Software engineers are showing a strong preference for remote work, according to survey

[DragonSlayer101]

The big picture: Remote work became a necessity during the pandemic, but it has since reshaped how American workers do their jobs. While working from home is a relatively new experience for the majority of people, most have taken to it like a duck to water, and are refusing to go back to their cubicles. As it turns out, they've got good reasons to want to continue working from home.

The "2023 State of Software Engineers Report" by job search portal Hired has revealed many interesting facts about software engineers in Silicon Valley and beyond. One telling result from the survey is the overwhelming preference for remote work, with as many as 39% of respondents saying they would prefer remote work over in-office work any day.

According to the report, salaries are almost identical for both remote and local work. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, where salaries are the highest, software engineers working remotely made $176,000 last year, while those working locally made $180,000. In some smaller markets, remote roles even commanded higher salaries than in-office work.

When asked what they would do if mandated to return to the office, 21% of respondents said they would quit, while 49% said that they will look for other remote work opportunities while continuing to work at their current company. Employers apparently already have an inkling of their employees' preferences, as many of them are offering 'flexible work schedules' as one of the top benefits alongside healthcare and paid time off.

Another notable finding was the optimism among engineers, despite the spate of high-profile layoffs during the second half of last year. 68% of the surveyed engineers said that they were not worried about getting fired in the next six months, even as tech giants Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter and others fired a combined total of over 150,000 employees last year.

The report also reveals that backend engineers saw the highest demand among employers, while Natural Language Processing (NLP) engineers saw the highest salary growth during 2022. Despite the spectacular crypto crash, blockchain engineers were the second-highest paid group overall, though the total number of interviews for them reduced drastically.

Looking forward to 2023, 57% of surveyed engineers said they believe AI, machine learning and data science will be the hottest sector, followed by fintech and healthtech. Almost 2 out 3 (64%) surveyed engineering candidates also expected Python to be the top programming language to master in 2023.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97793-software-engineers-showing-strong-preference-remote-work-according.html

 

[Rocky4040]

Of course, they would they don't have to get up and get ready to go to the office. They don't have to drive to the office. They don't have to sit at a desk and do their work. They can sit at home in their bathrobe on the couch and open their laptops and work all nice and comfy on their sofa. Heck some might even just lay in bed and try to work.

Sorry but yes when the Pandemic was here, we all had to change our way of life. Now that it's basically over we have to change back to what life was like before the pandemic. Some just got to comfy sitting at home and are fighting to be able to stay at home. Problem is it's not their call. Well, it is in a way if you don't like your job enough to take the time to do it in a way that your employer so desires then it's your choice to go and look for another job and then that employer can hire someone that wants to come in and work and do their job as requested by the employer.

I am not trying to be a jerk about it but play time is over it's time to put on the big boy or girl pants and do the job your employer wants and the way they want it done.

 

[brucek]

Remote work won't turn a bad hire into a good hire. You need to be able to tell the difference and act on it.

But a good hire working remotely when not needed for active, well-managed in-person collaboration, is probably going to outperform that same good hire in the office. Developers require concentration and most companies, even otherwise smart ones, cripple their software engineers by sticking them in noisy environments, interrupting them frequently with nonsense, and wasting their time not only with commutes but also too-frequent meetings. Some employers even mess up basics like productive work area and efficient equipment.

In ideal circumstances you'd have both remote and in-person time, matched to the task at hand, but for other than the best-positioned employers the benefits of that are probably not going to offset the larger talent pool available by searching globally vs in one city, the larger purchasing power that you have in more affordable markets, & the higher offer acceptance you're going to get with better working conditions.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Duh. Most programmers are introverts.

 

[psycros]

Remote work won't turn a bad hire into a good hire. You need to be able to tell the difference and act on it.

