Ask HN: Which companies give programmers offices?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14979718

by jjazwiecki • 9 years ago

312 239 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Often when I suggest to non-programmers that programmers should get their own offices, I'm met with incredulity: "Where do any programmers get their own offices???" Microsoft and Fog Creek come to mind, but where else?

factotum• 9 years ago

Reynolds and Reynolds in Houston.

stefantheard• 9 years ago

BUT! This comes with some caveats... check glassdoor. Be cautious and don't undervalue yourself.

Kluny2• 9 years ago

Automattic. But it's remote, you have to supply your own office. They contribute $250 toward co-working space.

jtmarmon• 9 years ago

What if you live in NYC where a coworking membership is around $500 a month and an office $1000?

onion2k2• 9 years ago

It's contribution; it's not supposed to cover the full cost.

OJFord• 9 years ago

Just toward co-working space? I wouldn't have thought those deciding to work at home (i.e. giving space in their home to their work) need the contribution any less.

baccredited• 9 years ago

I've had multiple federal government programming jobs with offices. I consider it a requirement at this point.

kk3399• 9 years ago

Epic systems

hitekker• 9 years ago

If you're speaking of the Healthcare Giant based in Wisconsin, I believe you share an office with one other person.

Or at least on the Verona campus. It's been a while since I've been around those parts.

thehardsphere6• 9 years ago

Sharing with one person is still better than a cube or open plan.

jpfed• 9 years ago

I worked there in 2007 and had my own office.

sidlls• 9 years ago

Why would anyone want to work for a sweatshop just because they provide offices?

PascLeRasc• 9 years ago

From colleague's anecdotes and Glassdoor, I'd really steer clear of Epic. Incredible pressure to work free overtime and have no "off time", even on the weekend.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Epic-Systems-Corporation-W...

CephalopodMD• 9 years ago

That's their IT+customer relations combo job. Just awful. SWEs are pretty well taken care of though.

thehardsphere6• 9 years ago

I would hope most companies that consider software to be their core business give programmers offices, even if they have to share those offices with another person on the same team. Most companies that do not often consider programmers secondary to their core business, which is a good reason not to work there if you have a choice.

dmoy3• 9 years ago

I mean I would hope so too, but it appears to be patently not true. Thus the ask HN question, where can one find these mythical offices.

thehardsphere6• 9 years ago

Well, the only place where a non-programmer would treat the idea that programmers should have offices with incredulity would be a place that doesn't value software as its core business.

I mean, most "programmers" don't work for software companies; many of them are employed by banks and insurance companies. It's natural for that to be treated weird there.

krageon• 9 years ago

You can hope that that's the case, but that doesn't mean that it is. In my experience, it is emphatically not the case.

thehardsphere6• 9 years ago

Do you work at a company whose core business is software?

Clubber• 9 years ago

You're conflating what the smart thing to do is with what's actually done. :)

thehardsphere6• 9 years ago

If your employer does not do smart things, you should find a better employer.

drstewart• 9 years ago

Agreed, I also think it's smart to pay your programmer $350k/year. If you don't work for a place like that then you don't work for a true software development company, or you work for a dumb one (in which case you shouldn't work there).

OkGoDoIt• 9 years ago

Is this sarcasm? As far as I’m aware, jobs at even large successful software companies rarely pay that well. Perhaps super high level engineers at Google or FB but a very small subset of developers would have this opportunity.

batbomb• 9 years ago

Most people programming in National Labs get offices, though you might need to share with one person. If you are in the bay area, think about SLAC or LBNL.

grouchypumpkin• 9 years ago

I know for a fact LBNL Software Developer 4 pays less than half the salary of other software companies.

Screw that.

arcanus• 9 years ago

Laurence Livermore National Laboratories is not too far from the bay area as well.

rjspotter• 9 years ago

Not always true from my experience at ANL

cweagans• 9 years ago

Depends on where in SLAC you're working. If you're in the IT building, you'll frequently need to share a larger room with 3-5 other people.

thearn4• 9 years ago

At NASA we tend to have 2-3 person offices. But it's a big agency so YMMV.

Rebelgecko• 9 years ago

Similar experience where I work (FFRDC). Most people have their own offices, although some of the more desirable offices (ones with windows that are also bigger than interior offices) are shared. It does get a little sardinelike in summer when interns need somewhere to go.

qnk• 9 years ago

Stack Overflow has blogged about their private offices for developers many times before. This is a post from 2015, I'm not sure if that's still the case: https://stackoverflow.blog/2015/01/16/why-we-still-believe-i...

jonhmchan2• 9 years ago

Work at Stack here. We still provide private offices for developers when they're in one of our offices. A lot of the engineering team is remote too, which lets people have their own workspace as well.

52-6F-622• 9 years ago

Colour me green with envy. I'm working in one of those fabled "cubical farms" mentioned in the post.

Half of the company has gone full open office, and the laggers (who didn't get redone before the last CEO suddenly quit) seem to not be changing. I could wander elsewhere in the building to work once in a while, but eventually people would start questioning where I am.. and I'd be missing out on my single monitor and ergonomic seating. I work for a modern company with 30 year outdated office structure... At least its feeling that way today. Yep, right there -- there's the envy!

taternuts• 9 years ago

A lot of people would be jealous of your cubicle setup, including me. If your company decides to update their '30 year outdated office structure', you'd most likely be stripped of your cubicle and have no real private space. I'd venture a guess that you'd curse yourself for taking your precious cube for granted.

borplk2• 9 years ago

Do pretty much all programmers in Microsoft get their own office?

