. Yes, you'll eventually have to be on site to integr

I work in industrial automation, with CNCs, robots, HMIs, and PLCs that have huge price tags and footprints. Yes, you'll eventually have to be on site to integrate the equipment, and making anything actually move while not on-site is a big no-no, but between a little simulation, a VPN, and maybe a controller, good development practices make it easy to work remotely. Also, all our machines for several years now have included industrial VPN appliances so we can do remote support and updates - an Ewon Cosy is way cheaper than even an engineer's airline ticket - we just use them a little earlier now. I used to have a wireless router in the shop so I could do development from my office with its desk, monitors, keyboard, and chair. Now that router also runs OpenVPN so I can do the same from home. It's only the non-technical staff that think workers have to be warming seats and shifting steel to be getting work done. A huge amount of building those machines is spreadsheet wrangling and rote business logic connecting inputs to outputs, which is more effective when working remotely than on-location.