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Small tech companies are staying remote to attract workers, while Big Tech goes back to the office
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- Title
- The hottest new perk in tech is freedom
- Authors
- Rani Molla
- Published
- Jun 20 2023
- Word count
- 1332 words
I work at a remote first (I think remote only) tech company now, and I honestly can't see myself going back into the office, especially since I got a dog closer to the end of the pandemic and he's used to me being at home all the time. I know why big tech companies don't want remote only, they spent so much money on their offices and all, but at the end of the day the article highlights the biggest strength in my opinion, you can pull talent from anywhere. That diversity of thought and experiences makes products more accessible to everyone and spurs innovation, in my experience.
It'll be interesting to see the ramifications of these decisions in the next couple of years. It's not like the big tech companies have been innovating much recently, and anecdotally, it seems like the software engineers coming up from graduation value remote work a lot as well.
yeah same, I work at a remote-only company and it's completely spoiled me -- I'd never want to go to in-person and I'm super glad I don't have to worry about them suddenly forcing us to do that.
from what i can tell with some of my linkedin connections, it feels like most people who are being forced back into the office are actively searching for new jobs too, so we'll see how it all shakes out.
Me three.
The IT company I'm working for went full remote at the start of the pandemic, even trashed plans to move to a new cooler shinier building at that time.
There is no need for anyone to be in the office when all the work ends up in the cloud anyways.
I personally really prefer working in the office. For me I am allowed to get away with commuting during normal working hours and everyone seems happy with that, so I think that's a big part of why I'm okay with it. But I also really want to learn on the job more than anything else - and I learn much more in person.
That's totally valid! I don't think my learning on the job is much different at home for what I do, but I do definitely get that as an upside of working in the office. The ability to get laundry done while I wait for code to run is just so nice though...
For real. I've got a great treadmill desk setup at home, no commute, can make whatever I feel like for lunch, and breaks can be productive for housework and the like. It's also incredibly convenient for those with kids. When my daughter is sick or has the day off daycare, it's trivial to keep her home and put in a bit of extra work time after hours to make up for any time taking care of her uses.
The sheer value of WFH is massive. If anything, I'm more productive than ever since we transitioned a few years back.
To dial in on a single unimportant part of your comment, can you pitch what makes the treadmill desk great? When everyone went WFH I know there was a lot of chatter about exercise desks but it seemed like the consensus ended up being that it's mediocre for both work and exercise.
Do you walk all day? Jog between meetings? Run while waiting for a build to finish? The idea always intrigued me, but I feel like it's a recipe for non-productivity and ineffective cardio.
I originally had a standard treadmill in the same room as my (non-standing) desk. I ran a long HDMI cable, mounted a monitor to the wall in front of the treadmill, and added a webcam (w/ a USB extender). Then one lunch break I grabbed some old wood and velcro strips to jury-rig a mouse/keyboard tray. That worked okay, but it was really only functional when I was in meetings. Being down to a single monitor and having poor mouse/KB ergonomics wasn't all that feasible.
Fast-forward a few years and I got a standing desk (went with this one). Then I removed the vertical arms on my old treadmill so it would fit under the standing desk with the head unit sitting on the floor. That ended up being my proof of concept, since I had a LOT of reservations about working productively while walking.
It's fantastic. I ended up doing a ton of research and buying a high-end under desk treadmill within a week. Typically, I'll spend the first 4 hrs of my workday on the treadmill, going in the 3-4 km/h range. There's no hit to my productivity at all when going that speed. Typing is a non-issue, and mouse/KB use is perfectly comfortable with the desk at an appropriate height.
Walking at that speed isn't strenuous enough to increase your cardio ability beyond a beginner level, but it is still nice exercise and reduces a lot of sitting hours. I have a hard time just standing at my desk for any extended periods, and my standing posture gets poor quite quickly. Walking is different, and the only downside is that I have to be mindful of my walking speed if I'm talking a lot on calls.