Is it as simple as that or there's more to it?

jmspring• 9 years ago

Depends on the group, there is a push for open offices of late.

Qworg• 9 years ago

In Research, everyone still has offices.

latencyloser• 9 years ago

Definitely depends on the group, but I think mostly just whatever building you happen to be in. The building I'm in is newly remodeled. Meaning entirely open-office.

In my opinion, my building/group/whatever does it wrong by jamming so many bodies in the same room together. There's 26 desks here in a room that looks as though it could comfortable fit about half that many. I've since adopted big sound-proof headphones and a wall of monitors that eliminate most distractions. But the biggest annoyance to me is that there's constantly a line for the bathrooms. Too many people for what the building was originally designed for, I think. Assuming we better limited the room capacity, I could likely tolerate this just fine.

colanderman3• 9 years ago

Too many people for what the building was originally designed for

OSHA regulates the ratio of employees to toilets ("water closets"). Check this table [1] and file an OSHA complaint [2] if the requirement isn't met.

[1] https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_tab...

[2] https://www.osha.gov/pls/osha7/eComplaintForm.html

hackermailman2• 9 years ago

Vancouver office is open floor hell, themed on a garage, with another open floor hanging above you for extra noise in case all the noise of one floor wasn't enough. There's some attempts to suppress noise with glass but is more cosmetic than effective.

borplk2• 9 years ago

There we go so since people are saying "it depends" I guess you can't just go work for them on that basis.

And I bet if you bring it up during the process it wont help at all.

IMcD23• 9 years ago

I’m in Office, and my whole building has nice-sized offices for engineers and PMs.

danesparza• 9 years ago

You mentioned it in the question already, but when I worked at Microsoft as a contractor I got an office.

kuharich• 9 years ago

Old Microsoft: it was a BillG ethic: anyone touching software got an office: software design engineers, PM's, QA, even admins ... it allowed one to be quiet and focus. And signaled to co-workers - do not disturb ...

Chris911• 9 years ago

Most new buildings at Microsoft now have open office plans.

qq66• 9 years ago

This is mostly due to employee demand (although some employees are very angry about it).

toweringgoat• 9 years ago

Speaking to someone there: they were planning to remodel the whole campus. However they stopped after a few conversions due to feedback. Converted buildings are staying open, but other buildings are reportedly staying as individual offices.

This is second hand, could be wrong.

sitkack• 9 years ago

I was a contractor at MS many moons ago, I got an entire office to myself. Later when we had a crunch, we had to double up, but it was both perm and contract, not contractor specific. There was no lack of collab due to offices, close your door when in the zone. Open in it when accepting visitors. Absolutely loved it.

bousaid• 9 years ago

Microsoft intern here. Got my own office for the summer.

zodnas• 9 years ago

All full-time employees at SAS have their own office.

bebop• 9 years ago

Everyone at ESRI has their own office.

luu• 9 years ago

Microsoft is switching from offices to open office plans. Buildings with offices are slowly being remodeled to open plan.

My first team started off two-to-an-office (unless you had something like 5 or 6 years of seniority, in which case you'd get your own office), but they moved to open offices when their building got remodeled.

dannysu• 9 years ago

I'm hearing that things are moving in that direction as well. Were there reasons provided or were you asked for your preference at all?

crunchyplastic• 9 years ago

I was invited to an employee feedback session at Microsoft. We were asked to discuss teamwork and collaboration and float any ideas we had for changes that could be made to improve them. There were plenty of ideas, none of them involved open offices. Strangely, the consultants running the session used "different workspaces" as an example several times. After it showed up on the slides for the fourth time, I brought up the rumours about moving to open offices and said I thought it would harm productivity and wouldn't have a noticable effect on collaboration. Private offices with whiteboards and enough space for 3-4 people to stand and talk are fantastic for collaboration as-is. Several other attendees voiced their agreement. I don't recall anyone advocating for open offices. When the session ended I suggested to the senior Microsoft representative there that a survey be conducted to gauge engineer's preferences on work spaces. He said those decisions weren't in his hands (almost certainly true). I never did get such a survey.

The open offices that I did see at Microsoft were actually pretty nice - they were discrete spaces with room for ~25 desks and 2-3 meeting rooms attached. Certainly better than the spaces I've seen at startups, but still not close to individual offices in terms of pleasantness.

As for a reason, I suspect it's the same reason they unified dev and test into a single discipline. "Because that's what Facebook does."

nxc18• 9 years ago

Esri gives just about everyone their own office; aside from people displaced by moves or visiting, I've yet to encounter a programmer without one.

infinitone• 9 years ago

Another Esri HNer i see!

msluyter2• 9 years ago

On the general question of open vs. private offices, my views have tempered over time. The first time I worked in an open office, I hated it. But I've come to realize that a lot depends on the layout of the office and that there are better and worse ways to configure one.

The first case -- the one I hated -- had a) long rows of desks, b) bright overhead fluorescent lights, c) a lot of noise due to being in a large room with sales/marketing, d) a lot of visual distractions due to people walking up & down the aisles, and e) few available areas to go to collaborate away from your desks.

Now, I'm also in an open office, but I find it quite livable, because: a) my desk faces the wall, for fewer visual distractions, b) the room is comfortably lit (ie, not too bright)[1], c) it's a smaller room with only engineering and is generally quieter[2], d) there are enough areas to go if you need to collaborate.

