22 ms·

Ask HN: How is the remote vs in-person trend looking?

• saargrin 4y ago
  here in israeli startup scene at least ,it looks like 3 days wfh hybrid is the norm for most companies, and many offers i heard had full remote option too
• pram 4y ago
  I'm in the interview loop with two places atm (one is Google) and they're both remote. Last time I was frantically looking hard in 2019 I couldn't find any remote positions, so it's still a lot easier from my pov. Also I've found that submitting job applications through LinkedIn's 'easy apply' thing is rarely successful. It doesn't seem like recruiters often check that. I've had the most replies from going through the company job posting websites. I know it's a pain in the ass but shrug
  • _fat_santa 4y ago
    Personally I never use easy apply or go through websites, I always talk to a recruiter on LinkedIn. Usually I'll get 1-2 messages per week from recruiters about a position, I'll politely decline but tell them I would like to keep in touch. Whenever I go looking for another gig, all those recruiters are hit up. IMO, having a recruiter helps you cut through a ton of BS like filling out job applications, recruiter takes care of all that for you.
    • Uptrenda 4y ago
      My experience with recruiters has always been negative. Do you mean internal recruiters or external ones?
      • wollsmoth 4y ago
        Most external recruiters aren't that useful in my experience. Unless they happen to have a client you want to connect with at the time you are looking. Internal recruiters have helped speed me through the process in many cases though, so those are worth connecting with imo.
      • autarch 4y ago
        I was recently looking for a new position and I found internal recruiters were quite useful. My experience with external recruiters was mixed, though at least a couple did get me interviews at places that seemed decent.
    • boppo1 4y ago
      How do you go looking for recruiters?
      • klodolph 4y ago
        Recruiters for tech position generate leads from various sources like Linked In, GitHub, Stack Overflow, etc. If you're in a software engineering position, it's common for recruiters to contact you. If you don't want to switch jobs right now, just reply to the recruiters that contact you and say "I'm happy with my current position." or something similar--short, to the point, professional, not dismissive. The recruiter will keep your email in the system and follow up later. (Sometimes they'll follow up immediately, you can safely ignore immediate followups without explanation.) You can also follow up later and say that you're now interested. You should also know the difference between internal and external recruiters. Internal recruiters tend to be easier to work with just because their incentives are more likely to be aligned with the company that they are hiring with--so if you have some recruiter emails saved in your inbox, start by contacting internal recruiters for companies that you would consider working for.
• rebeccaskinner 4y ago
  My guess is that the current market conditions will accelerate the market toward whatever the new normal will be. Companies that hated having to give into demands for remote work will use this as leverage to get people back into the office. Companies that were going to look at remote work as a way to save costs (either by hiring from cheaper regions, saving on real estate costs, or both) will be pushed into those decisions sooner, and companies that were remote first, or on a path to it, in order to get the best talent will be pushed to improving their remote work processes so they can be as efficient as possible. I’m not going to try to make a bet on where the lines will get drawn between remote and in person, but I expect hybrid work will become less common since it often ends up being then worst of all worlds (you pay for office space, limit your hiring pool, and decrease worker efficiency by encouraging repeated Covid exposure leading to both more short term leave due to sick employees and less effective employees in the long run due to long Covid, but you still have many of the organizational, communication and infrastructure challenges of a remote team)
  • timr 4y ago
    > decrease worker efficiency by encouraging repeated Covid exposure leading to both more short term leave due to sick employees and less effective employees in the long run due to long Covid PSA: this is wild speculation. There's no definition of what "long covid" is, and there's certainly no evidence that it is made worse by getting Covid more than once. If anything, the opposite is true: we know that repeat infections lead to fewer symptoms and milder illness. Regardless, Covid is an endemic cold virus now, along with the other four circulating coronaviruses. It isn't going away. Everyone is going to get it multiple times in their lives, whether or not they work remote or in person.
    • rebeccaskinner 4y ago
      You are (mostly) wrong. The definitions of long Covid are indeed a bit inconsistent for now, but there’s evidence that both repeated infections do tend to be worse with the omicron variants (possibly due to t-cell exhaustion but I’m not sure if that’s the only factor), and that repeat exposures are at least not protective against long Covid (this isn’t settled science yet, and there are a lot of confounding variables, but the recent studies I’ve seen seem to put the risk of long Covid at somewhere between 5% and 30% each time you are infected). To the extent that there are good consistent definitions of long Covid, they tend to agree that neurological symptoms- including brain fog and reduced cognition, are frequent (not a majority, but still common) symptoms associated with long Covid. Looking at cognitive effects in particular, some UK studies estimate that the impact is actually quite a lot higher than is reported, and is common even in people with asymptomatic or very mild initial symptoms. I’ve seen at least one estimate that puts the impact of an asymptomatic Covid infection on the brain as being equivalent to 10 years of normal aging. The cognitive effects don’t seem to be entirely evenly distributed- the impact is bigger on older (40+) people, and I’ve heard (but not read the study) that people with ADHD are also much more likely to experience cognitive issues after covid. Covid is also not yet endemic. We are still in the pandemic phase- there is not yet a regular and predictable load of infections or a reasonable model for the evolutionary trend of variants. In any case, endemic does not mean not dangerous, it just means predictable and well understood. Calling it a cold virus is also just a rhetorical trick to downplay the severity. Yes, some colds are caused by other coronaviruses, but covid19 remains far more severe on average than any of the other common coronavirus infections that we lump in with common colds. Finally, it’s probably true on our current trajectory that most people will be infected multiple times, even people that work from home. Given the evidence of compounding risks, it’s still better to prevent whatever vectors of infection that you can. It also gives people more flexibility in their own risk tolerance. I’m still avoiding bars and restaurants, but many of my coworkers aren’t. If we were in an office I’d be obliged to take on a much higher level of risk due to unavoidable exposure to higher risk people.
