Have you been plagued by applicant fraud? We've found for all of our remote engineering roles, we get 100's of amazing applicants who are all fake (clearly not actually in the US) once you get them on a screening call. They're often reading from a script, broken english, and say strange things like they're born and raised in Texas, yet can't speak fluent English or have a heavy accent.
My best guess is it's dev shops overseas who are using an English-speaking "front" person who then delegates the work to other people with the "front" person being the one who joins company meetings, etc.
Really frustrating because it's making us have to do silly things like require photo ID verification over video on the first screening call (which I would rather not inconvenience applicants with, but there are just SO many candidates lying about residing in the US).
With our most recent role, about 60-70% of applicants were fake ("fake" = candidates who lie about living/residing in the US)
I've also heard of situations where one person is hired to do the job, but then after a while their work changes for the worse. They start "forgetting" things you've talked about recently, or they'll "forget" how the code they submitted an hour ago works.
They're either a front person for a dev shop, or they're trying to outsource their work. They don't care about doing a great job because they know most companies will take a long time to fire people. If the company PIPs them, they might suddenly become a great performer again until the heat dies down, then it's back to the same game.
Before the "if they're getting their work done, why does it matter?" comments: Having someone take our codebase and send it to random contractors is a huge security breach. Even ignoring that, these people aren't selecting world-class developers to outsource their work. They're outsourcing as cheaply as possible so they can pay as little as possible. It's never an okay deal for the company.
Darknet dairies has an interesting episode about this: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/133/
It's a real problem which makes it harder for people like me that are legitimately working remotely. This has existed for a long time but it wasn't as popular because remote working was unpopular before the pandemic.
> Really frustrating because it's making us have to do silly things like require photo ID verification over video on the first screening call
Unfortunately, this wouldn't solve it, a person can join the calls and get someone else to do the work.
The hope of these fake candidates is that they can sneak in and get a few good paychecks from a corrupt and disorderly employer. And it costs then almost nothing to try.
in his case i think he more or less knew what he was doing, and showed up on calls, but delegated the work to some other people.
we’d hear people in the background of his audio discussing things really oddly similar to tasks he’d been assigned and had outstanding. he was putting in (bad) PRs at all hours of day and night, and never had any recollection of any email, slack conversation, or his own PRs.
the company fired him after six months or so.
What's the difference between a foreigner with an accent in your onsite team VS a foreigner that's remote in US timezones (LatAm)? Why just open the job for US-remote?
Compliance? Deel/Remote can help you with that.
Security? It applies if you're working on defense software, but other than that...?
If I give someone in the US access to my code, systems, and, inevitably, customer data then I have a lot of legal recourse against that person if they do something bad. They have a lot of incentive to be careful and follow the rules. Their desire to maintain their reputation and avoid legal liability aligns our interests.
If I hire someone in the US and they hand everything over to a random person in a foreign country who doesn't care in the slightest about US laws, then they don't care about anything other than keeping those paychecks coming for a while. They don't care about anything, especially once those paychecks stop coming. It's even more complicated because the company isn't the one sending the paychecks, it's the person you hired. If that person has a falling out with their outsourced counterpart and the outsourced counterpart decides to take revenge on the company as leverage over their front-person, it gets bad.
> Security? It applies if you're working on defense software, but other than that...?
Are you suggesting that security only matters to defense software? You've never worked on a project that involves customer data? You've never worked on proprietary software that your competitors would love to have?
Do you not get annoyed when companies leak your personal data?
Typically the person "hired" is the senior and the person doing the work is _extremely_ green.
The edge cases are common and often legally ambiguous. When things go wrong, it can be extremely hard for a company to resolve the situation when it crosses boarders. Heck, even just operating in a different state can open a company up to legal issues.
Once you start opening up to different legal jurisdictions, you basically have to run company policy in a way that accounts for the worst situations across all jurisdictions.
Some things that I'm aware of:
* Import/Export law for software. It may seem mundane, but having any encryption can cause significant scrutiny.
* Import/Export law for hardware (like getting a company laptop to an employee)
* Ability to track/down or recover lost/stolen hardware
* Variations in labor laws.
* Variations in copyright/IP protection laws.
* Variations in digital hacking/data integrity laws.
* Government level data monitoring/tracking
* Local data protection laws that you might not be subject to without a local employee.
* Scrutiny from your customers about foreign workers.
* Accidental sanctions violations.
* Potential for customer data to leave legal boundaries via a foreign employee.
* etc
- IP protection - some countries make it super hard if someone breaks the NDA and steals their employer's IP. At least in the US, the employer can go after the IP thieves as a last recourse.