All this is to say that, while the evidence is that open offices generally suck, there's probably a number of ways to ameliorate their problems to some degree without having to resort to private offices. I don't think I'd prefer an office to my current setup, actually.

[1] I think this element is underrated. In fact, I'd be curious to know if there's a verifiable correlation between brightness levels and how loud people tend to talk. There's something about a dim room that seems to induce people to lower their voices.

[2] Small, but not too small. There's a sort of sweet spot. I was once in a room with 3 other people and it was maddening because it was generally quiet but every little noise -- coughing, swallowing, etc... -- was seemingly amplified by the overall quietness to became hugely annoying. (An inverse concept explains why I can work quite well in a coffee shop despite the background din.)

maaaats• 9 years ago

I work in a team. The team of 5-10 people sit in the same office. That way we can talk to each other when needed. Some say that's disturbance, I call it collaborating.

I'm not a code monkey. I don't sit alone in an office all day hammering out code. If that was what expected of me, I would change job.

So, not exactly open floor plan, but not separate offices either. I think that's perfect.

celim307• 9 years ago

Same. I'm a huge fan of a team having its own 'alcove' or bullpen as we all are usually tackling a problem together or triaging something.

bobbytherobot• 9 years ago

I'm currently in a small office with a small team. They hate talking. They want to do everything by chat or code review.

My point? So many factors are at play for a healthy office.

maxxxxx4• 9 years ago

I like that too. I am fine with interruptions that are work related. It's the constant background noise that bothers me in open office.

orange_bear6• 9 years ago

I read this as "I don't write code all day." I did write code all day, and when I worked in that exact environment, I could not do it. Too many audio distractions and distractions in my peripherals. And I was supposed to be doing difficult programming work? I have always gotten my best work done at home, alone, while you "not a code monkey" types chit chat in the office.

mindcrime4• 9 years ago

Some say that's disturbance, I call it collaborating.

Sure, just keep your collaboration out of my concentration. That is, "Alice and Bob collaborating" may just be keeping Joe from getting any work done. It's easy to lose track of the effect of your collaboration in any open environment. Doing it in an office with a closed door eliminates that problem.

I'm not a code monkey. I don't sit alone in an office all day hammering out code.

Having an office does not in any way imply that you're supposed to "sit alone in an office all day hammering out code".

martindelemotte• 9 years ago

In regard to [1] your hypothesis is probably correct. There exists technology that dims the lights automatically when the volume level of an area is too loud, in order to make people lower their voices.

macNchz• 9 years ago

I'd be curious to know if there's a verifiable correlation between brightness levels and how loud people tend to talk. There's something about a dim room that seems to induce people to lower their voices.

Almost every open office I've worked in has been super loud and disruptive, but one of them that happened to have high ceilings and very soft, warm lighting turned and turned out to be the fantastic. Something about the space gave the room a kind of library-style hush, which I think helped create a feedback loop compelling people to speak quietly and move longer conversations into closed rooms.

I think there's also an element to establishing the culture of how you interact in the open space early on, I think even with the hushed atmosphere of the room itself, it only worked because people had been talking quietly and taking louder conversations into private rooms for as long as they'd been working in the space. Pulling back from a culture of having a boisterous open space to a quiet one is, I think, much harder than doing it from the get-go.

H1Supreme• 9 years ago

Lighting is such a big issue for me. Our office, luckily has a bunch of large windows in it. But, I've worked places with no windows and too much florescent lights. It's an awful environment.

therealdrag0• 9 years ago

At the last couple places I've worked I've just stood on my desk and unscrewed the lights above my desk. Helps a lot with eye strain.

el_benhameen• 9 years ago

The point about facing the wall is interesting. I find it very difficult to concentrate if I'm not facing _away_ from a wall. Knowing that people can come up behind me as I'm working or taking a break makes me very uncomfortable, to the point that I can't really relax and get into the flow of my work. It just feels like I'm being constantly watched.

Of course, cubes or offices would let us have the best of both worlds, but ...

lordnacho2• 9 years ago

One thing that matters a lot is the behaviour of the people.

I used to work in a small open office where one guy would constantly hold debates with everyone. It was pretty hard to stay out of it, and very distracting.

Now I'm in an office with a similar layout and staff, but it's like a library. There's the occasional group discussion or banter, but not enough to bother.

I've worked in finance my whole career, so it's all open plan, lots of screens. Never had my own office, people always needed (well so they say) to be accessible.

neuronsguy• 9 years ago

Which did you prefer?

I currently work in the former environment (but everyone is like that guy), and it's super noisy and distracting but also fun.

hinkley3• 9 years ago

The only difference between your library and a closed office plan is that the library was cheaper to build.

And all it takes is two chatty hires to ruin it (as a chatty person, I'm fine unless someone encourages me). If they kept a lot of private meeting rooms when they changed the floor plan, you have a good chance of convincing the chatty people to fuck off to a room if they want to talk, but most places don't do that. They use open floor plans to reduce costs, and then there are shortages of meeting space, kitchens, ventilation, and bathrooms.

The sales pitch of sitting in a group is that you can ask people questions and get an answer, but it's based on bad information about recovery periods after task switching. And as a lead I've been crippled by the inability to get candid answers from junior and midlevel engineers, and being unable to negotiate agreements with senior engineers by hashing out our disagreements in private where I can steer the conversation toward addressing their personal concerns instead of general ones. We should be concentrating on finding a compromise or promising more functionality so they're happy, so that it's two or three advocating for an idea when it's time to discuss it as a team. Instead it just gets shit on while I'm stream-of-consciousing it in the middle of a bunch of myopic people, leading to more confirmation bias and reaffirmation of the status quo.

