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Comment by brudgers | Hacker News Reader

As a new engineer, onsite is a better career option because it will create more robust bonds in your professional network. Who you know matters. Being onsite will also probably generate more what-you-know as well simply by virtue of casual interaction.

There's nothing wrong with remote in theory, but it simply does not provide equivalent networking potential to physical interaction. You can always go remote later. Good luck.

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This is true, but has to be weighed against the fact that you may land a job that is a better fit for your skill set, which I would argue trumps everything. Remote allows you to find work where you're a star, IFF you're willing to hunt for it. This is more likely to matter if you already have other career skills though (i.e. mature applicants transitioning from other work)

For an early career engineer I'd argue finding the highest quality coworkers is the highest priority. Even if it's in a stack that's not one's first choice. So much of this profession is rules of thumb and best practices that we learn from our colleagues.

Then for a mid-career engineer I think your statement becomes accurate.

I'm fully remote these days and have gotten more and more remote over the past 20 years. That said, it's hard for me to imagine being in that situation out of school even taking into account much different times and communication mechanisms.

I've been working remotely for 10 years and I agree that for junior developers, onsite is a much better way to learn and create a network.

Have to agree! I love my remote work lifestyle, especially since I have kids at home. But it works for me partly because I have a strong network that I built earlier in my career in face-to-face settings. There are lots of people I can call outside of my immediate group to learn about different areas, hear the actual gossip in some sub-industry, or get a recommendation for folks to hire. I've found it much harder to make new connections like that while remote, and I think this lends itself to professionally productive but not personally close relationships.

To a degree, I agree. Though I think it depends largely on the person.

Personally I've worked with lots of remote teams from the get go and co-workers I've never met in person. It's actually been incredibly fine for me to build strong relationships with them, to the point where I eventually meet them after many years and can pick up conversations with them as well as any of their local colleagues.

Though again I think that varies by person. I'm what I'd call a very social introvert in that I take part in lots of company/industry community but don't have a need to socialize like an extrovert might. I think that's helped me because I don't feel isolated when remote, but I get on very strongly with a wide range of co workers.

Anyway, to the point, I think you're right in that it's harder to build those bonds, but it is doable.

+1. Software development is as much a social activity as it is an individual pursuit. A big part of social activity is in person interaction some deliberate and some incidental like just watching someone explain a tricky design problem during lunch in a casual conversation.

I learnt so much during first three years of my career just by being around some of the most brilliant engineers. As an added bonus some of those became my life long friends or go-to mentors even though our careers have long since diverged.

I guess the true consequences (both good and bad) of full remote will begin to emerge in about 5 years from now.

>being around some of the most brilliant engineers

I think this is key. If you have great coworkers on-site work really helps your development. But if your team sucks, it can stifle it. Having been on both sides, I would place an emphasis on your team, especially early, and look for jobs that have a strong mentorship program

This is true, but if you're not in a good market I think the OP is right that having access to better companies and jobs outweighs that.

I work with a number of people who were hired, both remote and out of network, pre-COVID, onto a mostly co-located team. They have built trust and a strong network within the company, leading to promos and significantly increased comp, and through their excellent performance have built networks that will stay with them throughout their careers.

If you live in a tech hub, you’ll get a lot more out of attending and presenting at the technical meetups. I had more networking opportunities there than I did going to the office.

One of the few times I worked onsite was at a place where ... many of the people on the engineering team already knew me. The company had rapidly hired many Rubyists, and they all had known me from the Atlanta Ruby User Group.

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