But a good hire working remotely when not needed for active, well-managed in-person collaboration, is probably going to outperform that same good hire in the office. Developers require concentration and most companies, even otherwise smart ones, cripple their software engineers by sticking them in noisy environments, interrupting them frequently with nonsense, and wasting their time not only with commutes but also too-frequent meetings. Some employers even mess up basics like productive work area and efficient equipment.

In ideal circumstances you'd have both remote and in-person time, matched to the task at hand, but for other than the best-positioned employers the benefits of that are probably not going to offset the larger talent pool available by searching globally vs in one city, the larger purchasing power that you have in more affordable markets, & the higher offer acceptance you're going to get with better working conditions.

Problem is, they really aren't able to escape the meetings. The word "zoom" causes panic attacks in many remote professionals now.

 

[m4a4]

Yeah, if a job can be done online, it's the smart thing to do in this day and age.

Saves the employer on paying for expensive office space, and widens their talent pool. Improves the working conditions for the workers (which also helps morale and improves productivity), and workers no longer waste money on back-and-forth transportation.

The only down sides are that it's easier for a worker to hide slacking off (but if they were going to anyways, being in office wouldn't change that attitude), and you miss out on social aspects of being in an office (if you're a more social person).

 

[DukeJukem]

This issue is a weird one. the pandemic showed that so many jobs could be successfully performed from home and if it's not hurting the company there's literally no reason to go back to the building itself. if I owned a company and things had to be done remotely due to the pandemic and everything was still golden I'd let the people stay home but that's me.

 

[gamerk2]

In other news: The sky is blue.

But yes, the majority of Software Engineering development can be done remotely, once the requirements get set (and we all know requirements are set in stone and will NEVER change 80% through development :/).

Pretty much nowadays most of my development is done remotely, with me being on-site primarily for HW integration (though I do typically show up once a week regardless). Corporate technically wants us in half time, though on-site management doesn't care so long as everything gets done (we have solid managers who manage only when they need to, since we have a very veteran staff who really don't need micromanaging).

 

[takaozo]

My job also fits remote only and I never would want to go back into:

- smelling other people at close distance (subway, elevator or else)
- listen to their opinions or their personal life stories
- being interrupted at any time
- no corporate bullshit posters or slogans
- no open office with the humming and phones ringing, beeping
- the 2-3 hours lost daily with commute

No thank you!

 

[KofeViR]

Duh. Most programmers are introverts.

Correct. However, as long as they actually do their job "fast" I doubt many will care.

 

[Plutoisaplanet]

My job also fits remote only and I never would want to go back into:

- smelling other people at close distance (subway, elevator or else)
- listen to their opinions or their personal life stories
- being interrupted at any time
- no corporate bullshit posters or slogans
- no open office with the humming and phones ringing, beeping
- the 2-3 hours lost daily with commute

No thank you!

I would never want to deal with that either. At the same time, I have it pretty good. I’m at a job where:

- My commute to work is a 5 minute drive
- My mortgage, property tax, and home insurance is less than $1000/mo
- My office has a peak of 4-5 people in it and is dead silent (though this isn’t the case for many departments)
- People tend to keep to themselves unless it’s work related
- I am never overloaded with work
- We have an option to work up to 2-3 days remote (I chose 1 day)

As a programmer I specifically chose to work in higher ed because colleges being geographically spread out lets me work wherever I want without working remote, which the pandemic forcing me to do definitely isolated me and I hated it. Working at a college has its downsides though…

- Pay isn’t as high as I’d like it to be
- Students can cause local businesses to be too busy (though this means there are tons of amenities nearby too)
- A lot of old code to support in old languages
- Co-workers aren’t coding enthusiasts (though they do enjoy the value their work provides)

 

[dangh]

Of course, they would they don't have to get up and get ready to go to the office. They don't have to drive to the office. They don't have to sit at a desk and do their work. They can sit at home in their bathrobe on the couch and open their laptops and work all nice and comfy on their sofa. Heck some might even just lay in bed and try to work.

