Back to the Office for Tech Workers

[Anonymous]

Okay so we’ll see about the remote work/back to work debate as the year progresses. Just pointing out that a lot of big, important tech companies are calling their folks back to work. And that is most definitely not a positive for SD RE market.

Bigger issue I see is if the magnitude of this tech stock crash reaches .com crash level or worse, and the Fed stops printing money to support the corporate bond market as they did before, there will simply be a lot fewer jobs in the industry.

And let’s face it, if hiring 100% remote is fully normalized, why would I hire a San Diego engineer at 200K when I can get the same productivity out of an Indian engineer for 50K or less?

[an]

[quote=Coronita]Well anecdotal story… I have a friend who works at a small biotech company. She’s on the administrative staff and they and support were all told to go back to the office starting next week…

However all the scientists and researchers…They are allowed to work remotely indefinitely.

Now this might seem a bit unfair, because it is. But you know why the company did this, right?

The company views the administrative staff as easily replaceable so they get treated like crap. And their philosophy is well if you quit go ahead we’ll just find a replacement.

However, when it comes to the scientist and engineers. It seems like they don’t want to fvck with them, because I guess if they said the same thing, the scientist and engineers would just walk across the street to a competitor.

Go figure.[/quote]
Yep. Also, for every 1 big company that make their employee goes back to work, there are a few not as big that are going fully remote. Here are some:
Stripe, Shopify, Twilio, Jobot, CloudApp, Slack, Meta, SalesForce etc.

Even Amazon is still advertising for remote positions on LinkedIn.

Also, good luck to the companies who try to tell their engineers to go back to the office after they have already moved. I doubt they’ll fire them lol.

[an]

[quote=deadzone]
And let’s face it, if hiring 100% remote is fully normalized, why would I hire a San Diego engineer at 200K when I can get the same productivity out of an Indian engineer for 50K or less?[/quote]
LoL, no, just no.

[Anonymous]

[quote=an]
Yep. Also, for every 1 big company that make their employee goes back to work, there are a few not as big that are going fully remote. Here are some:
Stripe, Shopify, Twilio, Jobot, CloudApp, Slack, Meta, SalesForce etc.

Even Amazon is still advertising for remote positions on LinkedIn.

Also, good luck to the companies who try to tell their engineers to go back to the office after they have already moved. I doubt they’ll fire them lol.[/quote]

Those “fully remote” companies you list are all getting pummeled in the market right now. You leave Amazon to work at Shopify for remote work, you take a chance you get laid off in short order. At this rate there are massive layoffs coming at these unprofitable tech companies.

[Balboa]

[quote=Coronita]

Well anecdotal story… I have a friend who works at a small biotech company. She’s on the administrative staff and they and support were all told to go back to the office starting next week…

However all the scientists and researchers…They are allowed to work remotely indefinitely.

Now this might seem a bit unfair, because it is. But you know why the company did this, right?

The company views the administrative staff as easily replaceable so they get treated like crap. And their philosophy is well if you quit go ahead we’ll just find a replacement.

However, when it comes to the scientist and engineers. It seems like they don’t want to fvck with them, because I guess if they said the same thing, the scientist and engineers would just walk across the street to a competitor.

Go figure.[/quote]

My employer provides tech-adjacent professional services and anyone who has agency and is aware of it is deciding for themselves whether to come back now that we’re “open” — I’ve been in a few days over the last two weeks and opposite me is a row of empty window offices. The lights are off and everybody’s home.

On the staff side, the standard is 3 days in the office, two from home. But if you look at the departments that are the worst to work in, it’s a different story. An entire high visibility/high responsibility/low status/low pay department is now 100% WFH as a Band-Aid for problems that can really only be solved by spending more money on people (and refraining from f*cking up vital systems via irreversible “upgrades” designed by people who don’t use said systems).

My org is experiencing challenges with recruitment and retention on both the professional and staff sides, though. All of our main competitors have offices within a mile of us/the ocean, which doesn’t help.

