3 ms·

Is it just me, or is the photo a rather unlucky pick? I'm seeing roughly 20 people, sitting in what is essentially a dark cellar. It would be completely colour

by fhd2 13y ago

Is it just me, or is the photo a rather unlucky pick? I'm seeing roughly 20 people, sitting in what is essentially a dark cellar. It would be completely colourless, if it wasn't for a handful of bizarre, childish gadgets here and there. I couldn't imagine working in such a crowded, depressing environment, let alone feel relaxed. And from what I've seen, that's one reality for many programmers: The offices are often quite bad. Open plan offices are popular (it's not like developers need to phone or anything, right?), developers are put in basements, under the roof, or into an unattractive second building. And home office is generally more difficult to pull off for programmers than for other knowledge workers, which I think is mostly caused by a general lack of trust. Sure, the salaries are pretty good lately (although it's pretty much at the level of other professions requiring degrees, isn't it?), but I don't see much appreciation of programmers in most settings. The startup world is different (from my experience), but it's a very small part of our industry.

rdouble 13y ago
It's a valid observation, but does anyone have nice offices? My parents are medical professionals, their offices were terrible. My sister runs a government org in Australia, has horrible office. One of my old bosses was the head of a department at Harvard, also had a disgusting office. I personally am not a fan of the open space bullpen, but almost every other professional I have met had an office that was worse. The only people I know with legitimately cool offices are interior designers.
- fhd2 13y ago
  It's not really about the office, more about appreciation and respect. I've been in only one big company so far, but anecdotal evidence suggests many are similar. It was a software company. Software was it's core business. Yet the programmers, about 10% of the employees, where kind of the lowest in the food chain. Sales got all the money and a lot of attention. Professional services and product management got a lot of attention, shiny offices and regular praisings. The developers were all but ignored. I stuck to smaller software companies (mostly startups) again ever since. I always felt valued there, and that's important for my overall job satisfaction.
- dspillett 13y ago
  >but does anyone have nice offices? Ours certainly isn't a beautiful masterpeice of architecture and modern art, but it definitely qualifies as nice. A little bland and "airport-lounge-y" despite logos on the walls and brightly coloured chairs/sofa in the casual meeting areas (imagine an off-white and less saturated take on the pallet used for Mirror's Edge), but we have perfectly reasonable desks and chairs, plenty of space (I've seen more than twice as many people crammed into similar spaces), a good amount of natural light (though in the middle of the office the artificial lights still need to be on all day), and a useful kitchen area with plenty of space should lots of use want lunch in at the same time.

by fhd2 13y ago

rdouble 13y ago

It's a valid observation, but does anyone have nice offices? My parents are medical professionals, their offices were terrible. My sister runs a government org in Australia, has horrible office. One of my old bosses was the head of a department at Harvard, also had a disgusting office. I personally am not a fan of the open space bullpen, but almost every other professional I have met had an office that was worse. The only people I know with legitimately cool offices are interior designers.

fhd2 13y ago
It's not really about the office, more about appreciation and respect. I've been in only one big company so far, but anecdotal evidence suggests many are similar. It was a software company. Software was it's core business. Yet the programmers, about 10% of the employees, where kind of the lowest in the food chain. Sales got all the money and a lot of attention. Professional services and product management got a lot of attention, shiny offices and regular praisings. The developers were all but ignored. I stuck to smaller software companies (mostly startups) again ever since. I always felt valued there, and that's important for my overall job satisfaction.
dspillett 13y ago
>but does anyone have nice offices? Ours certainly isn't a beautiful masterpeice of architecture and modern art, but it definitely qualifies as nice. A little bland and "airport-lounge-y" despite logos on the walls and brightly coloured chairs/sofa in the casual meeting areas (imagine an off-white and less saturated take on the pallet used for Mirror's Edge), but we have perfectly reasonable desks and chairs, plenty of space (I've seen more than twice as many people crammed into similar spaces), a good amount of natural light (though in the middle of the office the artificial lights still need to be on all day), and a useful kitchen area with plenty of space should lots of use want lunch in at the same time.