Don't hesitate to look. There are offers out there. This was me until recently.
I was at my limit of nonsense unrelated to the job... then unclear RTO policies started appearing.
I put my foot out of the door and raised my concerns.
Management then, in a panic, told me it's being used as a wedge. Platitudes like "Enforcement isn't likely" or "not worth thinking about".
They were right... but not the way they intended. I chose new employment that doesn't play these games.
The market has decided I'm worth an extra $70k/year (with 200k in RSUs) and can work remotely. I now make more money, am officially remote, and have less stress.
By picking up a new job I've actually shed about seven. It's incredible how much burden one can carry.
This isn't even some fancy dev role, just SRE/keeping lights on.
I hope the good people I left behind (or those reading this) recognize the game.
It's the cheapest way to lay people off, get them to leave. The nefarious thing is it costs you, too.
Their attempts to retain were repulsing. I was assured that because of "who I am", I didn't need to worry. That validated the choice for me.
> It's the cheapest way to lay people off, get them to leave. The nefarious thing is it costs you, too.
And best of all, the hidden costs don’t show on the balance sheet for many many quarters, hopefully after the CxO has left and it’s someone else’s problem. It really is a victimless crime!
I firmly believe that management doesn't, or shouldn't mind this. I think a successful company is not necessarily built on top talent, but rather on people whose behavior can be managed - and on managers that are similarly competent. Similar to how on a building site, extraordinary bricklayers are not necessary, only a specific kind of adequacy is.
The other thing is that people who have something extraordinary also ask for something extraordinary in return, and that's not surprising either, it's just power dynamics. Similar to how powerful celebrities can have ridiculous backstage requests - what are they going to do, cancel a show?
This is an interesting perspective. I almost agree, in that many or most companies out there will be more or less fine with mid-tier talent. Not every company or product requires the best talent out there. But I still think there will be downstream effects to driving out strong performers, and time will be the judge there.
A lot of offices in London closed their gyms over the pandemic and never brought them back. I always thought that was pretty stupid. A lot of people who could WFH even before then used to come in for the free gym at least.
You might even say that they were trying to lay off an overaccumulation of senior "talent" without having to pay them off. RTW is probably mostly covert layoffs; you won't see these people replaced, and in a year or two these companies will have significant numbers of employees working from home again.
Since there are a lot of founders here, I'm curious about what your positions are whether you have any guides/references to creating a good environment.
My own experience has been that with junior talent, they don't gel with the team and don't have anything in common with the rest of the employees outside of the project they're working on.
I have been a remote employee (starting years before the pandemic) at a number of companies. The biggest thing I've noticed is the importance of communication. More specifically, you need a chat-first workforce. Seeing some places that were awful at remote and some that were really good, it really comes down to how comfortable people were communicating via chat.
If I were building a remote company I would hire people out of chats. I would rather hire someone off of IRC than off of LinkedIn, because I know the people on IRC can communicate (and argue!) via text. This may mean Discord now. That's my strongest opinion.
Following that is managerial. I have had places that did not have 1:1s with your direct manager, just bi-weekly or daily 15 minute standups with everyone. That is a good way to sabotage your company. Employees have nowhere to air problems besides in front of the whole group, so problems don't get mentioned until they are breaking (e.g. I have been working on other stuff for 2 months waiting for this guy to deliver something, but I need it now).
Being good enough to know what needs to be done, and being able to hire good talent and then trust them to get that stuff done. I have seen non-technical founders being run around by a D-tier CTO. You need good people to get good people as well. That place had a very difficult time landing talent.
Finally, pay well. I think the standard early startup pay range (180k + 1%) will not get you the technical talent you need. Maybe I am overestimating the technical challenges many companies face, but I would not build a business off of $180k engineers. I would rather pay double that (while being selective about talent) and get something (better) built with fewer people.
> don't have anything in common with the rest of the employees outside of the project they're working on.
I fail to grasp this part. How is this negative? I often have nothing in common with the rest of the guys in my team but it doesn't affect my work in any way.
First I worked at a small company that was oriented towards remote work. At the beginning I would show up in the office, but the company had a policy "instead of talking to me, can you write a message on public Slack channel, or even better, make a github issue I'll get back to later?", which made me furious because I'm a naturally talkative person. So I spent two years working remotely. Not gonna lie, that was amazing, I had work on one screen and porn on the other at all times.
Then I moved to a much bigger company that's remote-friendly. I make a point coming to the office every day, although never for full 8 hours, more like 3, and I'm slowly making some friends. There's people I can talk to beyond "howareyou howareyou", which is a huge thing, because we're social animals and as an immigrant, I just don't have the out-of-office social network most people do.
