Offices are still "happening" and will not go away. The current optimism about remote work is overly exuberant, and many people will be disappointed about the pullback of remote work over the next few years. Also, people are dreaming if they think Silicon Valley companies will continue to pay Silicon Valley salaries to workers in other locations, even if remote work continues to be broadly accepted.
Furthermore, India and much of Europe (especially eastern Europe) are definitely not friendly time zones for collaboration with colleagues in North America.
> The current optimism about remote work is overly exuberant, and many people will be disappointed about the pullback of remote work over the next few years.
Mostly anecdotal evidence follows.
At my company,
- Most teams have two or more remote ICs
- A large percentage of teams have the majority of their ICs in a different location than their manager.
- A large percentage of ICs are now no longer near an office (or in the same state as an office)
- Offices are still ghost towns
They're not going to pull a magic wand and make all of us go back. Cat's out of the bag. They couldn't afford to fire these folks, either.
> Also, people are dreaming if they think Silicon Valley companies will continue to pay Silicon Valley salaries to workers in other locations, even if remote work continues to be broadly accepted.
I've received near-SF wages in Atlanta for eight years. Before the market pullback, my total comp was $500k a year. It's still ridiculously good.
> Furthermore, India and much of Europe (especially eastern Europe) are definitely not friendly time zones for collaboration with colleagues in North America.
We're building out offices there.
I've had meetings with Europe, Australia, and Japan this year. A first.
If your company won't, new capital funding new startups will take advantage of those workers and bring them into the fold.
And it remains to be seen how well cross-organizational coordination in tech will fare across such disparate time zones.
And surely some of that funding would be going to local tech companies in those areas, and not simply branches of North American multinationals. All of these regions have their own businesses too, you know. Not everyone is raring to work remotely for Silicon Valley.
Furthermore, India and much of Europe (especially eastern Europe) are definitely not friendly time zones for collaboration with colleagues in North America.
It's really not different this time.