7 ms·

Nearly 40% of software engineers will only work remotely (2023)

80 points by jakey_bakey 2y ago

ChrisArchitect 2y ago
(2023) Some discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090739
ramesh31 2y ago
I suspect that 40% drops quite a bit after 6 months of unemployment in the current market. Boom times are over. We're back to falling in line with the rest of the working class, as the capitalists have captured enough of the market to force our hands. It was nice to feel special for a while, though.
- codr7 2y ago
  Nice try :) But I'm afraid the glorious past for employers is not coming back. We've all seen with our own eyes that working remotely is fine most of the time, there's no way to unsee it. About time too.
- threesevenths 2y ago
  Interest rates are dropping. Jobs are appearing and new ideas are forming. There will probably be fewer silly startups. Hopefully we will see some new technology that has a meaningful impact.
  - imbusy111 2y ago
    The first two sentences are in opposition to the third sentence.
    - benterix 2y ago
      I agree, people's creativity in grabbing cash from VCs has no limits. You'd think you've lived long enough to see enough and the next day you get another surprise. But maybe that's the way it should be - a lot of rubbish and among them one good idea that gets developed and actually make some positive change.
      - dumbfounder 2y ago
        Even the VCs will tell you that is the case.
- maratc 2y ago
  But that's only because the proletariat does not collectively own the means of production -- yet.
  - codr7 2y ago
    As far as software goes, the proletariat is the means of production, which explains the focus on getting LLM's to write code.
- mfer 2y ago
  I think that misreads the market. From what I can tell, the RTO efforts reduce headcount without layoffs and the costs with those. It's not as if these companies are hiring to replace the people not moving. RTO is about financials, IMHO. I've been talking with people in the tech sector and getting hired is hard for far too many people. Remote or in-person.
  - hosh 2y ago
    There's been a concerted effort to reset salary for tech workers in the past year or so, ever since Elon Musk kicked things off with the mass layoffs at Twitter. The default of Silicon Valley Bank didn't help, and neither did the VC money pulling back for all but AI. One of the hidden chilling effect is Section 174. I don't know why it is such a big blind spot among tech workers. (Section 174 ruling means US companies can no longer expense software development, and must amortize it. That creates a significantly higher tax burden. It is driving companies to shed all but their best engineers, and drive AI adoption. I don't even know how startups are going to start up without enough capital to cover the higher taxes).
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    I dont think that is a contradiction to the parent post. It certainly seems like there is a shift in supply and demand. When getting hired is hard and you have mortgage payments due, how many people are willing or able to turn down offers because they are "WFH" only.
- drivebyhooting 2y ago
  I can neither deny nor resist market forces, but I abhor RTO. There is a staggering amount of signaling and ritual utterly divested from delivering outcomes. To be honest I think perhaps more than 50% of “work” need not be done. It’s a game theory dilema and tragedy that we put each other up for these charades.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  For what it's worth, it was 41% [1] in our sample as of a blog we posted this morning, and a good chunk of those people have been out of work for that long. [1] https://framerusercontent.com/images/5R1ZfThrPbROdkJ8pHw8qvDBj0g.png?lossless=1 https://framerusercontent.com/images/5R1ZfThrPbROdkJ8pHw8qvD...
- sdenton4 2y ago
  With bosses doing stupid shit and increasing efforts to treat engineers as replaceable cogs, I think we're in a great moment to work towards unionizing larger swathes of tech. Unions are a way to collectively make sure that we (as workers) get what we need from our jobs, like optional remote work, lay-offs structured to minimize disruption (eg, volunteers-first, ensuring options for internal moves), and so on. Things we'll be hard pressed to argue individually, especially as the McKinsey increasingly colors us as replaceable components.
  - rachofsunshine 2y ago
    The problem with that is that pushes towards collective action come when people feel weak - which is exactly the time at which they have the least leverage. Good bargaining power comes from a place of strength, like what SWEs had 5 years ago. But in that environment, it's easy to think of your boss in non-adversarial terms, because they're incentivized to keep you happy because they know someone else could poach you. Tech workers, and SWEs in particular, mistook their market power for virtue on their employers' part. When it's a sunny June day, it's too easy to blow off why anyone would ever want a jacket.
xxxtemp 2y ago
I feel crazy sometimes, because I'm the exact opposite. WFH has been a disaster for me. I just joined a team with a hybrid schedule (3 days in the office). I'm there every day, but it's pretty dead on the other 2 days. If they close the office and go remote-only I will quit on the spot.
- threesevenths 2y ago
  Can you explain what has not gone well for you? How has it gone for the rest of the team?