What I have noticed is that I'm always on much better terms with people I actually talk to, and in the office it's much easier to have these random chats about everything and nothing. These chats are incredibly important because they allow us to see coworkers as human beings rather than API calls.
A friend of mine lives with her boyfriend who's working fully remotely, the company doesn't even have an office in his area. She complained to me about the guy just not doing well in general. His entire social life is her, and that's not a healthy dynamic.
I think the companies cited in this article might be weird to compare.
Apple is very RTO heavy because they’re an old school hardware company. Hardware work is easy to demand in office work because: (1) apple secrecy and prevention of leaks and (2) access to lab equipment. #2 likely holds true for spaceX as well.
Adding Microsoft to the mix is weird as nobody I know there actually RTOs.
I think people need to actually specifically measure which roles (senior? engineering?) in tech we are discussing RTO about here. I agree that for most software engineering it backfired. But if you’re an apple hardware engineer, there aren’t many places in town that’ll pay you as much so you’ll accept whatever horrible RTO hand you’re dealt. Companies apply these rules to everyone which is very, very stupid IMO.
I think the most interesting part about this being on the inside is the rationale behind RTO. It’s always the same citing culture, collaboration, or other fuzzy things. It is never quantitative. Are you telling me that the people making these decisions are doing so without data? I think that’s unlikely, it’s just that the data isn’t in their favor and execs are smart enough than to let remote versus not remote become yet another bargaining chip for an employee, let alone senior ones.
TLDR, I think senior vs not senior in tech is likely too much of a generalization. But the people with the actual data aren’t speaking up probably because discussing the results don’t benefit them.
I'm not seeing this at my workplace. People are doing what they are told, and they are returning to the office. Maybe because losing a job is risky right now, given the current job market.
edit: don't get me wrong, I don't want RTO. I'm just saying that I'm personally not seeing people quit over it.
I don't know why this was downvoted - i would agree that by and large people are falling in line and daring to speak up less than I've ever seen in 10+ years...
I am at my current job due to my previous one demanding RTO. As soon as they started taking attendance in the office, I walked out. I know a number of others who did the same, at a number of companies.
Then the layoffs started and this paused as people were scared. Now that hiring is picking up again and many feel that the worst is behind us, multiple people from former workplaces that are in full-on RTO mode have already reached out asking how things are at my current workplace and whether we are hiring for remote roles (we are).
Disclosure: In October 2021 after 10 years working at Apple I left to join Microsoft, so I’m not totally unbiased.
I love the sentiment this article is expressing, and anecdotally the thesis holds in my experience: senior engineers have lots of opportunity, so they can (and will) leave if they disagree with office policies.
That said, the article is not good journalism. Its own cited data doesn’t actually represent the conclusion it draws.
SpaceX took an extremely draconian return-to-office policy and they suffered for it, but they also suffered for Musk being insane, so I’m not sure the causation is 100% there.
Apple actually took the next most draconian policy (required 3 days in the office per week from every employee), and in fact Apple’s enforcement of the policy has been extremely draconian. An acquaintance of mine got in trouble for hopping on a plane to visit their dying parent and not filling out the HR form to use their allowed “two weeks per year” of remote working. One of my former departments at Apple has management checking badge in and out times to enforce the policy. That’s insane!
Microsoft’s policy has been the most liberal of the three (which isn’t shown in the data). I left Apple in 2021 in the face of being forced back to the office for a fully-remote role at Microsoft on a team that transitioned from fully in the office in 2018 to fully dispersed in 2021. Articles like this (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/technology/microsoft-rto....) don’t properly capture Microsoft’s official return to work policy. Microsoft effectively left decisions about returning to the office up to managers and teams, and the corporate leadership incentivized managers to be more liberal by allowing teams to grow more if they hired more remote workers. At one point my team was told that 50% of all new hires were required to be fully remote.
The drama day of Microsoft’s policy taking effect which was cited in some articles was really a nothingburger. All you had to do was check the HR website to make sure it properly reflected if you were remote, in-office, or hybrid.
> One of my former departments at Apple has management checking badge in and out times to enforce the policy. That’s insane!
I keep in touch with a few of my co-workers who still work there, and they tell me there are a non-zero number of people still giving their badges to their RTO'ed buddies to "badge them in" on the right days. I'm sure that's strictly against multiple policies and they'll probably get caught at some point, but... people find a way.
I’m kind of curious why people are under the impression that people don’t do this in the office too.
I’ve known people to do full time online masters degrees during office hours. I’ve played a heck of a lot of video games in office. Certainly read a lot of books at the office.
Offices are not some magical “go find work” hypnotic environments.
A company that would be worth caring about would also care about its employees. Companies that actually care about its employees exist, but they’re mostly pretty small. You might care about a company, but the company often sees you as a replaceable part and they’ll throw you to the curb if it suits them.