- Secure devices - lot of companies give laptops which come with all sorts of tracking software (eg. to force security updates). It is hard to ship laptops all over the world due to customs requirements.
Honestly as an American I would much prefer to hire Americans from Midwest or Texas, than someone outside my country.
https://www.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-inquiries-and-citizenshi...
I was under the impression that every job posting right now is instantly buried with a glut of top quality candidates, and that you simply pick your favorite, lowball them and you're done.
We started scheduling video chats with the candidates clearly using ChatGPT with our virtual recruiter, and they all got on the call and began reading scripts, and could not answer more unique phone screen questions like: What engineering principle is important to you?
It’s the most frustrating thing, taking up so much of our time and taking time away from strong engineers who deserve our time.
I heard a good podcast about this, https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/133/
We’re testing a solution for this to keep our own product operating fast and delivering amazing candidates.
We’re also keeping a list of red flags:
- LinkedIn profile was created in the last year
- GitHub link has a generic identity, 0-2 followers, very little activity
- Candidate will say yes to a phone screen immediately, literally right now
- Or candidate will ask if the meeting is a technical screen
- Candidate will go quiet if you ask them if they are available to fly to HQ to meet the team for their final interview
- Job history includes large, non-tech enterprises where employment would be hard to confirm; think CVS, The Home Depot, Best Buy, etc
- LinkedIn About Statement is written in the third person
- LinkedIn profile uses generic language like “cutting edge technologies”
- Profile photos may be avatars, or look like stock photos
None of these things individually can indicate a fake applicant, but taken all together with language used with our virtual recruiter we’ve gotten good at identifying the fakes. We’re still doing a lot of tests to prevent discrimination on our part.
If anyone wants to chat, my CoFounder and I have become obsessed with solving this.
If someone tried to claim they were from the US but didn't have any tax ID and we needed to send their paychecks to an obscure address in Europe for reasons, that wouldn't work at all.
i think remote work is great, but some early face to face can fix a bunch of problems imo.
"Similarly, employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant. If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted."
https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices
Born in the states but currently living in Canada to take care of family, unsure if it is worth applying to the litany of US remote positions
I guess it’s mostly my own fault for being nervous about switching jobs, but hearing them accidentally hiring obvious frauds makes me think it’s not as daunting as I feel.
Idk if this is an actual signal of anything, at least with mexican-american people I noticed they still have a unique accent. First gen americans can live in ethnic bubbles, and not speak english primarily, especially if their parents didnt put in any effort to speak english.
I understand and empathize with those that value face-to-face conversations in the office, but for those that don't, remote work is an incredible boon.
Don't get me wrong, there are some remote fanatics that do the same thing, but they seem far fewer.
I would argue that the reason "remote wins" is that to get the full benefit of working in person you really need 100% of your team to work in the same building on the same hours. As soon as one person goes remote, the in-person experience is significantly degraded for everyone else.
Thus, as soon as company allows "hybrid", the people who prefer remote go remote and the in-person experience quickly degrades. This starts a spiral where people on the margin -- who still prefer 100% in person! -- decide it's no-longer worth coming in, which in turn degrades the experience further and pushes more people to give up on the office, until there are very few people left coming in.
It doesn't take very many people to set off this spiral: in my anecdotal experience, once a team goes 10-20% remote, the office is pretty useless.
So what I see is there's a "tyranny of the minority" effect. I think the long-term response is going to be more sorting of companies into all-remote or all in-person, with fewer companies in the "hybrid" space that's so common today.
For me, just giving up commutes and being able to do some basic chores on breaks or lunch alone brings a ton of this balance back into check. I work 8h but i gained so much "me" time back that it's like working 6h with a commute.
I would give up WFH if needed, but i'd be pushing for 6h days as a trade off. I now feel the added time in my life by not commuting is a massive boon. One that i can't give up. Do i prefer WFH? Yes, i'm on ~8years of it now. But the life that i clawed back by simply not commuting is by far the most valuable thing. One i am never giving up in i have options.
reminds me of this meme that was going around Facebook during the last US election. It was an image of a line at a store like Target. The caption was something like "you stand in line at the store, you can stand in line to vote." You know, one of those absolutely stupid republican anti-mail-in-voting things. They apparently forgot that Amazon, one of the largest corporations in the world, exists. So no, I and the entire world do not stand in line at the store. And if you want to go stand in line all day to vote, you still can asshole. But I'll be dropping my ballot off at my mailbox.
The presence of a remote worker on a team means everyone is working remotely, in that all meetings have to be video conferences in order to include them. It's just that some might be working remotely from an office.
