Is that what I'm missing? I find that a lot of the people here love working from home, but whenever I do it as a one or two day off event, I find that I'm not terribly productive. Do you need time to settle into it?
You absolutely do. The communication styles and social rewards of going to an office are different drastically. This is why I feel grateful to have spent the last year or so working for a remote first company- to provide myself the time to get accustomed to working from home.
A few of my colleagues hated it and returned to their FAANG(probably for financial reasons, as well), unlike myself.
IMO the entire way your team operates needs to be centered around them being remote. The worst is hybrid teams where they are half remote and half in office. I don't think they work well anyway you do it.
Also some people just aren't very suited for remote work, they need to be physically around their co-workers.
If you are curious about more details, the REMOTE book is a good primer on the different ways of working remotely compared to in an office. https://basecamp.com/books/remote
Imagine having only ever used Windows as an OS. Then one day someone hands you a Linux machine. You try it for a day or two, but then go back to Windows. And then you wonder why your coworkers keep saying how great Linux is.
You have to commit to managing your own time effectively and efficiently because nobody else is going to do that and there's no social pressure/encouragement of your co-workers around you.
You have to reach out and communicate when you're struggling or blocked because nobody will know by your body language.
You have to step away when you need to because it's easy to get sucked into non-stop work which isn't always productive work. This is even better if you're allowed to have a truly flexible schedule (e.g. you could work a few hours in the morning, take the midday to yourself, and work the rest of your day in the late afternoon/evening or switch it up and take the morning to yourself and work the afternoon/evening).
A few of my colleagues hated it and returned to their FAANG(probably for financial reasons, as well), unlike myself.