from Hacker News

Google’s Internal Data Show Engineers Found It Harder to Code from Home

by imraj96 on 10/12/20, 9:59 PM with 103 comments

• by bicx on 10/12/20, 10:46 PM

  I think the key with working from home is learning to set up and maintain boundaries between home life and work life.

  I was working from home fulltime for well over a year prior to the pandemic. Prior to that, I went into an open office every day for about 10 years.

  Overall, if you subtract the time from a 1-hour round-trip commute, distractions from coworkers, and longer lunch breaks I had while going into the office, I'm definitely more productive at home.

  At least most of the time.

  Lately, I've noticed that my boundaries between work and home have been slipping. I'm less likely to tell my wife that I can't help her with something in the house during my work hours. I tend to run errands in the middle of the day. I was doing better, but I need to tighten things up a bit. I'm still productive, but there are weeks that could have been "highly productive" but instead started merging into my home life too much.

  I'd wager that a lot of people have an ebb and flow in their productivity at home as boundaries become fuzzy and bad habits come and then go as you realize they're having an impact. And while I don't have kids, I can see how having kids would make working from home a huge challenge.

  Let's also not forget that 2020 is a steaming pile of shit, and it's had more horrific distractions than any year in recent memory.

• by crx07 on 10/12/20, 11:27 PM

  To what extent is this an actual issue with WFH?

  COVID has deteriorated my mental health significantly, and the last time my productivity was this low, I was a teenager living with my parents.

  I've spent the majority of my career working from home, and I suspect this data has little if any relationship to workspaces -- almost everyone I know is bent out of shape right now.

• by SkyPuncher on 10/12/20, 10:43 PM

  I've worked from home for 6+ years now. The transition is tough. It's even tougher when everybody else around you is dealing with the exact same transition. Even though, I've developed some good routines for myself, they've been extremely hard to follow during the pandemic.

  In short, it's hard to draw a conclusion on such short time horizons - especially when "normal" is drastically different right now.

• by DoofusOfDeath on 10/12/20, 10:56 PM

  I've worked from home for about 6 years, with varying levels of success.

  But I've been surprised by how much I'm thrown off by having my kids home during the school day (remote learning because of covid). Even with a decently soundproof office. It just prevents the house in general from being calm and quiet during my peak work hours.

• by DoofusOfDeath on 10/12/20, 11:23 PM

  I get the sense that many employers see WFH as a temporary measure rather than long-term shift. And consequently they're not willing to seriously invest in tools and processes that would make WFH maximally productive.

  Suppose for example that Google enacted this policy:

  (1) They reimburse each employee up to $30k to upgrade their home office, including soundproofing. After Google trained local builders on effective soundproofing strategies and designs.

  (2) Google provides (with installation) a Google Jamboard to facilitate virtual whiteboard sessions.

  (3) Google updates their team rules and meeting rules s.t. if anyone in a team or meeting is remote, then the entire team or meeting is remote.

  (4) Google invests in networking infrastructure (as needed) to ensure decent network connectivity from the employee's home office to Google's internal networks.

  I imagine that all FAANG companies could afford this. The open question, to me at least, is whether or not that magnitude of investment would make WFH a net win for those companies. But if they see WFH as a short term measure, I assume the answer is no.

• by dacracot on 10/12/20, 11:00 PM

  So first I can't read the article because there is no way I'm giving them my email so they can spam me later. That having been said, what is the unit of measure? Coding is notoriously difficult to measure and the unit of measure is elusive. We all heard the problems with KLOC, function point, ticket, story, etc, etc. They are all widely variable and seldom reflect the complexity or lack there of.

• by xt00 on 10/12/20, 10:48 PM

  I would guess based upon my own experience and talking to others:

  1) the first 3-5 months were hard to figure out a good rhythm and is super impacted by how busy your house is (do you have kids, live-in parents, special needs kids etc)

  2) many people have figured out a good rhythm by now and are doing fine

  3) people who were new at the company this year are definitely having a much harder time since just sitting next to people is an easier way to sort of learn stuff by over hearing stuff rather than bugging people

  4) long term "everybody working from home" likely is not a good setup.. more likely a mix is going to be a good setup.. where very likely new people should expect to be onsite for fairly extended periods of time until they have a much better sense of what to work on.. the other benefit of the "starting onsite" concept would be there would be less of the "oh but you live in north dakota so we don't want to pay you" shenanigans..

