Ask HN: What Are the Trade-Offs of Working Fully Remotely? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What Are the Trade-Offs of Working Fully Remotely?

9 pointskarakoram10 comments

What Are The Opportunity Costs Of Being Fully Remote?

Many people recognize the benefits of fully remote work, and those advantages have been widely discussed on HN. What are some of the less obvious downsides?

What are some overlooked or unexpected disadvantages?

View on HN

You’ll feel isolated from peers. You might not have an environment conducive to work. Poor work/life boundaries.

If the company also works in-office then you're probably missing out on organic communication. You'll be lucky to have people that spread news of changes that happen in person to you. In many cases you're the easiest lay-off too. If someone has to lay you off in person, they might not want to. The remotes will be first.

If the entire company is remote, there is a lot of disorganization, missed opportunities to keep things in sync. And the organization may sometimes also become flatter (less hierarchy). While less hierarchy sounds good, it also comes with the balance that you're more responsible for a bad decision (because often you have to make more decisions).

The best thing, obviously, is earning potentially a million in 3-8 years (depending on your comp) without having to drive to an office.

Isolation. But there is a solution: virtual frosted glass video meetings (via the MeetingGlass app). You can be behind a shared layer of virtual frosted glass with your colleagues. It works like the real frosted glass: mutual visibility and frosting.

It's not suitable for someone without prior in-office work experience IMO.

There are mentoring and office based behaviors and norms that people learn from each other through osmosis. I think it's a career mistake to never work with other people building something every day in the same room together.

I wouldn't hire a fresh grad who never worked in an office before.

I've been fully remote for longer than I was an in-office worker but those formative years being in-person were very important from a skills and social / emotional IQ perspective.

Isolation and depression for sure. If you work remotely, having a friend group or other social activities outside your house is probably all the more important. As someone who mostly socialises online, I can go many, many days without really talking to anyone or interacting with them in any meaningful way.

It's also potentially hazardous for your health if you're not careful with your diet/don't stay in shape. Being in an office definitely limits your opportunities to eat unhealthy food, and (in a walkable city at least) forces you to walk at least a certain distance every day.

I suspect this is why a lot of software engineers nowadays seem a lot more interested in going to the gym or sticking to a healthy diet than they used to.

I have been working remotely for three years. The biggest problem might be that my social skills have greatly diminished, and social scenarios have greatly decreased. I rather miss the previous office work scenes.

There is this german expression, "Stallgeruch" (literally "the scent of the (horses) stable" - its a way of saying that you fit in and adapt to the culture, truly becoming one with your working environment).

Working fully remote, especially in a firm you recently joined, will make it far more difficult to achieve this sense of belonging - which cuts both ways! You will likely have more trouble feeling you belong there and your coworkers might feel the same towards you.

passive career stagnation. Your bugs are always visible remotely but your quiet daily impact isn't. The people physically seen in the office tend to get promoted faster

Your quiet daily impact is also ignored in the office. You have to be your own advocate if you want promotion.

inertia, or lack thereof. both in terms of movement and exercise -- wayy more sitting at home -- but also less stopping out a lunch to run errands, or swinging by the store on the way home.

even just the hustle of get up, shower, drive to office, go up the elevator, get to work -- keeps your brain and metabolism moving for a few hours. stumbling downstairs with a cuppa 15 min before first call keeps you slow.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com