
Ask HN: What are some Bay Area startups that don't use an open office plan? - magsafe
Are there any that use cubicles or more private work spaces?
======
deeviant
I really feel that the open office environment really only makes sense for
junior programmers. For them, it's great to have a pool of
knowledge(experienced programmers) around all the time to push them along,
bounce ideas off of, and in general, act as mentors.

I think when you really start getting to the point where you know what needs
to get done, and approximately the right way to go about it, open office loses
it's luster very quickly.

~~~
parsnips
So where do these experienced programmers sit?

~~~
gravity13
In red Victorian chairs with tall oversized backrests.

~~~
neilellis
Stroking their neckbeard :-)

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pbiggar
CircleCI is based in SF (2nd & Market), and we all have private offices. We
really feel strongly about this, especially after spending time in open plan
offices in the last few years.

Here's what we wrote when we were looking: [http://blog.circleci.com/silence-
is-for-the-weak/](http://blog.circleci.com/silence-is-for-the-weak/)

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Bud
I work as an IT consultant at several small tech companies and startups in SF.
Small sample of data, but here it is:

\- 2 use cubicles (with a small number of offices, used by execs or for
meetings or a mix of the two)

\- 1 uses sort-of-cubicles which are mostly open and have low glass partitions
(most would probably count this as an open plan)

\- 2 use an open plan

As an aside, Apple customizes workspaces on a team-by-team basis depending on
the needs and requests of the team.

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11001
A somewhat related question: I'm about to start a job at a company with "open
office" structure, after having my own office for the last 4 years. Anything I
should be prepared for?

EDIT: Any headphones suggestions?

~~~
colinloretz
Check out the various levels of headphones on The Wirecutter.
[http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/headphones/](http://thewirecutter.com/leaderboard/headphones/)

I use the Sony MDR-7506 which are rated as the best $150 Over Ear Headphones
(actually $90ish on Amazon) and they are very popular with audio pros. Not
noise canceling but they are comfortable enough for wearing all day and if
you're listening to something, you don't have sound leaking in or out.

~~~
icpmacdo
I have them also, you might want to look to get some replacement ear pads

[http://www.amazon.com/Beyerdynamic-Velour-Earcushions-
MDR750...](http://www.amazon.com/Beyerdynamic-Velour-Earcushions-
MDR7506-Headphones/dp/B0016MF7W2?&tag=rnwap-20)

~~~
acomjean
I have the twin headphone Sony-MDRV6. They are awesome, but suffer from the
same earpad issue. I've had them for 10 years now (yikes).

The earpads will go and start flaking (for me after 5 years). They are easy to
replace though.

~~~
alabut
Yeah, the MDRV6 with Beyerdynamic Velour earcushions are my secret sauce for
getting in the zone. The stock pleather earpads will give you "hot ears" that
make long shifts uncomfortable.

If you keep going down the audiophile rabbit hole like I did, next up is a DAC
or a tube amp. A good starter cheap one (sub $100) is the Qinpu:

[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TGDB9Q/](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001TGDB9Q/)

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dmix
One of the biggest reasons I dont stay long at any startup I work for and go
back to freelancing is because I hate open offices.

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hnriot
What I find is that the people that work for me are much more distracted by FB
and the plethora of other web distractions than other developers.

~~~
bentlegen
^This. Note that we're all commenting on HN right now complaining about how
open offices destroy our productivity.

~~~
preinheimer
_I_ get to choose when I go to HN. I just closed a bug I'd spent the better
part of the week on, I'm fine with relaxing.

In an open office I lacked the ability to choose interruptions. I still
remember Dipesh coming over, slamming his hands down on my shoulders, to ask
"what's up buddy". You could hear the stack falling out of my brain. He just
wanted to chat.

~~~
bentlegen
Maybe you should talk to Dipesh.

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avalaunch
71 comments so far and only 2 people actually answered the question and they
both said the same company: Circle CI.

Personally I'm more interested in the answer to the question posed than a
debate on the merits of an open office plan vs closed so if anyone else knows
of any other startups that don't use an open office plan I would love to know.
I imagine others clicking into this conversation are probably interested too.

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SneezyRobot
TLDR: The benefit is to the team, not the individual. When executing open
concept, ensure communication is relevant to the team by not including
unrelated teams in the same space. We have had private and open offices; we're
much happier with the results of open offices.

Overview:

First, we believe the benefit of the open office space is derived at the
organization/team level by an increase in communication and ambient awareness.
The mental load of this awareness and communication negatively affects the
productivity of individuals but results a net benefit to the whole. This is
why many individuals working in an open space will have their complaints, but
project managers/product owners will often sing the open concept's praises.
I'm in the latter group but I work in our open office as well.

In Practice:

Here in our office, we've done it both ways. We're located in Texas and space
is plentiful, we've got enough private offices to go around and we did it that
way for quite some time. After years of struggling through project overrun,
bugs, and misallocated resources we decided to try an open concept.

Doing it Wrong:

The difference in team productivity couldn't be more apparent, at first it was
much worse... we combined QA, Engineering, and Customer Service in one open
concept office. Everyone was unhappy; Customer Service was constantly talking
and distracting others with their one-sided phone calls, QA was very
collaborative and yet had to talk over Customer Service, and the poor
engineering team was just annoyed by both and resorted to headphones and
instant messaging each other.

Doing it Right (the second time):

We realized that the biggest benefit in better communication is to the teams
of people who are directly working on building our new products and features
and anything else in the room just distracts from those goals.