  - xxxtemp 2y ago
    To me personally, working remote makes me feel like I'm working completely alone. For me, it's hard to feel like anyone cares what I'm doing, which has made it hard to make myself put in effort. That's a recipe for a downward spiral, which is exactly what my work has been since the pandemic. I'm not saying the office is some perfect, joyous or highly social place or anything. I just think for me, it makes a big difference to have a place (different from my house) where people come together to work on common goals, and occasionally interact face-to-face while doing it.
    - fotedjj 2y ago
      None of those things change by physically being somewhere else. Nobody cares what you’re doing because they’re sitting vaguely near you. Those rose colored glasses are goddamn dark, my friend.
      - xxxtemp 2y ago
        I find it so hard to understand this type of militancy. In what other situation is it normal to respond to the statement "I have a preference for X" with "no you don't / you have issues / take responsibility for yourself"? I prefer working with others around and I'd like to work with others who feel the same way. That isn't a personal attack on you or anyone else :)
    - 2y ago
benterix 2y ago
I see this power struggle in job applications. The companies who really want to hire talent will include a remote option. Those with a more constrained vision will insist on hybrid or even full RTO. As an applicant the first thing I do is to filter out the latter.
- tonymet 2y ago
  you're not going to convince companies by condescending to them.
  - codr7 2y ago
    But it's the truth, and companies that don't adapt will have to settle for the most desperate.
    - tonymet 2y ago
      some smart people find office collaboration more dynamic and effective
      - Integrape 2y ago
        Some smart people will have to settle for the most desperate coworkers.
      - piva00 2y ago
        And some smart people find working remotely more fulfilling and focused. It's a matter of preference, over time the companies who do RTO will attract talent that prefers that, remote companies will attract other ones. There are smart people in both cohorts to be alienated if forced to do the other option so I don't get the argument. It's self-selecting if the options exist, the pandemic opened Pandora's Box.
  - abenga 2y ago
    Neither are the companies. It's a two-sided market.
mytailorisrich 2y ago
40% say that, but how many actually do?
- hosh 2y ago
  The article talks about 18% of jobs in the US market are now remote.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    "now" being 2021. 2021 was still solidly within the pandemic. It would be interesting to see if that number has gone up or down since then.
    - downrightmike 2y ago
      There are no metrics that show RTO is anything other than management trying to control people, all the metrics out there show WFH is way more productive and profitable. But companies have a perverse incentive to keep the executives who bought into the CRE bubble when it was already a zombie in 2006.
      - s1artibartfast 2y ago
        That seems completely irrelevant to the question. Even if it is for entirely sadistic reasons, that doesn't mean the numbers are as high as they were in 2021 or that everyone that wants a WFH job today can get one.
slashdave 2y ago
What was the survey methodology?
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  Not the author of the OP, but we find nearly-identical numbers (slightly higher, in fact - see blog post in my submissions) in our data, which is self-reported by people signing up with us looking for jobs. When they enter remote-only, they're taking themselves out of contention for in-office jobs, so it's a fairly costly signal.
  - slashdave 2y ago
    Okay, that's useful information. But then the number is 40% of engineerings seeking employment, not overall. It is also for those engineers using your platform, which will also be a biased sample.
Animats 2y ago
How many people who had to Return To Office actually got their own office?
- downrightmike 2y ago
  hahaha
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Return to Open (Office), silly. Imagine wanting privacy in 2024.
trzy 2y ago
No wonder there is rampant age discrimination in tech. Who wants to hire older workers who want to silo at home, avoid mentoring juniors, and force teams to have video calls when the rest of the team could have met in person?
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Ageism was already a thing before COVID sent us all home.
- efnx 2y ago
  Did I miss where the article mentions that those workers tend to be older? Also - why does working at home imply any of those things (besides video calls).
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  Not the author of the OP link, but we don't find any gap between senior and junior candidates (a reasonable proxy for age) on remote preference in our data set. Every subcohort is somewhere in the high 30s to low 40s, all within a few percent and well within MOE for the size of those subgroups even if you treat the sample as completely independent (which of course it is not).
999900000999 2y ago