Yeah, no. The only people who care about the company are the execs who own enough stock to care and green newbies who haven't been burned yet by companies who do not care about them at all.
Lifers tend to not take risks and be average, but not top performers. Good "workhorses" as they say, but rarely the people who brings in the most innovation.
ram_rar|1 year ago
bravetraveler|1 year ago
I was at my limit of nonsense unrelated to the job... then unclear RTO policies started appearing.
I put my foot out of the door and raised my concerns.
Management then, in a panic, told me it's being used as a wedge. Platitudes like "Enforcement isn't likely" or "not worth thinking about".
They were right... but not the way they intended. I chose new employment that doesn't play these games.
The market has decided I'm worth an extra $70k/year (with 200k in RSUs) and can work remotely. I now make more money, am officially remote, and have less stress.
By picking up a new job I've actually shed about seven. It's incredible how much burden one can carry.
This isn't even some fancy dev role, just SRE/keeping lights on.
I hope the good people I left behind (or those reading this) recognize the game.
It's the cheapest way to lay people off, get them to leave. The nefarious thing is it costs you, too.
Their attempts to retain were repulsing. I was assured that because of "who I am", I didn't need to worry. That validated the choice for me.
ornornor|1 year ago
And best of all, the hidden costs don’t show on the balance sheet for many many quarters, hopefully after the CxO has left and it’s someone else’s problem. It really is a victimless crime!
bravetraveler|1 year ago
Empty things like this serve as a function to identify workers who will allow themselves to be exploited. I was blind but now I see.
That's what I'm really getting at with "validation". They determined I was fine for this game. What about the next?
npteljes|1 year ago
The other thing is that people who have something extraordinary also ask for something extraordinary in return, and that's not surprising either, it's just power dynamics. Similar to how powerful celebrities can have ridiculous backstage requests - what are they going to do, cancel a show?
SauciestGNU|1 year ago
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
karma_pharmer|1 year ago
[deleted]
jaydeegee|1 year ago
ProxCoques|1 year ago
pessimizer|1 year ago
noufalibrahim|1 year ago
My own experience has been that with junior talent, they don't gel with the team and don't have anything in common with the rest of the employees outside of the project they're working on.
carom|1 year ago
If I were building a remote company I would hire people out of chats. I would rather hire someone off of IRC than off of LinkedIn, because I know the people on IRC can communicate (and argue!) via text. This may mean Discord now. That's my strongest opinion.
Following that is managerial. I have had places that did not have 1:1s with your direct manager, just bi-weekly or daily 15 minute standups with everyone. That is a good way to sabotage your company. Employees have nowhere to air problems besides in front of the whole group, so problems don't get mentioned until they are breaking (e.g. I have been working on other stuff for 2 months waiting for this guy to deliver something, but I need it now).
Being good enough to know what needs to be done, and being able to hire good talent and then trust them to get that stuff done. I have seen non-technical founders being run around by a D-tier CTO. You need good people to get good people as well. That place had a very difficult time landing talent.
Finally, pay well. I think the standard early startup pay range (180k + 1%) will not get you the technical talent you need. Maybe I am overestimating the technical challenges many companies face, but I would not build a business off of $180k engineers. I would rather pay double that (while being selective about talent) and get something (better) built with fewer people.
benterix|1 year ago
I fail to grasp this part. How is this negative? I often have nothing in common with the rest of the guys in my team but it doesn't affect my work in any way.
anal_reactor|1 year ago
First I worked at a small company that was oriented towards remote work. At the beginning I would show up in the office, but the company had a policy "instead of talking to me, can you write a message on public Slack channel, or even better, make a github issue I'll get back to later?", which made me furious because I'm a naturally talkative person. So I spent two years working remotely. Not gonna lie, that was amazing, I had work on one screen and porn on the other at all times.
Then I moved to a much bigger company that's remote-friendly. I make a point coming to the office every day, although never for full 8 hours, more like 3, and I'm slowly making some friends. There's people I can talk to beyond "howareyou howareyou", which is a huge thing, because we're social animals and as an immigrant, I just don't have the out-of-office social network most people do.
What I have noticed is that I'm always on much better terms with people I actually talk to, and in the office it's much easier to have these random chats about everything and nothing. These chats are incredibly important because they allow us to see coworkers as human beings rather than API calls.
A friend of mine lives with her boyfriend who's working fully remotely, the company doesn't even have an office in his area. She complained to me about the guy just not doing well in general. His entire social life is her, and that's not a healthy dynamic.
obnauticus|1 year ago
Apple is very RTO heavy because they’re an old school hardware company. Hardware work is easy to demand in office work because: (1) apple secrecy and prevention of leaks and (2) access to lab equipment. #2 likely holds true for spaceX as well.
