5 ms·

Not to undermine your point, wich which i agree wholeheartedly, but I wanted to address one thing. I imagine quite a lot of people who worked on M1 hardware pr

Not to undermine your point, wich which i agree wholeheartedly, but I wanted to address one thing. I imagine quite a lot of people who worked on M1 hardware probably still had to show up to the office. For some positions it is just required. A friend of mine who worked on hardware at Apple had to go to the office almost every day throughout the pandemic (and no, i dont know what product he worked on, and I am not going to ask given the whole thing with apple being extremely secretive). So clearly, there are certain scenarios for certain positions which might require the person to work in the office. However, to support your point, that director of ML in the article had been working remote for the past 2 years just fine. So clearly he wasn't in the same position as my friend, and that director's position didn't really have a need for him to be in the office. Which is why imo it was silly to lose him just because of such an unnecessarily arbitrary rule.

ludjer 5y ago
There is very little physical interactions when designing hardware these days. You do most of the work and CAD software and simulations.
- yarri 5y ago
  We all still do a lot of lab work
- daniel_reetz 5y ago
  There's a ton of lab work, reverse engineering, validation, prototyping, measurement, the list goes on forever. CAD and simulation are just the beginning.
  - ajb 4y ago
    It depends. Some fabless chip design work could be done at home. A dept I worked at did everything in simulation. But another dept did prototyping on FPGAs and would have at struggled -everyone would at least have had to take home a board
nextos 5y ago
I think onsite working can be nice but the problem is that it is really hard to find a company that doesn't try to cram you into an open plan office with at least half a dozen people. I can't do any real work like that. Before COVID, I was going to the office to talk to people, attend meetings and do chores, whereas I did real work at home. It was unsustainable, as work ended up filling 80+ hours per week.
- zmmmmm 5y ago
  > it is really hard to find a company that doesn't try to cram you into an open plan office with at least half a dozen people exactly I'd be fine to go into the office but don't be under the illusion I'm going to accept materially worse working conditions in order to do it. I guess it isn't the same for everyone, but my home office is a very high bar to beat and it makes a real difference to my productivity and mental well being to be there.
  - nomdenator 5y ago
    I wonder what I'm missing in this concept. You would think that the people in charge would see that real estate is an unnecessary expense, where applicable. Also, I've been to a lot of meetings where we were told "there are other things people value in work besides money". Maybe being able to manage your own work environment and save gas and time fits in that slot. A content, well rested workforce would be better IMO than one that's frazzled and is getting less out of their employment than they know is possible. I'm at the age where I see Time as more valuable than anything, really.
    - jonathankoren 5y ago
      > You would think that the people in charge would see that real estate is an unnecessary expense, where applicable. Some real estate is a sunk cost, and the execs doubling down on it. Apple and Google both dropped 2 or 3 billion combined on fancy new offices just before the pandemic. You can’t sell those buildings, their too big, and they’re not subdivided well enough to rent out parts of them, so everyone comes back to work
quadrifoliate 5y ago
> For some positions it is just required. Typically the positions for which work is "just required" are lab and hardware positions. These don't tend to have the shoulder-to-shoulder squeeze of humans and desks that I always see in open-plan offices. Any time I have worked in a lab or on electronic hardware, I have had around 10 times the amount of personal space compared to the tightly packed "collaborative" open-plan offices that consist of programmers sitting at desks with monitors with their headphones on and desperately trying to focus. I'd be much more enthusiastic about returning to the office if I had a private office with a door, Fog Creek style.
- lizknope 5y ago
  I had an office with a door and window for 12 years at 2 different companies. It was great. I left the door open 90% of the time but it was great to be able to close the door for privacy the other 10%. I changed to a much better job in 2019 regarding work and salary but everyone including the VP's are in cubicles. It is really annoying when everyone around you is on a different conference call and you have to block them out while trying to have your own conference call. I only had to deal with that for 6 months before the pandemic sent us all home for 2 years. We are supposed to be in the office 3 times a week for the last 2 months. Some days I go in and immediately get annoyed by all the people talking loudly on their own meetings. I eat lunch and I just go home and work from there. I look around on the days we are supposed to show up and about 1/3 actually show up. They are trying to entice us back with free lunch once a week but the food isn't even good. The company is doing well but the rest of the industry is doing great too so we have a retention problem. I don't think any of the managers really want to say "You have to be in 3 days a week" because they fear it will cause more people to leave. I would really love to have an office with a door again but working from home is the next best thing. I like having my meetings with speakers and a speakerphone rather than headphones and a mic at my mouth.
  - donthellbanme 5y ago
    I sometimes think that some Managers, and even primary founders, have such ungratifing gratifying social lives outside of work; They need the social bonding, and drama, that goes on in certain work settings Kinda like my last girlfriend. I honestly felt if she didn't have an office to go to, and couldn't boss around someone beneath her in the organization around, gossip, and socialize; she couldn't sleep well. Yea, if she couldn't make someone at work miserable--what's the point of it all? She didn't even care about the money, it was an ego thing that I will never understand. That Bad Boss attitude who get things done. That, "Dam I'm good!" attitude. This is not about her gender. I have met more than a few guys with the same flaw. I just didn't go home with them. I've had way to many bosses that loved the office "family". I don't know how many times I heard we are a family here. Under my breath--I mutter, ya the Manson Family. I get the social part, but why make everone miserable by dragging them into the office, especially if things get done at home? I usually liked all by co-workers, and even enjoyed their company outside of work. I was single though. Covid proved many positions could could be done at home. If I had the power, I would offer financial benefits to companies that kept employees home. Working from home, if you can do it, should be celebrated. And I won't even get started on the rediculious commutes we did for the past 100 plus years. I've know guys who commuted 3-4 hours a day. If global warming is a problem wouldn't those in power want us at home instead of driving. But dude--we have electric cars? Most of us won't be able to afford one for years, and even then. Most electricity is still not carbon neutral.
dehrmann 5y ago
When I worked on drivers for a datacenter managed switch, we had hardware (sometimes prototypes) to work with, and would often have to swap hardware out, wire up network cards in some way, attach a traffic generator, etc. It was borderline of if I needed to be there on most days, but we had people in the lab doing rework, so some people definitely needed to be there.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cycomanic 4y ago
I agree with your comments. As far as I know the work flow software and PDKs used for by the foundries (I know this is true for at least global foundries) has essentially unlimited liability (e.g. for "leaking") , so they often are running on dedicated computers even fenced off from the network. I find it hard to imagine they let hardware engineers take it home.

