Out Of Scope - #3
Return to Office?
Welcome back to Out Of Scope!
I’m running a marathon in May and because of travel and sicknesses I now only have about a month to train. Today I accelerated the training and ran a half and I’m currently writing this newsletter curled up on the couch after popping Ibuprofen. :)
In the past week or two, we also heard about our company raises and I’ve shared my salary update in a video here.
The RTO Debate
I’ve been asked a lot recently about my thoughts on returning to the office. This is clearly a VERY heated debate because there’s a lot at stake! When I’ve mentioned a few concerns I have about 100% remote work, I’ve also been accused of being a propagandist. So just to be clear - no corporate propaganda here. Just my personal thoughts.
When I think back to my experiences of a new grad, I can’t help but think about how different (and I mean worse) my experience would have been working remote. I was timid with a heavy dose of imposter syndrome and having some teammates, peers, and a manager nearby was definitely good for me. I did work with some remote teammates, and I was mostly intimidated by them until we finally met in person (at an All Hands). I posted some of those concerns for new grads on TikTok and some of them chimed in.
“Junior(ish) engineer here. Started a new job a year ago and it’s been ROUGH. It was much easier at my last job starting in person”
“As a jr developer I noticed that I was learning dramatically more when I returned to the office because small questions didn’t feel like huge bothers when I could visually see if someone was busy”
In 2021 I started a new job remotely and while I definitely don’t think I’m timid anymore, it has still taken a while to get to know all my coworkers remotely (and I still haven’t met some of them!).
That being said, I still land squarely on the “I don’t want to be forced back to the office” side of the debate. Personally, I’d like to go 1-2 days a week but only if my teammates are in and my commute stays reasonable. I think we should be expanding remote-friendly roles, downsizing office space, and allowing people to live where they want, including junior engineers.
There’s just so many negatives to forcing people back to the office. Commuting is terrible for the environment and cuts into our personal time. There’s a housing crisis that makes it extremely expensive to live close to the office and cut down your commute. Offices and rigid schedules have never been very inclusive to those with disabilities, chronic illnesses, or parents of small children. COVID is still around and forcing people back to the office when they may be immunocompromised or have immunocompromised family is cruel.
It’s really a Catch-22 where offices are really only useful if people are there, especially people you work with, but I think it should be up to individuals and teams if or when they will be at the office. And maybe that’s only a few times a year at work weeks. For those new grads or new teammates on remote teams, we need to be more intentional about including them, checking in, and working with them. Teams who haven’t historically done pair programming or virtual social events need to put in that effort to socialize and help onboard.
As we move towards a remote world, hopefully we will all find balance and flexibility from our employers and once we adjust our working practices, are also better teams because of it!
Have you all changed any of your team processes while remote?
ICMYI
Drumroll please… 🥁 The award for most over the top async interview process goes to… Canonical! Who makes candidates write a memoir (yes high school experiences too!) before actually… interviewing.
I just find it fascinating that multiple people I’m sure helped create these questions and no one questioned whether this was a bad idea.
Continuing on the thread about bad interviews (always a common theme in tech!), Laurie shared his own experiences failing an interview because of “culture fit” - the culture being “in the cult of Agile”.
Lastly, I want to talk briefly about hubris. Engineers definitely have a tendency to think we are very smart and know much more than other people. It’s hard to sit at home seeing the world’s problems and not being able to help, so some may decide to use some of our technology skills to try to fix all the problems. Technology can fix problems, but it definitely can’t fix ALL problems. Best case we’re not really helping. Worst case we’re actively hurting when we don’t have all the facts, don’t consider abuse mechanisms, or take attention away from important work.
Just two examples this week of I’m sure well-intentioned developers inserting themselves into world problems without really thinking about all the risks or abuse mechanisms of their actions.
Firstly, the authors of a popular open source library inserted malware into their latest update for Belorussian or Russian IP addresses.
Unfortunately, in just one example of the harm this caused, someone who self-identified to be from an American NGO filed a ticket that they lost 30,000 files documenting war crimes. Whether this is true or not, we can see from this example how maybe this was not well thought through.
Secondly, 18-year-old Harvard students created a website for finding refugee housing. Sounds harmless enough? Maybe not. There is no identity or host verification and no safety checks against abuse. Potentially causing a lot of harm to vulnerable refugees.
I appreciate the drive to want to do something to help, but we have to also consider the harm we could do.
Stay safe and healthy folks, see you next week. ✌️
Our team at NetGalley has always been remote, and I am of the same opinion (of which I hold very highly). Frequent connection with junior engineers, and even senior engineers especially during onboarding and early months, is an absolute must for their success. And it's not just the individual contributor (IC) / manager relationship; peer 1:1's are just as important, can be scheduled just the same, and accomplish things not possible in the report / manager scope.