That's pretty much exactly what set me down this path! Life got busy. Between work, family time, and whatever downtime I can find, exercise just wasn't happening. Finding ways to exercise during other tasks has been a game changer. I also got a wall-mounted pull-up bar and set of adjustable dumbbells for the same reason. Setting aside a dedicated hour of gym time has been virtually impossible, and taking 30s at a time out of my work day to knock out a set is much more feasible.
I'd recommend starting with minimal investment, however you can swing it, and that should give you a good sense of whether a more proper setup would work for you. Maybe that's as simple as getting one of those simple under-desk pedal exercisers, then upgrading to a standing desk and proper standing desk bike down the road. Or even just finding a body weight fitness routine and slowly trying to integrate that into your work schedule. Using Loop Habit Tracker helped me start to build these habits, so that could be an option as well.
My experience has been similar to u/T-o-a-s-t. I used to have a cheap-ish standing desk from Wayfair, which kind of sucked—it went up and down just fine, but was just a bit wobbly at all heights. After moving last year, I ditched it and switched to a 4-leg standing desk from Uplift, who will bundle a LifeSpan TR1000 with a discount, so I did that.
I like walking and working with this setup; I can write code just as well while walking (apparently) and it's nice to be able to get hours of light exercise in without cutting into my non-work time. The drawbacks are:
Overall, walking and working is pretty great, but it wasn't cheap to arrive at a setup that didn't feel rickety.
Just a heads-up, on Tildes you can use the @ instead of u/, so for instance @lou would ping me. The effect is the same but you save one keystroke ;)
I absolutely loath working from an office. My first and only gig out of college that forced people into the office was a nightmare. When I officially got hired they lied to me about the hours that I would work and put me into the Night Shift. I was the only person on the entire floor and there was no one to socialize with unless I went two floors above me, but the workload didn’t lend itself to have me to go there often. As a cost-saving measure they turned off the lights too so I had to sit there in darkness. I lost 25 pounds and became super depressed since I couldn’t really see my wife and kid all that often due to our conflicting schedules.
I was lucky enough to switch roles at the same company but I even found that the office mandate just didn’t sit well with me either, or at least how it was enforced. One big responsibility the directors had (people who managed managers) was to walk up and down the aisles to make sure everyone was in their cube. I had one elderly co worker who got the proper paperwork from HR to work from home extensively because his wife was in hospice care for cancer and needed to take care of her. Knowing this background, I had the specific director that walked around our cubes ask if he knew where my coworker was after only being gone for two weeks. When I told him of my coworker’s situation he said, “Yeah I know all that, but do you know when you think he’ll be back in the office?” At that point I said, “I don’t know, it’s really hard to know the exact time someone will die from cancer.” The lack of empathy was mind boggling, and using a policy like that rubbed me the wrong way.
I was lucky enough to start working remotely about a year before the pandemic and I love it. As others have mentioned in other threads, I can feel like I can help out with the kids, and even help out with more household chores, and I have saved a lot of money on gas and car maintainable because of it. I don’t think I could imagine myself joining a company that would make me come into an office for the same pay I make. I know there are certain people who love working in offices and I get it, but I could never do it.
I was initially very opposed to working from home, but I can't see myself returning either now. The design of American cities doesn't help matters either. I'm simply not interested in commuting by car ever again and other options barely exist here. The only reason my last few years of commuting was even tolerable was because I was able to use light rail, but it was a goldilocks situation of me living near a stop and ride and my office sitting directly next to a stop. Most jobs and houses are not setup like that. Besides, I really enjoy using that commuting time to go the gym or engage in hobbies or family.
This is an issue I'm facing. My company (non-tech non-profit) went full remote last month. We've been in a loose hybrid regime for like 2yrs now, even going full remote for months at a time, especially around the latter half of the year. I'd been waiting for full remote for over a year, when we first decided to sell off our building. It finally happened beginning of May.
Well, now I have a job offer from the US Federal Govt. Something I've been wanting for a long time, but it's a hybrid position in DC. I've considered moving to DC, before as well. But hybrid? In DC? I've driven in/around DC before and it blows. It certainly pays more (though with a higher cost of living, not much more) and there's a lot more opportunity to move up and around within the government, compared to this small non-profit I'm at.