Adding Microsoft to the mix is weird as nobody I know there actually RTOs.
I think people need to actually specifically measure which roles (senior? engineering?) in tech we are discussing RTO about here. I agree that for most software engineering it backfired. But if you’re an apple hardware engineer, there aren’t many places in town that’ll pay you as much so you’ll accept whatever horrible RTO hand you’re dealt. Companies apply these rules to everyone which is very, very stupid IMO.
I think the most interesting part about this being on the inside is the rationale behind RTO. It’s always the same citing culture, collaboration, or other fuzzy things. It is never quantitative. Are you telling me that the people making these decisions are doing so without data? I think that’s unlikely, it’s just that the data isn’t in their favor and execs are smart enough than to let remote versus not remote become yet another bargaining chip for an employee, let alone senior ones.
TLDR, I think senior vs not senior in tech is likely too much of a generalization. But the people with the actual data aren’t speaking up probably because discussing the results don’t benefit them.
nomilk|1 year ago
> These shifts appear to be driven by employees leaving to larger firms that are direct competitors.
[1] https://harris.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/wright-retur...
tail_exchange|1 year ago
edit: don't get me wrong, I don't want RTO. I'm just saying that I'm personally not seeing people quit over it.
solumunus|1 year ago
calderwoodra|1 year ago
Either you're seeing mid-level or lower RTO or there's another reason.
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
llamataboot|1 year ago
dmitrygr|1 year ago
I am at my current job due to my previous one demanding RTO. As soon as they started taking attendance in the office, I walked out. I know a number of others who did the same, at a number of companies.
Then the layoffs started and this paused as people were scared. Now that hiring is picking up again and many feel that the worst is behind us, multiple people from former workplaces that are in full-on RTO mode have already reached out asking how things are at my current workplace and whether we are hiring for remote roles (we are).
thegreatbeanz|1 year ago
I love the sentiment this article is expressing, and anecdotally the thesis holds in my experience: senior engineers have lots of opportunity, so they can (and will) leave if they disagree with office policies.
That said, the article is not good journalism. Its own cited data doesn’t actually represent the conclusion it draws.
SpaceX took an extremely draconian return-to-office policy and they suffered for it, but they also suffered for Musk being insane, so I’m not sure the causation is 100% there.
Apple actually took the next most draconian policy (required 3 days in the office per week from every employee), and in fact Apple’s enforcement of the policy has been extremely draconian. An acquaintance of mine got in trouble for hopping on a plane to visit their dying parent and not filling out the HR form to use their allowed “two weeks per year” of remote working. One of my former departments at Apple has management checking badge in and out times to enforce the policy. That’s insane!
Microsoft’s policy has been the most liberal of the three (which isn’t shown in the data). I left Apple in 2021 in the face of being forced back to the office for a fully-remote role at Microsoft on a team that transitioned from fully in the office in 2018 to fully dispersed in 2021. Articles like this (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/technology/microsoft-rto....) don’t properly capture Microsoft’s official return to work policy. Microsoft effectively left decisions about returning to the office up to managers and teams, and the corporate leadership incentivized managers to be more liberal by allowing teams to grow more if they hired more remote workers. At one point my team was told that 50% of all new hires were required to be fully remote.
The drama day of Microsoft’s policy taking effect which was cited in some articles was really a nothingburger. All you had to do was check the HR website to make sure it properly reflected if you were remote, in-office, or hybrid.
ryandrake|1 year ago
I keep in touch with a few of my co-workers who still work there, and they tell me there are a non-zero number of people still giving their badges to their RTO'ed buddies to "badge them in" on the right days. I'm sure that's strictly against multiple policies and they'll probably get caught at some point, but... people find a way.
dmichulke|1 year ago
If you didn't leave when ordered back to the office, you're not top tech talent.
Afforess|1 year ago
throwitaway222|1 year ago
Their heyday was 2016-2019
MattGaiser|1 year ago
I’ve known people to do full time online masters degrees during office hours. I’ve played a heck of a lot of video games in office. Certainly read a lot of books at the office.
Offices are not some magical “go find work” hypnotic environments.
blitzar|1 year ago
threeseed|1 year ago
There is no evidence that remote workers are all just sitting around doing nothing.
And if they were then the problem is clearly with their managers who are unable to provide clear goals and monitor their status.
talldayo|1 year ago
wumbo|1 year ago
mvkel|1 year ago
relyks|1 year ago
tucnak|1 year ago
justin_oaks|1 year ago
One may care about the company until the company shows it doesn't care about you.
If an employee is loyal to a company that isn't loyal back then I question that employee's intelligence.
water-data-dude|1 year ago
greenthrow|1 year ago
glimshe|1 year ago