[Edit] And good luck healing a rift between QA and dev if the QA folk have to wander into the lion's den to talk about an issue. I have only been a lead once in an open office plan (working on #2), because half of my skill is in knowing more about what's going on by liaising across functional or personality boundaries. Half of the rest is in fixing unidentified pain points, which often requires hearing from people who don't like to be a bother. Open plans don't encourage candor, they crush it like a bug.

Steve Job's line, as reported by Jonny Ive IIRC, about ideas being fragile and needing space to grow really hit home when I figured out I'm doomed to be in open offices until the pendulum swings back.

GordonS• 9 years ago

But I've come to realize that a lot depends on the layout of the office

A lot also depends on the people that work around you.

If everyone respects one another, then it's usually OK.

However, there is often at least one person who talks and talks and talks for most of the day (and somehow keeps their job), and at least one person who talks VERY LOUDLY on the phone all day (because they're far away, so obviously you need to shout to be heard?!).

mindcrime4• 9 years ago

a) my desk faces the wall, for fewer visual distractions

I'm sitting here feeling stunned that anybody could ever want their desk facing a wall, as the implication (in terms of any "open plan" environment) is that their back is facing, well, nothing. IOW, somebody can walk up behind you unnoticed. Me personally, I hate that with a passion. I'd pay money to have my desk facing out with my back to the wall, just so nobody can walk up behind me.

always_good• 9 years ago

I feel anxious when anyone can see my screen. I should be able to visit HN without feeling guilty as long as I'm getting my work done, but when I'm facing a wall, it's almost paralyzing.

hinkley3• 9 years ago

There's a reason common convention swag for years included a fish eye mirror with a notch on the back to fit over the corner of your monitor.

msluyter2• 9 years ago

Well, technically I'm facing 8th floor windows, but my blind is down. Others are partially open though so I can glance to the side and see the outdoors, which is nice. So it's not quite as bad as facing a wall, but it is true that anyone can walk up behind me unnoticed. Because it's a standing desk (though I use a high chair) that somehow doesn't seem as bad because they can't loom over you.

dionian• 9 years ago

I used to do this because I'd do personal stuff at work. recently i changed jobs where i face outward towards a wall instead of towards others. I work 100% during work hours on my work computer, though I frequently check social media/news on my personal cell phone -- especially while waiting for things like compilation or deployment :) so i guess I solved that problem by only using my handheld devices for stuff I'd rather not have anyone see. all in all its kind of nice, it raises the barrier to coming to distract me if my back is turned to you and my headphones are on. I thought i'd hate it but i wound up liking it just fine

muzani• 9 years ago

I thought I was the only one! It seems to be some primal fear that while I'm concentrating on something, someone will pounce me. So it discourages me from focusing too deeply into a problem.

fygwtclub• 9 years ago

It's a mindcrime (just kidding)

romanovcode2• 9 years ago

a) my desk faces the wall, for fewer visual distractions

Might as well sit in a box then. :)

pi_qed• 9 years ago

I had a similar experience with coffee shops. I was working from home for a stretch and discovered (almost by accident) that I could focus well at a coffee shop in spite of the noise. It gave me a mild sense of urgency for whatever task I had chosen that helped me tune out the distractions. It was mostly quieter at home but there always seemed to be more potential distractions. I found going once or twice a week helped me stay more focused overall - also for when I was home all day.

kabdib• 9 years ago

I generally hate open offices. I've worked in enough open space / half-height-cubie-space to detest them. In one case I refused a job (well, a transfer) because the other group was basically cheek-to-jowl and in a place with little ventilation (it smelled bad in there); I've done crappy working conditions in startups, but I refuse to do them in a multi-billion dollar corporation.

However, the ability to move your desk at will makes open space work well, assuming you have enough space to work with. If your desk is on wheels and your company lets you, you can just relocate: Find a quieter spot to work, or go sit next to a few people you're working closely with for a while.

But the combination of open offices and assigned seating is terrible. It feels like preschool. I prefer to be treated like an adult at work, not a child or a slave.

giaour• 9 years ago

In that environment, you also lose the ability to shut your office door and have a private meeting. Sure, you can put 3-4 person meeting rooms next to big open offices, but I've never worked in a building that had enough small conference rooms to make up for the loss meetings in offices with doors

pyrox420• 9 years ago

AccuLynx - we aren't even in a tech hotbed. Just little ol' Beloit, WI. We got to build a brand new office building with offices for all devs. Great place to work, awesome perks. We saw a marked throughput improvement after moving to the new office.

prdonahue• 9 years ago

we aren't even in a tech hotbed

That's precisely why you have offices. Real estate is extremely cheap there compared to tech centers such as SF/ Bay Area.

drfuchs• 9 years ago

Adobe in San Jose. (At least it used to.)

rajeshp19862• 9 years ago

They are in the process of dismantling those office and creating an open office plan.

omg2k• 9 years ago

MathWorks (Natick, MA).

jonhmchan2• 9 years ago

Stack Overflow does. I'm an engineer there and we still think providing private offices to our engineering team is important for their productivity. This includes engineers, SREs, designers, data scientists, PMs, and others.

However, most of our engineering team is remote and if they're not in one of our locations, we give them pretty much what they'd like to build their own home office or go to a coworking space.