If you work in an office but your team is remote, you work remote.
The strategy applies collectively: will the team work face-to-face or not?
No one is justifying commutes because of the kitchen or the view.
Recall all the "phone-closets" we installed in many large corp tech environs (I wasa designer on many large scale offices (FB, Goog, Salesforce, NAMCO, Lucas - to name a few - aside from hospitals, I have millions of SqFt under my belt)...
If a company wanted to focus a remote workforce, while reducing realEstate facilities costs, maybe a deliverable cubicle (returnable cubicle) - that was a sound box with all the tech req'd for job, might be a thing - think of it like the "ON AIR" red-light sign... (IF PERSON IS IN THIS CUBE, THEY ARE FOCUSED ON WORKING - DO NOT TOUCH, FEED, OR OTHERWISE ENGAGE WITH SAID PERSON IN THIS BOX)
This argument doesn't work because it's not about being in aspecific physical location, it's about being in the same physical location as all the other workers.
When half the people you need to interact with are remote, there's no point going to the office.
Reasonableness has a pretty subjective definition in this context.
And even if we could all agree how reasonableness should be defined then it’s still a terrible metric to make a decision by.
My biggest wish, or obstacle, is finding a team that truly values writing. So many times I've sat in meetings where the discussion largely focuses on everyone just clarifying their own ideas. Or status meetings. It's led me to believe that a lot of "in office is better" folks just value the instant gratification of face-to-face conversations.
I suspect HN's a community of early adopters, but I'd be curious how that actually plays out over time.
We've shifted our work discussions almost entirely to async threads on our ticketing system, we frequently hand tickets over between timezones and our manager types can find out what's going on to the nearest couple of hours in a few minutes any time they like. If we need sync conversations (which does happen of course) we record the outcome for async consumption.
We do frequent pairing, it can be quite pleasant to spend quite a while on the phone doing work when you don't need to sit in 15 hours of meetings a week!
Honestly I'm not sure I could go back. Standups for sure would be a huge turnoff for me at any new job.
It's not uncommon for me to interview him on almost every ticket, writing extensive notes with clarifications on his instructions and to fill in gaps.
I don't see anything necessarily wrong with having to write notes. I think that's part of a healthy work process. I just think it happens too often.
It's partly due to the fact we do not have a very organized system, but also due to him not valuing writing as a tool to enhance his work.
Since COVID I've felt like the dynamic of my remote work experience has changed. I've worked with two remote companies since then and both were struggling with a lot of inexperienced or absent remote workers. Dealing with them on a case-by-case basis is the right call, of course, but it takes a toll on management's trust of remote workers in general.
Fortunately I haven't had to install any overly intrusive monitoring software, but I did learn that my company now dedicates a significant amount of business analyst time to analyzing activity of remote employees now. Apparently they had so many problems with remote employees (and their managers!) barely getting any work done that management has soured on remote work in general, so new hires have to be on site unless someone can vouch for them being excellent remote workers.
The competition for remote work has also gone way up. Every remote job opening we posted would get literally thousands of applications.
The combination of increasing competition for remote jobs and declining sentiment toward remote work (see: Amazon and other big companies) does not bode well for those of us who were successfully working remote for many years, IMO.
This was most likely also happening in the office, it was just masked with the appearance of work in the form of in-person meetings and people zoning out at their desks. When you have a bunch of people in a room together progress grinds to a halt because it becomes completely about performance.
I think this is the one place AR/VR is almost ready to really help out. "Teleport" your chair to someone else's space while they "draw" on the "whiteboard" to show you things—with their actual body and hands.
Rigs anywhere near good enough to make this non-terrible are gonna be expensive for some time, and maybe don't quite exist yet (but are the one valuable use-case within striking distance of current hardware, I think), sure—but isn't the claim that this kind of interaction is incredibly valuable? Four-figure cost per six-figure worker should be a no brainer, then (unless companies/managers are just bullshitting about that...). And meeting rooms ain't cheap.
Same with my kid. Another big win of remote for me is that I can go where I'm treated best. I can pick a country (anyone could pick my country and I had to welcome them with open hands, so it's only fair game that in exchange I'm allowed to go wherever I feel like going) which welcomes me and my family and where the taxes are reasonable and where the people are nice.
I'm at my fourth country in seven years and this time I think the family shall stay for quite a while.
1. The quality of remote workers seems to have dropped significantly post pandemic. I think this is because, in the past to work remote at an in-office company you need to be pretty valuable. Now people who can't work well without the structure of an office are able to get remote work and coast. This means the good people are carrying a lot more dead weight.