Ohh I'll come back into the office for the right price. Let's say I'm remote and making 140k. I can live wherever I want. If a recruiter was like "If you come to NYC we can hit 190k". Think about it. After taxes that's a 25k increase. Rent will be an additional 2 to 3k a month over what I'm paying now. Plus I'm spending a minimum of 45 minutes each way commuting. So I'm already losing money on this. At a certain point more money wouldn't even be worth it. I'd need an additional 50k take home for this to make sense, which due to how taxation works quickly prices me out the market. Basically I have a WFH job and unless I got a ridiculous offer, I'm not giving it up. I imagine if I finally get a FAANG job with 300k TC I'd consider it.
- arenaninja 2y ago
  Same boat here! :)
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  To put some less anecdotal data to this: an 80th percentile salary ask in our data set (from engs looking for jobs) is 33k higher [1] for an in-office job than it is for a remote one; a lot of those are people who already live in HCOL areas. [1] https://www.otherbranch.com/blog/quantifying-the-cost-of-rto https://www.otherbranch.com/blog/quantifying-the-cost-of-rto
- binary132 2y ago
  not to even mention cost of living, which can be an enormous difference
  - 999900000999 2y ago
    It's also just freedom. For example I wanted to visit a few cities and see some concerts. Had a great time doing it, and as long as I stay in the US it's not a problem. I actually really like NYC, to visit! Best food on Earth. A few years back I interviewed with a company that would let me work remotely anywhere on Earth ( with reasonable limits of course). It wouldn't of paid more that 120k, but I'd rather do that than make 200k in NYC.
- 2y ago
arenaninja 2y ago
I'm not in this 40% but I would not relocate for a job unless there is a significant financial upside but the offers I get are typically lower than what I currently make. Forcing five-day RTO is still ridiculous.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  At this point, reloacating is off the table without some guaranteed minimum working time. Been burned way too many times by sudden layoffs to risk moving my entire livlihood to get dumped in 1-2 years.
phaedryx 2y ago
Collaboration is much easier in the office, but I find home much easier to go heads down, headphones on and work on something; hybrid is the sweet spot for me.
rdtsc 2y ago
It all depends on the rest of the company. It's a big difference if the whole team + management are remote, and there are established practices to work that way, vs most of the team is not remote, and just a few individuals are. I find the last part harder. Not impossible, but just harder for everyone. During the pandemic a lot of in-office teams were forced to adapt quickly, and that doesn't always work well; it takes time to build a culture around that and some people just don't work well that way. So not too surprised that after sometime it was declared a "failure" and everyone is forced to RTO. For me, I was never in the office to start with, so there is nothing to "return to". I know I am taking a pay cut picking choosing, but I picked to spend more time with my family instead of commuting. It helps the environment, too. But being with my family was my top priority.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tristor 2y ago
There are three things I refuse to do for any company. I have never had a problem finding a job, even in "down markets". It does greatly constrain which companies are a fit, but I think understanding your own boundaries and being honest about it is actually crucially important to being happy at work. My three refusals / boundaries are: 1. Work permanently from an office building, unless I am given a private office with a door that closes and locks. 2. Work within waterfall processes for software projects. 3. Work on an almost entirely outsourced team (whether that's "on-shore" or "off-shore" is irrelevant, contractors don't have skin in the game) That's pretty much it, I'm otherwise remarkably flexible and have done a lot of interesting stuff in a lot of different domains through my relatively lengthy career. I've been permanent remote since 2015, so since well before the current WFH shift. For senior level technical people with unique skills, you've always had the leverage to set boundaries in even really poor labor markets, and even more so as you move up in corporate rank. If I'm given a private office with a door that locks in a reasonably decent office building, and I am paid an appropriate amount to live within a reasonable commute without sacrificing my quality of life, I'd consider working in an office again for awhile. But so far I've never had a company that is willing to provide private offices for anyone below senior executive (SVP+) level, so remote it is.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  > For senior level technical people with unique skills, you've always had the leverage to set boundaries in even really poor labor markets, and even more so as you move up in corporate rank. I'm stuck in that "early senior" phase, so the downturn hit me at the perfectly wrong time for leverage, sadly. My domain doesn't help much, either. No one's really safe here.
dethos 2y ago
I'm not surprised
penguin_booze 2y ago
The recruiter emails I get these days mention "they've a collaborative environment". That's euphemism for being an office slave. No, thanks.
thewileyone 2y ago
If companies are willing to outsource software development to offshore providers, then why not WFH?

