I have seen many arguments like this, as if software engineers are automata that take requirements as input and produce software code. However an important part of being in a company is developing a shared team relationship where individuals feel accountable to each other and take some interest in the welfare of their co-workers and company above their own short-term interests.
Since we are humans this necessarily involves some socialization and shared experiences. I don't believe in 100% remote work - maybe we can do remote 3 times a week, and that might work. The idea that workers will replace their social interactions on their own is naive. There is an epidemic of loneliness among many once they are no longer forced to socialize via school or church.
(In terms of productivity, I feel like remote optimizes individual throughput over system throughput, due to degraded avenues of cross-communication.)
I hope that this cheering for remote dies. Many managers read Hacker News and they might actually take it seriously. The less tightly the team is bound via social connections the more likely the job function can simply be outsourced to an external contractor.
Also, speaking purely of my own self-interest, I like where my job is located and don't want to move so I can equalize my standard of living with similarly smart and dedicated developers in eastern Europe, Asia, or even the deep south or rural midwest.
Some people treat engineers as automata even if they're in the same office. Even if they work at an adjacent desk. That does not have anything to do with offices, it has to do with personality traits like lack of empathy and excessive ego. If you are not a jerk and were not raised by jerks, you will have respect not only for the engineers, but for everyone, even people in modest occupations.
Then, working remote is not the same as working remote from a different timezone. The latter can make collaboration more difficult.
I have worked with remote engineers, and over time, I have learned to appreciate and respect their work. I know many of their names, especially the brilliant ones that I can trust 100%. I know from their deliverables that they're dedicated and reliable and I would write them a recommendation letter any day if they asked for it, have lunch with them if they're in town, and I am honestly interested in learning about their backgrounds and perspectives on life.
On the other hand, at the office, there are people working some few feet away that I have never talked to. I don't know anything about them, or their lives. Some of them even work on my team :)
So, no. Offices are not magical facilitators of friendship and cohesion. And when two people decide that they don't get along it can become quite miserable to be present in a tense environment.
I have no problems working with people living far away. If they're good, I want to work with them and assimilate what I can from their knowledge and problem solving skills. Also, secret santas with them are the best, try it.
If you are concerned with jobs going away, or wages being depressed, these are a list of things you have to worry about in addition to outsourcing: lower entry barriers to programming, coding camps, AI. In the end, the only effective way to protect your job is to acquire and polish your skills, and the best way to do it is by working with as many strong engineers as you can no matter where they are from.
It is not necessary to hold someone's hand to socialize. Working remote can contain just as much people as a regular office.
There doesen't need to be a social obligation to force you to work proper. Feeling appreciated and important is a hell of a morale-boosting drug. Gaining some breathing room to do your own thing is the best way to achieve that
Since we are humans this necessarily involves some socialization and shared experiences. I don't believe in 100% remote work - maybe we can do remote 3 times a week, and that might work. The idea that workers will replace their social interactions on their own is naive. There is an epidemic of loneliness among many once they are no longer forced to socialize via school or church.
(In terms of productivity, I feel like remote optimizes individual throughput over system throughput, due to degraded avenues of cross-communication.)
I hope that this cheering for remote dies. Many managers read Hacker News and they might actually take it seriously. The less tightly the team is bound via social connections the more likely the job function can simply be outsourced to an external contractor.
Also, speaking purely of my own self-interest, I like where my job is located and don't want to move so I can equalize my standard of living with similarly smart and dedicated developers in eastern Europe, Asia, or even the deep south or rural midwest.