For me, I'm actually nomadic, so I tend to work from wherever I'm staying or end up in cafes a lot of time. I still get the support I need if my work "station" isn't optimal.

TL;DR Stack Overflow provides private offices, but is really flexible, especially given its remote policy.

nfriedly5• 9 years ago

I'm still occasionally sad that I bombed an interview at SO a while back. I had prepped for more of a front-end/full stack JS role, and got asked a series of low-level data structure questions. I thought I did alright given the circumstances (I did work out the correct answer to each one), but the interviewer wasn't impressed.

I asked for a do-over and they said no. Oh well...

Jach• 9 years ago

Typically companies will let you 'do-over'/re-apply in 6-12 months, so there's still hope!

module0000• 9 years ago

My programming career involved an office at every position (Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cisco, HP, XTime, VMWare, and a handful of private equity groups). As I was transitioning into another field, the "open office" craze was taking over. I could be wrong, but I have a strong feeling I would not have enjoyed it. Nothing like being an hour into analyzing a core dump to be jerked back to reality by someone interrupting you!

Cthulhu_• 9 years ago

An hour focused on one thing? Lucky you!

lonnyk• 9 years ago

Social norms change. You end up messaging a lot w/ people you can physically touch and it's not considered rude to just ignore someone coming up to you if you're concentrating.

kzisme• 9 years ago

I'm not sure if you're just lucky based on the setups at previous jobs, but for me it has been open floor plan so far.

The only people who have offices are managers or C-Level executives. Currently I sit next to a door that is constantly opened which really kills my productivity.

msukmanowsky• 9 years ago

Parse.ly is 100% remote and I've got a pretty sweet home office :)

amorphid• 9 years ago

In the USA... Given real estate prices in tech hubs, who can afford an office space anymore, let alone private offices! I imagine working from home will become the new normal. At least until the FCC allows ISPs to throttle Internet connection speeds so much that ISDN lines start looking attractive. Hopefully they make the phone company maintain those copper phone lines!

calafrax3• 9 years ago

this fcc comment is so uninformed. getting rid of net neutrality will make service way better because you will be able to pay for a line with prioritized access for video conferencing and remote presence. net neutrality is what makes it impossible for individuals with a public isp connection to get the same quality as corporations with their own private networks.

iLemming• 9 years ago

You don't work from home. You live in the office.

Sonicrida• 9 years ago

Yeah. I see a lot of replies here posting about remote work (which don't get me wrong is awesome!) but to me, that kind of misses the point. If you want an office, you generally like the idea of being able to interact with your coworkers in person. You just want privacy whenever you aren't interacting with people. Going full remote means that you rarely get that in person interaction if at all.

dacracot• 9 years ago

Lawrence Livermore Nat'l Laboratory. Everyone has an office with a door.

suhith• 9 years ago

Fog Creek Software does iirc

LVB• 9 years ago

At Garmin in Salem, OR, they have four-person quads. These are enclosed spaces with an additional central table, storage, ceiling and door. Though not my own office, I liked it. Quiet, everyone had a corner with ample space, and a nice group dynamic formed. Devs would move occasionally and you'd get to know other people pretty well.

rbanffy• 9 years ago

Two places that allow you (actually they prefer) to work remotely are Avaaz (avaaz.org) and Canonical. Both may share the cost of a rented office. I can't speak highly enough of either - awesome teams, awesome missions.

alok-g• 9 years ago

Qualcomm

tesmar2• 9 years ago

If you are in QRC, T, N or S. I think the newer buildings are open office plans.

ozzmotik• 9 years ago

i had my own office at cPanel, albeit a small one but it was a pleasant personal space.

mpa000• 9 years ago

I manage developers for the publishing arm of a professional association. While I did not have an office when I started as a dev here over a decade ago, all of our developers now have their own offices while we two managers share one. Priorities.

Immediately prior to this, as a junior member of a non-IT/IS-department rapid development group for a utility company, I was relegated to whatever cubicle they could find to stuff me in, usually on the periphery of the call center area. This is also where they'd stick the COBOL guys they'd had to hire back as consultants, along with others who didn't fit into any of the (many) union contract workflows.

(I was a listed as a line-item in the same cost code group as a rented photocopier or scanner, meaning that for most of my tenure there I had ZERO contact with anyone from HR. It was glorious.)

jaegerpicker• 9 years ago

That's why programmers should work remotely. It's the best thing I've ever done for my career. Moved back from Management to IC because it was remote and it's been amazing.

mooreds6• 9 years ago

Remote work is great for so many reasons. Off the top of my head:

For the company:

   * less office space expense
   * bigger talent pool
   * low cost benefit
   * increased documentation
   * encourages the trend towards outcome based management (as opposed to butts in seats)

For the programmer:

   * more control over their work environment
   * more control over their time
   * no "commuting" subsidy for their employers
   * arbitrage payscales and standard of living
   * working vacations become possible

There are some downsides in terms of increased coordination costs and I have some friends that will never get to work remote because of security concerns, but for most developers this trend is fantastic.

hackermailman2• 9 years ago

One of the downsides is managers think we don't do anything all day as they can't stand over us monitoring for efficiency, so insist we are available at a whim on Slack, which makes Slack the new open office where you have to stop reasoning about what you're building and answer somebody's meme post on Slack or a manager's musings that would've been an email in the past you could reply to later. To me this is just as great as disturbance as the door opening to the foozball and video game room with a crowd of people yelling.

maxxxxx4• 9 years ago

The problem with remote work is that you need very competent managers who understand the work deeply and can keep things together. From my experience there are not too many managers who can lead a remote team competently.

recursive• 9 years ago

The downside for me is communication has more overhead and friction. Communicating in person is less effort. YMMV.

fredley• 9 years ago

I'd list working vacations as a downside. Proper time off, and the expectation that when you are on vacation you are on vacation is really important.