[Coronita]

[quote= deadzone ] [quote=Coronita]But you aren’t a tech worker deadzone. How would you know what the prevailing pulse of this situation is???[/quote]

All the big silicon valley companies such as Amazon, Google, etc. were originally planning to bring back their folks to the office 3 days/week back in January. That got delayed due to Omicron. Now that Covid is finished they are going to be resuming these plans soon.

Bottom line the majority of tech workers, or white collar workers in general, are not going to be able to work fully remote forever. They hybrid/flex schedule will hopefully stay for long term but the number of people working fully remote from home will be drastically going down from here on out, not increasing.[/quote]

But again, you’re just reading articles and not even in tech. You are basing your assumptions on what some companies do. For every company that says they aren’t going back to work, there’s plenty of companies that are offering remote options because it’s cheaper then setting up a satellite office that the big companies are able to do..

For your really bad example, this won’t make a dent in San Diego housing because Amazon is expanding huge in San Diego. Ask all the Intuit employees that recently quit and went over to Amazon….People who were old timers I thought would never leave Intuit went there.

Google also has expanded their footprint down here with their chip group and also their acquisition of Fitbit.

Apple too. They have their chip group and connectivity down here.

Also VC funding down here for biotech outpaced bay area.

So these big companies that ask people to go back , going back means reporting to a local field office which they have…

As far as the other smaller companies…if they want to retain employees they either have to pay more than these bigger company IRS (which most cant) OR provide more non comp benefits. Or get stuck with employees that are not so in demand….

Some of the comp packages that are being thrown around are like $300k+….LinkedIn is offering around $210k base, excluding stock and bonus and 401k match… for Android seniors… Remote. I mean you have to deal with awful react native in addition to Android, which might be why, but still….

Shit, at $300kish for a senior, I was tempted to apply if I was still pretty hands on. Less stress comparable comps versus working at a small company with a larger role.

[img_assist|nid=27522|title=linked|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]

IOS Senior Engineer
And any job with the requisition number 69 has got to be a winner

[img_assist|nid=27523|title=linkedin2|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]

I’ve been hearing some pretty ridiculous sign on bonuses too from that Redmond company.

My company for instance, can’t compete on dollar alone. Senior at my company are around $165k. And that’s actually pretty good for a company in Florida.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]Okay so we’ll see about the remote work/back to work debate as the year progresses. Just pointing out that a lot of big, important tech companies are calling their folks back to work. And that is most definitely not a positive for SD RE market.

Bigger issue I see is if the magnitude of this tech stock crash reaches .com crash level or worse, and the Fed stops printing money to support the corporate bond market as they did before, there will simply be a lot fewer jobs in the industry.

And let’s face it, if hiring 100% remote is fully normalized, why would I hire a San Diego engineer at 200K when I can get the same productivity out of an Indian engineer for 50K or less?[/quote]

Again you aren’t in the tech industry so clearly you don’t understand. I have 4 teams. 1 main engineering team 3 outsourced providers. Your idea of paying someone $50k to get good work these days is way off. our cheapest contracting firm overseas is running around $90k, and there are a boatload of reasons why you can’t count on them to do research and things that aren’t fully speced out. As I mentioned before , part of dollars spent on US employees is so they can accommodate loosey goosey requirements and don’t have 15+hr timezone difference. That might seem to cost more in front, but if you consider how much time is spent going back and forth and redoing stuff, it ends up being in the worst case scenario roughly the same cost. There had ways been the opportunity to use contract firms from overseas well before the pandemic….but unless you setup a shop there and make them your own employee they won’t have a vested interest in building something you want like your full-time hire will. This was even before then pandemic. If your assertions we’re correct, there would be no engineers hired in the US over the past years because the pandemic didn’t bring on the ability to hire foreign contract workers. That option was already there….200k isn’t San Diego wages. It’s what you pay a where in the US for top talent.

