7 ms·

While I can understand some of the arguments made about juniors getting some extra benefit from having everything close to hand, the sheer pace of the hit piece

While I can understand some of the arguments made about juniors getting some extra benefit from having everything close to hand, the sheer pace of the hit pieces against remote the last month or so is hilarious and very telling.

pluc 4y ago
It's very obvious too... of course junior employees don't do as well as veterans when you take out the entire physical support system. Like.. duh? What you need to solve this is merely competent managers/mentoring culture.
- kevinmchugh 4y ago
  Can you provide some links on how to support junior employees while totally remote? I've struggled mightily with it and a lot of the most pro-remote teams I'm familiar with most don't hire juniors
  - PuppyTailWags 4y ago
    Maybe I should make a blog post... but here are my suggestions: 1. It is now vitally important to have a clear, mutually agreed upon 30/60/90 program the junior is aware of. These need to be measurable, achievable goals, with specific seniors to reach out to to accomplish. The seniors should also be aware and consenting to play as mentor. 2. Senior engineers should proactively pair program, review, or otherwise attend to the junior as much as the junior is comfortable with. (If the junior's discomfort with mentorship gets in the way of their growth, we need to manage the junior. This shouldn't be mistaken for a junior that doesn't need the mentorship and would understandably find this intense attention to be smothering.) 3. The entire team needs to be aware of onboarding the junior. Expect velocity to slow noticeably for a little bit, until the junior is able to do minor bugfixes and tool building, then slow again when the junior takes meatier projects like features.
- chadash 4y ago
  > What you need to solve this is merely competent managers/mentoring culture. I see this claim thrown around frequently as if finding great managers or building a great management culture is an easy thing to do. A great manager in engineering needs to be good at engineering and good at management. It's hard enough to hire for one or the other, let alone both.
  - pluc 4y ago
    Absolutely. And giving managerial duties to your best developers is a double-edged sword that needs to be wielded carefully.
- II2II 4y ago
  It takes more than competent managers and a traditional mentoring culture. Everybody has to be as receptive to new employees in remote as they are to new employees on site. That is remarkably difficult to do when, at best, you see the new employees during meetings. When people do make a point of reaching out to remote employees, it also tends to be more artificial than organic.
- staticassertion 4y ago
  You say "duh" but this is pretty controversial and there's a big push for remote work right now. I'm "pro remote" - my company is full remote, for example. I also think I'd have a much worse career if my first job hadn't been in an office, especially such a cool office with great coworkers to chat with. Being in an office was incredibly motivating and exciting as a junior developer. Being in an office also made it clear how much I worked. I was there on most weekends and people noticed. I'm not saying that that's more important than the benefits of remote, but people absolutely do act like it's a black and white scenario.
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    Conversely, I despise my first in-office experience and it completely turned me off ever going into an office ever again. It was incredibly demotivating to go there when I didn't actually need to - and the idea of 'watercooler creativity' is something I found to be a lie in an office environment. I've developed a real hatred for in-office work as a result of seeing how unnecessary it was when I went remote for two years and was just as productive.
    - staticassertion 4y ago
      Of course, I'm sure many people have had similar experiences to both of us. I'm only saying that there's a lot of grey area here.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- closewith 4y ago
  My experience is that any comment on this site that includes the words merely, trivially, obviously, or simply is best ignored, including mine.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  It's very obvious that people do better getting introduced to new environments and cultures when they're physically present. Imagine thinking that a Zoom meeting with a few french people is the same as moving to Paris.
Darkstryder 4y ago
Slite is a SaaS company providing tooling for remote work and is a fully remote company itself, all of that since well before the pandemic. So I think calling the article a "hit piece against remote" is unwarranted in this case. Disclaimer: I have an acquaintance who works there.
- christophepas 4y ago
  Founder of Slite here, your reply is spot on, we try to be as honest on the pros and cons of remote when we think internally of the future of this market, and when we share our research or insights outside. It's not all pink, and our mission is very much to remove the roadblocks, so we need to acknowledge the issues that prevent remote from being seen as a no brainer by some teams today.
  - zeroego 4y ago
    Hey there, just wanted to say as a remote junior dev who has been at it for about 10 months now, that I appreciate the article a lot. These 10 months have been the most difficult of my life, professionally speaking. I was assigned a mentor, but there were no training exercises, or "easy bug fixes / small wording changes to make, so they can focus on learning the workflows" quite the opposite actually, and no processes explained or documented anywhere. I'm a bit older and I couldn't imagine going through this as a fresh grad out of college. I would have loved to have had my hand held in my first days as a dev. I was constantly demoralized by not having the domain knowledge (and not having any comprehensive documentation to learn it), being assigned complicated stories (that even the mid/senior devs had trouble with), and by not having anyone just regularly check in with me and make sure I was doing ok. I would like to continue working remote indefinitely, but man it was really tough starting out as a dev remotely. I say all this to say I do think it's possible to successfully onboard a new dev remotely, but there has to be a plan and resources available to do it and I think your article is a good template.
    - christophepas 4y ago
      Absolutely, we onboarded multiple junior folks over the year, but always put special care there, it needs a very different approach to any new remote teammate.
benjaminwootton 4y ago
A few people have commented on the hit pieces in the UK media. The Telegraph have had an anti WFH article every day for the last month. Definetly feels coordinated!
ryanSrich 4y ago
Now go back 10 years and imagine trying to raise money for a startup that was entirely remote. Or being an employee that refuses to work under forced-commute conditions. The tech industry and VCs have always been extremely anti-remote, and still are. I have a working theory for why this is, which also explains why tech companies hire unsustainably. But that’s a much longer post.
dzonga 4y ago
if majority of the people above you exist to ensure a butt in the seats policy. then yeah you ain't wrong. remote work is just about workers doing their jobs remotely. it signifies worker empowerment - right now the workers are in control. and the corps hate that. PR firms and middle managers are working over-time to ensure that we go back to the previous model where we all commuted in daily. But the labor market is dictating things atm. Junior workers will always struggle at a place that doesn't support Juniors to find their own way. some people picture juniors as half seniors. forgetting those roles are completely different in their own way. It's the same reason mid level developers are so much in demand
- josephd79 4y ago
  Yep, they are trying to manage remote workers the same way they used to 'manage' in person workers. Clearly they are not the same. We really need to shake this "if you can't see them, they're not working" and "Collaboration is best done in person" mindset.
- tomtheelder 4y ago
  I think it's an extreme stretch to suggest that remote work is some sort of worker empowerment. It's literally just different. The idea that it somehow invalidates the job of middle managers is a little absurd. If anything it makes them more important and valued in an environment where communication is more sparse and man management more difficult. More likely articles like these are just a response to the immense swell of pro-remote sentiment that's been growing over the last few years. This article was published by a remote-only org whose product is tooling for remote teams. It's not some anti-remote hit piece.
slowmotiony 4y ago
My guess is now that BlackRock and other funds already bought out all the empty office buildings at a bargain, they'd really like the demand to come back so they can sell them off for twice the price.
Kiro 4y ago
Good. I'm tired of having the presumed wonders of WFH shoved down my throat. It's great if you don't want to work and instead slack off at home but I don't believe this productivity increase myth a single bit.
- l30n4da5 4y ago
  > It's great if you don't want to work and instead slack off at home what? do you think those of us in remote roles just....dont work?
vlunkr 4y ago
Maybe there are “hit pieces” because there actually are downsides to working remote? For the average HN user it’s probably great, but there are plenty of reasons why it could suck. Personality type, job type, living conditions, internet options, etc.
pyb 4y ago
Perhaps because people are starting to draw their own conclusions after working remotely for 24 months?
dang 4y ago
It's just a popular topic that people have lots of different views about and are eager to discuss all the time. Randomness frequently generates uniform subsequences that feel like they can't possibly be random.