I work 1-2 days a week from home and it's a great balance. It gives me time to really get stuck into things with minimal distraction, and be more flexible with time. That said, the days in the office are really useful too - nothing beats sitting with other people physically when you need to communicate.

probinso• 9 years ago

I'm pretty sure that larger talent pool is a myth. Not everybody has the discipline to work remotely. Perhaps are able to cast a wider net, but there are a lot more rotten fish.

I would expect that a larger talent pool maybe the case for smaller cities

hashberry• 9 years ago

Yes... for the first time in my career my desk is next to a window with natural light and fresh air. All previous positions have been in cubicles or stuck in the middle of an open floorplan.

ivanhoe• 9 years ago

but you need to do it properly: work-space/office physically separated from the living space (especially when you have a family), well-defined work hours (and free time that's really free) and at least some level of self-discipline...

nhumrich3• 9 years ago

Remote isnt for everyone though. I much prefer to go into an office with coworkers. If remote works for you, great, but for me, i get far more work done being in an office.

jedwardhawkins• 9 years ago

Micro Focus in Provo, UT provides offices. The last company I worked for was a mature startup with an open floor plan. Most of the noise complaints were mitigated by noise cancelling headphones which were purchased for each engineer.

mindcrime4• 9 years ago

In my experience, noise cancelling headphones don't really solve any problems. They do nothing for "visual noise" and even for audio, the noise cancelling mode just feels artificial (which it is). I find that, for myself, I rarely want "no noise", I just want the quiet rush of the AC vents, maybe the pitter-patter of footfalls in the distance, etc. But no loud noises / talking / music / etc. in the immediate area.

pawanpe• 9 years ago

https://www.mathworks.com/

DavidThi808• 9 years ago

We mostly have 2 people/office. We would have done individual offices but the office space we found to rent was perfect except the offices were larger and so it was a LOT cheaper to use the existing build-out.

It is working well. People mostly are heads down getting their work done. So add Windward Studios to the list where all developers get offices.

nfriedly5• 9 years ago

I have a small private office that I just lease myself. I bicycle in every day and work "remote" for IBM. It's fantastic.

If I want some noise, I'll work from home (I have a 3-year old.)

The down side is that IBM's management has recently done a 180 on remote working and is now "strongly encouraging" me to move to one of their offices and work in a cubicle.

I'm pretty sure they won't actually fire me for not moving, but any promotion is probably going to be harder to come by until things (hopefully) swing back in the other direction.

Or I'll just retire. The benefit of living in Ohio is that I can save like 40% of my salary and still live comfortably. (And lease an office for $225/month!)

united893• 9 years ago

Remote, IBM

Did this not affect your role: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/ibm-tells-its-...

nfriedly5• 9 years ago

Yea, before that, everything was roses. After that, I was initially told that I would be fired if I didn't move on site (I was given a few location choices).

I said "no", got a new job lined up, and then about 4 months later, they decided not to fire me (they apparently did let go of some people, I was an exception).

I don't recall the exact phrasing, but it was at least hinted that I shouldn't expect a promotion. I never received any of it in writing, it was all phone calls from the start.

I did get a 5% raise a few months later, though.

hack_mmmm• 9 years ago

2 years back We used to get a cabin office @Qualcomm for all Engineers same as VPs. Now Staff Engineers and above still get cabin office and others have moved to cubicles. We have a lab where most of us sit in the afternoon to collaborate. I must say this is the only place where I saw in my career where a fresh grad got cabin offices. It feels great to code in isolation uninterrupted. It also feels great to collaborate in lab with other folks and also code there.

neogodless• 9 years ago

I searched "cabin office" on Google, but the results were largely about offices in cabins. I have a feeling you mean something else. Would you mind defining them for me?

To clarify, I'm not familiar with your usage of the word "cabin" in this context.

praneshp• 9 years ago

It's a regular room, nothing special (in terms of using the word "cabin"). 4 years ago at San Diego interns were 3 to a room, regular engineers were 2 per room, and I guess at some point it became 1 per room.

Kind of useless for me though, because I spent almost 90% of my time in a lab (and a large portion of engineers spend most of their time in a lab). The lab is a large noisy room. with people next to each other. It was a good deal though; if I had stayed past my internship and gotten comfortable enough to write a lot of code before wanting to test it, I could've spent more time in my office.

dsfyu404ed• 9 years ago

If your work is classified you almost certainly get an office.

caboteria• 9 years ago

The last place I worked where I got a private office (and probably the last place I ever will) was the MITRE Corporation in Bedford, MA, a federally-funded R&D corporation. Level AC-5 and above got solo offices, AC-4's had to share.

neofrommatrix• 9 years ago

Oracle does provide private offices in their Santa Clara location. This has mostly to do with this being the old Sun Microsystems buildings. It might have changed now, though after rapid expansion of their public cloud engineering group.

sizzzzlerz• 9 years ago

My 600-person company, a wholly-owned part of a much, much larger national multi-billion dollar company has single or double private offices, with doors, for the entire staff, new hires, IT, admin, everyone, at our headquarters in SV as well as our smaller, satellite offices. AFAIK, there is no plan to change this. If, however, our current lease isn't renewed and the company moves, all bets are off. I've heard rumors that our parent company isn't happy with the "wasted" space. We'll see.

bdavisx3• 9 years ago

You might want to "name and not-shame" them, some people want to know because they want to work for companies like this.

kondro• 9 years ago

And how is revealing where you work and that they have offices privileged enough that you aren't prepared to name them?

rdiddly2• 9 years ago

I grudgingly concede that "my 600-person company" is a valid answer to the question. But never mind that -- How are YOU doing? Everything going well? What's new?