• mathverse 4y ago
  I interviewed with 3 companies all remote positions and have been ghosted by all 3 of them.
  • digitalsushi 4y ago
    were you referred by recruiters or did you come in the front door?
    • mathverse 4y ago
      Nope i applied through their sites. Did 2-4h long take home assignments and went through 3-4 rounds and then never heard again from them.
      • aynyc 4y ago
        name them.
      • avgDev 4y ago
        Yes, please name them. This is terrible and you could save some readers time.
        • mathverse 4y ago
          I am not really comfortable doing that. Others may have a different experience than me. You never know which team / hr person you are going to interact with.
  • Uptrenda 4y ago
    Don't take it personally. You should expect a large number of companies to ghost you. It's just part of the process. Keep going and believe in yourself.
    • tarentel 4y ago
      It really shouldn't be. It doesn't take long or much effort to send a quick boilerplate email saying they're not hiring you.
• Uptrenda 4y ago
  There are still good tech jobs but hiring is down compared to its high. Whether its down compared to pre-covid times - can't say. What I will say however is: job search sucks no matter what the economy is doing. If you want to skip as much bs as humanly possible look for companies where its still possible to talk to the founders one on one and only apply if you've basically already done exactly what they need doing. Don't waste peoples time.
  • jstx1 4y ago
    > look for companies where its still possible to talk to the founders one on one and only apply if you've basically already done exactly what they need doing This also means only working at small companies and never changing your problem domain or trying to work on something new. Doesn't sound that great.
    • fleetwoodsnack 4y ago
      Seems like the parent was optimizing for reducing bureaucratic BS or time-between-jobs, as opposed to career growth opportunities. They’re both valid objectives, but you know the whole “judge a fish by it’s ability to climb a tree” thing.
• newaccount2021 4y ago
• nimajneb 4y ago
  I don't know if this answers your question, but my employer (engineering firm) just announced last Friday that starting July 5th being in the office Tue-Thu is mandatory. Then Sept 5th Mon-Fri is mandatory. Pre-covid there were very very few remote positions at my employer, we are going back to that I guess. I've been going in Mon-Fri anyways, so it doesn't really effect me.
  • akhmatova 4y ago
    My employer just announced last Friday that starting July 5th being in the office Tue-Thu is mandatory. Then you need to remind your employer that your presence on the team is not "mandatory", but rather optional. In the form of the 2-week notice you give once you have found a much better job that also respects your health and sanity.
    • bityard 4y ago
      I think you missed the part where the parent said that they were going into the office _by choice_ every day anyway. You are demanding that they quit just because the company doesn't make it optional? There seems to be a hard-core "WFH or nothing" contingent here that refuse to acknowledge that a great many people prefer and even thrive working in a typical office environment.
      • akhmatova 4y ago
        It was a suggestion, not a demand. Anyone who reads stay/quit advice they read on the internet as a "demand" has bigger problems than I can help them with.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
      • loudmax 4y ago
        I don't think I've ever seen an argument from the hardcore "WFH or nothing" contingent saying that nobody should be allowed to work in an office if that's what they prefer. But I have seen arguments from the hardcore "Butts in chairs or nothing" contingent refusing to acknowledge that a great many people thrive outside a typical office environment and may be even more productive that way.
• T3RMINATED 4y ago
• ketzo 4y ago
  This doesn't quite answer your trend, but personal anecdote: I recently switched jobs, and as part of my job interview process, I was pretty firm about only looking for companies that were working at least part of the week in the office. I just really thrive on in-person work. Fast forward a few weeks... and I ended up taking a job with a startup that was fully remote. I loved their product, loved the founders, loved the team I had met; I figured I would make it work. Two months in and I have hardly noticed that I'm not working in person. There's just such a huge difference when you're working at BigCo remotely and working at an eight-person startup. Particularly at my company, people just really give a shit and it shows. I feel genuinely connected to and engaged with my teammates. Makes remote work a lot better.