80 points by jakey_bakey 2y ago

(2023) Some discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35090739

ramesh31 2y ago

I suspect that 40% drops quite a bit after 6 months of unemployment in the current market. Boom times are over. We're back to falling in line with the rest of the working class, as the capitalists have captured enough of the market to force our hands. It was nice to feel special for a while, though.

codr7 2y ago
Nice try :) But I'm afraid the glorious past for employers is not coming back. We've all seen with our own eyes that working remotely is fine most of the time, there's no way to unsee it. About time too.
threesevenths 2y ago
Interest rates are dropping. Jobs are appearing and new ideas are forming. There will probably be fewer silly startups. Hopefully we will see some new technology that has a meaningful impact.
- imbusy111 2y ago
  The first two sentences are in opposition to the third sentence.
  - benterix 2y ago
    I agree, people's creativity in grabbing cash from VCs has no limits. You'd think you've lived long enough to see enough and the next day you get another surprise. But maybe that's the way it should be - a lot of rubbish and among them one good idea that gets developed and actually make some positive change.
    - dumbfounder 2y ago
      Even the VCs will tell you that is the case.
maratc 2y ago
But that's only because the proletariat does not collectively own the means of production -- yet.
- codr7 2y ago
  As far as software goes, the proletariat is the means of production, which explains the focus on getting LLM's to write code.
mfer 2y ago
I think that misreads the market. From what I can tell, the RTO efforts reduce headcount without layoffs and the costs with those. It's not as if these companies are hiring to replace the people not moving. RTO is about financials, IMHO. I've been talking with people in the tech sector and getting hired is hard for far too many people. Remote or in-person.
- hosh 2y ago
  There's been a concerted effort to reset salary for tech workers in the past year or so, ever since Elon Musk kicked things off with the mass layoffs at Twitter. The default of Silicon Valley Bank didn't help, and neither did the VC money pulling back for all but AI. One of the hidden chilling effect is Section 174. I don't know why it is such a big blind spot among tech workers. (Section 174 ruling means US companies can no longer expense software development, and must amortize it. That creates a significantly higher tax burden. It is driving companies to shed all but their best engineers, and drive AI adoption. I don't even know how startups are going to start up without enough capital to cover the higher taxes).
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I dont think that is a contradiction to the parent post. It certainly seems like there is a shift in supply and demand. When getting hired is hard and you have mortgage payments due, how many people are willing or able to turn down offers because they are "WFH" only.
drivebyhooting 2y ago
I can neither deny nor resist market forces, but I abhor RTO. There is a staggering amount of signaling and ritual utterly divested from delivering outcomes. To be honest I think perhaps more than 50% of “work” need not be done. It’s a game theory dilema and tragedy that we put each other up for these charades.
rachofsunshine 2y ago
For what it's worth, it was 41% [1] in our sample as of a blog we posted this morning, and a good chunk of those people have been out of work for that long. [1] https://framerusercontent.com/images/5R1ZfThrPbROdkJ8pHw8qvDBj0g.png?lossless=1 https://framerusercontent.com/images/5R1ZfThrPbROdkJ8pHw8qvD...
sdenton4 2y ago
With bosses doing stupid shit and increasing efforts to treat engineers as replaceable cogs, I think we're in a great moment to work towards unionizing larger swathes of tech. Unions are a way to collectively make sure that we (as workers) get what we need from our jobs, like optional remote work, lay-offs structured to minimize disruption (eg, volunteers-first, ensuring options for internal moves), and so on. Things we'll be hard pressed to argue individually, especially as the McKinsey increasingly colors us as replaceable components.
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  The problem with that is that pushes towards collective action come when people feel weak - which is exactly the time at which they have the least leverage. Good bargaining power comes from a place of strength, like what SWEs had 5 years ago. But in that environment, it's easy to think of your boss in non-adversarial terms, because they're incentivized to keep you happy because they know someone else could poach you. Tech workers, and SWEs in particular, mistook their market power for virtue on their employers' part. When it's a sunny June day, it's too easy to blow off why anyone would ever want a jacket.

xxxtemp 2y ago

I feel crazy sometimes, because I'm the exact opposite. WFH has been a disaster for me. I just joined a team with a hybrid schedule (3 days in the office). I'm there every day, but it's pretty dead on the other 2 days. If they close the office and go remote-only I will quit on the spot.