I am, as they say back East, breaking your balls a little. (-‿)

orange_bear6• 9 years ago

Apple placed me in an experimental building where they were changing the interior design constantly, trying to decide how to design their new "space ship" building. The whole time, I fumed at no longer having an office and having to work in an open office design. I could not focus due to audio and visual interruptions while I worked (programmer) in the open office spaces. But no one ever asked me for my opinion about the experimental open office environments!

Now this: https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/08/08/apple-pa... "Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan at new $5 billion HQ"

Glad I wasn't the only coder there who utterly despised the move to the open office design.

pawadu• 9 years ago

So what do the designers think of the new office?

I once was at a place were designers always had the last word (maybe because CEO was an architect), hence their new offices looked like a much cheaper version of Starbucks. With fewer couches and the few walls that made it were all made of glass.

The company is no longer around. These days just nearby their old offices brings back horrible memories.

puranjay• 9 years ago

Designing seems like a collaborative thing. I'm a writer and nothing peeves me more than open offices.

Some tasks require isolation. Writing is one of them. I reckon programming is similar.

rwoodley• 9 years ago

I've worked for financial firms for 31 years. Almost all of that time, I've been a programmer on a trading desk sitting right next to traders. There is constant noise and shouting. I can tune out a lot. EXCEPT: TV noise, and idle chit chat like you'd have down at the pub. As long as people are focused on work, I can tune it whatever they say. Strange.

s1gs3gv• 9 years ago

I think choice is important. Some people prefer one, some the other. The best working environment I've experienced in my life as a software developer was at Bell Labs in the 80s, where small private offices was the norm.

On the other hand, its good to have open working areas available when they are appropriate. In Bell Labs, we'd often congregate near the railings overlooking the Holmdel atrium while our build finished or downstairs in the large open seating areas.

MrBuddyCasino• 9 years ago

This. Just let people choose for themselves. We have a regular open office room, a special "quiet zone" open office room, and several smaller rooms to retreat to if you want even more privacy.

There are people in all three areas, usually the same ones. There is no one size that fits all. Just let people choose.

TallGuyShort3• 9 years ago

Microsoft comes to mind? I've only been in a couple of buildings in the Seattle campus, but it was the typical open-air shared desks that you see in many other software companies recently. Are they known for using desks otherwise?

orange_bear6• 9 years ago

Thanks for the info! At my last workplace (Apple), the department had brought in a ton of H1B visa workers from body shops and I'm skeptical about if it was legal. They were all crammed elbow-to-elbow in bullpen cubicles. As a contractor at the time, I sat on a bench in the hallway because there were no free bullpen cubes!! The bathroom urinals always had pools of urine beneath them, due (in part) to excessive use. The toilet seats were always urinated on. Oh, good times.

colanderman3• 9 years ago

The toilet seats were always urinated on.

I don't get this; this happened at my workplace too, until we installed a coded lock on the restroom (which was otherwise accessible to anyone in the building). What kind of boor has a professional job but can't piss in a foot-diameter hole and is too lazy to clean up when he does so?

orange_bear6• 9 years ago

Hate to say it, but I caught a guy one day after he completely ruined the toilet seat and it was an Indian H1B contractor. No I didn't go chase him down at that point.

Please don't ban my account, that's true and anecdotal - 75%+ of my coworkers in that department were Indian so maybe it was just the odds.

dang2• 9 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14980846 and marked it off-topic.

meddlepal• 9 years ago

PTC in Needham, MA does if you're on the ProE/Creo team

holbue• 9 years ago

Who else read "... gives programers coffees"? :-D

PS: Seriously, free coffee is more important to me than an office. I like open working environments.

Bahamut• 9 years ago

I have my own office at Apple here in Cupertino (just a software engineer)...I'm glad that almost all our teams are moving to Infinite Loop as opposed to the new campus :) . Most of our offices hold two people though (still better than open offices!).

orange_bear6• 9 years ago

I remember the IL buildings having almost exclusively single-occupant offices and cubicles throughout the 2000's. In the last few years you can't even find a parking spot out there. Maybe things will be better for you with people shuffled to the new hell building.

pixelmonkey2• 9 years ago

My team at Parse.ly is fully remote/distributed -- and one of the motivating reasons I formed the team that way was to reproduce the feel of Fog Creek's "bionic office", but in each engineer's home office space.

I discussed this a little in my "Notes on Distributed Teams" presentation here:

http://pixelmonkey.org/pub/distributed-teams/notes/#open-pla...