• by paxys on 10/12/20, 10:51 PM

  "... in the middle of a global pandemic"

• by cozzyd on 10/12/20, 10:51 PM

  Working from home requires a lot more discipline. For some people that's not a problem, for a lot of people it is.

  edit: based on responses I didn't communicate clearly. What I mean is that there are way more potential distractions at home. Some people are still able to be productive in spite of that, but a lot of people (including myself!) are less productive. For some people it may even be the case that working from home there are fewer distractions, although I imagine that's pretty rare.

• by ilaksh on 10/12/20, 11:13 PM

  I think we really need to be more specific about working situations than "at home" or "not at home".

  Because there are vast differences between specific circumstances. For example, people who are working at home but also suddenly become substitute teachers to keep their kids on task who are also there, are in a totally different situation than people who have a nice quiet home office and no kids.

  Also, the specific software setup and operating rules will have a massive difference. For example, people who need to collaborate daily and don't have a good rule for a meeting or a solid whiteboard tool or whatever they need, if they don't make that connection adequately, they are going to lag.

  Or if you are just talking about basic motivation, the interaction rules and software setup will also make a huge difference. If there were somewhat ad-hoc assignments and check-ins that kept people somewhat more motivated before and then all of that is just dropped, the motivation will go down. Now ideally what you have instead is just good management, intrinsic motivation and properly chunked-out results-oriented sprints, strong async and written communication, etc.

  Or in the opposite direction, if the boss realizes that now he doesn't need to go stand over your shoulder to check in with you or add a task since he can just message you on Slack at any time, that could also turn into a drag on programmer productivity.

  So it's really dependant on a lot of specific factors and not just whether they are in an office or not. And I feel like discussions will need to break down some of those details to be useful.

• by longtimegoogler on 10/12/20, 11:58 PM

  My productivity has soared as measured by things like like lines of codes, CL submitted, and Design Docs written.

  For heads down coding, WFH is much better. I hate open offices and find cross-talk distracting.

  For certain types of collaborative work, it is less great and, socially, I miss face to face contact with coworkers. But, I long term, I would prefer to work in an environment where at least several days a week are remote.

• by dang on 10/13/20, 12:09 AM

  As long as these articles stay hard-walled, we have to bury them. For a while The Information was unlocking them for HN but that seems to have stopped :(

  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

• by taylodl on 10/13/20, 3:45 PM

  Our experience has been the opposite - our productivity has measurably improved since our team started working from home and that's been the experience of most of the teams in our organization. It's been so successful in fact that our management is now looking to make this a permanent arrangement. It's a win-win situation: the teams are more productive and there's an opportunity to reduce facilities costs.

• by stolenmerch on 10/13/20, 1:37 PM

  I am one of those engineers that finds it harder to code from home. Some of the initial problem was that we were given a one day notice to pack up and stay home for the foreseeable future. It was not a choice and I wasn't prepared. Part of the problem is that I don't have the space in my house for my children, my spouse, and myself to have anything close to a "home office". As it stands, I am resigned to work on a 13" Macbook from a recliner in my living room after being accustomed to my dual monitors, standing desk, and keyboard at work. I'm sure I could set this up at the coffee table, but that seems almost worse and also so long work/life separation. On top of this, I was in a very healthy groove of hitting the gym every lunch hour, which helped my productivity tremendously. Sure, I could do burpees in the living room or something, but it's not happening.

• by tamersalama on 10/12/20, 10:51 PM

  Any studies around 'productivity' has to take into account the time spent on meetings, phonecalls, remote socials, conf calls, etc... and the time for context-switching and directed attention effort. I saw those dramatically increasing during WFH, especially for those teams that were used to co-location.

• by notananthem on 10/12/20, 10:58 PM

  I think its "harder to code during a global pandemic," not "from home"

• by dqpb on 10/12/20, 10:57 PM

  It’s hard the learn anything from this without seeing the data. At the very least I’d like to see what percentage of engineers show coding output decreased, increased, and had no change.