Again, lots of people who aren’t engineers, who haven’t built anything, haven’t had any leadership or management team, sure like to think they know what they are doing and yet that couldnt be further from the truth. Reading news articles doesn’t make one an expert in how tech companies run or how to acquire (and more importantly) retain good talent. There’s a false belief people that don’t know that good engineers could easily be replaced by another. While this might be the case for like min wage burger flipping jobs (which in today’s labor market I would challenge that assertion too), things clearly aren’t that way in tech. You have a bunch of posers that apply to these tech jobs but they aren’t real and won’t get hired.

If I get a resume from who says.theu are.an experienced mobile “engineer” who’s only relevant experience is taking classes at “Full Sail University”, it’s going into the trashcan

.

[Coronita]

.

[Coronita]

[quote=an][quote=Coronita]Well anecdotal story… I have a friend who works at a small biotech company. She’s on the administrative staff and they and support were all told to go back to the office starting next week…

However all the scientists and researchers…They are allowed to work remotely indefinitely.

Now this might seem a bit unfair, because it is. But you know why the company did this, right?

The company views the administrative staff as easily replaceable so they get treated like crap. And their philosophy is well if you quit go ahead we’ll just find a replacement.

However, when it comes to the scientist and engineers. It seems like they don’t want to fvck with them, because I guess if they said the same thing, the scientist and engineers would just walk across the street to a competitor.

Go figure.[/quote]
Yep. Also, for every 1 big company that make their employee goes back to work, there are a few not as big that are going fully remote. Here are some:
Stripe, Shopify, Twilio, Jobot, CloudApp, Slack, Meta, SalesForce etc.

Even Amazon is still advertising for remote positions on LinkedIn.

Also, good luck to the companies who try to tell their engineers to go back to the office after they have already moved. I doubt they’ll fire them lol.[/quote]

I have intel at what goes on at Qualcomm on this very issue and it’s very comical.

so you have some folks who are very concerned who think going back to the office everyone should wear masks and show proof of vaccination….

Then you have a bunch of people who refuse to wear masks and refuses to vaccinate citing individual rights..

Then you have the first group say fine if that’s the case segment the workplace.somthst unvaccinated and in masked people occupy one part of the offices and the vaccinated masking people occupy the other.

Then the unvaccinated unmasked people claimed this would be discrimination because bases on whether someone was masked or not and citing Hippa privacy for someone’s vaccination status….

Then you have the vaccinated group expressing concern that about having in person meetings and what if they get sick….and is the company going to be liable for creating an unsafe work environment….

So then as a mediation it was proposed that meetings in office be conducted via video conference….which imho would defeat the entire purpose of returning back to work in person….

I think when it’s all said and done, what’s going to happen is what my employer picked. Hybrid model… Those that want to go into an office can do so… Those that don’t want to don’t.

And hiring for engineers will continue to be open for remote “for the right candidate”, where the requirements for interview go up for that flexibility..where you end up having sort of an engineer’s caste system. In which your cream of the crop techies get what they want and those that aren’t that good wash out in the interview process. Lol, I’m one of these people that wash out in some interviews.

That’s how I’ve been getting approached lately my the big 3… Microsoft, Google, Facebook have all been pinging me about work and their time has definitely changed. Because in the past I said I can’t relocate and the convos would stop there, but these days the recruiters are saying we are remote friendly for the right candidate. I guess if they are willing to spend that much on an employee they really want , letting them work remote is the least of their concerns. I mean shit for some of these companies, they are saying take 4 weeks to study for an interview and send you a guide or recommend an interview prep company. No different than at SAT prep class. Lol…that’s pretty intense….if I was younger I might have motivated to study and go through with the interview.

Personally, I miss going into an office, but that’s me.

[svelte]

It is all going to come down to whether the worker shortage continues.

If it does, then remote work will continue to be strong. it is a no-cost perk companies can provide to entice people they interview. And companies are not going to force their employees back to the office if those employees know the next company over will allow them to work remotely.