2. Juniors simply don't learn as much or as quickly in a remote environment. Many of them just go dark when they can't figure something out.
3. Perhaps you save money by not commuting, but my wife and I both work remote. That means our companies have basically colonized 200 square feet of our house rent free. We could be using these rooms for something else. It almost feels like a 3rd amendment violation sometimes.
Further, my new boss is an extrovert and has found that she can’t stand working from home and prefers the office. I was hired fully remote, but there’s more and more in-office meetings held, where I might be the only person on a giant 96” conference room screen. This really makes remote feel like being an outsider and I feel less involved with the team. My role was supposed to be managing and strategy but it’s more of a taskmaster at this point. I can have one-on-one discussions with leaders, but the decisions are not made in a video call, they’re being made in an office face-to-face.
I think if I were a remote contractor this would be fine and I wouldn’t care so much about the dynamic. However, trying to be a genuine employee in a non-remote first and locally focused company is proving difficult.
It's not even that I don't value the face-to-face conversations and human interaction, I absolutely do. It just doesn't come close to the immense value I gain by WFH.
A side benefit: I was able to move closer to my church community, so my "human interaction" need is being fulfilled richer than ever now.
(One of the most frustrating things in all the WFH vs RTO discourse is that there is this false dichotomy being presented. It's either extroverted people who are energized by others, or introverts who'd rather be in the dark closet by themselves. I am as extroverted as they come, and I thrived in the office environment. Still wouldn't trade WFH for the world.)
This is what the "but you need human interaction" return-to-office crowd doesn't understand.
WFH !== Being alone
WFH means surrounding yourself with the people you choose to be around.
Whether that's your church community, fellow hobbyists, intramural sports teams, the local co-working space, etc.
Plus, that can include "my coworkers" for anyone that wants to make work a bigger part of their life, like those working in startups. However, this should be the exception, not the rule like it has been.
It should be your choice...
Perfectly stated. I can be quite outgoing when I want to be, and in many of my previous jobs I enjoyed many of my colleagues, but now I can devote my energy to the relationships I value most.
I have four kids, time is undoubtedly my most valuable commodity. I don't think I'd be able to foster as many friendships if I was working in an office. I'm sure I'd have friendships with a few colleagues, but WFH enables me to devote myself to friendships as I see fit.
So I find myself longing for office time, not because I like office time, but rather because I feel like it might bring back some sanity to the relationship.
Am I the only one in that situation? What do you do? It's not like I can structure another individual, it would only work if they themselves recognize that they need structure, which they don't.
Are you in Tonga or something?
Only wondering because ~3 years versus a little less than 2 years seems like a potentially big difference, so wondering if that feeling of fulfillment has is still going strong that long
I believe the extrovert vs. introvert division is a false dichotomy in the first place.
Commute time, environment at home, career seniority - these are the most important factors in this discussion
I value face-to-face time in the office but still prefer remote work and its not even close.
It would be nice to have an office very close by and be able to go when I want. But there is nothing good nearby and im not moving.
Being successful at remote work as a developer and creative is using the right tools when it comes to collaboration. This means having a good A/V setup that doesn't need regular futzing with to work. Know your OS's sound and camera settings. Know your team tools inside and out. Another thing that I work on daily is better written communication skills, specifically, better commit message, taking that extra 5 minutes to write up a concise PR.
Screen capture is another tool I regularly use, and have refined my skills in. I often screenshot things and add drawn and text annotations to highlight important information and supplement with a chat message. That can often help solve problems much faster. I have us all using more digital whiteboarding tools. We're learning what too much or too little Kanban board granularity is. Adjusting workflows both in project management and remote communication is super important. Finding the inefficiencies and efficiencies requires a lot of open-mindedness and humility.
We had an employee who wasn't finding success in remote work and I realized a lot of his struggles were with not knowing how to use core desktop publishing and digital communication tools. He was from the save it on your hard drive and email-it-to-me generation. He missed standing at the coffee machine and chatting. He didn't care to learn advanced features of the Google Suite, or get OBS up and running. Those factors combined didn't help him succeed in remote work. It was unfortunate to see.
One thing that can be done to positively influence opponents of remote work, in your organization or in the industry in general is emphasizing the importance of core modern computer literacy. I think that being a highly productive remote employee requires one to develop and maintain a high degree of core computer literacy (using office productivity tools, communication software, and managing A/V hardware).
