Ask HN: How to find an in-office tech job

[hiremelocally]

I'm an experienced (10+ years) software engineer in the Bay Area. It's getting to be time to change jobs, but unlike most my peers (and my team), I prefer working in the office with my team in-person.

With so many companies going remote-first, I'm not sure how to find a local company where most of my colleagues will be in the office most days any more. Where should I look?

P.s.: I'm not looking for a remote vs. in-person debate. Many, many threads here have gone over the pros and cons, it's getting tiresome, and I know which is right for me.

[jstx1]

Search by location, apply, interview etc. I'm not buying that there are no in-office jobs in the Bay Area.

[ramphastidae]

Real finance like trading firms and investment banks (not fintech) were and still are almost entirely in-office.

[hiremelocally]

Maybe it's time to bite the bullet and go to a quant firm in nyc.

[yulaow]

While currently looking for a job I have found that big consultancy companies and finance / investment banks all prefer to have an in-office workforce. Maybe most of them will allow also hybrid so a real "5 days a week whole team in the office" will be quite hard to find

[adave]

I am sure you can google or update your linkedIn. With your experience and WFO preference pretty sure you will get a lot of hits.

Putting expectation on colleagues gets old real fast but i see that you want management to do it for you which is smart.

[ultrasounder]

Email in profile. Ping me. Hybrid or 5 days on-site your call. I also keep hearing about this car factory on grimmer blvd(Fremont) that needs ppl on-site 7*8 with optional WFH rest of the time.

[mwint]

Not OP, but your email in your profile isn’t visible (at least to me).

[ultrasounder]

Sorry and thanks fixed it.

[jl2718]

There are two kinds of “in-office” jobs:

1. We find the cheapest capable workers all over the world, and put them in an office for administrative monitoring, while they work on our ideas in fully-distributed teams through email and remote meetings.

2. We pay to get people together in one place so that we can figure out the best ideas together, without meeting schedules or email. We hope to develop friendships and an environment that they won’t want to leave.

In my first several workplaces, there was maybe one scheduled meeting a month, and email was mostly for long-form discussions. Hierarchies were flat, disagreement was common, and leadership emerged by people choosing which ideas they wanted to contribute to. We joked a lot and told stories. Nothing left the time and place of work. This seemed to be the norm, and it gradually changed everywhere at the same time. “Tech” is a monoculture. Everybody says they’re different, but they all use the same tools for their interactions: outlook, teams, slack, zoom, jira, github, agile, weekly update meetings. Nobody wants this, but they definitely don’t want to go into the office for it, nor do they have time to commute when their entire life is already consumed by all this ‘collaboration’, and every day ends with not enough done to show results at the next morning meeting, so they’ll be working at home anyway. Even if a company did have a real in-person culture, it would immediately revert as soon a they hired someone for their success at another company, which turns out to be mostly a function of working the system as a middle manager with an engineering title. New grads are even worse; it’s all they know. School is now mostly remote, even when you live on campus. This all seems like the long arc of the computing revolution, and everything seems to be pointing in the same direction, e.g. metaverse etc.

My guess is that you’re looking for a certain kind of work, not just a desk to sit and do the same as you’ve been doing remotely. I too would like to learn about places that are truly intentionally present physically, or even experimenting with radically different remote methods. My hypothesis is that everybody eventually reverts to the monoculture because fighting it becomes more effort than any benefit gained. So, I’m not sure I will believe it, but I’d still like to hear it.

[kaesar14]

Can you drop an email address? I work at an in-person startup in SF and NY and I'd love to chat.

[GoToRO]

You don't need an in office job, you need a social circle.

[jleyank]

Work for apple? They have this neat new building to staff…. But you’re not asking to work in an office are you. Rather you want everybody else to join you there. Perhaps you should start your own company? Or go do fintech or law in nyc as they seem 20th century.

[firstfewshells]

The OP asked a simple question. I don't understand how you got the idea that they want everybody else in their team to join them. I guess folks get triggered at the very mention of RTO these days.

[jleyank]

“I prefer working in the office with my team in-person.” Seems pretty clear to me he didn’t want to do it solo.

[codegeek]

"as they seem 20th century"

Is the snark really needed ? If you don't like OP's question, why even bother responding. Contrary to what you may think, plenty of people want to work with co-workers in person and they have every right to ask the question just like people who want to WFH.

"Rather you want everybody else to join you there."

That is you assuming. Is OP the only person ever left in this world who wants to work in an office ? I am sure there are plenty of companies that are still in person or at least Hybrid.