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I work for a large company, and my team has changed so much since before covid. Before Covid: 5 people in the same New York office, 1 remote in Europe Today:

by jdlyga 5y ago

I work for a large company, and my team has changed so much since before covid. Before Covid: 5 people in the same New York office, 1 remote in Europe Today: 2 in New York, 2 in California, 1 in Ohio, 1 in Europe There is no single office to return to. Though we could meet up with other coworkers on different teams and projects. But in essence we've become a remote team. Has anyone else's teams become geographically distributed since covid?

TranquilMarmot 5y ago
This happened at my last job before I left. We had ~50 employees working at an office in Seattle. The pandemic hit, we went remote, and there was basically a mass exodus out of Seattle. I think only about 20 people were still in Seattle by the time I left (for another job that's 100% remote with people scattered throughout the globe). It took the company almost two years to start adjusting salaries...
awslattery 5y ago
COVID definitely helped push my recommendation that our small team move to full-remote, and start to transition to more asynchronous work. It's great being able to hire outside of our local market (especially for SWE talent), and we won't be renewing the lease on our albeit small office this year (moving to grant coworking or at-home furniture/equipment reimbursement).
standardUser 5y ago
Absolutely. I'm at a mid-size startup based in SF and we went from a few remote engineers outside of the country to over half our team remote internationally and many of our longest-tenured US-based engineers moving to places like Oregon, Texas and Colorado. I moved to NYC. There will be no significant engineering presence in SF when our office finally reopens.
JacobThreeThree 5y ago
Yes, something similar happened with my team, although there was a consideration to allow some work to be remote before Covid, once it started that sealed the deal. It is strange to walk around an office and see a bunch of workstations, desks and PC's that are all setup to do work in person, but only the PC is being used remotely and the only other people in the building are a security guard or janitor.
alistairSH 5y ago
Mine was before COVID. Still is now. I doubt I’ll return to the office unless mandated. Either way, I’m in Zoom all day. Going to office doesn’t mean face-to-face work for me. I might go in once a week or so just for lunch with friends.
School-Cotton 5y ago
Yes, similar situation at the startup I work for (which has also more than doubled in headcount since Covid started). The distributedness genie can’t be put back in the bottle now, which has significant pros and cons. It does make a lot of things less efficient, but on the other hand, it also lets us hire good people who don’t necessarily want to relocate to NYC.
- cebert 5y ago
  > It does make a lot of things less efficient Do you believe remote work is less efficient because your organization hasn’t adapted to remote work, or do you believe something about remote work somehow makes it inherently less efficient?
  - School-Cotton 5y ago
    The latter, with the caveat that it makes some things less efficient, not all. As an example, having face-to-face conversations can allow you to hash things out much more quickly and easily than over Slack or Zoom.
cokeandpepsi 5y ago
that's just for now, shelf-life for most employees is like 2 years anyway.. a few years of hiring should sort out the problem
- somehnguy 5y ago
  What problem? I'm full remote with teammates in various states across the US. We have no problems to speak of related to our locations. I refuse to ever work in an office again assuming my role doesn't require me to physically be at a location for reasons other than 'we want you to be'.
BillSaysThis 5y ago
All of our Eng was in the Portland (OR) office pre-pandemic but now people have started spreading. Seattle, Bend (which at 3+ hours is not commutable to Portland), and I even moved to Hawaii. No going back for us.
hinkley 5y ago
Is that turnover or did people move to a better-for-them location and they're waiting to see if anyone calls their bluff? I recall someone pointing out that a Sun Microsystems office in Colorado existed because someone you might call a Staff or Principal Engineer today said, "I'm moving to Colorado. If you want to open an office there I'll keep working for you, but I'm moving to Colorado".

by jdlyga 5y ago

TranquilMarmot 5y ago

This happened at my last job before I left. We had ~50 employees working at an office in Seattle. The pandemic hit, we went remote, and there was basically a mass exodus out of Seattle. I think only about 20 people were still in Seattle by the time I left (for another job that's 100% remote with people scattered throughout the globe). It took the company almost two years to start adjusting salaries...

awslattery 5y ago

COVID definitely helped push my recommendation that our small team move to full-remote, and start to transition to more asynchronous work. It's great being able to hire outside of our local market (especially for SWE talent), and we won't be renewing the lease on our albeit small office this year (moving to grant coworking or at-home furniture/equipment reimbursement).

standardUser 5y ago

Absolutely. I'm at a mid-size startup based in SF and we went from a few remote engineers outside of the country to over half our team remote internationally and many of our longest-tenured US-based engineers moving to places like Oregon, Texas and Colorado. I moved to NYC. There will be no significant engineering presence in SF when our office finally reopens.

JacobThreeThree 5y ago

Yes, something similar happened with my team, although there was a consideration to allow some work to be remote before Covid, once it started that sealed the deal. It is strange to walk around an office and see a bunch of workstations, desks and PC's that are all setup to do work in person, but only the PC is being used remotely and the only other people in the building are a security guard or janitor.

alistairSH 5y ago

Mine was before COVID. Still is now. I doubt I’ll return to the office unless mandated. Either way, I’m in Zoom all day. Going to office doesn’t mean face-to-face work for me. I might go in once a week or so just for lunch with friends.

School-Cotton 5y ago

Yes, similar situation at the startup I work for (which has also more than doubled in headcount since Covid started). The distributedness genie can’t be put back in the bottle now, which has significant pros and cons. It does make a lot of things less efficient, but on the other hand, it also lets us hire good people who don’t necessarily want to relocate to NYC.

cebert 5y ago
> It does make a lot of things less efficient Do you believe remote work is less efficient because your organization hasn’t adapted to remote work, or do you believe something about remote work somehow makes it inherently less efficient?
- School-Cotton 5y ago
  The latter, with the caveat that it makes some things less efficient, not all. As an example, having face-to-face conversations can allow you to hash things out much more quickly and easily than over Slack or Zoom.

cokeandpepsi 5y ago

that's just for now, shelf-life for most employees is like 2 years anyway.. a few years of hiring should sort out the problem

somehnguy 5y ago
What problem? I'm full remote with teammates in various states across the US. We have no problems to speak of related to our locations. I refuse to ever work in an office again assuming my role doesn't require me to physically be at a location for reasons other than 'we want you to be'.

BillSaysThis 5y ago

All of our Eng was in the Portland (OR) office pre-pandemic but now people have started spreading. Seattle, Bend (which at 3+ hours is not commutable to Portland), and I even moved to Hawaii. No going back for us.

hinkley 5y ago

Is that turnover or did people move to a better-for-them location and they're waiting to see if anyone calls their bluff? I recall someone pointing out that a Sun Microsystems office in Colorado existed because someone you might call a Staff or Principal Engineer today said, "I'm moving to Colorado. If you want to open an office there I'll keep working for you, but I'm moving to Colorado".