ludjer 5y ago

There is very little physical interactions when designing hardware these days. You do most of the work and CAD software and simulations.

yarri 5y ago
We all still do a lot of lab work
daniel_reetz 5y ago
There's a ton of lab work, reverse engineering, validation, prototyping, measurement, the list goes on forever. CAD and simulation are just the beginning.
- ajb 4y ago
  It depends. Some fabless chip design work could be done at home. A dept I worked at did everything in simulation. But another dept did prototyping on FPGAs and would have at struggled -everyone would at least have had to take home a board

nextos 5y ago

I think onsite working can be nice but the problem is that it is really hard to find a company that doesn't try to cram you into an open plan office with at least half a dozen people. I can't do any real work like that. Before COVID, I was going to the office to talk to people, attend meetings and do chores, whereas I did real work at home. It was unsustainable, as work ended up filling 80+ hours per week.

zmmmmm 5y ago
> it is really hard to find a company that doesn't try to cram you into an open plan office with at least half a dozen people exactly I'd be fine to go into the office but don't be under the illusion I'm going to accept materially worse working conditions in order to do it. I guess it isn't the same for everyone, but my home office is a very high bar to beat and it makes a real difference to my productivity and mental well being to be there.
- nomdenator 5y ago
  I wonder what I'm missing in this concept. You would think that the people in charge would see that real estate is an unnecessary expense, where applicable. Also, I've been to a lot of meetings where we were told "there are other things people value in work besides money". Maybe being able to manage your own work environment and save gas and time fits in that slot. A content, well rested workforce would be better IMO than one that's frazzled and is getting less out of their employment than they know is possible. I'm at the age where I see Time as more valuable than anything, really.
  - jonathankoren 5y ago
    > You would think that the people in charge would see that real estate is an unnecessary expense, where applicable. Some real estate is a sunk cost, and the execs doubling down on it. Apple and Google both dropped 2 or 3 billion combined on fancy new offices just before the pandemic. You can’t sell those buildings, their too big, and they’re not subdivided well enough to rent out parts of them, so everyone comes back to work