  • CoffeeOnWrite 4y ago
    I'm happy for you! Out of curiosity, did your current housing situation provide the space for a comfortable and productive home office, or is this unexpected development putting pressure on your housing situation? (If you're part of a trend, that has implications for preferred housing layout and square footage. And, of course people in different housing situations should be expected to respond differently to fully-remote opportunities..) (FWIW I'm single in a 600 sq ft apartment. I'm also a manager. My workspace needs for desk layout, equipment, and quiet are minimal compared to individual contributors, but I sometimes think of the perceived status implications when my humble abode appears on video, though I've reflected and don't really care..) Edit to add regarding status implications: believe it or not, a candidate I was interviewing actually blurted out "You're a manager in tech! How come you don't have a nicer house?". That got into my head briefly, until I decided that I don't care.
    • goodpoint 4y ago
      > perceived status implications when my humble abode appears I would rather focus on the quality of someone's work than "status". Also, you can't find a "neutral" wall or window in 600sq?!
      • bobthepanda 4y ago
• karaterobot 4y ago
  One data point is that the company where I work, which was hedging its bets about returning to the office last time this year ("we're evaluating whether to take a hybrid approach"), has pretty much acknowledged that that's not going to happen, and has started hiring more people who work out of state.
• closeparen 4y ago
  My office has allegedly gone hybrid since April but very few people are coming in regularly. The boss has been 3 or 4 times.
• wuliwong 4y ago
  My team at ParkMobile is looking for a Staff engineer (Golang&Kafka), fully remote but if you're in Atlanta you can come in the office. There is normally one or two days in a month where we have an all hands type meeting or planning where they want us to come in. Even those days aren't mandatory but if you are in Atlanta, it's expected that you will show. For Parkmobile, we have been battling to hire in the past year's ultra competitive market. We still have a ton of hiring to do and are probably even looking to accelerate our recruiting. I would imagine there are a number of companies that for one reason or another aren't freezing hiring because of the economic climate. I think we have been very productive since going remote but I do miss the camaraderie in the office and I believe our "culture" has taken a bit of a hit. There are less interactions outside of what is specifically scheduled on the calendar. This leads to more focus during the day but I am one who thinks great things come out of casual conversations with people in the office that I don't directly work with every day.
• lefstathiou 4y ago
  Early on (during Covid) I made the decision that remote work was not for our company (SAAS for financial services) and two years in have zero regrets about it. We are clear about our expectations so there are no surprises to employees and new hires (or we filter out people that want it). Most of our clients in financial services have reached the same conclusion. One of my clients at a large bulge bracket said “if these people insist on not being in the office we may just outsource the job for a tenth of the comp”. I think more companies will take that view personally. Our attrition is sub 5% over trailing twelve months. I get what works for us isn’t what will work for everyone else.
  • marcus_holmes 4y ago
    I always see this attitude as a management failure. For a couple of reasons: 1. as a manager, I need to be able to manage people when I can't see them. I need to look at what they're outputting, what results they get, not just whether they're moistening a chair for enough hours in the day. 2. people aren't fungible. Or rather, if they are, then I've recruited the wrong people. If I could outsource the job for a tenth of the salary and get the same results, then I absolutely should do that immediately. If I'm paying 90% of this person's salary just so they can moisten a chair in the office, then I'm not doing my job right.
    • jokethrowaway 4y ago
      Most of the tech world is 2 though. Our entire category lives because management is too dumb or power hungry to realise that. Sure, you probably shouldn't outsource to the cheapest places who barely speak English (eg. India, South East Asia, Russia, Eastern Europe), you'll have tons of communication problems. If you outsource from the States to the UK or Western Europe (and test the language knowledge in advance) you'll save tons of money and get engineers who can communicate with you. If the language is not a problem (eg. your staff speaks the language of the subcontractor) I've seen amazing deals work out without a hitch; eg. Russian founders hiring engineers for hundreds per month in Russia, Indian founders hiring cheap resources in India. Outsourcing didn't work out 20 years ago because we didn't have tools to work remotely effectively (zoom scalable video codec and better broadband have been a game changer) and because people went to the cheapest countries. There is a middle ground of productive engineers living far away, happy to earn less and who don't want to live among the homeless in an expensive SF flat.
• recvonline 4y ago
  I was looking for new work this year and found a company which hired me for +40% salary increase and remote/timezone free. Personally I have young kids and therefore prefer flexible times, fully remote etc. Being in Europe, I think fully remote is getting embraced. It‘s the third company where I get US level salary plus all the benefits (30 days vacation, unlimited sick leave etc). I see a strong trend from young families moving to the country side and paying off a house from one tech salary. At least in my circle. I hope it stays. Thus being said, I am a bit nervous moving away from tech hubs and having to hope this remote trend truly stays. What if there are no good remote jobs in a few years or I get laid off? Being in a tech hub still seems, somewhat, more secure to me.