It sounds cool, it does. But I'm really struggling with the notion of potentially going back to the office. I've only been full remote for like 6 weeks and I've already taken two trips on a whim. One was essentially a "working vacation." I have a co-worker who's done the same and even planning to head down to Colombia later this summer and work from out there. I could do that!
So yeah, Idk. I'm so torn. This could be a great opportunity going to DC. But I also fear that I'll be unhappy even in a 3d/week in office hybrid position. When we were hybrid at my current place, I really stretched it; like 1 day in every 2-3 weeks. Luckily, my bosses didn't care. Idk. The last time I was unhappy in a job, I developed anxiety really quickly; ended up quitting on the spot one Monday after spending all weekend thinking about it. If I start working with the feds, I can't do that again.
My parents, who are both federal employees themselves, are pressuring me hard to take it. Even my dad, who's been full remote now for like 10yrs.
Edit: Why did I apply? Friend who works within that dept, suggested I apply for it. So I did, not really thinking I'd get it. Thought it'd be a good exercise in resume writing and interviewing; that's it. Didn't think I'd actually have to make a decision to take it or not.
Hmm that's defniitely a dilemna. Have you tried asking about remote only? I feel like it really does depend on how much you value remote work. If it's not worth the pay bump, then it's not worth it!
It's an IT job that requires touching equipment. Like I'll be responsible for setting us mobile/travel PC and server kits and stuff that other users will bring as they go travel on-site. So unfortunately, it can't be full remote ever. I'm curious how they did it during the pandemic, actually.
We shall see...Literally everyday I come to a different decision, haha.
Have you pressed for exact details about the hybrid situation? It's possible they are very loose with it too, I struggle to understand how hybrid work can be enforced consistently, unless they require everyone to come in on the same days. And maybe they expect new employees to be hybrid, but after a certain amount of time you'd be trusted to work remotely? Worth asking, though it sounds like you probably already have, since this is a big issue for you.
I am with you, a hybrid job in a place like DC would be a huge no for me, no matter how good the opportunity was. (Granted, I work in tech so I don't come across these issues as often.) And you're right, I believe DC is known for being very difficult to commute in. That being said, I obviously don't know how great this opportunity would be for you. This seems like a tough decision.
It's an IT job that requires touching equipment. Like setting up mobile PC/server kits that other users bring with them when they travel for on-site work. So I don't think I'll ever be able to go full remote in this position. But I also don't have to work in this position forever, right? I can find a different job in the government. It's massive. But I gotta get into the government first. And after 12+ yrs of applying for government work, this is only the second time I've gotten an interview and the first time I've gotten an offer. Is this my only chance? I don't know; no one does.
At some point I'll have to decide, of course. I still have pre-employment background checks and drug tests to get through. But it might depend on the day. One day, I'm like "Yes, I'm going to DC!" and the next, "But I'm full remote right now..." and then back again the next day. Sigh.
If I wasn't already full remote, and was either in-office or hybrid, this would be a no brainer. I'd be packing up right now! But I have it so good at the moment. It's tough.
How can I find a job like this?
Either become a developer, or consider one of the many, many, non-technical corners of tech companies. I feel like some people assume you have to be a dev to work in tech and get access to tons of remote jobs, but actually you can do admin, finance, HR, operations, project management, product management, sales, and many other things. You can also work tangentially to the developers by doing quality assurance, business analysis, etc.
What do you have experience in? Even if it's not related to tech at all, I could probably point you in a direction where those skills could be used in remote jobs.
I am actually CompTIA Security+ certified. I have a BA in the humanities. Family and medical issues have left me with zero experience - I've never had a full-time job and feel lost.
I'm sorry you feel lost, I understand. I only found what I actually wanted to do with my career 2 years ago when I was almost 30.
It's awesome that you have a BA and what seems to be a useful certification (though I'm not familiar with it personally.) I'm curious, what led you to get the certification in the first place? Did you have an initial plan that didn't work out?
Based on what you've told me, I would highly recommend going after some entry level tech support roles. A few of the most successful people I know in the tech industry started with that, and were able to work up to pretty good areas like project management or more upper level management positions.