Here's how my personal home office looks:

https://flic.kr/p/v1NZ73

(Shameless plug, here are the positions we're hiring for, if you're interested! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14902227)

taheca2• 9 years ago

Just out of curiosity, why do you have two webcams?

pixelmonkey2• 9 years ago

Oh, simple explanation -- I have two computers. I have an always-on Mac Mini these days, and then a docking station for a Lenovo X1C. One webcam on each. (Since we have a remote team, I sometimes sit in on meetings [listening only] while doing work on my laptop, and for convenience and to save CPU, I do it from a second machine.)

phaed• 9 years ago

As long were showing off remote workspaces, heres mine. Herman Miller Aeron + 50" 4k Samsung. https://www.instagram.com/p/BVGgCYMFhF_

starbuxman• 9 years ago

Wouldn't it be more appealing for companies to allow their employees to work remotely?

bsimpson• 9 years ago

At Google, it depends on which building you're in. I sit in an office with 3 other people. My manager sits in an open pod in the hallway.

DarkContinent• 9 years ago

Epic in Madison, WI, gives all employees their own offices. (I can't find a source but I've been on a tour.)

nhumrich3• 9 years ago

I can validate this claim. I interviewed with them.

tuna-piano• 9 years ago

The (only?) female-founded, tech unicorn you've never heard of. For some reason, Epic, and it's enormous success, doesn't get much coverage.

hnal943• 9 years ago

Well it's private, so it's harder to get information about. The tech is ancient, and it's not on the coast.

Not sure what the coverage would be about, really.

azdle• 9 years ago

Not sure more coverage would be good for them. I graduated from the U of MN so I was well aware of them, they were always recruiting. They had a reputation for only hiring fresh grads, enticed by 'perks', and then working them as hard as possible until they quit. They probably see it as in their best interest to not be talked about too much.

tibbon• 9 years ago

At least give me my own 64sqft cube, and then have some decent lighting. I'd far rather live in a cubefarm than be rubbing elbows with the person beside me. It's not perfect, but having some degree of "my space" is really essential.

Oddly, I had my own office when I was working in IT at 17, but now it's harder to find.

nhumrich3• 9 years ago

The book peopleware argues for the middle ground. Shared offices. Rooms with a door, with 3-4 people. You have quick collaboration, but also are closed off from unrelated distraction.

mindcrime4• 9 years ago

When the day comes that Fogbeam Labs has an actual office, and employees, I absolutely intend to make sure that everybody has a private office with a door. Unfortunately, I can't say when that will be.

Balgair• 9 years ago

Most DoD and DoE jobs/contractors have personal offices. In fact, I've never seen one that doesn't at least have a cube-farm and most just have a personal office and then meeting rooms and then lab-space, depending on the job. Cubes are terrible in their own right, but it's better than an open office by a lot. At least you have somewhere to put pictures of your kids up at eye level.

ryanSrich• 9 years ago

Work for companies that support remote work. You'll always have a private office.

bostik• 9 years ago

We have team offices at Smarkets.

carapace• 9 years ago

I'm literally about to go talk to recruiters and I'm going to try it: I'll take $20,000 off of my pay if co will provide an office with a door I can close.

I'll report back what they say.

I just recently was working in an open office and the difference between daytime and evening (after everyone else left) was dramatic.

rajeshp19862• 9 years ago

I don't think any decent size company could afford to do that in Bay Area. The real estate prices are too high to give personal offices to everyone and that's why open office plans are adopted.

coderjames• 9 years ago

Universal Avionics provides their Engineers private offices. It was important to the founder of the company, so when a new building was constructed it was specifically arranged to provide as many offices as possible, even if some are internal (no outside window).

gwbas1c• 9 years ago

Honestly, I'm less concerned about an "office." A cube with high walls is more similar to an "office" than an open layout where everyone shares a table.

What's more important is company culture. Does your company expect you to accept interruptions at any time for any reason, no matter how trivial? Is your manager willing to run interference when suddenly every new employee in every department shows up expecting that you'll handhold them?

You can have an office with a bad company culture; you'll find that your office door is always full of lurkers, or you'll find that you can't walk between your office and the bathroom without getting mobbed with "urgent" requests that need your attention immediately.

What's more important is to ensure that management avoids distractions, that newcomers in other departments are trained, and that processes are established and followed when needed. Handholding should not be required from any engineers; instead mentoring and process refinement goes a lot further than a door that you can close.

matheweis• 9 years ago

I shared a two person office at the university that I worked at before my current job. If that sounds like a good deal in exchange for 50% of the industry salary, I believe they're hiring... :)

rurban• 9 years ago

Cpanel, Houston Texas

jps359• 9 years ago

ibm

programmarchy• 9 years ago

I worked for a successful medium sized business called SpeakWrite early in my career that specialized in voice transcription for the legal industry. The company was founded by a former lawyer, and the office culture was very traditional. The software team was treated with respect, paid well, and everyone had their own office. It was great! Having worked in tech/startup culture since then, I much prefer the traditional office culture. Now I work remotely as a consultant and have my own office, but miss working on a closely knit team.

rdiddly2• 9 years ago

Intel still has the old-school high-walled cubicles in some places. But gradually, floor by floor, building by building, they've been renovating, and you know what that means! More openness. To their credit the new motif is 1) more aesthetically pleasing, and 2) not TOTALLY open.

In other words, not this fuckin' nightmare... http://workdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Open-plan-o... ...but more like a range going from this... https://media.glassdoor.com/l/ce/49/d7/6c/intel-office.jpg ...to this... http://media.glassdoor.com/m/2d/0e/af/40/desk-with-a-view.jp... ...and even this... https://media.glassdoor.com/l/17/25/41/7c/intel-office.jpg

rspeer• 9 years ago

Luminoso, a natural language processing company in Cambridge, MA.

potus_putin• 9 years ago

Programmers dont have individual offices ? How can you think with others distracting you ?

Ask HN: Which companies give programmers offices?

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