HN Explorer

Ask HN: How would you start a new small office for a small team of developers?

7 points by gusbremm ↗ HN
If you had the opportunity to start and lead a small team of developers (5 devs) to work remotely as consultants but together in the same office, how would you do it?

Apart from good wages, which benefits would you use to attract the best developers in town to join your small team?

What kind of office appliances/toys/furniture would you invest on?

11 comments

[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 36.8 ms ] thread
carapace
Speaking as a dev, the single most exciting, motivating thing one could offer me (assuming a baseline of e.g. knowing what you're doing, having a compelling mission or product, etc.) is my own office with a door that closes.

Other than that: ergonomics. Don't skimp on the chairs and keyboards. Big monitors are good but an aeron chair shows that you know what's up and give a damn. YMMV.

Blakestr
By the way those aeron or steelcase you can usually pick up use from a furniture liquidator. Don't go spend $1,200 on a chair when you can get one for 1/3rd of that
ThrowawayR2
A nap room or, if the name is not to your taste, call it a wellness room. Yeah, you might not need it but potential hires that get migraines, have newborns, have sleep disorders (increasingly common among devs these days) or just plain start feeling ill during the day do need it.
codingdave
The best developers are the ones who know how to set up their own best environment. Give them an office, a budget, and some time to build their own ideal space.
dv_dt
Four day work week
JamesBarney
Do you think people would be willing to make less on a per hour basis to have a 4 day week?
147
Nobody said anything about paying less... In my mind if I were to run a company I’d do 6 hour work days with four day work weeks. Nobody actually gets a solid 8 hours of coding done. I don’t see why people keep throwing money at more perks/food to compete with FAANG at their own game.
JamesBarney
It's true that no one does 8 hours of coding. And you're the the last 8 marginal hours of development aren't as personally productive as the average hour. But personal productivity isn't organization productivity.

It's expensive to hire someone, its expensive to manage someone, it's expensive to keep someone informed about a project through meetings/documentation etc, it's expensive to rent office space for someone, it's expensive to have to hire more people to get the same productivity.

And all of these expenses are weighed against the reduced productivity of those extra two hours, and at 99% of companies they've decided it's better to hire for 40 hours.

dv_dt
What if the studies that say extra time in the office is often wasted are true? Should people give up some comp to not sit in a seat?

The studies may be wrong, or maybe you pencil it out and it just doesn't model out correctly, but if you lock in the pay on the basis of the assumption that the total productivity would be less, it's sort of favors one side of interpretation. And if you're truly trying use a four day week to attract high-end talent, reduced per hour pay somewhat dilutes the attraction of the benefit.

Finally, some consulting gigs are billed per hour anyway, so the model might end up that total comp is somewhat reduced vs a full 40/hr week. Or it might end up the same pay for four days - it really depends on the business model.

JamesBarney
Mind pointing me at the studies that show people are as productive in 30 hours as 40?
probinso
Remote first! if you are starting a small op, and intend to interact with customers remotely, make the infrastructure prioritize the remote workflow. This significantly increases flexibility of employees; insures that problems in interacting with customers is first felt by you (not your customers)