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Comment by nickff | Hacker News Reader

>"If I were running a software company, I'd calculate all these savings and pass it on to my employees and retain talent.

I guess the only people who don't like remote is middle management, their career depends on dumb meetings and other such meaningless things. At home, at least we can mute ourselves and do something useful. "

This is the height of foolishness; to dismiss all those experienced managers out of hand. If someone far more experienced than you has taken a position, you should try to understand why a smart person could think that way, before calling them 'dumb'.

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Experience doesn't necessarily equal to wisdom or smartness. I have been working remote for the last 5 years, after working in offices for a decade. Guess what advantage the office gave me? Nothing. Everything good I did in office I do at home, just more efficiently.

Also, you're assuming those "experienced" managers are taking a position that is beneficial to everyone. At least in my experience, this is not often true. They're doing what they need to do, to further their own careers (not faulting them, just pointing it out).

I didn't call the managers dumb, I called their meetings dumb. One can be super smart and still force dumb meetings, if that helps his/her career.

In person vs. remote has many trade-offs, and different situations entail different costs & benefits. 'Software' is a big industry, with a wide variety of specific situations. I imagine that in general, remote work is likely better for big teams working on relatively 'high-certainty' projects where they have a high degree of domain-relevant expertise. In-person work seems better for more uncertain projects and smaller teams which can benefit from greater communication, and integrated problem-solving.

I'd be interested to learn more about what types of projects you've worked on.

Compared to, say, calling something the height of foolishness and not knowing the source's experience?

I've had some great middle managers, but I've had far more (and even some of the good ones) that the company's and my own productivity wouldn't have suffered if that entire layer in the organization had never existed.

Spotted the manager /s

Indeed, the epitome of Chesterton's fence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_...

Interesting that you think managers have far more experience than ICs

On average, sure. There's not really such a thing as an entry level engineering manager.

But in FAANG the majority of managers manage at least one SWE with more experience than them.

They're not dumb, but their interests are misaligned with yours.

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