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I think even highly skilled engineers end up needing to be available for certain kinds of meetings.

To whatever extent I'm highly skilled, I'd prefer that it be reflected in my responsibilities and compensation, rather than leverage to blow off meetings.

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Yes. Communication and availability overlap is important to get certain kinds of things unblocked. Plus, career-wise, it's bad to be a vampire no one ever meets or sees regardless of electronic responsiveness within their working hours.

Although, I think butt-in-seat mentality was always broken if an employee could broadcast or interact from anywhere. There are certain kinds of pair programming, whiteboarding, co-design, collab, and conversations that lead to higher signal in-person vs. remote.

That’s why a lot of jobs have core office hours. My company’s main office works East Coast USA hours & we have a lot of team members in Europe, too. Unofficial our core hours tend to be like 9a to 1p eastern.

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