Better yet, how can I find one that's fine with me having been unable to afford completing my degree, that also won't result in a $5+/hr pay cut from my low level retail management job?
I've been looking at making the jump to a tech or IT job for a while now, and sure, while the income growth potential is much higher there, I can't even afford a single year at the salaries the entry level jobs start at. It's insane that these white collar jobs start at the same pay as entry level cashiers and clerks at my grocery store, since I know it's a struggle for them to afford housing and things now.
That lack of money (and a chaotic work schedule) also basically precludes finishing my degree, for now.
I've always wanted to be in tech since I was a kid, so I majored in E/CE (definitely not necessary), fell in love with coding, and only applied to developer jobs out of college! I've had a lot of friends go through different experiences though, there's a lot of tech jobs in general. Lots of places are still slowing down their hiring though, but I've been getting a few more hits on LinkedIn recently (I'm an Android Developer)
Some of my friends studied hard to be Project or Program managers, I've had friends take scrum master courses, and I know a couple of UI/UX designers and researchers as well. Don't even need to learn how to code to get into it, as long as you're good at what you do!
My company is hiring: https://utilityapi.com/jobs
It's hard to find a good pure remote job outside tech, but I'm sure they do exist.
Seems like a place that is doing important work. Do you get a referral bonus or anything for bringing in candidates?
I'm a backend python dev 15+ years exp including finance and healthcare, looking for a change. Would love to chat, feel free to send me a DM if you would like.
I'll ask Monday, I'm not sure. If you have a lot of experience with django that's a huge plus, since we're growth phase we need senior engineers to help with that.
Also fair warning: we do scrapers. As a senior engineer you probably wouldn't spend much time on scraper issues but that is a large part of the value we provide so you'd end up working on it at some point just by virtue of being at the company.
Django I used to use, last couple years have been mostly flask, but Django is like riding a bike, you don't really lose it.
Scrapers I have no problem with. Used to do some of that at workplaces, still have a small scraper running as part of a personal project.
I'm going to be doing some traveling for most of this week, then hitting the pavement to make some contacts and do some interviews after 4th of July.
I definitely would like to talk to your place. I'll check in here when I'm back home. If you want to chat and get me an intro to the right person, that always feels better than cold submitting a web form.
Cool, I'll message you after talking to my boss Monday
I couldn't agree more. I've been entirely remote since 2018 and my primary complaint is the exact opposite of what all the big tech CEOs and news articles are complaining about; I have a harder time unplugging and feel like I'm actively working more thank ever did in the office.
Eh, I don't know if I'm working more but I'm definitely completing the work I've been assigned more efficiently. Like I'll finish my work really late if I know I don't want to wake up early the next day, just to have it done so I can chill out for the rest of my sprint.
Yeah that makes sense, I think I'm only working more due to my current role at a small startup - I'm actively interviewing for a job at a big company where hopefully I can be a bit more relaxed
Definitely makes sense! I'm currently working at a startup-ish too and sometimes wearing all the hats is definitely rough. I dunno if I could ever do big companies but good luck!!!
Yeah, the whole return to office thing is crazy to me, although I somewhat understand the thought process at large orgs. Realistically, the drive is (IMO) real estate + lack of good performance monitoring.
I've been working from home for 8 years, and I'd never go back. The requirement for my job is to get X tasks done by Y date, and it's up to you to manage that. If I get burned out in the afternoon, I can go for a walk, then get back to it, or hang out with my wife for a bit, or do any other number of things.
The crazy thing is people are sometimes surprised at this when I tell them, yet you can get pretty much anyone to admit with a tiny bit of coaxing that nobody is working for the entire time they're in the office anyway. People get up and talk to their coworkers, browse Reddit (or Tildes..) or whatever else they do to take breaks/fill in empty time. Offices suck, and the world would be a better place if we removed all the travel required to get to them and the energy required to heat/cool/maintain them.
I worked for a remote-first company for a while before COVID happened, and I was in a supervisory position. And to be honest, remote management is just exhausting. You have to be up people's ass all the time, way more than you have to while you're in the office. It feels way more obnoxious to always be asking people what they're doing and expecting them to prove it than to walk through the office and just see people doing things.