If the work is done on time and well, I don't care if it was done in a bathtub really. How does it matter?

Sorry but yes when the Pandemic was here, we all had to change our way of life. Now that it's basically over we have to change back to what life was like before the pandemic.

but why to scrap something which actually work well and go back to previous, inefficient ways? And easy, remote work was normal thing before pandemic as well, I was working 2 days from home and only reason we were to be in office was because it was something everyone used to before, not because it was better.

Problem is it's not their call. Well, it is in a way if you don't like your job enough to take the time to do it in a way that your employer so desires then it's your choice to go and look for another job and then that employer can hire someone that wants to come in and work and do their job as requested by the employer.

lol. If your employer will tell you to walk only backward, and if you say: it is stupid, I'd rather find another job even, if I like the topics I'm working on, then it is my fault?
Employer require you to spend 2 hours a day in traffic and if I don't like it it is my fault? lets be real here. If employer wants me to spend 2 hours in traffic then he have to pay for it. If I need to use my private time for job-related tasks (and commuting is my private time) then it is just normal I will find a job which requires 8 hours of my time, not 10, daily.

I am not trying to be a jerk about it but play time is over it's time to put on the big boy or girl pants and do the job your employer wants and the way they want it done.

I though slavery is kinda dealt with, but maybe not in your country. I see no reason to cope with unrealistic expectations or reducing my rest time to accommodate a person with last century approach to resource management. I'm adult enough to understand my value and I do not plan to use it in a place which do not appreciate it - so maybe it is time for employer to realize it is not cotton field anymore and I'm not his personal slave - I can go to a place which require my skills to get the job done and do not try to micromanage my time and do not plan for my work outside of working hours.
And you know what - there are many places like that, so don't be angry over people who can make a choice - and actually using this opportunity.

 

[Uncle Al]

Countless studies have shown there is a financial advantage to allowing specific workers to work from home. Management of these people is easy, as long as a supervisor knows how to set priorities and measure performance. Those that don't have no business being a supervisor. Meetings can be held remotely. It won't work for everyone like those in manufacturing, production, etc that produces durable goods but a very large percentage can. The need for a physical presence just because a manager wants immediate accessability shows inmaturigy and poor leadership skills. In well run organizations even the CEO, COO, etc. can work successfully from home as long as their own management skills are well developed.

 

[zanic]

Everyone's work environment sounds like my home environment

 

[Raytrace3D]

Been working from home in some capacity since 2004, and mostly or completely from home since 2014. Really, there isn't any real point in coming to the office as a developer. We work long hours and are basically on call, day or night and work weekends anyway. Driving into the office and using their crappy equipment (small monitors, slow computers, tiny cubicles, noisy environment with annoying conversations, constant need for random stupid in-person meetings that could have been handled in an email) is counter-productive and a giant waste of time. Working from home saves us developers from being roped into most of that and let us have more flexible hours in a less stress environment where we can focus on getting stuff done.

 

[McMurdeR]

Of course, they would they don't have to get up and get ready to go to the office. They don't have to drive to the office. They don't have to sit at a desk and do their work. They can sit at home in their bathrobe on the couch and open their laptops and work all nice and comfy on their sofa. Heck some might even just lay in bed and try to work.

Sorry but yes when the Pandemic was here, we all had to change our way of life. Now that it's basically over we have to change back to what life was like before the pandemic. Some just got to comfy sitting at home and are fighting to be able to stay at home. Problem is it's not their call. Well, it is in a way if you don't like your job enough to take the time to do it in a way that your employer so desires then it's your choice to go and look for another job and then that employer can hire someone that wants to come in and work and do their job as requested by the employer.

I am not trying to be a jerk about it but play time is over it's time to put on the big boy or girl pants and do the job your employer wants and the way they want it done.

