Ask HN: For a job in tech, are you only interested in remote only jobs?

I'm in no rush to return to a job that demands I stay in-office. I'd consider any offer, but non-remote positions will usually get back-burnered for me.

Depends.

* how good is the current job?

* how is the market?

* what is my personal burn rate?

* are they open to hybrid?

* how are working conditions at the office? (Private office is different than bullpen.)

I'm onsite in bay area like an idiot, my goal is now remote job where I can actually afford a house and raise a family.

Absolutely not. In my next job, I’ll only work for a company that works in-office with no remote workers.

[dead]

RTO all by itself didn't make me quit. But it does eat up a whole lot of headroom in terms of how much other nonsense I'll put up with before quitting.

Returning to office, for me, would mean 2+ extra hours per day away from the family due to the commute, plus two hundred bucks a month in gas, and it removes the option of moving to a more affordable location, which I'm looking into now. On top of all that, I don't feel more productive in the office as it's about 50% non-work-related chitchat, though that may be specific to where I work.

All of which is to say I wouldn't be totally opposed to returning to office if the compensation or opportunity made it worthwhile, but otherwise I'd much rather stay remote.

On the other hand, it's pretty rough out there – I currently can't afford to be unemployed, but I sure would start looking (either for a remote position or one that more) if I were forced to return.

Yes, I have years of runway so that I can.

Many people, when given a hypothetical scenario, say what they daydream about doing not what they would actually do. It's a subtle brag saying something like "If my boss asked me to do X, I would quit on the spot!" In reality you might have bills to pay or worries about being able to find a new job quickly so you won't be so eager to quit when you have to put your money where your mouth is.

Me? Of course I would love being able to choose where I want to work from. The ideal would be a hybrid arrangement where I can come and go as I please to the office (although going to the office to sit in virtual meetings is silly).

I've been fully or nearly fully remote for over a decade. My prior role, we traveled for things (pre-covid) and would meet up in the office maybe a week to a week and a half (total) each quarter. We would also work with customers on site at their location maybe a week a quarter. Otherwise, fully remote - team widely distributed.

My current role - classified as and fully remote. I made an effort to go to the office (while on vacation) to meet my boss and a peer (at the time) since I was in the metro area they worked out of. I've also met a few more people for the first group get together in 1.5 years. That was for two days.

Given the teams I work with are distributed, given most open work spaces are NOT friendly to getting engineering work done. Why sit somewhere (not at home/place of choice) if just on slack or google meet and headphones in all day?

Not without a significant amount of money. Also to get something out of the way, anyone who would "quit" because their employer mandated RTO is an idiot. Let them fire you and collect unemployment.

I moved from SF to Utah in ~2018, and managed to buy a few rental properties since then, and despite my "income" not keeping pace with my peers in the city my wealth is exceeding them. So the first thing is, the money argument is holding less water every day that goes by.

Second, say I went back for more income. The city is not the same city that I left, in fact it's gotten much worse. Why would I want to live in a place where you wake up to sirens, human feces, a government that hates you, and wants to extract every dollar for their failed social experiments? Especially during COVID when they decided to take any shred of trust I had left, set it on fire, and then threw lighter fluid on it.

So my answer is somewhere between "Hell No" and "Maybe for a wheelbarrow full of cash"

I had a pretty cushy, 100% WFH job at a big company and was probably getting promoted to senior within the next year. I liked the company, I liked the position, I liked my team, I liked what I did, and I was making pretty good money.

I hated the location though, and I'd been renovating my house to get it ready to rent so I could move. My manager was fully onboard with me working from anywhere within the lower 48.

Then, after nearly three years of fully remote, they called us back into the office with the usual "collaboration is better in person" justification, but no data of course. My manager allowed me to continue to work remotely, but it was a hassle. I could feel that I was now at a disadvantage, and it was painful to deal with meetings where 80% of the team was onsite, in some conference room, speaking through outdated teleconferencing equipment, watching someone draw on a whiteboard through someone else's laptop camera pointed at it (seriously). I started making plans to leave, and lo and behold, they offered a buyout, which I of course accepted.

I firmly believe that remote is the future of work, but rather than adapting onsite processes to remote work, the processes need to be built around remote work. It takes time to do this, but it's clearly possible to achieve similar levels of productivity remotely as onsite, as evidenced by the many companies who were fully remote before the pandemic, and still are.

Employers are pushing back on remote work now, but with the USA's long-term structural skilled labor shortage and climate change bearing down on us, I would be very surprised if remote work doesn't become the norm (where possible) in a decade.

