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I spent a couple of pandemic years at Dropbox, working fully remote. My team regularly started up Zoom calls and invited junior engineers to participate in desi

I spent a couple of pandemic years at Dropbox, working fully remote. My team regularly started up Zoom calls and invited junior engineers to participate in design conversations, troubleshooting, etc., because it helped them to both feel invested in the product and to grow as engineers. The trouble is that this takes explicit effort from senior engineers, whereas in-office teams don't require the same consideration. So, while I fully believe remote work can teach junior engineers as well as in-person work, I don't think it always does teach them especially well, and I suspect that will always be a challenge.

viraptor 3y ago
Why do you think that requires any more explicit effort? In my experience that works the other way - in the office I would need to know if people are coming and organise appropriately large room / do bookings, etc and the whole meeting changes a bit if there's 5 more people observing. Now it's as easy as a slack message "we're talking about / working on Foo at (link), feel free to join (cc @potentially interested people)".
- orwin 3y ago
  If they had personal offices big enough (we were 2 in relatively big offices for 3 years at my first company), it's effortless. Since then I've worked with big bank and big oil, in cubicles/open space, and it's indeed way harder than it is remotely.