The most important subtext. There are engineer friends of mine laid off from remote companies that, almost 5 months later, cannot get work. These aren't braindead seatwarmers either. The software engineer market has shifted under our feet DRAMATICALLY. Any software engineer with a position should try to keep it for as long as they possible can.
The way I got a job was by writing some technical articles and establishing a relationship with a very energetic VC person. I asked him if he could introduce me to his portfolio companies and day later I had a few conversations lined up. I think I found what is probably the most interesting job I have ever had. I am usually nobody to hustle or advocate for it, but it sure paid back.
It was nuts, my resume and skillset have never been stronger but this was my hardest search by a huge margin. Referrals were not working, bulk applications were getting no response. What finally worked was just persistence and trying to add a lot of character to my cover letter. I had way more replies when I: A. complimented what they were doing B. Included a few little quips/jokes.
The huge number of fake applicants and AI generated cover letters/resumes is making recruiters jobs a nightmare, I think a few jokes and compliments can make it clear you are an actual person. One recruiter told me he had ~3000 applications for a pretty low paying remote position.
I'm over 40, so I must assume ageism is a factor, but even in light of that, this tech job market feels like a desert.
Along with a number of engineers with 10-20 years experience.
Took me 3 years to get back into a tech job.
This is starting to feel the same.
There’s a lot more competition for remote jobs and you’re also competing with highly qualified candidates in lower cost of living places outside the US.
Thats true for anyone in the US. I find it far stranger to work remotely from SF or NY.
Anyone know of a forum where people like me can candidly compare notes about finding a job after layoff?
I'm learning so many lessons, but some could only be shared in an anonymous setting.
Also, I believe you can sign up without being currently employed.
There are plenty of fully remote openings for senior software engineers looking for $100k TC right now. Every person can make their own calculation
For high values of "low paying".
$150-250k TC, instead of $300-500k.
it isnt “easier” to get an offer at lower ranges, those companies think they are taking a risk with their comp ranges too
people do send me an offer after in person interviews
I have no problem getting callbacks and multiple rounds of interviews and busy work take home challenges just in case anyone else is having a similar experience, also interview at hybrid roles or offer to do an in person one
I never hear anything back about remote roles after the first round. In many cases a recruiter even has perfect roles that they say they submit me for but I never hear from them again.
On-site stuff tends to progress further, but usually they want one to move to a more expensive location, which I was desperately trying to avoid.
Also I've only once had a commute longer than 20 minutes and it was such a burden (even though I carpooled) I gave that up after less than a year.
You're not alone.
The internet likes to talk about remote work as the only acceptable arrangement, but that's mostly because it's biased toward people who like socializing via internet comment sections.
The number of people who actually like going to the office (either part or full time) is far higher than you'd expect from reading Reddit and Hacker News.
Bingo. There is relationship building and other interactions that are simply not possible in any other way that I have found. I go in 3 days most weeks, and that makes a huge difference in lifestyle and flexibility. Since I work in robotics, 100% remote is never going to be a thing for me. Zoom meeting and software days, remote. Wrench days, in the lab. Works for me.
I'm more likely to try and get a $15/hr job with benefits here locally than haul my family back to the bay area.
I honestly believe people work better when they get dressed and have some routine. No idea how people can work in their PJs, I'd feel so lazy, lol.
However. The commute is killer. Even if you get it down to just 15 min. (which is hard unless you live right next to work) that's 30 min. a day. Prob adds up to well over 100 hrs a year just commuting. I know some ppl do public transport with an audio book or something but for me, that's still 100 hours commuting.
If I could teleport to the office, I'd say in person 60/40 split. Since I have to commute, remote all the way except for important kick offs or brainstorming sessions.
If we just finished scoping out a project and I have dozens of programming hours, I'm def going to lock myself in my office with headphones and type away.
If things are slow and I need some motivation, I think going to the office would help.
One day I realized I was falling asleep on the hour-long, 12-mile route home. (Los Angeles traffic is no joke.) I sold my car and now use metro/bus to commute, or do remote work.
ps: I also can't work from home in my PJs, I "dress up" by putting on jeans :-D
I need my morning commute. It's a kind of forced meditation that I can't get at home with three young children.
It would stress me out if I couldn't work a flexible schedule or if I had to deal with rush-hour, so I'm thankful that these stars aligned for me.
For me, anytime I'm commuting I feel is time I could be doing almost literally _anything_ else. My secret to getting away (its not forced though, lol) is a mini sauna. I don't really sit in there sometimes but if I say I'm going to it's everyone's clue to leave me alone haha.
Ultimately, I do get more coding done at home. However, being surrounded by colleges and a "business" atmosphere motivates me to actually do the coding, its hard to explain lol.
