What is happening is people who are being forced into RTO are demanding a higher salary. Basic supply and demand dynamics are coming into play. Those CEOs are now learning this perhaps the (not surprising) hard way.
Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud. I read articles stating that "the majority want hybrid", but what people truly want is freedom to work wherever it suits them best. I've been remote for 15 years, and I've seen people that want the connection an office provides, and others (like me) prefer to never set foot in an office again. Just look around at the other comments and you read differing preferences. And that's cool. Just leave me and others alone and let us work how we prefer.
As far as your quarterly meetings comment is concerned, even that is a variation of hybrid. I worked at a company once that had the quarterly meetups. It worked, but sometimes it was
a disruption to a normal routine, especially for some co-workers who flew cross-country. Another company (100% remote company) had the annual weekly retreat which I liked better. You got your face time/watercooler collaboration bullshit/whatever out of the way, then 358 days of peace til the next one.
I've been working in software consulting for over 10 years. I've worked for 5 different agencies, some small, and some household names. Every single one of these companies has hired out to independent consultants (or smaller agencies) willing to take on part time, hourly work. You have to remember most firms that are billing are constantly juggling the chicken and egg of having too much billable work in the pipeline or not enough.
My advice - figure out your core niche (i.e. GCP, Go, Rust) and reach out to 2-3 firms and propose your services and availability. Look in your LinkedIn network for any 1st or 2nd connections working at consulting firms.
That's funny, because I've always felt the opposite when evaluating candidates. If a candidate comes in saying certs are "trash" and "pointless" it usually looks less favorable. It signals an unwilling to learn and/or strive for continuous improvement. Certs are not the end all/be all but they help round our your knowledge and open your eyes to things you never knew.
As far as side-projects and open source contributions, this is a two way street. When I look at side projects, I look for how well you are utilizing best practices in your code. If it's a sloppy, poorly documented mess it doesn't look favorably for you. If you use your side projects as a marketing tool they should be well-polished.
One of my peeves has always been the accepted answer is one of those "That's not possible" type answers, only to become possible later on with a newer release.
I once worked at a (open) office where sales people were constantly berating engineers, asking for a feature or pestering for a status update on a feature/bug in progress. It got so bad they installed a wall around that area.
It can be if they give you something to start with.
One company gave out sample code and asked me to optimize it so it ran under 5 seconds. The exercise was in parallelizing or caching/reusing what you could per the requirements.
I have several certifications from Microsoft and Google and, for the most part, mean jack to an interviewer. I am still forced to leetcode and answer mind-numbing questions.
On a side note, of all the choices I prefer a take-home, as long as it is timeboxed to no more than 1-2 hours.
If the care facility is housing at-risk patients, they should have strict protocols in place for visitors. Shaming a wedding here seems irresponsible by the media considering these people could have picked up Covid anywhere like Walmart.
I've been on both sides of the table and I'll tell you a coding challenge is a much better solution than the whiteboard/leetcode/code-on-the-fly during the interview. Just keep it short i.e. 2-4 hours max.
As far as alternatives to a coding challenge, the OP did suggest walking through a prior project on GitHub. I think that's a great idea (in addition to a coding challenge though); an open source project on GitHub is a bonus for a candidate, and will in many cases steer the interviewer to ask questions about your project in lieu of abstract concepts.
I hate to remind everyone but PC culture is here to stay. We can all complain about but the fact is no one has a solution, except for staying off social media (which I generally have been doing, and I've never been happier).
Two years ago someone I know was laid off. After a three-month climb to find a new job, they vowed to put together an emergency fund. After a sudden drop in rates, they took out a small cash-out refinance. Luckily they still have a job, but the fact that they now have that cushion puts their mind at ease.
Lesson learned: take advantage of cheap credit while you can.
Just go to any paint store and you'll find yourself halfway there. When we were searching for gray tones we were stunned at the creative names we saw for the thousands of grays available i.e. "mindful gray" "blissful stone" etc.
That's got a be a dream job for some uber-creative artist.
I figured it was only a matter of time before all the WFH "advice" articles would start. This guys's been doing it for 2 weeks and he's already an expert dispensing advice. I've been WFH for 8 years, so reading this is a bunch of LOL.
Regarding headphones, this is not an issue once you move into a dedicated office space in your house. One thing I use to hate is taking headphones on/off every time there's a call. Regarding set hours, that's totally a preference. I work late at night sometimes because I feel like it. WFH means flexibility and not commuting means sometimes I get a jolt of inspiration to work off hours. I don't mind because the trade-off is I get to take time off during the day to attend school events for my kids.
Remote work is a lifestyle change for sure. More loneliness, more discipline, less water-cooler gossip. It requires the right mindset and personality that some of you don't have, and I'm sure you're itching to get back to the office.
I've been working remote for 8 years and so my commute is 0 mins. But in my experience companies that allow remote work have caught on to this commute time==money dynamic and have adjusted their offered compensation accordingly. More than once have I had or heard the conversation that "well, you have the perk of no commute + living in a lower cost area, so based on that the compensation target for you is X - Y", where Y is $10-20k less.
The question I wrestle with: is it fair?
1. For living in a lower cost area, no. If I live in SF I benefit/pay a premium for living in a nicer area. That should have nothing to do with compensation (unless they are located in SF and need me close by).
2. For not having a commute, maybe. I think it is fair for a company to pay a premium to have someone onsite. But that premium should be the same whether I walk 5 mins to work or drive 50 miles.
The problem probably lies somewhere between afraid of getting sued and not wanting to shake the medical groupthink apple cart.
Last year I was suffering through a bout of strange fatigue that came about right after a mysterious throat infection. There were days I could barely go up the stairs without being winded or without assistance. I googled around and started reading about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and found this large, shadow community of millions of sufferers. Many of these people have had these symptoms for years, and when they go to the doctor they are simply told "It's all in your head," and if lucky, they'll run some tests and prescribe something that gives them temporary relief.
I asked my cousin who is a doctor about his opinion on CFS, and he told me it was difficult to diagnose and even harder to treat. The most they will do is refer you to a specialist or even psychiatrist.
After a couple months my fatigue went away on its own. But I did find that creatine helped. And this has been backed by others in the CFS community who have stated that eating raw meat relieves their symptoms (natural creatine in meat is destroyed once cooked). But a doctor would never tell me that, because if there isn't conclusive proof from a medical journal and/or a big pharma drug to prescribe, they are either too afraid or unwilling to say anything.
While the war on drugs is in its waning days, there is a (aging) segment on the right that worships law enforcement and is generally in support of more laws and heavy-handed police tactics.
I think the OP is calling some these people out as hypocrites who demand "touch on crime" policies that disproportionally affect poorer communities, while they themselves break laws.
That aside, I find the hypocrisy elsewhere, namely the people who want small government but who want everyone to pay billions for mass incarceration (and raise taxes for more police) as a result of these policies.
Source: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240322-us-salaries-hi...