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It's all purely anecdotal. I started a new job just when the pandemic hit. It was perfect timing, the lockdown went into effect between my last interview and my first day of work. Like everyone else, the company was not prepared for it. The only advantage they had was that they had a couple of long term contractors from another country.

So I went in and... it worked out really well. Quality of life is fantastic, productivity too. It's like we've never done it another way. For the contractors it was even an improvement, because now they were on the same level as the rest. Based on this experience, we have started to hire people from abroad and whoever wants can stay remote.

I cannot think of a reason where onsite would be better than remote.

Advantages of remote:

- 100% focus as long as you have a proper working place.

- Perfect time management as you will interact at planned times and under an agenda.

- No more smells from my colleagues atrocious culinary choices.

- No more being annoyed by sales guys trying to jump the queue for their deal this quarter.

Well, 2 and 4 are also the disadvantages of remote. I've seen multiple projects generating millions of dollars a year that were originally spawned by unplanned interactions without an agenda between engineers and sales guys. You're presuming a working model where your only role is accepting requirements in planning meetings and outputting code that meets them, and a lot of teams don't work that way.

All that interactivity can happen over remote meetings no?

Not really. Just this week, I had a 15 minute chat with some sales engineers I'd never met before about a possible API extension that they say would help secure multiple deals a year - there's no way they would have scheduled a video call for that and I doubt I would have accepted if they did.

Outside of software dev, there are a ton of scenarios where onsite matters.

Ask anyone in hardware.

Sure, many and myself included here, setup home labs. Those really help, particularly when boards are small and or one can setup or build a test harness or other suitable device.

I currently work a mix, and onsite is needed, but not always.

My current preference is to do both, and my company just moved. We downsized office space, added a common work area, and I have a home lab and another person is building one up now.

Being sick is bot such a big deal.

We all got much better at the various comms tools too.

As for your other items:

Sales people, who are effective, will find ways. (As they should by the way. New money feeds everyone else.)

Point taken on the smells, but for me I don't care.

Perfect time management? Lolol if it works for you, great. Tons of people will struggle with this anyway.

Having a place to focus is all about the workplace. Can be at home, at work, rented... this one is not really an argument for work at home as much as it is workplace advocacy generally.

You know what, I agree. My last place of work we went remote at the start of the pandemic, but I'd already had two years of getting to know my colleagues and our relationships carried on as usual when we started remote working.

I recently switched jobs, and have been to the office once (to pick up equipment and get set up) and it's a completely different dynamic. I don't really know any of my colleagues, chatting online occasionally isn't the same as meeting in person, etc. I still game a few times a week with people from my last two jobs, but I can't see the same happening for this job.

On the whole though, I do prefer it. My work relationships are probably lacking more but my quality of life is greatly improved.

> I miss my old work when the chat was actually a place for smalltalk, instead of a place for just sharing technical knowledge or updating progress.

That sounds more like a company culture issue. It's surprising that there isn't a small talk channel. You should suggest one, they can be pretty valuable

> It works when the team is used to and knows how to connect with each other online and to keep those connections going through the day/week.

My company always had offices spread around the country that worked close with one another, so going full remote was a change, but honestly not a huge change.

We have regular coffee/tea breaks every afternoon, no work talk allowed. A variety of online social events helps round things out.

Is it the same as working in an office together? Of course not. But while I have worked on some great teams that gelled really well, IMHO the majority of work teams don't have deep bonds.

What WfH really did kill was the ability to create informal connections between teams, the types of connections that help Get Things Done faster than usual. I feel that is the one true, huge, drawback of WfH.