If the economy slides so much that layoffs are needed, well remote workers are likely to be in a worse position than in-office workers and may well be among those let go.

Note: since a significant portion of workers who disappeared during the pandemic were older workers who retired, I’m betting the worker shortage continues in the near term. Long term (1 year or more out) who knows.

[an]

[quote=deadzone][quote=an]
Yep. Also, for every 1 big company that make their employee goes back to work, there are a few not as big that are going fully remote. Here are some:
Stripe, Shopify, Twilio, Jobot, CloudApp, Slack, Meta, SalesForce etc.

Even Amazon is still advertising for remote positions on LinkedIn.

Also, good luck to the companies who try to tell their engineers to go back to the office after they have already moved. I doubt they’ll fire them lol.[/quote]

Those “fully remote” companies you list are all getting pummeled in the market right now. You leave Amazon to work at Shopify for remote work, you take a chance you get laid off in short order. At this rate there are massive layoffs coming at these unprofitable tech companies.[/quote]Stock price is not the same as company health. Shopify revenue is growing, profit is growing, profit margin is growing. So, I doubt anyone would be concerned. If there is a layoff, companies tend to lay off the lower performer and/or those they wanted to fire but can’t for whatever reason.

[an]

[quote=deadzone][quote=an]
Yep. Also, for every 1 big company that make their employee goes back to work, there are a few not as big that are going fully remote. Here are some:
Stripe, Shopify, Twilio, Jobot, CloudApp, Slack, Meta, SalesForce etc.

Even Amazon is still advertising for remote positions on LinkedIn.

Also, good luck to the companies who try to tell their engineers to go back to the office after they have already moved. I doubt they’ll fire them lol.[/quote]

Those “fully remote” companies you list are all getting pummeled in the market right now. You leave Amazon to work at Shopify for remote work, you take a chance you get laid off in short order. At this rate there are massive layoffs coming at these unprofitable tech companies.[/quote]Stock price is not the same as company health. Shopify revenue is growing, profit is growing, profit margin is growing. So, I doubt anyone would be concerned. If there is a layoff, companies tend to lay off the lower performer and/or those they wanted to fire but can’t for whatever reason.

[Anonymous]

Problem is if there is layoffs at Shopify or whatever it will be due to after effects of market crash and recession from the bursting of the bubble. So in that scenario most of the industry will be laying off.

Back to the original comment, sure there will probably some companies offering fully remote for a while. However, the point is majority of folks are going to be heading back to the office, at least part time, very soon. And the total pool of fully remote workers will be going down from the peak of Covid. How much this affects RE in San Diego, is debatable, but it is not a positive.

Not every employee or engineer can act like an entitled baby and just quit and move to another company because they don’t get their 100% remote gig anymore. That only works now, if at all, because the job market is so tight due to all of the Fed money printing. If/when the Fed turns off the spigot, there will be a recession and the job market will not be tight anymore.

[sdrealtor]

Please let us know when your rent goes down

[The-Shoveler]

[quote=deadzone]Problem is if there is layoffs at Shopify or whatever it will be due to after effects of market crash and recession from the bursting of the bubble. So in that scenario most of the industry will be laying off.

Back to the original comment, sure there will probably some companies offering fully remote for a while. However, the point is majority of folks are going to be heading back to the office, at least part time, very soon. And the total pool of fully remote workers will be going down from the peak of Covid. How much this affects RE in San Diego, is debatable, but it is not a positive.

Not every employee or engineer can act like an entitled baby and just quit and move to another company because they don’t get their 100% remote gig anymore. That only works now, if at all, because the job market is so tight due to all of the Fed money printing. If/when the Fed turns off the spigot, there will be a recession and the job market will not be tight anymore.[/quote]

IMO recessions are no longer allowed,

They will just send more helicopter money.

Only problem is there is no good way to flush out excesses so they just grow and grow.

[Author]

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