And the usual response to that question is that you should trust people and that it will come out in the end results if they aren't working, but I don't feel that's viable in many cases. Waiting to see if something burns down to find out if people are doing their jobs or not just isn't a great way to handle things.
It certainly can work, but it takes a lot of effort into effective management, and a generally trustworthy and autonomous workforce. I also think going to the office should be a option for people if they desire it. I hate working from home personally, I can't stand feeling like work is in my house. And I find my ADHD much harder to manager while remote also. A dedicated place to go for work makes me a better worker. I am fortunate to have an extremely short commute though, maybe my opinion would feel different if I were driving hours a day.
I think that just means you didn’t have a good groundwork for monitoring your employees’ work.
My current company has a daily email employees need to send with what you worked on that day. It keeps from having to be overseen. Do we have deadlines? Yes, but we get those hammered out in weekly team meetings and no one is on anyone’s ass at all. No one underperforms. While we don’t have rto in the US, we have optional rto in our Mexico office and people can come and go as they please. It’s harder to get everyone in one place at one time, but you know what? The tools are there to not need to monitor what everyone is doing all the time when you must trust your employees to do their job.
I also have adhd and I have been surprisingly able to compartmentalize work during work hours only working from home. It’s another point where your company culture either encourages work-life balance or it doesn’t. My husband doesn’t have that kind of balance, they’re remote first and are spread out throughout the US and they’re all online at any hour. My company is very much into enforcing your set hours are your hours, turn your device off when you’re off the clock or we will do it for you.
As for the commute, you’re lucky you have a short commute, most people don’t have that. I can work from the office if I choose to occasionally (I don’t want to because I have my accessibility setup at home perfect, where I don’t have that in the office yet), but my commute is also short, it’s literally a two mile drive. But I acknowledge the commute for most people is a killer. It’s not fair that people aren’t compensated for the hours they spend on the road to and from work since it’s time they’re not relaxing/at leisure.
I think to some extent it's also the nature of the work. The job the people I was supervising was a job where it really mattered if someone was at their computer doing the job every second of their scheduled shift. There wasn't room for them to have the flexibility to get up and do some laundry or go for a walk. And I didn't determine the tools they were using to do that work, so had limited insight into them doing it.
With the ADHD, it's less about work hours for me, and more about having "work space" and "home space". I don't feel like I'm "leaving work" and can relax when I log off my computer and am in the same place. Perhaps I am atypical in that.
I don't think you're atypical in that sense. It's definitely a common thing I've been hearing from ND and NT people alike. I think it's easier when you can compartmentalize a laptop and put it away, at least for me. and that it's so enforced at my company. the job I had before this was a little more flexible with my time, but it was also hard for me to compartmentalize being on and off, and had slack on my phone and people were pinging me at all hours. I was a contract worker and could never get the time off and breathe.
The issue with jobs like the one you mentioned is that people can't actually possibly be productive for the entirety of a shift like that. it's just not how human brains are wired, regardless of whether or not you're NT or ND. cutting the employees some slack to be human and have human needs is big. I assume it was a call center type job and they tend to be some of the most dehumanizing jobs outside of retail.
I think a team's culture and expectations, and the chemistry between managers and team members really affect the level of difficulty. I can definitely imagine situations where managing remote workers would be a nightmare. Especially if the team isn't made up of people who are already natively online to begin with and used to just interacting with people that way by default.
I've been remote for 7 years now in a mixed workplace and have had two managers in that time. I'd like to think it's pretty easy for them to see what I'm doing since my contributions to our codebase are all logged, they can filter by my tasks on the team's planner, we see each other in meetings every day, and maybe most importantly I'm just casually chatting and sending them links and bouncing ideas off them (within reason because they're plenty busy too).
In situations where a manager can't see their employees' progress, or there isn't consistent usage of a shared planning tool, or managers have to go prod uncommunicative employees to see what's on their mind or if they're even there... ya, I could see that being a bad experience for the manager.