  • idiotsecant 4y ago
    I think remote work is definitely a double-edged sword. For the time being wage pressure is high but as large organizations find out that they can recruit talent that would have accepted a little bit less and done just as good of a job they will begin to lower wages for these remote positions, which will lead to people being willing to accept a little less, which will lead to lower wages, etc until an equilibrium is reached a little bit above what typical tech wages would have been remotely but well below what US tech wages are now. This will be a moderately good thing for workers outside the US, a moderately bad thing for workers inside the US, and a fantastic thing for the companies who reduced the cost of their labor pool substantially. I feel like there is definitely a little bit of job security in staying with a place that insists on local work only, but those places will become less attached to that position as they see industry peers successfully migrate away from it.
    • mech422 4y ago
      I heard the same thing when off-shoring was the rage, and salaries are higher then ever for tech workers. I also suspect that with declining birth rates in 'industrial' countries, the market for tech workers could get even more competitive as people retire. I've also been fully remote for 20 years now, and it just gets easier/better all the time...
  • DoingIsLearning 4y ago
• cehrlich 4y ago
  I'm currently looking for a job, and in my experience everything is at least hybrid, and a lot of places are full remote. I've not interviewed with a single full on-site company so far. Remote-first companies, if they have a good process in place, can have a huge advantage in terms of access to talent. Personally I enjoy being in the office 2-3 days a week as long as the commute isn't too bad, but I'm seriously considering going full remote as it opens up a lot of life possibilities.
• fbrncci 4y ago
  I interviewed a lot this year; the amount is probably between 50-75, with at least 15 take homes (all 100% remote jobs). The great majority of those came from LinkedIn recruiters, and that all sucked, I got three offers which I declined because they weren't great. In the end, what got me a new job was my blog and the branding I have on Twitter. At some point my posts where getting traction, and companies started reaching out to me. It got me a job without even interviewing. If it wasn't for that, I would probably still be interviewing with recruiters on LinkedIn.
  • methusala8 4y ago
    This is cool/ I would like to do something similar where I leverage my blog and Twitter: Any pointers on how you did this? Thanks.
    • fbrncci 4y ago
      Remain consistent in when you post content, and what you write about. Drill down a niche for yourself, and commit to posting at least once or twice a week. Then try to find as much social platforms to share it to (HN, Reddit, Dev.to, Twitter. etc). Also get yourself into conversations with other people posting content in your own niche; I have had many great discussions about tech topics on twitter that way.. I started getting a lot of attention when I was 5 months into my main area of expertise/niche, and making posts about very specific problems.
      • methusala8 4y ago
        Thanks. One more question: I am trying to get into a new field (cybersecurity) with limited knowledge. Would posting beginner level content in a field I have no expertise over weigh against me later when trying to interview?
        • fbrncci 4y ago
          For the Cybersecurity field, I would also advice to join some of the Cybersecurity (offsec and defsec) discord channels, and generally the communities surrounding CS. There you can at least scope the topics. As for finding a entry level Cybersecurity job; I don't think that blogging is a good route to take, unless you really have some skills to show off. But I do see companies hiring people right after attaining certain certificates + being active in online communities.
• Fezzik 4y ago
  I work for a large State agency, the last type of employer I ever thought would be flexible, and for all staff — support/secretarial, managerial, and attorneys — we are on a permanent (optional) hybrid model. Non-attorney staff can opt for a minimum of 1 day/week WFH, with the highest “ranking” able to do 3 days/week WFH. Some attorneys have worked out more WFH days but most of us are in the office 5 days a week now that we can be. Not that it relates directly to tech jobs, but now that a work-from-home model has proven to be functional it seems like it should become more and more prevalent across the board.
  • lotsofpulp 4y ago
    I am curious what the price premium distributions will be for in office vs remote work. Driving 1 minute in the US costs at least $0.60 in nominal dollars, and including non monetary costs/benefits, I can imagine it being quite a difference, more noticeable for lower paying jobs.
• toyg 4y ago
  Anectdotally, I get more fully-remote offers from recruiters. They used to be rare exceptions, most contacts would basically end with me saying "I'm not moving to London/Amsterdam"; some would try to fake it ("yeah we said remote ok, but actually that's just a day or two a week..."). Now most will say "fully remote" upfront and stress it throughout. I reckon the UK sector in particular has finally locked on the realization that they can save boatloads of money by hiring outside London/Thames Valley, and the sky will not fall if IT folks are not lined up in big City offices like chickens in pens. Covid was a big game-changer.
• jelling 4y ago
  For some hard data, in San Francisco and NYC, the mass transit agencies are starting to plan for never getting back to full ridership again. And by plan, I mean starting to ask for federal funding to keep the systems alive (which I think they should) because the fare revenue is never going to return to pre-pandemic levels but the physical plant remains just as expensive to operate. Keep in mind: these are two of the densest cities in the U.S., where people typically have less space for a home office and commutes are shorter vs an exurb type city. WFH is here to stay in my view, especially for employers in competitive recruiting spaces.
