Fair warning: my experience has been very different than yours or tombert's in most respects and some things have changed over time (some OSS contributions are now much easier, a very recent change). It is also the first company I've worked for that backed up appreciation for my efforts with compensation to match, and where my management chain cared about burnout and mental health with actions rather than empty words.
It is still primarily an on-site company. That might mean on-site an an office in San Diego, Austin, Philadelphia, NYC, etc. But in-office nonetheless.
Every team does things differently, even down to the department or individual manager level. Compared to the other FAANGs it is far more varied in most respects. Just because someone didn't like (or loves) their role doesn't mean you will feel the same way about it. If possible I recommend talking to people who work in the department you are interested in.
At some point I would like people to quit vilifying a completely legitimate business setup because it doesn't fit their world view.
I want to be in the office, and I prefer it when my coworkers are there too. I respect that not everyone feels the same - but I do think it is up to the employer to decide. So I will be picking companies that suit my preferences.
But there is legitimate reason to villify. I can't speak for Apple specifically, but many companies are no longer matching the CoL increases. Housing prices are steadily increasing, and so is rent. Many have to resort to longer commutes, buying cars, and such. All of these have detrimental effects to the environment, mental health or both.
Pushing people back to the office with nothing else is incredibly tonedeaf to the current state and trend of the world. This despite many of them putting up the image they care about these things.
You may not like hearing this but if you're a white-collar worker earning 6 figures and guaranteed to continue earning 6 figures for the rest of your career, you aren't entitled to CoL increases. Your employer is not a villain nor are they morally culpable just because they've made a business decision around how much salary increases they want to give their already privileged employees. Or a business decision regarding their work-from-home policy.
If you're not happy, leave and work for a company that better matches what you're looking for. I would be furious if my ex-employer was giving me bad references just because I wanted to work-from-home or asked for a higher salary. And I would similarly not go around vilifying my ex-employer just because they wanted to offer me a lower salary or have me in the office regularly.
> I would be furious if my ex-employer was giving me bad references just because I wanted to work-from-home or asked for a higher salary. And I would similarly not go around vilifying my ex-employer just because they wanted to offer me a lower salary or have me in the office regularly.
That's not similar at all. The employer has all the power and money, not the individual. If the individual did, they wouldn't need to work anymore.
> I can't speak for Apple specifically, but many companies are no longer matching the CoL increases. Housing prices are steadily increasing, and so is rent.
I can't help but wonder if this is the flip side to the Silicon Valley mantra of "if you want a raise, job hop," where hitting your four-year anniversary with the same company makes you an old-timer and gets people on HN asking you if you're stupid. (Hopefully more politely than that, but that's absolutely the subtext of some recent message threads I've seen.) If the expectation on the company side is that they shouldn't plan on on any engineering staff being there more than a few years, then maybe it tacitly selects for "give employees a big bonus and lots of perks and just don't worry about raises because there ain't nothin' you can do to keep 'em".
And, of course, there's a chicken-or-egg aspect to that: did job-hopping become the norm because companies aren't giving them enough reason to stay, or vice-versa? When I moved out to Silicon Valley close to twenty years ago, I'd have placed the blame for that particular new normal on the companies, but after having read HN for the better part of the last decade, I'm considerably less certain of that.
> I can't help but wonder if this is the flip side to the Silicon Valley mantra of "if you want a raise, job hop," where hitting your four-year anniversary with the same company makes you an old-timer and gets people on HN asking you if you're stupid. (Hopefully more politely than that, but that's absolutely the subtext of some recent message threads I've seen.)
I think that comes from misreading stats. If a company has huge growth and hires a bunch of new people, the average lifespan of an employee will obviously go down.
There's many well known Apple engineers (in OS software at least) who've been there for decades.
Well, it comes from reading HN. :) That's clearly anecdotal, but if you're a regular reader you've surely come across the job-hopping advice here! I've seen "the way you get a raise is by switching companies" as advice over and over and over here, and I don't think it's just a small selection of malcontents I just keep running into.
Companies whose primary business is hardware seem to be more likely to keep people around for longer periods of time -- Apple, Intel, Cisco, National Semiconductor back when they were a going concern. Software companies, though, particularly ones in Silicon Valley (or following a Silicon Valley ethos)? As someone who's going to hit their four-year anniversary at their current workplace in a week, I feel like the oddball.
That's certainly true about hardware companies - the cycle of product inception to release is often large enough that if you followed the "advice" here you would never actually experience the full cycle.
I work on software at a similar company - and it certainly seems to have a significantly higher "employment age" than people seem possible here - I've worked here for 4 years and still one of the "new" ones. Some of that I feel due to a good work/life balance (And decent enough pay :), and a culture I find to be pleasant (I worked with Apple employees for a while, for example, and still don't understand why people put up with the crap I saw when there's a healthy job market).
But I wonder if there's something to be said for the work itself - people have been here for ages and still doing new things - one year you may be working on texture pipelines, the next a deep dive in ray tracing. Sure, they're kinda similar, but I feel it may be more rewarding than redesigning a perfectly good UI for the 5th time, or replacing whatever javascript framework you used to use with the "New Hotness".