quadrifoliate 5y ago

> For some positions it is just required. Typically the positions for which work is "just required" are lab and hardware positions. These don't tend to have the shoulder-to-shoulder squeeze of humans and desks that I always see in open-plan offices. Any time I have worked in a lab or on electronic hardware, I have had around 10 times the amount of personal space compared to the tightly packed "collaborative" open-plan offices that consist of programmers sitting at desks with monitors with their headphones on and desperately trying to focus. I'd be much more enthusiastic about returning to the office if I had a private office with a door, Fog Creek style.

lizknope 5y ago
I had an office with a door and window for 12 years at 2 different companies. It was great. I left the door open 90% of the time but it was great to be able to close the door for privacy the other 10%. I changed to a much better job in 2019 regarding work and salary but everyone including the VP's are in cubicles. It is really annoying when everyone around you is on a different conference call and you have to block them out while trying to have your own conference call. I only had to deal with that for 6 months before the pandemic sent us all home for 2 years. We are supposed to be in the office 3 times a week for the last 2 months. Some days I go in and immediately get annoyed by all the people talking loudly on their own meetings. I eat lunch and I just go home and work from there. I look around on the days we are supposed to show up and about 1/3 actually show up. They are trying to entice us back with free lunch once a week but the food isn't even good. The company is doing well but the rest of the industry is doing great too so we have a retention problem. I don't think any of the managers really want to say "You have to be in 3 days a week" because they fear it will cause more people to leave. I would really love to have an office with a door again but working from home is the next best thing. I like having my meetings with speakers and a speakerphone rather than headphones and a mic at my mouth.
- donthellbanme 5y ago
  I sometimes think that some Managers, and even primary founders, have such ungratifing gratifying social lives outside of work; They need the social bonding, and drama, that goes on in certain work settings Kinda like my last girlfriend. I honestly felt if she didn't have an office to go to, and couldn't boss around someone beneath her in the organization around, gossip, and socialize; she couldn't sleep well. Yea, if she couldn't make someone at work miserable--what's the point of it all? She didn't even care about the money, it was an ego thing that I will never understand. That Bad Boss attitude who get things done. That, "Dam I'm good!" attitude. This is not about her gender. I have met more than a few guys with the same flaw. I just didn't go home with them. I've had way to many bosses that loved the office "family". I don't know how many times I heard we are a family here. Under my breath--I mutter, ya the Manson Family. I get the social part, but why make everone miserable by dragging them into the office, especially if things get done at home? I usually liked all by co-workers, and even enjoyed their company outside of work. I was single though. Covid proved many positions could could be done at home. If I had the power, I would offer financial benefits to companies that kept employees home. Working from home, if you can do it, should be celebrated. And I won't even get started on the rediculious commutes we did for the past 100 plus years. I've know guys who commuted 3-4 hours a day. If global warming is a problem wouldn't those in power want us at home instead of driving. But dude--we have electric cars? Most of us won't be able to afford one for years, and even then. Most electricity is still not carbon neutral.

dehrmann 5y ago

When I worked on drivers for a datacenter managed switch, we had hardware (sometimes prototypes) to work with, and would often have to swap hardware out, wire up network cards in some way, attach a traffic generator, etc. It was borderline of if I needed to be there on most days, but we had people in the lab doing rework, so some people definitely needed to be there.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cycomanic 4y ago

I agree with your comments. As far as I know the work flow software and PDKs used for by the foundries (I know this is true for at least global foundries) has essentially unlimited liability (e.g. for "leaking") , so they often are running on dedicated computers even fenced off from the network. I find it hard to imagine they let hardware engineers take it home.