  • waylandsmithers 4y ago
    Boston too is switching some lines permanently onto weekend schedules with less frequent trains
    • ragnot 4y ago
      Which ones? Personally curious.
    • ghaff 4y ago
      Red, Orange, and Blue apparently. https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/06/17/mbta-to-cut-weekday-train-trips-blue-orange-red-lines https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/06/17/mbta-to-cut-weekday-tra... Anecdotally, I've gone into Boston a few times this year. My observation when I've driven in was that rush hour traffic was as bad as ever. But both the commuter rail and the subway were significantly less crowded than I would have expected. Of course, schedule cutbacks make public transit less appealing. The commuter rail I usually take if going in for a weekday cut all the express trains and seemingly spaced the trains generally in a less commuter-centric schedule so it's less attractive than it used to be at the margins.
    • KennyBlanken 4y ago
      The MBTA did so because the FRA ordered them to after multiple incidents, including at least one death. They haven't been hiring dispatchers, and overworking the ones they do.
  • 4y ago
• canyonero 4y ago
  My experience as an engineer with ~10 years of experience (4 of which working remotely): I've seen no data that'd indicate a meaningful shift yet. I've also seen no shifts from recruiters reaching out to me about in-person roles. All recruiters reaching out highlight that the positions they're looking to fill are fully remote. (I receive anywhere from two to ten outreach messages per day) That said, my experience doesn't mean that there isn't or won't be a shift, but I haven't found or observed any evidence yet. I believe there is still an abundance of work for engineers wanting to work remotely right now. The remote opportunities are far, far better than any time previous to 2020.
• dogman144 4y ago
  If your in cybersecurity, specifically some form of security engineering, it went and stayed remote after 2020. Thank you SOLARWINDS I guess. Caveat is this most applies to engineers in Sec, as knows how to cloud and code.
• bityard 4y ago
  At the beginning of the pandemic, the CEO of our company was very adamant about working from home being a temporary situation, with all of the usual explanations. Although I still have to go into the office occasionally to things that can't be done remotely, midway through the pandemic I had decided that I am going to work from home as much as I like from now on. And if this company doesn't let me, I'll switch jobs. Earlier in this year, the CEO set a "back to the office" date of June 13th. I've been in occasionally since then and it's still basically a ghost town. So apparently most of my co-workers have the same idea as me.
  • sys_64738 4y ago
    CEOs who set these edicts are mugs when they don't work out. These idiots want to assert control and flex their managerial muscle. Most employees just want to get on with the job and stop being hassled by managerial idiots.
• waynenilsen 4y ago
  i am never going back to the office
• zxexz 4y ago
  My company maintains an office, which some people local go in once or twice a week. But it's 100% remote-first, and everybody (including leadership) has no desire to go back to "in-person-first". The remote shift was a major boon to hiring - being able to recruit talent from all over the US.
• ragnot 4y ago
  We are still full remote and I don't think anyone has any intention to go back to "in-person" honestly. As a side note: I think the reason you are going to find so much friction with this is for the first time in recent history "workers" (specifically software engineers) have incredible leverage over management. I honestly don't think we've seen this since the days of labor unions. Think about it: software engineers have such an in-demand, ubiquitous skillset that they can command huge salaries, get incredible perks AND now they can say "I don't want to be constrained to a location". Don't like your job? Don't worry about it, get a pay raise and you don't even have to change your office (because it's your bedroom/study/den/whatever). Boss is being a dick? Move and get a raise. Don't like co-workers who talk to much? You don't even have a water cooler to gossip around! Software engineers have so much power now it's ridiculous and it honestly pisses off a lot of people who spent their entire lives brown-nosing and grinding only to have a young hotshot come in and earn more than they ever did at their age. I mean if I could get $5 for the number of times I've had older people tell me that I'm being too greedy for demanding SWE comps because "I never earned that much at your age" I could buy a really nice house in the Bay Area.
  • alldayeveryday 4y ago
    In a similar position - we went fully remote and have stayed that way. I do sense from the c-suite that they would love to get people back into office - I think driven more than anything by distrust of their workforce. Re: engineers having leverage I am keen to see if this changes in the coming months. With so many layoffs will come more competition for each open role. Do we hit a point where there are more unemployed software engineers VS open engineering roles? Time will tell. If we do hit that point employers may go back to having leverage to dictate office. As an aside, I really dislike recruiters who deceive you during recruiting. Both my wife and I have had recruiters tell us a company was allowing fully remote or hybrid, just to find out the actual policy is 3,4 days a week in office.
  • ajcp 4y ago
    I wonder if that makes it the best time for software engineers to form a union? I think the conventional wisdom is that unions are formed to benefit those without power otherwise, but would it make sense to unionize to maximize an already outsized position? Would that thereby ensure (to an extent) those proceeds for when a bargaining position might not be as powerful? The Icelandic press industry (I know, just hang in there with me) had a couple of amazing years in the 80s that the journalist(?) unions used as an opportunity to lock down some really progressive benefits that they still exercise today.
