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Software Engineers; Do you have an office you commute to, or do you strictly work from home.

I am researching for a class of mine and I was wondering this.

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Sarah’s Answer

I'm a Manufacturing Software Engineer (I write software which interfaces with manufacturing equipment) so depending on my current project, I am sometimes fully remote and sometimes mostly in the office. My manager lets me decide where I work based on the tasks I need to complete in any given day. For me, I prefer to work at home, so I'm home 80-90% of the time. My desk at home has everything I need day to day work and I'm allowed to take some limited equipment home. At the office, our team has a few "shared" desks for the people working 80%+ remote which has a basic 2-monitor desk setup. Since I have to be available for test equipment, I need to stay within driving distance of my work.

My husband is a Software Engineer at a SAS (Software as a Service) company, which is more common for Software Engineers. He is also able to remain remote as much as he'd like; in fact, he would be allowed to go Fully Remote and move/travel if he wanted. However, he enjoys going into the office at least once/week to socialize/collaborate with coworkers and eat the good office snacks.

I think the biggest factor about if remote work is good for you is your social disposition. I'm more introverted, so it's nice for me to be able to stay home. My husband is more extroverted so he enjoys going into the office, but likes the flexibility to stay home for his work/life balance.
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Scott’s Answer

I generally agree with the other folks that have answered this question - it depends upon your employer. You have the option to work for a particular employer (or not), but the employer will determine what is acceptable to the company.

If you work for a DoD contractor and have a security clearance, you probably will not be granted permission to work from home. Another reason is the specialized/expensive equipment that Sarah referred to.

But that said, prior to Covid many companies would not approve extended remote. Now that the management has seen that their worst fears did not actually materialize, many more companies will consider remote or at least a hybrid situation.

I'd suggest we all continue to build up trust with management for remote jobs by going out of our way to insure projects are completed on-time with a high quality product.
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Hassan’s Answer

This will depend on the employer but I suspect most will be flexible and allow remote work for now. My daughter just received her SW Engineering degree. One job was remote till further notice but the other one they agreed to let her be remote for their two year training program.

It will also depend on your skills and experience. If you're a rock star with skills in a hot field like AI or Data Science then you'll likely be able to negotiate what you want.

Look through online job posting to get an idea what's offered in your area and nationwide. Keep in mind that employers policies could change at any time and from what I read some are asking employees to come back into the office. This could be on special days for meetings on so many days a week as part of a hybrid schedule.

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Peter’s Answer

I have been strictly working from home for several years, and it has been a wonderful experience. My team has members in several countries and time zones, but we stay in sync using Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc. Before Covid we would get together in person every year or so for a week of planning and socialization. I miss that, because those occasional in-person connections help fill in some of what's missing in video and text communication.
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Shweta’s Answer

It depends on your manager and the company. For me, its optional whether to work from home or office.

Hope this helps!
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Rebecca’s Answer

Thank you for your question. To be software engineering, it can work from home and in office. It is really subject to the company policy and their preference. It is more common to adopt a hybrid model, i.e. a few days working from home and the rest in office.
In fact, the software engineers works on project basis usually. The advantage of working in office is to have close collaboration between the project team members. On the other hand, they may also need to have quiet time on coding. The hybrid model can have advantages of both. That is majority of companies adopting now.
However, it is also subject to the agreement between the employee, the line manager and the company as well. There is no strict rule here.
On the other hand, for the freelance software engineer, they would adopt work from home mode indeed.
Hope this helps! Good Luck!
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Dexter’s Answer

Hi David,

It depends on your employer. With COVID, more employers are open to software engineers working from home, but it's still not the norm in many places of employment.

For me, at VMware, my employer has let me know that it's totally optional depending on my preference. At the moment, I have a cube in the office and I have gone in a few times this year, but no one forced me to. Otherwise, I have been working from home with my manager's approval.

--
Dexter
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ETIENNE’s Answer

Most software engineers have both or are hybrid, like for me I have an office I can go to but I never went there at least yet, because my team is from different points on the planet so I work strictly from home.
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