Hacker News Reader

Comment by manyxcxi | Hacker News Reader

Like all big companies your experience depends more on your group than the company as a whole. I've got a number of friends at MSFT in various tech roles, some have their own office as a developer, some are in a cube or open floor environment.

My personal experience, having worked on a few skunkworks projects over there with a couple of different teams was that there were two people to an office that was probably originally designed for one. It was a bit cozy in there for my liking but it wasn't cramped, it was quiet, and a couple of people could stand in various parts of common areas and have an actual 'stand up' collaboration. It actually seemed very collegiate. I recognize the fact that since it was an R&D group they probably had better accommodations for this type of stuff, and that they were in an 'old' building that had these personal offices probably helped too.

View on HN

Note that the post you're replying to uses the past tense. The vast majority of my tenure at MSFT was in a private office, but that was over ten years ago. It is my understanding that things have changed since.

As of 6 months ago when I was still there we had an office per two engineers. They were changing in other parts of the org to open plan as buildings were being updated. Which is a sad reversal.

Exactly. This was a key part of company culture throughout the 80s and 90s and at the time it was viewed as a signficant productivity win. ('Peopleware' discusses it, IIRC). By the 2000s, with space crunches, they got away from it as a general policy.

They've gotten rid off the office per developer thing now. So not surprised.

A large part is probably demographics of developers is now changing.

It's not entirely gone but it's dying. I'm still in a private office. Lots of devs on my team are doubled up, though. Many teams have already moved to open spaces.

Demographics are a factor. Lots of devs, especially younger devs, and especially devs who've worked at other younger companies are asking for open floor plans. Not all of them, but a sizable chunk. That plus reduced cost for providing office space to devs is pushing the company in the direction of open office spaces. I haven't seen a building get significantly renovated and not end up with open spaces.

My building is currently undergoing a renovation and we still have private offices.

To support your point: a number of people have voluntarily taken over a former conference room to turn it into an open space office.

Personally I have worked in both and don't find one better or worse than the other. I actually value sunlight, direct or indirect, more than the layout.

Amen to sunlight! Why is that such a hard thing for companies to understand?

I think companies should try and support both modes of working. Open Plan offices are okay for some people but completely unacceptable for other people.

Neruodiversity is a real thing that we should be thinking about.

There's been plenty of renovations without removing private offices, but it's mainly paint and carpeting with redone common spaces (kitchen, copy/mail rooms and bathrooms). See 8/9/10/26/27/28 which all were done fairly recently.

It doesn't make sense to gut the interior just to make a slightly different private office configuration, so it probably isn't considered a "significant" renovation.

They are asking for open floor plans? Is there anything young people won't ruin?

I'm skeptical of the claim and suspect it might be (yet another) case of an older developer blaming young people for things.

None of my friends (all in their 20s) prefer open offices.

Meanwhile you've got widowlark (who graduated in the past couple of years based on some brief online stalking) acting shocked that anyone would want a private office.

I'm also not sure how old you think I am. I'm 34, not 74.

Be careful of all the stereotyping though.

I'm 23, have heard of Extreme Programming, and absolutely want my own private office (and, failing that, a silent shared work space).

Sure. I don't think all younger programmers want open spaces just as I don't think all older programmers want private offices. I have interviewed quite a few younger devs, though, who asked about the office situation and expressed either no preference or a preference for open spaces. I feel like I've seen this less with older candidates. This is clearly anecdotal though.

I prefer open spaces. Mostly due to sunlight and the social interaction. It feels more collaborative.

Although I should say our whole team works 1-2 days from home. Different people, different days and we're very okay with that.

We also like to leave developers who have headphones alone and only talk to them over skype/slack.

Open floor plan is great way to have life-life balance and not do any meaningful work.

Do you seriously feel like you need your own office? We live in the 21st century for god's sake. Rather than a private office, I want to work from home most of the time.

That we live in the 21st century is why I want my own office: because it's chaotic and hectic and a place to concentrate is important.

As a consultant, that office does happen to be in my home. But I wouldn't return to a FT gig without having a place where I can go, separating from "home", to work in productive quiet.

I don't need my own office, but I'd sure love to have one.

Yes, they keep requesting open floor plans and talking about this book Extreme Programming which apparently advocates for it...

I don't think most younger devs know or care about Extreme Programming. That book was published 17 years ago.

Yes, I was trying to go for sarcasm since open office plans have been advocated for by programmers for at least 17 years.

Sorry, I missed that.

Try switching "young" to "old", and see how that sentence sounds.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com