Also distractions. If you get distracted at home it can get pretty bad. At work you at least have to try.
just do a 'software developer' search on linkedin, it has 156000 jobs, then filter it via 'remote' it drops down to 24400, that's 15%.
Have you based your job search exclusively on HN's "Who is hiring"? If not, I'm not sure how you can make such strong assertions about the distribution of remote jobs on that specific job board. The article doesn't make any claims about the job market outside that data set.
I think it's likely that remote jobs get filled much quicker since they by definition have a larger candidate pool. At any one moment in time there may be 4x non-remote jobs posted, but if they take much longer to fill and the ratio stays the same, then 69% remote is very believable.
Your comment was actually interesting, but the way you worded it was both confrontational and made it off topic.
It would have gone better if you said "That's interesting, in the wider job market I've found ..."
Achieve a work-life balance you never thought you could have ;)
Am I missing some big piece of context here that would make my analysis wrong?
https://twitter.com/AndrewKemendo/status/1683877057959272449
How would you afford a large enough house in a city center? And otherwise how do you justify two hours of your day to commuting?
It just seems like an extreme quality of life hit to be able to work in an office.
Am I missing something?
London's entire population distribution for years has been built upon people moving out when they got kids.
I don't see how WFH is possible with a family. My children (9, 6, and 4) spend nearly the whole day trying to guilt me into playing with them when I telework.
> How would you afford a large enough house in a city center?
Work in an industry which exists largely outside of the cities. Defense, for instance.
> And otherwise how do you justify two hours of your day to commuting?
1 hour in total for me: 30 minutes there and back.
Columbia, MD <-> College Park, MD
Are they home schooled? Most schools are contemporaneous with working hours to prevent this very problem.
I'm just beyond sick and tired of my default mode being, "Stare at screen to solve problems."
I want to work with people, solve problems with people, help people. None of that is what most engineers in software prefer, and I'm tired of trying to force it on them for the apparently insignificant reason that it's highly effective.
Maybe it's my audio setup, but I've tried multiple types of headphones to no avail. I feel the quality of my work (and life) would improve if I could cope better with calls, but despite my efforts, I can't do it. I've removed myself from calls with an adjacent team that mostly don't concern me, and asked them to ping me only if they need me. That saved 30m to 2 hours of my life and saved me from becoming exhausted before the day has properly begun.
There's also a problem in that _some_ people prefer WFH because they can slack off more (or have multiple jobs); that means they're not always available and not fully committed, with whatever implications for the people who rely on them and the company/product.
Maybe it's down to the pace of the work. Startups, I feel, benefit from in office huddling. Corporations with ample time on their hands could be better suited to WFH.
Some of that is explicitly writing up short coordinating docs/memos instead of real-time hashing it out, and comes with some of the attendant advantages of writing and thinking often discussed in HN posts.
I hear what you're saying about docs but knowing everyone I don't feel we could do it. Pre-covid everyone-in-the-office worked well, but you need to drag people into the office these days so it seems we're stuck with an ineffective hodgepodge of calls and in person fractional team chats.
How many of these are truly necessary?
I am aware that WW had it's own business issues to deal with, but it's still salvageable, right?
If you mean coworking spaces administered by people in SF making tech salaries and needing the growth and scale that VC demands, then it seems unlikely. In my hometown, the coworking space costs $140/mo right in downtown (220 with a dedicated desk). Anything that can operate locally is probably going to beat the dumb money that We Work represents.
Meanwhile, my apartment (paid for), a large library (free), and several cafes (~$3 daily contract) are a block away. It just doesn't make economic sense at those rates.
If everything is remote then companies don't care where they hire from. Whats the difference between you and an engineer from South America? Maybe you're a better engineer and maybe you are a better communicator in English. How much better? When do the scales tip? Why hire an engineer for over 200k who's remote in Wisconsin when you can hire one who's remote in Peru for $75k?
It might be better for you right now, but what about in 3 years or 10 years?
Or so-called "in-sourcing" practices by abusing the H1B system to higher engineers at a lower rate.
This is always a threat, office or not
We're digging our own graves here.
A better analysis would be job boards in general?
The variation on the ratio of remote to on-site jobs carry much less information and is still harder to link to a cause.
1. 31% of applicants are dev shop / staffing co lead generation / fraudulent applications. This is pretty normal. I'm sure the that this works enough to make it work for the people selling contract developers.
2. 17% of applicants cannot work in the US. We disclose you must be legal to work in the US and what visas are acceptable.
3. 19% can pass code test on senior developer on the first try, 28% pass if given a re-do. Code test is part q&a and part write a function from requirements.