I mentioned in my other reply, but I think many people who are adamantly for remote work and think that it's not a problem are working somewhat higher level jobs than I have experience with being remote. Some jobs do not have the flexibility to allow for just a daily status update, and people can kind of work as they please. It matters that people are online doing the thing when they're scheduled 100% of the time. And those jobs tend to be kind of boring, repetitive, and not nearly as well compensated as software jobs or similar, so it is very hard to motivate people to reliably do the job to the standard required. Performance monitoring in those cases is very different than for a developer.
You just need metrics that are constant. You can't wait until it burns down, but 'seeing' somebody doing something in an office isn't really evidence that they're going in the right direction either.
That being said, if in office works for you, it's what you should do!
I don't work in tech but I do work at a large company. Sometime last year they polled workers about remote vs. return to office, everyone overwhelmingly preferred the remote work. I switched roles within the company and was told it would be 100% remote and they had no plans on that changing anytime soon.
They have since announced they will be moving to return to office twice per week if you are 50 miles from a hub, regardless of if your team is even in the same office or if you were hired remotely. For instance, literally everyone on my team is on the opposite coast of me. I'd have to travel an hour and a half into the office to sit on Teams meetings. It's created a lot of backlash, and the reasoning they keep giving for it, everyone sees through it as a lie.
I kinda wish they'd just tell us that they care more about tax incentives and their real estate portfolio than they do about us as workers. At least it wouldn't be BS.
This article aligns with my experience. I have worked exclusively for tech companies with fewer than 5K employees, and personally I would be extremely shocked if those types of companies started asking people to come into the office.
It truly no longer makes sense, even logistically. Most of these companies have completely revolutionized the way they hire - many people at my company have been there for years now, who don't live anywhere near the same state or country as the company office. I've never heard anyone complain about remote work. Managers are happy, employees are happy, executives are happy. Those of us who like socializing at work do miss that aspect, but the trade off is quite obviously worth it.
The worst part of remote work is how much damn work we get done. Working in an office was literally like company-sanctioned "slacking off" with all the constant socialization, lunch trips, early happy hours, etc. I honestly miss that, and I struggle with work/life balance now, but leadership should certainly be glad about remote work. My productivity has at least doubled from what it was before March 2020.
I apply exclusively for remote jobs now, I haven't even considered a position within my state for many years. My ability to work for NY and CA companies while living in MN has completely changed the trajectory of my career, particularly because I specialize in a software that has the most adoption in those locations.
If I happen to work remotely for a local company in the future, and they were to tell me I have to come into the office more than once or twice a month, I would immediately find another remote job.
It’s my job to do weekly and monthly “company-sanctioned slack off” events for the entire team. Every week I post an incendiary “this or that” question or trivia or a silly holiday for people to participate in for hours that day to get the week off to a calm start and once a month, I arrange different virtual events like bingo or an escape room, or trivia challenge… all 100% remote. I’m trying to convince my boss to let me do a “company lunch” online where we all have lunch together provided via DoorDash or similar, but my boss isn’t happy about that option because he doesn’t think people will spend their dd gc on lunch with the team.
The team events are still there at good companies, they’re just different now, and much less spontaneous.
I agree, I'm actually fascinated by the challenge of reintroducing human socialization into the isolating system of remote work. I read books with interesting ideas for remote team building activities, it's positively dorky.
I am that same person at work, though it hasn't been an official task of my job. The most successful remote event I organized was essentially a group personality test. I asked my team to spend 10-15 minutes taking a test that revealed their personal strengths (such as honesty, learning, leadership,) then during our team meeting we shared our results, and could see which strengths were the most common on our team. People just naturally started sharing stories about their background, how they developed their strengths, and we learned surprising things about each other. The feedback I got was wonderful, I was asked to repeat the activity for a few other teams as well.
You are correct about the spontaneity. Remote socialization requires much more intention, effort, and planning. People engage remotely when you give them a structure and a goal. If you just tell them to get on a call and talk for an hour, you won't see much adoption. But with all of its challenges, the addition of structured activities has allowed me to make connections with people that I never would have made if we simply got drunk at a local bar, primarily with people who never drank or attended happy hours in the past. I think we should embrace this new way of working and figure out how to smooth over the issues, not use them as an excuse to get people back in offices.