• yboris 4y ago
  I've been at Forbes for 5 years now. 2 years ago we went 100% remote; we're still committed to 100% remote. Many job listings still showing: https://boards.greenhouse.io/forbes/ https://boards.greenhouse.io/forbes/ Unsure how it is out there - I've not jumped jobs because it's been great here so far.
• atemerev 4y ago
  I am a Scala software engineer currently looking for a new position. Nobody is offering remote, and two of the prospects explicitly told me that remote is no longer allowed.
  • cnj 4y ago
    We at commercetools have remote Scala roles open both in Europe and the US (EST timezone only, though): https://commercetools.com/careers/jobs https://commercetools.com/careers/jobs
• as1992 4y ago
  Based on my own experience as a SWE (Working with a previous company up until May 2022, job searching from Feb 2022 , and now at a new company) The vast majority of companies are willing to hire remote, but a lot only within locations they have the legal means to do so (eg. Legal entity, contract with Deel or other company). It seemed during 2020/early 2021 people were saying it was going to be a "global job market", which in my understanding meant you could get a job in any country in the world, easy. While it's true in my experience you can get a job in any country in the world, it's not that easy. A lot of companies do not want to hire outside areas they have a legal entity in, Eg. a company has an office in Paris, they'll hire remotely anywhere in France, but good luck if you're based in Spain. Companies that will hire most anywhere are far and few between, and generally from what I've seen are smaller, startup/small business sized companies. Take the above with a pinch of salt as that is purely my own experience, and could be bias based on what I was looking for.
  • phpisthebest 4y ago
    "global job market" generally means contract labor, not direct hired employees Either individually contract, or via a 3rd party firm like Tata, or Infosys
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• zelphirkalt 4y ago
  In Europe here. Still working remotely. Saves me tons of time. We get our stuff done. Recently had a few days office work, which was OK for a workshop, but I wouldn't want to have it every day or even most days of the week, because of the loss of time. There is a voluntary office day now and I'll try to make it work. I hope it stays voluntary and does not become mandatory.
• sdevonoes 4y ago
  I just joined a new company fully remote. Been working in a fully remote company during COVID. I receive offers in Linkedin where 70% of them are fully remote and the rest are hybrid (I don't receive offers which are 100% on site. Funny). So, I think fully remote is winning so far. This in Europe.
• protomyth 4y ago
  Non-tech community college: We went back to the office last year except for some faculty that are still remote. Some of the classes are online and some in person. Classes with young mothers tend to move to 9PM at night. I am starting to look for alternate setups to the traditional laptop for faculty. We used a webcam that had a flexible stand for the beadwork class to show the actual work up close. Testing a multi-camera setup with Blackmagic Design STEM mini with larger screen (TV of some type) and better cameras with document camera (think old overhead) and maybe a flexible close-up camera for craft work. I am firmly convinced that laptops are a poor meeting experience for presenters.
• paxys 4y ago
  My large FAANG-equivalent company has been trying to mandate return to work for months now, but employees simply ignore them. After 2+ years it's hard to believe things will ever return to "normal".
• 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  Seems ~80% office/hybrid. 20% remote. Definitely trending to office. Remote as exception. Companies that had covid full remote, then hybrid, will move to 1 day remote over time - maybe less.
• labratmatt 4y ago
  The company I work for seems to be trending toward remote. It feels like a bad trend to me - quality of work is lower. Creativity is lower. Put me in a room with a few other folks, some whiteboards and some laptops and magic happens. Hanging around the house and chatting on zoom+slack is boring, pathetic and produces no magic.
• Tainnor 4y ago
  I switched jobs recently and when I was looking, it was definitely the case that remote work was advertised as a perk. I'm not particularly fond of wfh, and prefer a vibrant office setting, but I realised that I would have a hard time finding a place where in-person work would be the norm. So now I settled for a job where there is still an office, but most developers never go (my boss is at least there 1-2 times a week). I also don't go every day (it's a bit far), and since not a lot of people are there maybe I'll go even less, although I do find that I can work better from there. It's not ideal, but for now I'm trying to make it work. I certainly like the flexibility and I don't think anyone would want to go back to a fully Mo-Fri in the office kind of setup (me neither), but I do wonder if we'll see a reverse of the trend in a couple of years where a nice office and a good in-person atmosphere will be advertised as a perk, too. We'll see. 2 years of pandemic is not necessarily enough for everyone to make up their minds on their preferred mode of working. And while I know that "wfh or I'll quit" kind of people are very vocal, I also know a number of people who enjoy going to the office regularly. Ideally, in some years, wfh people will apply to wfh companies and in-person people will apply to in-person companies (with some flexibility around wfh, of course), and everyone can find something that works for them.