It literally says in the article subtitle that employers are embracing this! Why assume that there's some conflict here? As it happens Software Engineering is one of those areas where there are huge benefits to be said for remote working for all parties. Despite what lay people assume, it's a highly collaborative discipline usually requiring a high degree of access and collaboration with both business and IT stakeholders across the full stack. Thus Software Engineers have been using remote collaboration standards and tools from IM and Remote Desktop and VPNs to to Cisco, Zoom, Teams, GitHub, TFS, Jira, ITTL etc etc for many years now. And if project management tools such as Agile and Scrum are well implemented, its actually virtually impossible to ignore when people are not doing their jobs.

I speak from experience. If you were to tie my team and I to an office desk, the impact on our work rate would be catastrophic, and beyond that we'd be very constrained about hiring good colleagues.

From a work perspective the only remarkable thing about the pandemic is that it exposed poor management and lazy work practices. If there's even any basic focus or attention being paid to what's being produced, you can easily see who's doing their job and who isn't, regardless of where they're sitting. We saw some of our busines partners embrace some of our ways of working to remarkable effect. I don't see the pandemic as merely something that got in the way of work practice - it was the kick in the butt that a lot of people needed to get their heads out of the sand.

 

[mbk34]

I've only recently started working remotely. The weird thing that I miss the most is commuting on my motorbike each day. I also miss chatting to colleagues and hearing everyone's stories. At the end of the day though, I do actually enjoy working from home (and occasionally a Greek island, sometimes the French Alps etc). The coffee is better at home too but I don't think the amount of work I do has really changed.

 

[NikoBB]

Most truly creative people need a perfect focus on extremely complex things. Entering the workflow is extremely difficult in a noisy office, knocking a person out of it is easy for random *****s. None of the creative people involved in creative work tolerates spontaneous interference in the working process of thinking. The only way to avoid getting fools into this process is to isolate as much as possible. Therefore, creative people are always mistakenly called introverts. This is wrong. The need for complete isolation of consciousness at the moment of thinking and creating something new is the key to understanding the state of creative people seeking solitude. It is impossible for people who perform routine duties to understand them, because they have never really thought in their lives and do not represent the level of complexity and concentration that is necessary to create something new.

Unfortunately, in the modern urban anthill, even working from home does not guarantee peace and complete privacy. You need a literally deaf isolated bunker to get the maximum disclosure of your potential. We need a social environment that does not annoy and does not bother a creative person in everyday life and other trifles. We need a healthy society and a state that contributes to the prosperity of such people.

In the modern world, there is almost no place left for this. And that is why China and others like it have such problems with human capital. Problems at all levels from macro to microclimate...

And unfortunately, the USA and the West are also less and less like a place where a creative person with a liberated consciousness can create.

Finding such a personal place at the most productive and creative age for a person is a real happiness. After, despondency comes, about missed life opportunities and wasted creative potential due to a bunch of troglodytes around...
-
The ability to completely isolate oneself from less developed people is a valuable property of the survival of the mind.

 

[PanGrns]

Most truly creative people need a perfect focus on extremely complex things. Entering the workflow is extremely difficult in a noisy office, knocking a person out of it is easy for random *****s. None of the creative people involved in creative work tolerates spontaneous interference in the working process of thinking. The only way to avoid getting fools into this process is to isolate as much as possible. Therefore, creative people are always mistakenly called introverts. This is wrong. The need for complete isolation of consciousness at the moment of thinking and creating something new is the key to understanding the state of creative people seeking solitude. It is impossible for people who perform routine duties to understand them, because they have never really thought in their lives and do not represent the level of complexity and concentration that is necessary to create something new.

Unfortunately, in the modern urban anthill, even working from home does not guarantee peace and complete privacy. You need a literally deaf isolated bunker to get the maximum disclosure of your potential. We need a social environment that does not annoy and does not bother a creative person in everyday life and other trifles. We need a healthy society and a state that contributes to the prosperity of such people.