threesevenths 2y ago
Can you explain what has not gone well for you? How has it gone for the rest of the team?
- xxxtemp 2y ago
  To me personally, working remote makes me feel like I'm working completely alone. For me, it's hard to feel like anyone cares what I'm doing, which has made it hard to make myself put in effort. That's a recipe for a downward spiral, which is exactly what my work has been since the pandemic. I'm not saying the office is some perfect, joyous or highly social place or anything. I just think for me, it makes a big difference to have a place (different from my house) where people come together to work on common goals, and occasionally interact face-to-face while doing it.
  - fotedjj 2y ago
    None of those things change by physically being somewhere else. Nobody cares what you’re doing because they’re sitting vaguely near you. Those rose colored glasses are goddamn dark, my friend.
    - xxxtemp 2y ago
      I find it so hard to understand this type of militancy. In what other situation is it normal to respond to the statement "I have a preference for X" with "no you don't / you have issues / take responsibility for yourself"? I prefer working with others around and I'd like to work with others who feel the same way. That isn't a personal attack on you or anyone else :)
  - 2y ago

benterix 2y ago

I see this power struggle in job applications. The companies who really want to hire talent will include a remote option. Those with a more constrained vision will insist on hybrid or even full RTO. As an applicant the first thing I do is to filter out the latter.

tonymet 2y ago
you're not going to convince companies by condescending to them.
- codr7 2y ago
  But it's the truth, and companies that don't adapt will have to settle for the most desperate.
  - tonymet 2y ago
    some smart people find office collaboration more dynamic and effective
    - Integrape 2y ago
      Some smart people will have to settle for the most desperate coworkers.
    - piva00 2y ago
      And some smart people find working remotely more fulfilling and focused. It's a matter of preference, over time the companies who do RTO will attract talent that prefers that, remote companies will attract other ones. There are smart people in both cohorts to be alienated if forced to do the other option so I don't get the argument. It's self-selecting if the options exist, the pandemic opened Pandora's Box.
- abenga 2y ago
  Neither are the companies. It's a two-sided market.

mytailorisrich 2y ago

40% say that, but how many actually do?

hosh 2y ago
The article talks about 18% of jobs in the US market are now remote.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  "now" being 2021. 2021 was still solidly within the pandemic. It would be interesting to see if that number has gone up or down since then.
  - downrightmike 2y ago
    There are no metrics that show RTO is anything other than management trying to control people, all the metrics out there show WFH is way more productive and profitable. But companies have a perverse incentive to keep the executives who bought into the CRE bubble when it was already a zombie in 2006.
    - s1artibartfast 2y ago
      That seems completely irrelevant to the question. Even if it is for entirely sadistic reasons, that doesn't mean the numbers are as high as they were in 2021 or that everyone that wants a WFH job today can get one.

slashdave 2y ago

What was the survey methodology?

rachofsunshine 2y ago
Not the author of the OP, but we find nearly-identical numbers (slightly higher, in fact - see blog post in my submissions) in our data, which is self-reported by people signing up with us looking for jobs. When they enter remote-only, they're taking themselves out of contention for in-office jobs, so it's a fairly costly signal.
- slashdave 2y ago
  Okay, that's useful information. But then the number is 40% of engineerings seeking employment, not overall. It is also for those engineers using your platform, which will also be a biased sample.

Animats 2y ago

How many people who had to Return To Office actually got their own office?

downrightmike 2y ago
hahaha
johnnyanmac 2y ago
Return to Open (Office), silly. Imagine wanting privacy in 2024.

trzy 2y ago

No wonder there is rampant age discrimination in tech. Who wants to hire older workers who want to silo at home, avoid mentoring juniors, and force teams to have video calls when the rest of the team could have met in person?

rootusrootus 2y ago
Ageism was already a thing before COVID sent us all home.
efnx 2y ago
Did I miss where the article mentions that those workers tend to be older? Also - why does working at home imply any of those things (besides video calls).
rachofsunshine 2y ago
Not the author of the OP link, but we don't find any gap between senior and junior candidates (a reasonable proxy for age) on remote preference in our data set. Every subcohort is somewhere in the high 30s to low 40s, all within a few percent and well within MOE for the size of those subgroups even if you treat the sample as completely independent (which of course it is not).