4. 22% of junior devs can pass code test on the first try and just 23% pass if given a a re-do. Code test is part q&a and part write a function from requirements.
5. 87% junior devs are willing to relocate to work in the office. 95% of senior devs want remote.
6. Of the developers who pass the test, 76.4% end up passing the tech interview, which means the decision is really about what additional skills, experiences and abilities they bring with them.
Takeways: about 50% fraud/non employable. 20% can actually pass a very simple code test.
Support for return to the office would vaporize instantly.
Less pollution, less traffic, less wear on the roads, lives saved and injuries avoided.
You want people to come into the office? Pay for the privilege.
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Personally I'd prefer not to WFH mostly. While it is very useful to be able to (I have for a day or two here & there for years, and over the last year for a few days at a time while looking after ill parents and a terminal pet) but I hate it full time. Partly it is because I don't have room for a dedicated office and I don't like my work and personal space to mix to readily, and partly it is the contact thing (I'm uncomfortable on phones and video calls, always have been, and some people don't seem to be willing to mail or IM me instead when that would be most efficient by far), and partly I find myself getting more and more distractable the longer I'm working away (this may be largely due to the matter of having no space for a dedicated office space).
I'd rather leave tech than work full time remote, so you might find me stacking shelves in a few years!
We are officially hybrid, but for two or three days of any given week there are only a few people in the office, often not people I'm working directly with, so I'm effectively remote just in an office not at home, so some of the bad parts of both options. I'm not sure if this is any better, and I'm seriously contemplating what my future options may be – those shelves that need stacking are looking oddly attractive, or more practically perhaps retraining as an accountant or something.
Or maybe this is just the midlife crisis rambling!
Or maybe, as I've been accused of a few times, I'm a corporate shill here to extol the virtues of office space.
This happened to me.
The company wanted to fly people to offices any time something important or urgent came up. It led to ridiculous situations where something urgent broke, and instead of sitting at our computers and working on it we'd be scrambling through airports and sitting on airplanes for a day, getting rental cars, checking in to hotels, and then driving to an office the next morning for a meeting.
Then we'd end up working the problem in transit anyway. Solving problems from a cramped airplane seat from spotty in-cabin WiFi instead of home with my big monitor, reliable internet, and camera for video conferencing.
The company also had a mix of empty-nesters and young single people in charge of company events. They wanted to put together quarterly on-site meetups where everyone was supposed to travel and stay in hotels and do team-building exercises. I pointed out that having to travel 4 weeks out of the year was equivalent to a job with an 8% travel requirement, which they scoffed at because it was for "fun" activities.
That job was "remote" but ended up having 20% travel time.
Save on rent, spend on eng and product. Profit?
However I'm still a bit unsure how this affects my career. I feel like conventional corporate success depends more on your relationships and politics than the quality of your code and writing. It's really hard to build quality relationships and see the politics and status games people are playing in my company by being a remote worker. I met most of my current network by sitting in the same office with them.
I wonder if this is everyone else's experience too, or maybe I'm just missing something obvious, like scheduling more face-to-face meetings with people.
Organizations and organizational decisions like promotions or project investments are made by people. People have biases. Those biases include familiarity and recency. One of the easiest way to be familiar with the people who make decisions is to be in their physical presence. This activates senses and experiences that virtual interactions lack. This includes body language, unstructured conversations about non-work topics, and shared non-work experiences.
When LLMs can write code — and when you are using LLMs to help write code — how will you differentiate yourself from others?
WFH has worked well for me but I can tell some of my coworkers really need to go back into the office now and then to help them focus. lol
We are back to the trend where any job posted for remote gets 10-20x the resumes of a local job.
For sure the balance has shifted a bit, but I don't think it is as dramatic as some say.
I wouldn't mind working in a office again, but my stipulations would be a pay increase to account for having to live closer to work, and having to pay people to clean up the house a couple times a week
> Based on the analysis of the data provided, it is evident that remote work has gained significant popularity within the HackerNews community, particularly in the field of computer science and entrepreneurship.
I'm hoping to continue working remote essentially eternally, and I'm glad to see the shift in this direction generally.
While I personally like being able to work from home I have seen many cases when bringing the team into the office, at least once or twice a week, removes blockers and helps people sketch out and try prototypes in a way that remote work does not. It is painful, when you are working with hardware in some restricted access lab and something breaks, to hear that the person who can fix it is remote and will come in next Monday. Maybe.