There is also the argument that a staff of engineers wants real data to back up decisions and policy. "because mangers like to look over your shoulder" isn't a good reason
I think what you mean is that "people who moved outside the bay area got more house for their money", but the reason they got paid so much in the first place is because housing is more expensive.
I did not. I specifically mentioned my lack of experience with Apple to signal experiences outside the bay area, or the US for that matter. In many countries, total comp has barely moved whereas housing has become way more expensive, even during COVID.
At some point I would like people to quit vilifying a completely legitimate business setup because it doesn’t fit their world view as well. But as you can guess from my lead up, I look at it from the opposite direction.
If there is no reason for software developers (or other IT professionals who don’t have to have physical access to the servers to do their jobs) to be in the office, and we have been far more productive at home than we have been in an office that requires 2 hours of commute, extra expenditures for food, an increased chance of viral infection, noise cancelling headphones so you don’t have to deal with the stupid gossip a couple aisles over just to focus on the task at hand, then should we be required to come in just because others prefer it when their coworkers are there too?
Can’t we just leave it up the choice of the people who are working how they would prefer to work? Or do we have to enforce a skeuomorphic working arrangement on everyone just because our managers like it better?
For the heads-down execution characteristic of a junior role, you’re right, collocation doesn’t matter and focus does.
Past entry level we expect engineers to also be working with their colleagues to determine what to build, when, and how. In an emergency, doing this on Zoom beats not trying at all. That’s about the best I can say for it.
If you really can’t afford to live closer than an hour to your office as a software engineer, you’re woefully underpaid. More likely that is the point in tradeoff-space that you chose.
>but I do think it is up to the employer to decide.
Why? Seriously, many other things aren't, so why should this be? I don't mean WFH should be forced to the employer and to all employees - I mean it should be up to the employee to decide.
The "completely legitimate business setup" is also a huge negative for climate change, car pollution, road congestion, family/personal life time (including time with kids), business and close residential areas rent (since people having to commute try to leave somewhat close and don't have total free choice of where to buy/rent property), and several other things.
Not to mention anachronistic from the same companies that sell "mobility" and "freedom" as achieved with mobile phones and internet services...
The relationship between employer and employee is simple. Employer pays money for some value the employee offers.
Negotiation is clearly in play before the arrangement starts, willing buyer and willing seller and so on.
After the "sale" the employer has most of the power, but the employee has a nuke - they can quit. Usually the employer doesn't want them to quit, so will make unilateral changes to the contract in the employ yes favor from time to time (ie raises etc).
Unfortunately if you are below a certain age, or of a specific skill set, the employer expects you to trigger the nuke anyway, and nothing they do can prevent that, so frankly they don't spend too much energy or money trying to make you stay.
While employees can negotiate after employment has started, they don't have much leverage other than "or I'll leave". And one can only play that card so many times before it's easier just to let you leave.
Employers have legitimate reasons for wanting non-remote workers, but those reasons don't matter to employees. Indeed most employees can't even imagine what those reasons are, or simply discount them as being meaningless. That's OK, there's a reason they are employees and not running businesses.
So to answer your question, employers decide WFH because they have all the power. They figure the upside is worth changing staff over - some will leave, for sure, but there are others out there waiting to fill that slot.
Of course other companies have different priorities and goals and are happy to employ WFH employees, so there's a home for folk who prefer that as well.
Or, if you want the autonomy, and power, (and risk) that being the employer brings you, then by all means start your own business and build a company and culture you'd like to work at.
Spending a majority of my workday on Zoom is miserable. It is better than dying in the ICU. But spending the rest of my working life this way is unacceptable.
I, too, like the separation of the office - a pretty easy commute (less than 15 minutes) and not having to worry about managing the space myself is useful for me to get into "Work Mode" - and I very much appreciate leaving and not reading my emails until I get into work next morning. And this is effectively working remotely - while in a company building I am the only member of my team on site.
This is with a large Santa Clara-based tech company, and they have competitive rates in compensation to FAANG - though that may be misleading. For example I have had a lot of experience working adjacent to people working at Apple, and it's on my list of "Never Work Here" due to the culture, expectations of time, lack of work-life balance, and all while not compensating any more for those asks. Other friends who work for some other companies on that list, however, seem a lot happier. So in my experience lumping them together is a mistake.
Previously, I worked for a British company in the US in an office with some 4 total people on my team, that I found was a near perfect setup - the main company remote and a different timezone effectively meant all communication and meetings happened in the mornings US time, allowing the majority of the day to really get into complex stuff with no interruptions. And a small team allowed for some in-person whiteboard debugging and design discussion and bouncing ideas off people, but with a small team it wasn't a constant distraction.
I found that to be my personal "Perfect Balance" - and I feel I miss that.
It is still primarily an on-site company. That might mean on-site an an office in San Diego, Austin, Philadelphia, NYC, etc. But in-office nonetheless.
Every team does things differently, even down to the department or individual manager level. Compared to the other FAANGs it is far more varied in most respects. Just because someone didn't like (or loves) their role doesn't mean you will feel the same way about it. If possible I recommend talking to people who work in the department you are interested in.