[mpermar]

I've worked from home for the last 10 years. Before that I had regular jobs but also ran hobby Open Source projects from home too.

Reflecting on this time I don't think I would have done it differently. I'm certain that I'm more productive and happier at home. But as you gain family responsabilities, i.e. wife/husband+kids things become considerably more challenging and unavoidably productivity decreases. Today with two kids and wife, I know I am still way more productive than I would be on an office, but also less productive than I was 10 years old. The reason I think I am still way more productive working from home has been discussed over an over: much less interruptions. Also, something that is not discussed that often is that ( if you are a professional - some others would say dumb ) you end up working way more hours at home.

That holds true as long as we are talking about engineering work. However, I don't think it is true when we move above the management scale. When you move into more managing roles, even if they are technical management (architect, lead, CTO, ... ) things become very challenging at home if your company is not fully distributed. Many things that were natural when you were an engineer start to feel awkward like having all team members on physical site and a manager on a different contintent, having all managers on a place but you on a totally different part of the world, etc. etc. It is very easy get out of the loop and keeping up with everything becomes stressful.

I think working from home in general is great but it needs to be part of the company's DNA.