Then I heard that Shopify had literally shut down and sold their offices. It's not actually possible for the company to go back to the office because they don't exist.
So that's where I work now.
I've worked fully remotely for the same company for almost 6 years now. Having worked in an office before, one belief I've formed over the years is that working at a place that doesn't have remote at the core and that has staff that's remote and staff that isn't, would create a two-tier system and I'd be very afraid of trying it.
In fact for a lot of the company history, we've had an office in a location next to the founders, that people were not allowed to use as a work place. You could go there for a day here and there but not as a group and not as a regular activity. There weren't even spots for more than 5 or 6 people at the same time in there, so mostly used to receive mail. This sort of thing won't even be in the minds of a huge corporation that is only doing remote because the pandemic forced them to.
So my advice if you want to go remote, is to find a company that was either fully remote before the pandemic, or a company that has truly embraced it and shifted completely.
edit: seems like there's a bit of attention here, if you're struggling with remote or starting something and you want to exchange some war stories for fun, I'm always up to share some thoughts even though the internet is full of experts on remote nowadays. I've done it as an engineer in a company of 12, later as an engineering manager and more recently being manager of managers and we've surpassed 250 people, so I have thoughts about it from multiple angles. You can figure out how to contact me from my profile.
I suspect other companies are in a similar situation, and it's part of the growing pains of getting larger. But fuck is it hard to be happy with it.
I will no longer work for those sorts of companies.
(Edit: typo corrected, thanks kaapipo)
I think my main point still stands: you can't always just pack up your things and leave (or rather, you can, but the consequences aren't always a simple job hunt, sometimes they involve relocating internationally) so you may be willing to tolerate more abuse or conditions that are less than perfect for you.
My manager doesn't have much control of the WFH thing, it's the CEOs directive. I'm just a junior engineer with not much sway so my remote request was denied by their bosses boss who has never met me.
(anybody who may be interested in working at such a company, check my profile)
Bonus points for those companies because they didn't have to "figure it out" or change upper management corporate culture to go remote.
So they just can't, and I mean CAN'T, handle the idea of all-remote.
At all.
I'm actually onboarding at a remote position right now where the people I work with are clearly used to everything happening in an office. It's Thursday, I started Monday, and I have spent a grand total of maybe 3 hours speaking to my teammates or direct manager.
I've been dumped with a ton of documentation and stuff to read, but I feel extremely isolated. No one on my team has reached out to welcome me or make themselves available for questions or anything.
If this is what some people are experiencing in the remote world I don't blame them for wanting to go back to the office. It certainly is not how I've experienced remote work in the past so far.
From there, start being proactive about asking questions or starting conversations. Do not wait for others to reach out. You must initiate. That is a huge part of remote culture.
If you are initiating on instant messaging and not generating feedback or conversation, then you have a much bigger problem.
Expecting a new hire to initiate is pretty unrealistic imo. Even in an office, leaders should be encouraging employees to reach out to the new hire and make that connection. In person new hires would be getting a team lunch of some kind at most companies I've ever worked at, some kind of scheduled time to meet and interact with people.
I don't see why remote should be different really. Onboarding should be a hands on process for the whole team to participate in, remote or not.
So, yes. I am kind of wondering if this is a bigger problem or if once I have stuff to work on things will improve.
Moreover, senior roles absolutely require you to initiate. If you are in a junior role, proactive behavior will help you advance past those who wait for things to come to them.
In general terms, initiating is an active behavior, while expecting others to initiate is passive. If you want “hands on” from others, tell those hands that you need their engagement.
In general, I strongly advise against passive behavior, unless you want your career driven by the good graces of others.
Interviewing can definitely be a numbers game but in hindsight (and just my experience) it's important to only go for companies where you think you'd be happy working.
As for onboarding, whether it's a remote first, omg-remote-because-of-covid, or an in-person company I've had varied results. My experience at most startups is that onboarding is pretty low on the priority list and quality is very dependent on the hiring manager and the team you've been hired onto.
I was warmly welcomed and immediately partnered with a senior person. People were extremely helpful and if I needed help, people were always open to hopping on a call to get me unstuck. Most people respond to slack messages quickly.
The only downside is the codebase/tech stack sucks and the technical culture leaves something to be desired. But they have really nailed the remote experience.
I will never willingly go back to the office. My employer definitely gets more productivity out of me than if I were in office. It really is a win-win in my case. [Edit]:removed repetition
Mine is not a remote first company, it's a an office-first company that moved to remote for covid and is trying to embrace it.
That's why I was expressing a desire to find a remote-first company instead, to get the kind of experience you are describing.
Baring in mind this could be worse than 2008. It's not going to be pretty and workers will ultimately feel the brunt.
I am beyond sick of my current company pretending like everything is going to go back to normal one day. We have 75% of people working from home although not labeled remote and maybe 25% back in some offices. The CEO pushing that we are an office company has destroyed communication and meant that over the last two years instead of adjusting how we work just pretending like nothing every happened. So now we have terrible communication even within teams and no one who wants to fix it because that would be a waste of time since soon everyone will be in the office. This has been going on for over a year.
Maybe they will fix this but it’s completely destroyed my desire to work for what was once a great company. They have over 1k employees. It’s unbelievable how much time and energy have been wasted because management has refused to accept the current situation. If i had taken this same approach when things changed at this current job or others I would be fired. I need to switch to management.
> management has refused to accept the current situation
You don't state what country you're in, but in the US, the pandemic is effectively over. Everyone (that wants to be) is well-vaccinated, many 3 or 4x, Omicron blew through the country and left us mostly unscathed, and the news hasn't talked about daily numbers in at least two months. There is little reason to wear a mask indoors unless you want to lessen your chances of catching the flu - which is ticking up a bit.
We probably don't meet the scientific/medical definition of the end of a pandemic, but socially, we're there.
However, if you're in the US and still feeling this way, you may be suffering from some low-grade PTSD. Don't be afraid to reach out for help.
And if anyone is interested in for real remote work, we're hiring SDE & Sr SDE frontend (React) and backend (Python). See my profile for contact info if interested.
No contact info on profile (not interested, just saying).
Frankly I need to back off on HN as well.