In the modern world, there is almost no place left for this. And that is why China and others like it have such problems with human capital. Problems at all levels from macro to microclimate...

And unfortunately, the USA and the West are also less and less like a place where a creative person with a liberated consciousness can create.

Finding such a personal place at the most productive and creative age for a person is a real happiness. After, despondency comes, about missed life opportunities and wasted creative potential due to a bunch of troglodytes around...
-
The ability to completely isolate oneself from less developed people is a valuable property of the survival of the mind.

Someone really get is. thank you!

 

[rsmith222]

Problem is it's not their call.

A study that was posted on this site found that something like 99% of workers in the companies that tried a 4-day workweek preferred it.

There is a point wherein it is the workers' call.

Either that, or corporations are being run by unseen overlords from space or something. Perhaps it's time to eradicate the 'corporations are people' nonsense and replace it with 'people run corporations.'

 

[NikoBB]

There are two types of work - routine, which machines and robots can do for a person, and creative, which robots and expert systems cannot do. In the first case, time is money, but work efficiency depends on the ability to concentrate staff for a certain number of hours and days. There will be a gradual replacement of such personnel by machines, because machines do not get tired, unlike people. Provided that the cars are more economically profitable - and this depends on what the competition for the "conveyor" is on the street.

In the case of creative professions, there is no working day as such. No one can dictate to a creative person how, where and how much he will work. But here the result is important, although in science the absence of a result is often also a valuable result if it cuts off erroneous assumptions.

The biggest mistake stupid management makes is when they try to set rules for a creative person. Such problems are most severe at the macro level in totalitarian societies and states. They themselves saw the branch on which they sit in global competition. Trying to bring everyone under certain limits does not work. Moreover, they lose really valuable qualified personnel.

The problem is that most companies are not engaged in creative work (they control monopoly niches or are in shop collusion), they need cheap day laborers (they are now massively getting rid of them, because they are of no particular value to companies), to replace machines in routine jobs where automation is less profitable than a cheap man.

Where the company is really trying to do something new, creative individuals are held in high esteem and their inner world is protected as much as possible from any unproductive influence of less developed personnel.

The smarter and more educated a person is, the more necessary he is in the modern world, the higher his ability to influence how he will live and work. But less than 1% of the world's population can reach this level. Everyone else is destined for the fate of biorobots, who must obey someone else's rules and daily routine. The task of parents is to develop the child to a level of less than 1%, so that he does not obey someone else's rules, but sets his own, at least according to how he will work. It is easier to say than to raise such a child, who after birth is just an untrained and undeveloped neural network. Genes here have almost no effect (10-20% no more if there are no genetic defects), only luck with the environment for the child from the moment of birth. It is at this time that most parents lose a child - instead of the key in his life - the transfer of experience and opportunities for better development, to give him the best intellectual environment. In the first key 12-14 years of a child's life, as busy with their careers and all sorts of nonsense, and moreover, they themselves, due to their age, are still inexperienced people. That is why the most educated children most often have parents who gave birth to them closer to 40 and already have the wisdom, experience and time/prosperity for the comprehensive development of the child. But alas, biology plays against experienced parents at this age, because. a birth closer to 40, and even more so after, is as unsafe as possible for a woman's health.

And then, a developmentally neglected child enters the adult world, where he no longer has a chance for a comfortable existence, since his ability to influence the environment and conditions of existence is minimal.

--
Often young parents entrust the upbringing of their children to their parents, grandparents of their children. The toga conveys the mentality and experience not of the child's parents, but of their grandparents. Because 2 generations are brought up by the same people. This is a mental trap. It is extremely difficult to find a balance of interests here, when one side has much more opportunities to influence the intellectual development of the child and spend much more time with him than the young parents of the child, spinning like a squirrel in a wheel, for the sake of earning money if they are not lucky enough to be born into a rich family.

