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Not only does it depend on your personal preferences, but also to a huge degree on life circumstances. I worked from home for a fully-remote startup for two years and loved it. My wife was working long hours downtown at the time, and I had the apartment to myself, with a nice setup and the space I needed to be productive. At the end of those two years we had a baby, and after both taking a few months off to enjoy time with the family the agreement was that I would start working (from home) again and my wife would also stay home and take care of the kid. We even moved to a bigger place so there would be room for everybody.

Unfortunately, it didn't work at all. Even though the nominal agreement was that during "work hours" I wasn't to be disturbed so I could be productive, and my wife agreed that was necessary and ok, in practice little things inevitably came up each day that broke flow and made it nearly impossible to get anything important done. I ended up switching jobs after a few months to a BigCo with an office in large part to regain that separation between work and personal life, to the benefit of both.

I'd still like to work from home, but I'm not sure that it's possible with my current life situation.

same here, it's just not possible with small child at home even if you are not supposed to take care of it during work hours

I disagree. I have three kids, five and under, who are often at home while I'm also working from home. The key is credible boundaries. I actually have my workspace in the walk-in closet attached to the master bath. I lock the door, still have access to the facilities and water, and I'm good to do for as long as I want, and until I decide to emerge. My wife and kids know I don't respond to anything short of apocalypse and leave me alone. I think the setup is crucial, as is being clear about your boundaries and sticking to them with great discipline. It can be done. I do it two days a week, and those two days are way more productive than the three in the office.

I've been working from home for the last 3 years. I much prefer this to sitting in traffic, even if it's just 30 minutes a day.

I wouldn't recommend this for junior devs though. You need to be around experienced people to fast track your learning.

But if the experienced people are all working from home?

I've mentored new ( already seasoned ) hires remotely. It worked well. Skype calls, instant messaging, screen sharing, code reviews, and a genuine interest in helping were the key. I don't see any reason this wouldn't apply to mentoring less seasoned teammates, unless they do not enjoy working remotely.

I'm not so sure: if you have a well designed workflow, there should be lots of opportunities for mentoring.

Relatedly, I would design a 100% colocated team around basically the same workflow as a 100% distributed team.

I've seen people gain skills while working remote with a fully remote team. If the company culture encourages the employees to be social and talkative, you can learn as a junior dev working remotely.

Offices may still hold the upper hand here, a lot of people have mental barriers about messaging coworkers vs casually wandering by their office.

It's possible however that some juniors may take longer to reach their full potential, or perhaps never reach it at all in a remote environment. Also juniors may not have the self-introspection to perceive that the environment is not working out for them, and rather feel discouraged about their ability.

My experience tells me the opposite. Approaching a senior level guy in person can be intimidating when you're just starting out. Sending that same senior engineer a chat message on whatever what message system the company uses is considerably less nerve wracking. Also, if you don't get any response back from the people you're reaching out to, that's a culture issue not a proximity issue. Those guys would probably still blow you off if you were in the same office.

I'm a junior developer work at a BigCo in NYC. I don't feel like I am fast-tracking my learning by being in the office. I don't have a mentor or anyone in my office that I can learn about enterprise app dev from. There is a dev in a different office that I ping occasionally with questions, but I really do not think that I need to be in my office 5 days a week. I wonder if my situation is the rule or the exception, and if I am getting shafted by not having a professional mentor...

Eventually you would meet people and discuss technical stuff and unofficial mentor/mentee relationships may develop. Most places won't have an assigned mentor. Your boss (if he/she is technical) may become a mentor but it doesn't always happen.

Coffee/Break room chats and other social gatherings would help in building rapport with other devs and eventually you would be learning from each other. Unless the place you work is extremely toxic, I would say just give it time. My 2c.

You need to take advantage of the proximity and network! Preferably upwards. Befriending the QA guy may make your life easier now, but he's not going to be the one who can offer you a job in 5 years time.

I 100% agree: people are different and have a continuum of preferences. However, a frequently brought up point is that remote really only works well if the organization is "remote first", which excludes people who prefer to work in the office the majority of the time. The other way around seems to marginalize people who prefer working from home always/frequently. This bifurcates the talent pool, with the ensuing negative consequences. How do we reconcile this?

I agree with the intent of your post, but want to point out that most people use the term "remote first" to mean that even those who are colocated work in such a way that is compatible with those who are distributed. Therefore, teams can consist of people who want to work together in an office along with team members who are distributed if the entire team embraces a "remote first" approach.

Pulling off that balance is extremely hard to implement in practice though. Usually it swings heavily one direction or the other, so one group is marginalized.

I completely agree. I'll add that pulling off any good coordinated human activity is pretty hard in general.

Well put. People like to generalize but there really aren't general truths. I can and do mostly work remote these days but I do have an office I can, do, and derive value from coming into semi-regularly. I also travel a lot so I'm only really sitting at home about half the time.

That said, I've done a lot more collaborative work at other times and definitely got more benefit from working mostly in an office. Also, although I know times and communication mechanisms have changed, I really have trouble imagining that I'd have either enjoyed or done well with working from home when I first graduated.

This.

There is no template that fits all.

I have almost the same situation, 1,5h (one way) train + bicycle or buss trip to work. However my employer gives me the choice to work remote from home as much as I like.

I usually go to the office one or two times a week, and this is perfect for me right now, It might change in the future, who knows?

My strong believe in this subject is that you, as an employee, will more likely stay happy and perform better in your work if your employer gives you the flexibility of working remote.

I have a similar commute, though mine is only 75 minutes (when Penn isn't a cluster). Unfortunately, I have little WFH flexibility right now. I would love an arrangement like yours.

I have the same commute and have settled on a similar approach. The balance has helped me tremendously as I know I can have 2, or 3, days a week of not hustling out the door and home.