So I am not surprised that some employers are pushing RTO from purely business reasons; no chicanery. And as this often carries various costs for employees, this will eventually, in a business cycle or two, get negotiated to a sane state, where both sides are slightly unhappy, but realize that they got a decent deal. My 2c.
It's never been exactly easy to find the opportunities, but I always managed to. I'm glad now that the baseline of available remote work seems to be permanently higher.
I enjoy one or two days at the office when everyone goes in to there but beyond that there isn’t much “spontaneous” productivity.
And it's really helped with democratization, too. With Turing and Deel and so on, you can hire internationally once you're ready to work with remote folk. It has been interesting to me that I've heard more about Eastern Europe, Africa, and India for this rather than South America.
South America has a massive timezone advantage, but why so few remote workers from there?
Hybrid (some remote, some in-person): 42.18%
Remote: 41.41%
In-person: 16.41%
I personally hope that remote work won't die out due to it being a good work environment for me personally (office building value be damned), but that split seems reasonable. Hopefully with the hybrid setups being accommodating enough to allow for someone to be fully remote, or fully in-person, depending on life circumstances and preferences.
I also feel like finding a place to work remotely requires luck, patience, and due diligence.
The first hurdle is figuring out if you like remote work or not. Covid was a great way for me to try out remote work and realize I love it. I'm not sure what to do outside of that. I imagine it must be awful to prepare for an interview and get a remote job only to realize that working remotely just isn't for you and now you have to do the whole process over again.
After that, it's finding a good place to work out of. I'm fortunate enough to have a home office that is set up the exact way I want it to be. I can control the height of my desk, my lighting, and my temperature. I don't think there's any office I'd prefer over my home office, but I also know that not everyone is able to have that same experience.
Finally, there's the company, it's culture, and the team you are on. Is your company remote first? Is your team remote first? How do you work together? How do you have "water cooler" chats? I think the place you work for can really make or break your remote working experience.
I've been working remotely from Ohio for most of the last 15 years. (I did one year on site in the Bay area in the middle - I'm glad I did it, but I was also happy to move back home.)
For a little while, after my daughter was born, I rented a private office and biked to it most days. That was absolutely fantastic. But, we've since moved into a bigger house and I'm back to working from a home office. Some occasional interruptions from family, but overall it's pretty good.
For a long time, wanting to stay remote just meant that I couldn't apply to the vast majority of jobs. Not so much any more.
Fortunately I don't see myself looking for a new job anytime soon - I'm now at a company that was aiming for "remote equal" even before the pandemic, and my current team is fully remote - but it makes me happy that if I did need to find a new role today, there would be a lot a lot more options than any other job search I've ever done in the past.
Outside SV or some US hubs, a lot of average workplaces seem to try hard to get people to come back into the office, regardless of the requirements of the job itself. It might have started with banks and governments, but recent incentives and pushes from cities and the real-estate market can sometimes push people to go back into offices "to save businesses".
The pandemic might have offered some profound shifts, but not fundamental ones unfortunately. So I stay at my workplace for the time being, trading away some mental health for the benefit of remote work - and I suspect that not only I am not alone in this, I am probably more privileged than many (most?) who didn't even have a choice.
Remote has been fantastic, to extend our pool of potential customers/employers. Not working in an open space, not being disturbed by pointless red-tapers and middle managers is a productivity boost. Not losing time and energy in commutes as well.
I can see one serious drawback with pure remote: it's a cumbersome way to mentor junior developpers. In big companies which maintain a balance of junior/senior staff, and try to make the former grow, it's a legitimate issue. In start-ups, which expect you to hit the ground running, and don't have an army of managers to keep busy, remote should be the norm.
If this is happening in the middle of a VC downturn, imagine how it's going to be once we're back to good times.
No description of how the analysis was done. So I have to imagine that jobs are extremely simply counted, not deduped. So a job listed in-office or in-city, but also listed as remote, would be 2 jobs and this would result in 50% remote jobs available. Whereas this is actually 100% remote. So I imagine the 69% is an undercount, if going by my assumption of simplistic counting.
I think some single purpose poltical party or political action committee should take that issue and run with it. It's a worthy goal.
I was working remote from 2007 till 2021 for an US company as an independent international contractor. Now I'm in EU and I'm trying to find a remote US job during 2022 and this year. No luck. It looks like a dead end. Looks like nobody in US needs an experienced remote developer. Something is really changed a lot. It's so sad.
Back then, less than 1% of the jobs I found were remote. This is why I got into contracting in the first place.
Maybe my resume sucks but I've been surviving off of a few consulting gigs. Really hoping things improve within a year.
Who says HN doesn’t have a sense of humor!