After reorganizing our teams we moved QA and Customer Service out of the room,
and instead filled it with more engineering teams and added our design and
product teams as well. By including the right teams in the open space, the
ambient noise level is much lower, when conversations do occur they're often
directly relevant to all other teams in the room. Overall everyone is much
happier in the open space even though some miss the privacy of their own
offices.

To address the needs of those who occasionally need to work in a quiet place,
we've turned a few of our private offices into "break out rooms" where anyone
can go work as they wish. They're a great place to take phone calls and
they're communal and provide limited amenities so nobody is occupying them
constantly and removing themselves from their core team.

Months Later / Conclusions:

Today, we have one large open office which includes web engineers, iOS
engineers, Android engineers, OSX/Windows engineers, UX designers, quality
assurance, and product managers. We have breakout rooms for private work and
all other staff is in private offices just outside the open space.

After our second try at an open office we can confidently say that we made the
right decision. We've launched two major products in one quarter of the time
it took to previously launch one. We've launched numerous bug fixes, updates,
and features. And most importantly, our metrics not only show the real world
results of that work, but everyone on the team is aware of them in their
everyday workflow. The pace of development is not only faster, but we're
making better engineering and design decisions. And, as an added benefit, our
sense of team solidarity and moral is way up as well. People (who previously
had private offices) still occasionally complain about being distracted, and
sometimes they choose to work in a breakout room, but overall everyone has
adjusted now and feels like we're kicking butt.

Of course, I'm simplifying months of thoughts and work down as much as I can
here, and there's a lot more in the details of executing a good open office.
I'm happy to expand on anything if this is at all helpful to anyone.

~~~
sheepmullet
Thanks for the insights! I've just got a couple of questions:

1\. What's the ratio of junior to senior level developers?

2\. When you were in private offices did the company set aside work time each
day to socialise with your coworkers (e.g. Board games for an hour each day)?

3\. How many of the developers use headphones during the day?

~~~
SneezyRobot
No problem :) 1\. Our ratio is about 1 senior developer to 2 juniors, although
as far as organization structure we're fairly flat and in some teams it's more
1 to 1. Average team size is about 3 engineers. 2\. Yes, every Wednesday was
game day and we'd alternate through a number of card and board games. Now this
happens more organically, people are setting up their own games and times. We
(of course) have ping pong and pool tables as well. 3\. We have about 16
people in our open space and at any time one or two have headphones on (max).
The way we have the room laid out seems to cut down on ambient chatter.

If you're interested: We have 4 pods of 4, plus conference and lounge
separating the room into 2 sets of 2. Each desk in a pod has roughly about 49
square feet of space, all desks are L shaped (ikea galant with extensions),
facing out towards the corners. We have half-height cubicle-style walls
between pods, otherwise no walls between desks (other than dual 27-30in
displays). It seems to be just the right amount of privacy/openness/sound
dampening. We're currently building out another identical one of these open
offices in our extra warehouse (did I mention space in Texas is cheap?) to
house a few more engineers who are still in private offices and in
anticipation of hiring.

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jipiboily
Circle CI now have offices for everyone AFAIK.

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lfuller
A bit off topic, but does anyone here prefer / not mind open office plans?

As someone who prefers open office plans to private offices / cubicles, I've
always wondered if the large number of anti-open-plan articles are because
that opinion is the majority, or because it is the loud minority.

~~~
malyk
I don't mind it. I think it helps me do my job.

This is the first job I've worked that the company had a sales team. One of my
jobs is developing solutions for the sales team. Being able to overhear their
interactions with customers is invaluable to understanding the types of
technology solutions they need.

That being said, right now our two engineers sit in the middle of sales guy
crossfire. 3 sales guys in front of me, 2 behind me, all talking in my
direction. That's not ideal, and we're going to change that soon.

It's also helpful if you consider a programmer at a startup to be more than a
programmer. Sure, I don't sit and code for 8 hours a day, but I'm also a
product guy, marketing guy, growth guy, business dev idea guy, etc. That's
what I love about startups. Sure, I get to work on cool coding work, but I
also get to contribute and shape almost all the other things that I do, and I
can do that better by being exposed to all sides of the business in the open
plan.

Now, as we grow we plan on separating off engineering teams so they can focus,
but at an early stage startup being in the heart of everything is invaluable.

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alimoeeny
I think if you keep different "functions" (engineering, sales, ...) separate,
then each can have their own open office without losing productivity. Don't
you think so?

~~~
wicker
I'm not convinced. I'm in an engineering area but if it's open plan then I'd
still be able to see people, hear their (arguably more interesting than sales)
conversations, and constantly have to split attention between monitoring the
area around me and focusing on whatever problem I'm solving.

An engineer coming into my cube to chat a few minutes ago is what distracted
me and now I'm frustrated and browsing HN. It's bad enough in high-walled
cubicles; I don't know that I could maintain deep focus for meaningful amounts
of time in an open plan.

I put a door on my cubicle recently and being able to mentally expand to fill
my space while free from worrying about anybody else has done wonders for my
productivity.

~~~
owenmarshall
I seriously do not know how people still manage to work like that.

One of my _requirements_ is a private office. I will not do cubicles, I sure
as hell will not do open plans. Office. Period.

I've turned down a few decent offers because of this, and I'm sure I'll turn
down more in the future as well.

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gesman
Open space + Bose Quiet Comfort 15 active noise cancelling earphones makes
this concept a bit more tolerable :)