As for your lunch idea with your boss - my current team has shipped snacks to everyone's house and asked people to save them to try together on a call. I think this would work particularly well with one of those online snack companies that will send a box of international snacks from a specific country so it's a novel experience (bonus points if the team is global and you can get some people to learn about the food/culture of other people on the team.) I have not had luck with specifically lunchtime remote events, I feel that most people really need to get away from their desk around that time, including myself.
This discussion makes me want to start a post specifically about this topic! I've been doing contract work recently and haven't been as engaged with my teams because I jump around every few months. I think I need some more of that.
I love the idea of a snack box taste test! Thanks for the idea, that could be doable.
It's really nice that I get to do event planning as a big part of my job. we call it internal marketing at my company, to market to and hype up the team. It helps that we're a small tech company with around 100 employees.
If you start the post, I will definitely participate!
Hey, a question for you as I'll be moving to MN soon and currently working remotely: how is it over there? We visited earlier this month and really liked Mpls and certain neighborhoods, and housing seemed affordable or at least attainable compared to SoCal where we are now. Both of us lived in snow before, so winters won't be too much of a surprise.
Just wondering what it's like and what to look out for as a remote worker :)
Well, my answer might be slightly biased as I am absolutely in love with living in Minneapolis! I've definitely considered moving out of state before, but we really are a hidden gem when it comes to attractive places to live in America.
I would say housing is fairly attainable here. Though some people would argue I'm saying that from a place of privilege (which is not untrue, especially as a remote worker), it's objectively much, much more attainable than housing in SoCal. I was able to buy my house as a young adult, close to the city center, 2 bed 2 bath, a few years ago for $250k. Having a yard and plenty of personal space has been a godsend especially since the pandemic and increase of remote work. We generally have a lot of space here, whether that's our living spaces or lack of much traffic on the roads, which is great since we're also just dense enough to have access to amenities, art, and things like that.
If you can handle the winters, there is very little not to love about Minneapolis. I wrote a comment about it here, and you can read the parent comment as well because they talk about their experience living here too.
As far as remote work, I've had no trouble scoring interviews for remote jobs, have had a few offers, and have worked two different remote jobs since the pandemic started. At first I was afraid that NY or CA based companies would want to put me at the lower end of their salary range since I live in a lower cost area, but that hasn't been an issue so far. Right now I work for a company based in Chicago, which works especially great since the time zone is the same as Minneapolis.
I would be happy to answer any other questions you're specifically wondering about. I'm really into the music scene here, I socialize and enjoy the nightlife often, which I know is one thing people worry about when moving to a Midwest/smaller city. I'm also really into hiking, camping, etc. and Minneapolis/Minnesota is fantastic for access to nature.
I guess I should feel very fortunate to work for a large company with no plans on mandating returning to the office (and that is consistently reiterated during company meetings). Even before COVID, remote work was accepted. Even our CEO has moved away from the company headquarters.
I am in a similar situation. I do live within a reasonable commute of the office. But the team is spread all over North America. I've never met my manager in person.
I’ll be the unpopular opinion here, but I work in a hybrid office (3 in, 2 out) after 5 years of full remote and I never want to go back to full remote OR full in office.
I get serious cabin fever from being home all the time and found the isolation crushing. I also have ADHD and find it a lot easier to focus in a workplace than at home surrounded by distractions. However it’s great to have a couple of days to catch up on sleep, laundry and spending time with my wife.
Lastly, for a team benefit, we work on greenfield projects and it’s just so much more efficient to have everyone in person during kick off and scoping sessions.
It's totally cool that you prefer to work in an office. But how do you feel about teammates who have a different preference?
One of my observations is that people who prefer remote work (almost) uniformly say, "Everyone should have a choice. If you prefer to work in an office, that's groovy."
But some significant percentage of people who insist, "Everyone should work in an office!" have no empathy for the other viewpoint.
Honestly, my experience is that while this seems to be a common claim among WFH proponents, the reality seems to be that the people saying this are overwhelming just people in leadership roles in companies trying to bring people back to the office. But the people (like me) who are just regular employees who prefer to work in an office to get a semblance of work/home separation? Yeah, we don't care. Work from wherever you like.