999900000999 2y ago

Ohh I'll come back into the office for the right price. Let's say I'm remote and making 140k. I can live wherever I want. If a recruiter was like "If you come to NYC we can hit 190k". Think about it. After taxes that's a 25k increase. Rent will be an additional 2 to 3k a month over what I'm paying now. Plus I'm spending a minimum of 45 minutes each way commuting. So I'm already losing money on this. At a certain point more money wouldn't even be worth it. I'd need an additional 50k take home for this to make sense, which due to how taxation works quickly prices me out the market. Basically I have a WFH job and unless I got a ridiculous offer, I'm not giving it up. I imagine if I finally get a FAANG job with 300k TC I'd consider it.

arenaninja 2y ago
Same boat here! :)
rachofsunshine 2y ago
To put some less anecdotal data to this: an 80th percentile salary ask in our data set (from engs looking for jobs) is 33k higher [1] for an in-office job than it is for a remote one; a lot of those are people who already live in HCOL areas. [1] https://www.otherbranch.com/blog/quantifying-the-cost-of-rto https://www.otherbranch.com/blog/quantifying-the-cost-of-rto
binary132 2y ago
not to even mention cost of living, which can be an enormous difference
- 999900000999 2y ago
  It's also just freedom. For example I wanted to visit a few cities and see some concerts. Had a great time doing it, and as long as I stay in the US it's not a problem. I actually really like NYC, to visit! Best food on Earth. A few years back I interviewed with a company that would let me work remotely anywhere on Earth ( with reasonable limits of course). It wouldn't of paid more that 120k, but I'd rather do that than make 200k in NYC.
2y ago

arenaninja 2y ago

I'm not in this 40% but I would not relocate for a job unless there is a significant financial upside but the offers I get are typically lower than what I currently make. Forcing five-day RTO is still ridiculous.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
At this point, reloacating is off the table without some guaranteed minimum working time. Been burned way too many times by sudden layoffs to risk moving my entire livlihood to get dumped in 1-2 years.

phaedryx 2y ago

Collaboration is much easier in the office, but I find home much easier to go heads down, headphones on and work on something; hybrid is the sweet spot for me.

rdtsc 2y ago

It all depends on the rest of the company. It's a big difference if the whole team + management are remote, and there are established practices to work that way, vs most of the team is not remote, and just a few individuals are. I find the last part harder. Not impossible, but just harder for everyone. During the pandemic a lot of in-office teams were forced to adapt quickly, and that doesn't always work well; it takes time to build a culture around that and some people just don't work well that way. So not too surprised that after sometime it was declared a "failure" and everyone is forced to RTO. For me, I was never in the office to start with, so there is nothing to "return to". I know I am taking a pay cut picking choosing, but I picked to spend more time with my family instead of commuting. It helps the environment, too. But being with my family was my top priority.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tristor 2y ago

There are three things I refuse to do for any company. I have never had a problem finding a job, even in "down markets". It does greatly constrain which companies are a fit, but I think understanding your own boundaries and being honest about it is actually crucially important to being happy at work. My three refusals / boundaries are: 1. Work permanently from an office building, unless I am given a private office with a door that closes and locks. 2. Work within waterfall processes for software projects. 3. Work on an almost entirely outsourced team (whether that's "on-shore" or "off-shore" is irrelevant, contractors don't have skin in the game) That's pretty much it, I'm otherwise remarkably flexible and have done a lot of interesting stuff in a lot of different domains through my relatively lengthy career. I've been permanent remote since 2015, so since well before the current WFH shift. For senior level technical people with unique skills, you've always had the leverage to set boundaries in even really poor labor markets, and even more so as you move up in corporate rank. If I'm given a private office with a door that locks in a reasonably decent office building, and I am paid an appropriate amount to live within a reasonable commute without sacrificing my quality of life, I'd consider working in an office again for awhile. But so far I've never had a company that is willing to provide private offices for anyone below senior executive (SVP+) level, so remote it is.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
> For senior level technical people with unique skills, you've always had the leverage to set boundaries in even really poor labor markets, and even more so as you move up in corporate rank. I'm stuck in that "early senior" phase, so the downturn hit me at the perfectly wrong time for leverage, sadly. My domain doesn't help much, either. No one's really safe here.

dethos 2y ago

I'm not surprised

penguin_booze 2y ago

The recruiter emails I get these days mention "they've a collaborative environment". That's euphemism for being an office slave. No, thanks.

thewileyone 2y ago

If companies are willing to outsource software development to offshore providers, then why not WFH?