• slotrans 4y ago
  I desperately want to work in an office again, but there are effectively no opportunities to do so. The companies doing in-office around here are outfits like Dish Network, that everyone knows are terrible employers. Like it or not, the software labor market is now nationwide, and remote is the rule rather than the exception. I don't know how long that will last, as I see very obvious negatives to remote for creative work, but for now that's how it is.
  • exolymph 4y ago
    Would coworking or being a regular at a cafe help?
    • missedthecue 4y ago
      Not for me. Coworking and cafes scratch the "I need to get out of my apartment" itch, but what I really value about in-person work is the collaboration and relationship-building with teammates that is not otherwise possible or easily achieved. I'm not sure if other people (particularly here on HN) can even relate to this, but working is a lot like everything else in life for me. I'd rather see my therapist in person than over Zoom. I would rather hang out with my friends than FaceTime them. And I would rather be in an office with people than Slacking and Zooming. I like being able to pull someone into a meeting room with a drawing board and explain ideas. I love small talk. These are things that are not easily replicable via telephony. Some companies do the 'one day per week in office", or "we have an office space you can use if you want to" but this doesn't solve my problem either. What I want only works if everyone else is cooperating. In the meantime, I have found that working remotely or alone in a big office building, which I do most days, is making me unhappy. But there just aren't any other options.
  • mikhael28 4y ago
    It exists dude. You just have to move to a tech hub like Seattle, SF, Miami, Austin - and then ruthlessly weed out companies that aren't in the office. You will likely need to work in a smaller startup, 5-50 employees who are in a smaller space. I've got this situation in Seattle, but can luckily work remotely whenever. Unlimited PTO. Great business, on the up and up - coming into the office helps us get stuff done, and build camraderie but we have multiple people who are fully remote as well. Find a place that respects what you are looking for, it's out there - don't give up.
• willcipriano 4y ago
  We are rapidly approaching 10% inflation and had similar numbers the previous two years. When inflation was 3% firms struggled to keep up with it. I see WFH as a inflation salary adjustment, this leaves me with high expectations for in person jobs that so far nobody has been able to meet.
• upupandup 4y ago
  I just don't understand why some people are so keen on making in-person or hybrid work, it won't in the long run because you are competing with companies that doesn't have the overhead of an office, HR, logistics etc. This is the new normal, you either accept it or keep trying to go back to what will never be going forward. I also don't really believe people claiming they are losing productivity in WFH, its most likely that they were never productive to begin with and its becoming magnified. The latter group often expresses it emotional terms like : not having human interactions, missing out on watercooler talks, acknowledgement. Perhaps these emotions are being surfaced because there is nothing to hide behind anymore.
  • wollsmoth 4y ago
    I think it varies by person. I'm remote but still go in to the office from time to time and a lot of times the days I go in are my most productive days. But I know it's not the same for everyone.
  • dleslie 4y ago
    > I also don't really believe people claiming they are losing productivity in WFH, its most likely that they were never productive to begin with and its becoming magnified. Often such comments frame their productivity in terms of impromptu discussions, or over-staffed meetings. I suspect they're the sort of people who feel jointly productive so long as they're engaged with the productive people during the process. Y'know, the sort destined for middle management. ;)
    • acuozzo 4y ago
      … or the sort of people with young kids.
      • dleslie 4y ago
        I've raised two kids from birth to elementary while working from home, as the parent who did the sick care, before and after school care, and so forth. I'll take their company over that of an office any time. At least my kids respect me enough not to interrupt be when I've got headphones on and am working; something I can't say for any office I've ever worked in.
• Yhippa 4y ago
  For some reason, I have in my mind September when we're going to see a lot more RTO of at least 3 days a week. Also in my mind, companies that are either smaller or have a good idea of what they need their people to do are the ones that are going to be able to thrive and provide full-remote work. BigCo's are probably going to continue to push for in-person as they are unable to determine what they need from their people so they will substitute face time and meetings to make themselves feel like progress is made. Random thought: for me, hybrid work as a mostly-remote person was hardest when you had more than one person in a meeting room and the rest were remote.
  • dleslie 4y ago
    BigCos need to justify the expenditure of maintaining an office, and the office culture that goes with it: all those over staffed meetings, the HR and management roles that exist primarily to facilitate in-office culture, the facilities staff and so forth. A non trivial amount of BigCo roles and expenses are simply unnecessary when the physical office no longer exists. And all those people in those roles will advocate strongly for in office work in order to defend their jobs.
    • TimTheTinker 4y ago
      I think there's a lot of sunk cost fallacy going on with BigCos that spent a lot of money on building their own office buildings.