pluc 4y ago

It's very obvious too... of course junior employees don't do as well as veterans when you take out the entire physical support system. Like.. duh? What you need to solve this is merely competent managers/mentoring culture.

kevinmchugh 4y ago
Can you provide some links on how to support junior employees while totally remote? I've struggled mightily with it and a lot of the most pro-remote teams I'm familiar with most don't hire juniors
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  Maybe I should make a blog post... but here are my suggestions: 1. It is now vitally important to have a clear, mutually agreed upon 30/60/90 program the junior is aware of. These need to be measurable, achievable goals, with specific seniors to reach out to to accomplish. The seniors should also be aware and consenting to play as mentor. 2. Senior engineers should proactively pair program, review, or otherwise attend to the junior as much as the junior is comfortable with. (If the junior's discomfort with mentorship gets in the way of their growth, we need to manage the junior. This shouldn't be mistaken for a junior that doesn't need the mentorship and would understandably find this intense attention to be smothering.) 3. The entire team needs to be aware of onboarding the junior. Expect velocity to slow noticeably for a little bit, until the junior is able to do minor bugfixes and tool building, then slow again when the junior takes meatier projects like features.
chadash 4y ago
> What you need to solve this is merely competent managers/mentoring culture. I see this claim thrown around frequently as if finding great managers or building a great management culture is an easy thing to do. A great manager in engineering needs to be good at engineering and good at management. It's hard enough to hire for one or the other, let alone both.
- pluc 4y ago
  Absolutely. And giving managerial duties to your best developers is a double-edged sword that needs to be wielded carefully.
II2II 4y ago
It takes more than competent managers and a traditional mentoring culture. Everybody has to be as receptive to new employees in remote as they are to new employees on site. That is remarkably difficult to do when, at best, you see the new employees during meetings. When people do make a point of reaching out to remote employees, it also tends to be more artificial than organic.
staticassertion 4y ago
You say "duh" but this is pretty controversial and there's a big push for remote work right now. I'm "pro remote" - my company is full remote, for example. I also think I'd have a much worse career if my first job hadn't been in an office, especially such a cool office with great coworkers to chat with. Being in an office was incredibly motivating and exciting as a junior developer. Being in an office also made it clear how much I worked. I was there on most weekends and people noticed. I'm not saying that that's more important than the benefits of remote, but people absolutely do act like it's a black and white scenario.
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  Conversely, I despise my first in-office experience and it completely turned me off ever going into an office ever again. It was incredibly demotivating to go there when I didn't actually need to - and the idea of 'watercooler creativity' is something I found to be a lie in an office environment. I've developed a real hatred for in-office work as a result of seeing how unnecessary it was when I went remote for two years and was just as productive.
  - staticassertion 4y ago
    Of course, I'm sure many people have had similar experiences to both of us. I'm only saying that there's a lot of grey area here.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
closewith 4y ago
My experience is that any comment on this site that includes the words merely, trivially, obviously, or simply is best ignored, including mine.
unethical_ban 4y ago
It's very obvious that people do better getting introduced to new environments and cultures when they're physically present. Imagine thinking that a Zoom meeting with a few french people is the same as moving to Paris.

