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Comment by thehardsphere | Hacker News Reader

I would hope most companies that consider software to be their core business give programmers offices, even if they have to share those offices with another person on the same team. Most companies that do not often consider programmers secondary to their core business, which is a good reason not to work there if you have a choice.

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I mean I would hope so too, but it appears to be patently not true. Thus the ask HN question, where can one find these mythical offices.

Well, the only place where a non-programmer would treat the idea that programmers should have offices with incredulity would be a place that doesn't value software as its core business.

I mean, most "programmers" don't work for software companies; many of them are employed by banks and insurance companies. It's natural for that to be treated weird there.

"the only place where a non-programmer would treat the idea that programmers should have offices with incredulity would be a place that doesn't value software as its core business"

But this is also not true, see e.g. Facebook, Google.

Agreed, I also think it's smart to pay your programmer $350k/year. If you don't work for a place like that then you don't work for a true software development company, or you work for a dumb one (in which case you shouldn't work there).

Is this sarcasm? As far as I’m aware, jobs at even large successful software companies rarely pay that well. Perhaps super high level engineers at Google or FB but a very small subset of developers would have this opportunity.

You do not need to be that high of a level at Facebook/Google to make 350k/yr. It is not a very small subset, but rather a very large set.

You're conflating what the smart thing to do is with what's actually done. :)

If your employer does not do smart things, you should find a better employer.

So please tell us where these better employers are -- that is the point of this thread after all.

I've been in software for 30 years, and I only remember interviewing at one company in the Boston area that had private offices for most engineers -- Stratus, back in 92.

I agree. But if you consider having a personal office a smart thing, this isn't going to easy or even possible.

I consider having an office a smart thing. Shared offices are better than no offices. I don't think shared offices are too much to ask if your employer is a software company.

This is of course location sensitive. In London, UK, I have not heard of personal or shared offices anywhere but very small companies.

You can hope that that's the case, but that doesn't mean that it is. In my experience, it is emphatically not the case.

Do you work at a company whose core business is software?

Yes, in NYC, never worked or interviewed anywhere that gave engineers their own office, probably looked at 50-100 NYC startups

I do, and I've interviewed at several others. Nowhere have I seen private offices.

I do. We have an open floor plan for all employees.

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