I'm currently working on a master's degree and I have enough money to coast for a while, so I'm being very picky. I'll only consider hybrid or fully onsite in specific geographic areas (west coast), and compensation has to increase significantly to make up for the increased hassle and decreased mobility. 95% of non-remote roles don't make the cut.

I faithfully respond to every recruiter on linkedin who contacts me with an onsite or hybrid position with the same line:

"Thank you for reaching out, but I'm only considering remote work at this time. Please keep me in mind if a fully remote position opens up which fits my skillset. Thanks!"

I would urge everyone who feels as I do about remote work to do the same.

"Only interested in remote only jobs" is a somewhat misleading phrase.

All other things being equal, I'd definitely prefer a remote job, or at least one that afforded some reasonable flexibility.

That said, I'd take a job with less flexible conditions for a significant boost in pay that makes up for the hour commute each way, and extra expenses such as transportation and lunch.

I am one of the few people, it seems, that actually prefers on-site to remote work. I’ve never felt more isolated and commoditized than I have when working fully remotely.

My next job will be in an office. I like getting out of the house into the world, and I've never had as little engagement with a job as I do now.

I'll just make sure I don't choose anything with a bad commute, same as before the pandemic.

I'll take a lower salary for fully remote because I can live in a lower COL area and save on commute (plus my quality of life/commute time isn't worth nothing). If you want me physically in an office, you better be 30%+ more than the WFH alternative. Problem is companies are arrogant enough to think they can 1:1 fully remote and win, and they cannot.

I would take a good job in my area if it meant going in to the office a few days a week. I would take one within a few hours drive if it meant going in once a week or less. It would need to be a great offer at a great company for me to come in five days a week, and even then if the commute is over a half hour or so I probably wouldn't do it.

98% chance I won't move for a job right now. It would need to be an absolute dream job with next level compensation. Wife/kids/family/house all here and happy and that's a huge deal. Once you're settled down moving for jobs is an entirely different ball game than when you're young.

Am at a fully remote position after years commuting from the East Bay to SF. Don’t miss BART, don’t miss the commute to the office, and won’t go back. I am remote only from this point forward. It works well for our team and if I decided to switch roles I would absolutely prioritize orgs that have figured out how to be effective remotely. It is absolutely possible and honestly feels like a useful filter when assessing how adaptive an org is to changing circumstances. Clinging to an in office approach feels distinctly horse n carriage to me at this point.

I don't give a crap about the industry. I'm only interested in remote jobs at this point for any industry. I guess I understand the reasons people give, wanting to leave the house, interact with co-workers, whatever, but the health benefits for me have been tremendous. Most of the spine and joint problems from not moving around enough gone. I run every day. I lift every day. I cook all of my own food from scratch and have eaten the healthiest I've ever eaten for years now. I sleep better. The quality of life impact is tremendous. My schedule is far more consistent. I get to sleep on time, wake up without an alarm, don't have to adhere to the schedule of other people.

Thankfully, as it stands, it would make no sense for me to go an office anyway. My company is 100% remote and the only "office" they have is a co-working space six states away from me that seats 10 people. But I'm a consultant anyway. I work for customers everywhere in the country. Where I'm physically located is irrelevant. I'm not going to move my entire family every few months to be where the next customer is, so remote is the only arrangement that even makes sense.

And it's not like this is some kind of new concept. I remember before I started doing this work, I was still in the Army and my last job was in the 1st CAV division headquarters. At the time, we had units in Estonia, Afghanistan, and Korea, and had to coordinate and meet with all of them. Obviously can't be in four countries at once. This happened from the division operations center, but it was still remote collaboration. When I first got, much of my early work was classified, so I worked from a SCIF. Had to go to the office, but many of the people I worked with were still not physically co-located. The were military and intelligence officers posted all over the country in different installations. We managed to work together perfectly fine even though I never met any of them.

Remote work is the main reason I've stayed in my current job. So yes I would probably quit but not to retain my remote status (I'm resigned to working on site in my next job) - it would just be that the cost/benefit calculation would have shifted.

Somewhat tangentially ... I'm not hearing about startups focused on being fully remote and directly competing with establish orgs who are demanding RTO.

Considering the savings of not having to rent expensive downtown office space and having a much greater pool of prospective staff, you would think the economics would favor such an approach.

I will not return to office. I would quit before I’d ever go back to the office. Covid proved we can be effective remotely.

No. I'd prefer hybrid positions at this point, but it makes it easier that I'm based in a major city (NY).

I would definitely quit. Having a commute more than about 15 minutes would be very hard. (Going back to the office currently is 40 minutes each way.)

I would quit rather than visit office more than a few times a month.