• by jeppesen-io on 10/13/20, 1:54 AM

  I tried working from home for the last six months. I've tried everything recommend here, nothing worked. Productivity tanked

  Recently the office opened up, just for me. I'm alone in the office but massively more productive

  I find it frustrating that so many comments discount that some people just don't work well from home. I have no logical reason, but I just need to get ready, walk to work to get stuff done

  WFH may work for some, but it does not work for me no matter what I do and I'm sure it's true for others

• by bloqs on 10/12/20, 11:53 PM

  Personality is an absurdly huge component.

  Trait concienciousness as per the Big Five model is inherently a social thing. Being more diligent is connected to being more in tune with others around you.

  Extroverts are also much more receptive to reward than introverts. This is partially relevant but frames the differences.

  Going into the office and cnfronting your "duty" within the social environment of work has a psychological impact. How much depends on how polarised your traits are

• by sjg007 on 10/12/20, 10:54 PM

  Did they control for distance learning with kids?

• by Waterluvian on 10/12/20, 11:03 PM

  Imagine if the future of the FAANG style interview focused on how good you are at working from home. I wonder it the outcome would be frustratingly different for many of those who are not too great at it.

  I think we should embrace WFH but not wholly adopt it as the one and only way people are effective at their job.

• by bawolff on 10/12/20, 10:44 PM

  I mean, not surprising, especially when people are still getting used to it. It takes time to get used to patterns needed and can be very distracting if you are not used to that.

• by JSavageOne on 10/12/20, 11:08 PM

  Can't even read the article since it's behind a paywall.

  But as someone who's been working remotely since before the pandemic, the key for me is to not work from home, ie. either work out of coffee shops or coworking spaces.

  Of course the problem with COVID is that coffee shops are takeout only and coworking spaces are closed, so that's not an option at the moment (at least in the U.S.).

  Working from home is awesome one or two days out of a week, but depressing after weeks and weeks. But then again I feel the same about offices as well, and hell just living in the same city year after year. The beauty of remote work is that you can go wherever you want, wake up whenever you want, and aren't tethered to a location. Once you taste that freedom, it's hard to give it up.

• by rightbyte on 10/12/20, 10:57 PM

  "The number of [changelists] is a key metric the company uses to track productivity."

  Don't take the article seriusly.

• by 0x7265616374 on 10/12/20, 11:46 PM

  Companies really should be making resources available to help folks adapt and succeed remotely. Tools like toggl [1] go a long way in providing structure that is suddenly swept away. Remote work used to be niche, then it was thrust upon the populace.

  [1] https://toggl.com/

• by phendrenad2 on 10/12/20, 10:38 PM

  There's going to be a BIG push to go back to offices soon. I expect some companies will start experimenting with micro-offices (4-5 employees in a medium wework room).

• by jimbob45 on 10/12/20, 10:48 PM

  On the other hand, I’m happier to work an additional 30 minutes if need be that I would otherwise have spent unpaid on my commute.

• by ArchOversight on 10/12/20, 10:42 PM

  Can't read the article since it is behind a paywall... but wanted to ask this question anyway:

  How much is that productivity hit because people are dealing with the fact that this pandemic is lasting longer than expected, more people are getting sick, more people are dying...

  You know, the amount of brain cycles spent worrying about the COVID-19 pandemic may also account for some of those feelings. I know I feel it. I feel less focused, there's a constant process using up CPU in my head.

  Not only has it affected my work ethic, but also:

  - Sleep patterns

  - How much I eat

  - Joy I get from things that used to bring me joy

  - Lack of physical contact/touch, especially since I am single

  These are all things that weigh heavy.

• by xchip on 10/12/20, 11:02 PM

  Why should we trust these news?

• by notananthem on 10/12/20, 10:59 PM

  "IN A PANDEMIC," not "from home"

• by 29athrowaway on 10/12/20, 11:06 PM

  People seem to forget that there are distractions at work as well.

  And not all work environments have nice people. Some people can be toxic and not having them around is fantastic.

  Remote work disarms toxic people because any toxic interaction can be either recorded or left in writing.

  And if some loud person wants to dominate every meeting, now you have a mute button... that's great.

• by chmaynard on 10/12/20, 10:29 PM

  This smells like bullshit. Show us all the data or retract the article.

• by andrew_ on 10/12/20, 10:44 PM

  It's dubious that folks at that skill level would lack the capacity to make WFH work for them. I've been remote for 10 years, I couldn't get in at the Googs. Working from home is not hard and there are a litany of resources for those who struggle.