From this point of view, the 4 day work week is a boon for new parents to have more communication with their children. But what can they give to children if they themselves are still young, inexperienced and not wise? It is in those key years when the neural network in the child’s head expands to the maximum and it needs to be maximally and finely tuned for the future?

 

[jason lee]

In other news... the sky is blue.

 

[rsmith222]

And unfortunately, the USA and the West are also less and less like a place where a creative person with a liberated consciousness can create.

Two issues:

(I wrote a long detailed response but I know how those are received, so I have cut the reply down to two sentences.)

1. All creative work comes from what others have done (in combination with the influence of individuals' genetics), which this 'creative person' has absorbed and continues to absorb as he/she/it is exposed to it.

2. The bigger problem is that isolated people, unless they're somehow connected to a network of wealth (which isn't isolation) — are going to find that their great ideas languish in obscurity.

Also, AI is showing up hardware engineers at NASA. This article focuses on software engineers. How long will it be before they're shown-up similarly? It will certainly affect the dynamics of the workweek length debate.

 

[NikoBB]

You didn't understand my message. It's not about total isolation. And 100% isolation at the moment when a person is in a creative flow. At this moment, no one should interrupt him, which is constantly violated in companies and due to the urban lifestyle, even at home. That is why I wrote that many creative people often dream of literally a deaf isolated bunker, even from their family, when they are trying to create. Well, not many people have access to such happiness in life. And software developers, given their monstrous levels of concentration required, are particularly sensitive to this. But most managers (especially in companies where developers are not key employees, but are maintenance personnel) do not understand this. Most often, the family of a person does not understand this when he works at home. Because of this, there are innumerable intellectual failures in the world. How many possibilities of humanity have been lost due to neglect of the environment of the creator's peace...

Trying to work from home is just another way to avoid interrupting the creative process. In the hope that no one will bother you at home and it is much easier to negotiate with family members than with a lot of staff who do not care about you ...

 

[rsmith222]

You didn't understand my message. It's not about total isolation. And 100% isolation at the moment when a person is in a creative flow. At this moment, no one should interrupt him, which is constantly violated in companies and due to the urban lifestyle, even at home. That is why I wrote that many creative people often dream of literally a deaf isolated bunker, even from their family, when they are trying to create. Well, not many people have access to such happiness in life. And software developers, given their monstrous levels of concentration required, are particularly sensitive to this. But most managers (especially in companies where developers are not key employees, but are maintenance personnel) do not understand this. Most often, the family of a person does not understand this when he works at home. Because of this, there are innumerable intellectual failures in the world. How many possibilities of humanity have been lost due to neglect of the environment of the creator's peace...

Trying to work from home is just another way to avoid interrupting the creative process. In the hope that no one will bother you at home and it is much easier to negotiate with family members than with a lot of staff who do not care about you ...

I lived for years in creative isolation. I have a lot of creative material to show for it and zero social recognition. The work I have done sits in digital form, otherwise it would be collecting dust rather than bit rot.

Guess what a company like Netflix does when it announces that it will begin creating its own programs? It brags about how it won't allow anyone from outside of its existing workforce to pitch anything. It creates a corporate firewall and that's that. That is how the evolving corporate complex operates. It recycles the same people and the same ideas because it is risk averse to the point of being almost brain-dead. Some of the sequels to films like The Terminator certainly qualify as brain-dead — and yet they continue to be produced with significant budgets.

The ability to be free of distraction is only one component. The most important component is funding. With a connection to a network of wealth, regardless of the quality of one's creations, it is enough to make them 'successful.' And, when one is connected to such a network and has that wealth to leverage, one can hire people to enhance whatever it is they're trying to develop. Few things happen due to the isolation of a genius. More things happen because of team efforts. It may not be romantic and sexy but money talks when it comes to innovation just as with most other things.

Wealth gives people the isolation you cite, as an option, too. Have enough money and you can hop onto your jet or yacht and go where you wish. You can rent buildings and leave them empty (except for yourself). Et cetera.