I’ve been looking for a new job as a software developer. The huge majority of job listings I see in my area are hybrid or remote. I just had an introductory phone call with Vizio (which didn’t specify the location type in the job listing). The recruiter told me that the job was fully on-site, which I told her was a deal breaker for me.
It makes me wonder how many other people back out after hearing that the job is on-site. And it makes me wonder why this wasn’t specified in the job description. I assume most people only want hybrid or remote jobs these days, right?
Anyways I was just wondering how many of you guys apply for on-site IT jobs? Hybrid is so much better, I don’t know why people would apply for on-site jobs unless they have no other options.
You’re talking specifically about software based IT jobs.
Those of us who deal with the hardware have alwaus been and will always be on-site and hands on.
That’s weird it wasn’t in the job posting. Seems like they’re wasting their time talking to candidates that aren’t interested in on-site.
I only want remote. The company I work for was once extremely remote friendly. Like 75% of job postings from them were for remote. Now they’ve changed to hybrid or fully on-site at the word from the CEO and like only 5% of open roles are remote.
They kept me remote, but my interactions with others are much less remote friendly. I’m looking for a new job, but will have to be for a company that is mostly remote itself.
I’m planning to have an on-site job, so I can actually meet some new people.
Maybe you should meet yourself first
The only argument I see in favour of office time is if your home situation doesn’t allow you to focus - family, kids and so on, or if you deliberately want a physical separation and you don’t have a dedicated office space at home.
I prefer to work in the office.
Lower utility bills for me. What little I spend in gas, yeah it’s a no brainier.
Also as the chair/desk/etc wears out, the company pays for it. It’s not like they give me the difference if I work from home.
My only complaint is led lights. Companies don’t understand what they are doing when they buy the lights.
What’s wrong with LED lights?
Most companies put in lights that run at 5000 kelvin. So they appear to be white or even slightly blue in color. It’s hard on the eyes.
3500 or 3000 Kelvin would be more natural light.
Plus most of them have to slow of a refresh. So I see a flicker. Think a strobe light and move your hand in front of your eyes. That shudder or screen door effect that you would see. That’s what I see when I’m around led lights.
Most companies refuse to invest in better lights.
Aren’t fluorescent bulbs the ones that flicker?
I agree about the color temperature.
I run a development department, and nobody who reports to me comes to the office. We have been 100% remote since 2020… much to the chagrin of HR. Others in IT come in, but no developers. I see no reason to change it either. I question why I even come in most days.
Without looking it up, I don’t know how many people I’ve interviewed over the last 4 years, but there’s been a few. I’ve only had one person who indicated he wanted to be in an office. Every other person wants fully remote. The most common comment I’ve heard from people is saying they will settle for hybrid if full-remote isn’t available.
There’s some value to having people work together in-person, but I’d rather give my teams the flexibility to choose for themselves rather than force it.
My dad is the only human being I know that likes his on-site IT job, but that’s probably because he’s getting away from the miserable woman he married for a few hours a day.
I was in that boat for a bit but it was my mentally ill adult child that I needed a break from.
Different boat. You didn’t choose that. Best wishes!
All good!
In my team, 2 out 15 people come to the office regularly, because they prefer the separation of work from free time.
I can definitely see some benefits from being on-site. You do occasionally just run into people, who can tell you really useful things for your job. And it’s definitely harder to keep track of what my wider team is working on, since we’ve gone mostly remote.
But those benefits just as well evaporate when “on-site” becomes two or more locations. I’m not going to run into someone who’s in a different office in a different city.
If I have to actively work together with people from different locations, I will also be wearing headphones all day, not able to socialize with the people around me. That makes it rather pointless to go into the office.And yeah, just the flexibility of being at home is really useful. I can take a break from work to load my washing machine. I can sleep until 5 minutes before my first meeting. Or I can walk to the store in the morning, when it’s still cool outside.
So yeah, personally, I certainly wouldn’t go back to a fully on-site job, unless it’s somehow the best job in the world in other ways.The office is 3 day a week onsite, w Mon and Fri remote.
I have to be on site Tue - Thur to support the users.
I go in most Mon and Fri because it’s the only time I know I have physical access to the systems.
My support work is largely “remote”, in that I can manage my systems 99% of the time better from my office than in the room, and I really like my setup.
Aside from physically rebooting hardware that’s too frozen to reboot remotely, or replacing defective hardware, I can work 100% from anywhere I have internet.
Thing is, I love the company I work for, the end users and various IT and facilities staff that support my work are all great people.