Conversely, what I have found on Reddit (and other places, but mostly Reddit I guess) over the past couple years is that in discussions about WFH vs in-office, when I happen to say simply that I prefer to work from the office for a variety of purely personal reasons (and where I offer no opinion or claims whatsoever on what I think other people should be doing) ... I get inundated with replies from people saying "well, I am just as productive working from home as I ever was in the office" etc etc. Like ... I didn't say you should be working from the office too. I never even mention "productivity." I just stated my opinion just as everyone else was doing.
Anyway, sorry, mini-rant. :-) I get a bit annoyed by this topic as it oftentimes seems very difficult to have a reasonable objective discussion about it!
I think that there is a lot of value in working around other people. I've been meaning to ask my boss about if the company will pay for 1 day a week in a coworking space, the socialization + networking seems super nice.
Oh, I totally get your disgruntlement on the subject. It's a variation of "Works on my machine," though.
I'm another person who holds this unpopular opinion. :-)
I don't generally care where other people work from. But for myself, I've seen first hand over the past ~3 years that 100% remote work is not for me. There are a lot of personal reasons for this, but the most important one is that I prefer having strong work/home separation.
I also want to work for an employer who does allow people the freedom to work remotely should they desire. Even for myself, while I would prefer to be in an office the majority of the time, as you say, sometimes it is nice to work remotely to allow you more flexibility. e.g. maybe I'm having a contractor over to do some work one day, or I'm expecting a delivery, etc etc.
But I absolutely have no interest in seeing people forced back to the office just because some pointy-haired boss wants to see butts-in-seats because of some woefully outdated ideas of how to measure productivity.
I’ve been remote for about 15 years working as an independent consultant. Whenever I get a new client they want me insight for the first few weeks, which is understandable as we need to build up trust. After a month I’m only working from home or wherever in the world I decide I want to be at for the time being.
Working remotely is better for me. I feel in control of my life and time while still delivering value to the company. I can’t see myself going back - I’m spoiled and I like going to the grocery store or doing laundry when I need a break from coding.
My company announced the return to office plan today, but only for local people. Remote people get to continue working remote, so punishing people who live close to the office. Nearly every single meeting I have will have a remote person.
I work in IT for the government. They're slowly trying to entice people to back to the office, but there is an incredible amount of resistance. The funny thing is that the higher ups can't come up with any good arguments as to why we should return to the office so they can't really force anything. When COVID first started they added hybrid working to our collective bargaining agreement (unions are awesome btw) but they never really specified what exactly hybrid working is. It can mean anything from 4 days in the office and 1 day at home or it could mean 1 day in the office every two weeks and 9 days at home (which is what I do).
I already told my manager if they ever force me to return to the office for more than 1 day a week I'm leaving. And I will 100% stand by that. I used to work full time in the office... NEVER again.
The option or ability to work remote is a very important aspect of a job for me now. When I'm looking at jobs I do look specifically for listings that mention working remote, and I'd probably choose a lower paying remote job over a higher paying in office job. Saving on gas from driving and increasing the level of comfort I have while working seem like too big of upsides for me to not go for.
I have stayed in a company that actually pays a little less than some alternatives simply to remain remote. It feels like a no brainer for me, I have spent more time watching my youngest child grow up than I ever got to with the other two.
I must be an outlier, but remote work doesn't sound attractive to me. Mostly because:
I think I'm going to be forced to try remote work at some point anyway though. Where I live, the remote salaries are significantly higher than what's available locally. I'm not excited about the idea.
The first bullet point is definitely an individual preference that's unlikely to change, but I'm now a firm believer that it's possible to adapt to remote work. Pre-pandemic I had a short commute (7-15 minutes depending on traffic) and hated working from home because I was less focused and productive. 3 years later, I live 10 hours away from my "office" and will never go back. Turns out that with a few minor tweaks and a decent adjustment period I'm far more productive working from home and the freedom to move somewhere I actually want to live instead of somewhere close to work is invaluable.