• LesterTheMolest 4y ago
  looking pretty good papa
• jka 4y ago
  It'd be useful to validate against multiple data sources, but Google Trends does seem to show a noticeable ongoing and increasing interest in remote work: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=60&date=all&q=remote%20work https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?cat=60&date=all&q=r... Edit: filtered link to category "Jobs"
• milosmns 4y ago
  Berlin: most companies I know of are hybrid. As a community organizer, I talk to a lot of people - nobody said that their management is forcing anything yet. My own experience is that management doesn't care in most situations, as long as the work gets done. And it does right now. Reading online about it, I feel like most of the people who complain about this problem are in the USA, and that there's some kind of struggle between employees and their managers. Never felt this in my career so far, so can't really relate...
  • dx034 4y ago
    I've also felt that struggle between employees and managers in Europe. It's usually that employers set a minimum #days in the office and employees would like less office time. But I've heard of very few companies that are going back to 100% office. Even 2 days home office is viewed as restrictive now, whereas before very few places even allowed 2 days per week.
• bravetraveler 4y ago
  I work at a fairly well known BigCo. Hiring hasn't really slowed, we're still generally soft on preferences. Only those truly needed on-site (or want to be) are there currently. Remote is alive and well but you can smell it's trending back towards the option rather than the default. Talk has started about returning to the office for a portion of the week. It's not being enforced yet but it seems to be trending that way. I'm a little frustrated by it. Our handling isn't a return to normal, it's an overshoot. I've been remote for years before the pandemic - it was known, my whole team is in another state. But, now that the pandemic is over, anyone not > 50 miles away from the office has been encouraged to get an exception. The implication being, you will return eventually Prior to the WFH spree I never needed this, but now I do - apparently. It could be good record keeping, it could be pressure to get rid of the non-believers.
• Casteil 4y ago
  Not an engineer, but I am in software development; I'm about to accept an offer after only having gotten serious about applying ~1 month ago. Applied to ~17 roles between ~2-4 weeks ago (all but 1 fully remote), and the role I'm about to accept was the second place I applied to. There was no shortage of fully remote roles, in fact.. there were so many new ones popping up every day on LinkedIn that I was quite selective about what type of companies / projects I applied to (avoiding financial/health/crypto and anything else that felt dull or ethically questionable). In my own personal experience... the "widespread hiring freeze" feels like little more than media sensationalism.
• maribi 4y ago
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  • d_sc 4y ago
    If the laptop is company property, then depending on your country/where you live .. yes it’s legal. Outside of legality, you need to ask yourself if you are okay with your company going to that level of monitoring & inspection on what you are doing. Remote Access Tools remove all amounts of privacy that you may have. I would ask your employer why they want to install the program on computers and also get clarification if they are doing it to all computers (including their own) or just a subset of people’s computers. By the way, I personally recommend having a secondary device whether it’s your phone, tablet or additional computer and keep that on your desk to use during the work day as your personal device. Whether you want to look up a recipe for dinner, show time for a movie or send a personal message to a friend.. do it on that device. Never use your work computer for anything personal. Ever. Ok, so if the employer says that everyone’s computers are having it installed.. and they want to install it so they can better see when people are working.. you can still dig in and ask whether they can’t see if people are working today by work activity and what they deliver. Ultimately though, if they want to do it.. they’ll do it. You agree and allow it, or you disagree and either they don’t install it or you’re looking for a new job. Determine what your boundaries are for personal space & privacy. If this crosses your boundaries (I’m guessing it likely does or will) then start looking for a new job. Be a model employee in the mean time but find a new place that trusts & respects you.
    • teeceetime2 4y ago
      Want to add - the T1 helpdesk guy who has the ticket to install some rando software on some rando employee's computer is not going to know why. If you do intend to go this route, ask a decision maker, not the messenger (installer).
  • noelherrick 4y ago
    If you can, find a new job. No company that thinks this is a good way to measure employee performance is worth staying at. Find a company that understands deliverables and deadlines and not about panopticon surveillance.
• dijonman2 4y ago
  My company closed all their offices this year. I’ve been full remote going on 11 years and I want to keep it that way.
• ilaksh 4y ago
  I think we should be anticipating 1-3 years in the future when much more comfortable VR/AR glasses come out. Then the question for knowledge work will start to change from "do they require physical presence?" to "what type of virtual presence is required?". Because the details of interactions matter a lot and it's also important for companies to have firm policies. The most basic one being that you communicate effectively, appropriately using the tools available. Within say 1-4 years, we should expect VR/AR to become much more like physical attendance. There will be 3D realistic rendering of faces, eye tracking and eye contact, 3d positional audio, and as I said, much more comfortable gear unlike the sweaty huge headsets. So it's actually going to turn into a new battle to avoid bosses breathing down your _virtual_ neck. What the conversation should be is about the full range of types of presence and synchronous or asynchronous collaboration and work product distribution. I think we will end up with more effective management and organizations because of a greater range of possible arrangements and more pressure towards actually measuring effectiveness based on work product. Managers that aren't qualified to judge intermediary work products will be eliminated or at least less common. But we will see a lot of the types of office interactions that were supposedly only available in person start to become common in remote work using AR/VR.