The only close friends I have all moved far away decades ago, so the “water cooler” is the only real social interaction I get.
I do spend a ridiculous amount to live 15 minutes from the office so the commute isn’t a concern.
I’ve been fully onsite basically the whole time, including during the pandemic, for me it’s been fine. Gets me out of my tiny studio apartment and keeps my work life at work. Also free A/C / heating at work.
The commute is also part of that decision making - for me the commute is a long walk outside to/from work every day. All that walking around outside sort of levels me out mentally & gets rid of any stress I had, not to mention the exercise.
IT guy here, I absolutely hate working from home, I want separation between my work life and my home life.
I need that to change my brain from home mode to work mode.
Fellow IT guy here, I absolutely hate working from the office. Home life is my life and work life only matters to me insofar as it’s necessary to my home life.
Anything taking my brain from home mode to work mode is an obstacle that should be avoided.
I took up online tutoring and teaching programming for kids. It has great benefits:
- It’s an hour or so after work, it has a fixed schedule so it forces me to clock out
- it makes me focus hard so I completely forget about work
- it pays for itself (not my corporate day-job rate, but I’m not doing it for free)
- I can try out languages and tech I’d normally wouldn’t be able to in my day job, or I’d have to invest my free time gor a side project
- I have a background in teaching… I like it, it’s fun and refreshing
- I’ve helped many kids jump start their interest in programming even in families that know nothing about tech at all. I’ve helped a few of them to get accepted to the school they wanted to and pursue a career in programming
All in all, teaching after work makes for a great hobby and a strong barrier for my day job so I don’t find myself working late anymore.
Yep, totally this.
I occationally have to fix stuff on the weekend and even than I’ll rather go to the office than doing it from home.
Also I have different monitor/keyboard/mouse setups and I really don’t like working on my home setup.
I’ve heard a lot of people about how much they enjoy working fully remotely. Almost all of them have a separate home office room to work in.
I am sure they do enjoy it, just as I don’t.
For me that’s achieved by being 6 timezones ahead - I finish work, turn off my computer and go to sleep.
Full remote all the way.
Demand that in your contracts so you have flexibility. Then it’s a choice not an obligation to come to the office.
I have a pretty good hybrid situation, where it’s probably good for me to get dressed and out of the house twice a week. It helps that it’s only three mile commute with no traffic. I’d probably look for that, even if I don’t like going in.
That being said, we hire across many time zones and I don’t even work with local people so I’m not sure the point. Why is my company wasting money on a local office so I can be on Zoom all day, but can’t spend the travel budget even once for me to meet the people I work with (from Boston, I generally work with people in London, Toronto, Bangalore)
I work with a few who prefer the office over work from home. I think they need a way to escape the house/wife/kids and the office is the only quiet place they have to work.
I have only ever worked on-site jobs, so I am very used to it. The main plus for me is interacting with my co-workers. You run into the occasional jerk or someone having a bad day, but usually it is a great way to learn new things and gain different perspectives.
I work with a few who prefer the office over work from home.
It does allow for a more clean break between work and non-work mindset.
I find it helps maintain a more healthy work-life balance.
Plus, I work on hardware, so it’s not like I can do that remotely most of the time anyway.
I enjoy office work more than wfh because I genuinely like the people I work with and I think we riff off each other way better in person
I dont know if I agree with the work life balance.
Shower, groom, dress and commute starting at 6.30am, work 8.30–5.30 and commute to 6.30/7
or work 8.45-5.15ish and maybe spend an extra hour or two coupla times a week?
Huge difference.
My team moved to fully remote a month ago. I’m loving it so far.
Getting to see my little girl throughout my day makes me feel like I’m not missing out on watching her grow up.
I think I may be the only person on the face of the earth with no preference on this. My commute is immaterial, the office about 2k away, working from home is kind of a drag but I don’t have to get dressed and can keep the household going (which is part of why it’s a drag) online meetings suck even more than in person meetings, otherwise fine to work remotely. So when we were working from home, I was fine with it, then hybrid I thought would be the worst of all, no, it was fine. Now they say come in at least 3 days, I am going to put away the home workstation and just work at the office, reclaim the space at home, that’s fine too. It’s pretty much the same job either way.
I’ve been remote for the 3 years of work experience that I’ve had. I live in a city with piss poor public transportation and detest traffic, plus I enjoy waking up 10 minutes before having to clock in.
The pay and perks would have to be substantial for me to consider working on-site.