Darkstryder 4y ago

Slite is a SaaS company providing tooling for remote work and is a fully remote company itself, all of that since well before the pandemic. So I think calling the article a "hit piece against remote" is unwarranted in this case. Disclaimer: I have an acquaintance who works there.

christophepas 4y ago
Founder of Slite here, your reply is spot on, we try to be as honest on the pros and cons of remote when we think internally of the future of this market, and when we share our research or insights outside. It's not all pink, and our mission is very much to remove the roadblocks, so we need to acknowledge the issues that prevent remote from being seen as a no brainer by some teams today.
- zeroego 4y ago
  Hey there, just wanted to say as a remote junior dev who has been at it for about 10 months now, that I appreciate the article a lot. These 10 months have been the most difficult of my life, professionally speaking. I was assigned a mentor, but there were no training exercises, or "easy bug fixes / small wording changes to make, so they can focus on learning the workflows" quite the opposite actually, and no processes explained or documented anywhere. I'm a bit older and I couldn't imagine going through this as a fresh grad out of college. I would have loved to have had my hand held in my first days as a dev. I was constantly demoralized by not having the domain knowledge (and not having any comprehensive documentation to learn it), being assigned complicated stories (that even the mid/senior devs had trouble with), and by not having anyone just regularly check in with me and make sure I was doing ok. I would like to continue working remote indefinitely, but man it was really tough starting out as a dev remotely. I say all this to say I do think it's possible to successfully onboard a new dev remotely, but there has to be a plan and resources available to do it and I think your article is a good template.
  - christophepas 4y ago
    Absolutely, we onboarded multiple junior folks over the year, but always put special care there, it needs a very different approach to any new remote teammate.

benjaminwootton 4y ago

A few people have commented on the hit pieces in the UK media. The Telegraph have had an anti WFH article every day for the last month. Definetly feels coordinated!

ryanSrich 4y ago

Now go back 10 years and imagine trying to raise money for a startup that was entirely remote. Or being an employee that refuses to work under forced-commute conditions. The tech industry and VCs have always been extremely anti-remote, and still are. I have a working theory for why this is, which also explains why tech companies hire unsustainably. But that’s a much longer post.

dzonga 4y ago

if majority of the people above you exist to ensure a butt in the seats policy. then yeah you ain't wrong. remote work is just about workers doing their jobs remotely. it signifies worker empowerment - right now the workers are in control. and the corps hate that. PR firms and middle managers are working over-time to ensure that we go back to the previous model where we all commuted in daily. But the labor market is dictating things atm. Junior workers will always struggle at a place that doesn't support Juniors to find their own way. some people picture juniors as half seniors. forgetting those roles are completely different in their own way. It's the same reason mid level developers are so much in demand

josephd79 4y ago
Yep, they are trying to manage remote workers the same way they used to 'manage' in person workers. Clearly they are not the same. We really need to shake this "if you can't see them, they're not working" and "Collaboration is best done in person" mindset.
tomtheelder 4y ago
I think it's an extreme stretch to suggest that remote work is some sort of worker empowerment. It's literally just different. The idea that it somehow invalidates the job of middle managers is a little absurd. If anything it makes them more important and valued in an environment where communication is more sparse and man management more difficult. More likely articles like these are just a response to the immense swell of pro-remote sentiment that's been growing over the last few years. This article was published by a remote-only org whose product is tooling for remote teams. It's not some anti-remote hit piece.

slowmotiony 4y ago

My guess is now that BlackRock and other funds already bought out all the empty office buildings at a bargain, they'd really like the demand to come back so they can sell them off for twice the price.

Kiro 4y ago

Good. I'm tired of having the presumed wonders of WFH shoved down my throat. It's great if you don't want to work and instead slack off at home but I don't believe this productivity increase myth a single bit.

l30n4da5 4y ago
> It's great if you don't want to work and instead slack off at home what? do you think those of us in remote roles just....dont work?

vlunkr 4y ago

Maybe there are “hit pieces” because there actually are downsides to working remote? For the average HN user it’s probably great, but there are plenty of reasons why it could suck. Personality type, job type, living conditions, internet options, etc.

pyb 4y ago

Perhaps because people are starting to draw their own conclusions after working remotely for 24 months?

dang 4y ago

It's just a popular topic that people have lots of different views about and are eager to discuss all the time. Randomness frequently generates uniform subsequences that feel like they can't possibly be random.