I've found WFH tech to be really isolating and boring. Even with a few days in the office a week, it feels lacking. I miss pair programming and seeing people in person daily.<p>Are there any ways to look for tech jobs which are more social and have more in person time?<p>I've considered going into hardware so I have to be physically present in a lab with other people, but is there another way?
Consulting<p>A lot of consulting is technical planning and brainstorming with leadership. I used to have that kind of role, and you had a mix of heads-down work prototyping and heads-up work trying to understand requirements and think with different leaders on the best path forward.<p>Related: Staff or Principle Eng<p>Similar role to consulting above, but you're in house and often part of leadership...
Technical sales.<p>It's not easy to find people who are personable but can also explain the underlying tech clearly to potential customers... and the best tech in the world isn't with a hill of beans if it isn't being used by sutomers. If your an inherently social, dependable and trustworthy person, I believe the sales part of it comes naturally.
Coworking spaces. Not the “we work” kind, but the smaller community run ones. Being social can be with people who aren’t colleagues.<p>This way you set your own limits on the environment, rather than joining a new place that might be too much of an over correction six months from now.
I would recommend looking into decoupling your social needs from your job.<p>Even in the time before wide spread WFH this was an issue, during good times it feels great to go into work and get all your social needs met but when layoffs come or companies collapse suddenly that great work friend everyone loves gets let go and in a few more weeks they effectively don't exist anymore.<p>It's great if you can meet people at work and create a real friendship (I've certainly done that). Now that you're remote you can put more time into keeping up with those people. Schedule lunches, video calls etc.<p>Get to know your neighbors better, join local interest groups, schedule video chats with friends you haven't chatted with in a while that live far away, and make sure to get lunch with local friends whenever you can.<p>It will be a bit of transition but ultimately you'll have a much richer social life and honestly enjoy work more as well since you have more outlets in the day that have nothing to do with your 9-5.
Same. It goes without saying perhaps, but one consideration is what type of social contact you want.<p>I work in a technical role and I miss my colleagues immensely. I feel best when I am around people I know, and when my job entails keeping a small group of people happy.<p>Working in sales, consulting, or relationship management is about working with strangers.... of balancing the joint demands of both your employer and the client. I get very self-critical and anxious in these roles.
Perhaps look into Developer Advocacy. You get generate a lot of educational material, interact with your potential customers(developers) "socially" and who knows make vital connections?
Do you want to see people in person specifically or just be more social? As a senior IC, over the last year I've actually become kind of overwhelmed with meetings and Slack rooms because the nature/scope of my work is across so many teams, and I'm curious if you think this would be enough for you, or you'd still find it isolating.<p>I work in a platform engineering organization on internal tools, which means basically the entire engineering org are my "customers". At the moment I'm in a weekly meeting on OS-level configuration. I started a weekly meeting on our build system which has turned into a reading group of Google's SWE book. Our larger group (everyone under my boss's boss) has a weekly presentation series. I have a variety of less-frequent meetings, including a 1:1 with another engineer in a very different part of the org, some cross-team meetings, etc. And I regularly have all sorts of ad-hoc meetings. I do interviews pretty frequently. So it feels like I'm spending most of the day talking to people; I actually have very few blocks of time for writing code (let alone reviewing code or reading/writing docs) by myself.<p>I mean, maybe I'm just an introvert who's in an extraverted culture, and to you, this would also count as isolated and boring :)
If you are in Philadelphia area, come work for us. A small SAAS edtech company. I love working in person (even though ironically a lot of our team is remote in different countries)
<i>Are there any ways to look for tech jobs which are more social and have more in person time?</i><p>If you're interested in in person time with the general public along with office people, consider healthcare.<p>Some of the mid-sized and smaller-sized healthcare companies offer technical people lots of opportunities to interface with the actual people who benefit from their work.<p>For example, my company does healthcare largely for the poor and underserved. Every person in the company from C-level down to button pushers like myself is required to attend public-facing events a certain amount of time each year.<p>In my case, while I'm helping these people in other ways, I also get to actually ask them face-to-face "What kind of computer do you have?" and to look at the actual phones they carry with them and to experience the kind of internet service they have in their neighborhoods. This hand-on intelligence is invaluable. Server logs are great in theory, but they are no substitute for actual field work.<p>Even with the 'rona scattering a lot of us behind-the-scenes people to the four winds, remote workers are still required to put in a certain amount of face time with the clients, whether that means flying back to the mother ship or driving to work regional events.<p>If general public isn't your thing, get into internal IT support. Walking around a call center watching people doing their jobs helps you think about the systems you build in ways that plowing through trouble tickets doesn't.
Find a job that is (remote) pairing?<p>I have seen hardware shops that are eerily quiet and sparsely populated, so being in an office is not a precursor for social interaction.
Maybe look for that kind of interaction more in your normal life. Moving to WFH during covid made me realize for the first time that I had wasted my entire life investing all of my energy into the workplace. There's a lot more to life than your career. And working remotely is an unbelievable privilege that most people don't get. Take advantage of it.
Hej, I started "office hours" when anyone can call me to pair program, get a coffee and chat or rant: <a href="https://sonnet.io/posts/hi/" rel="nofollow">https://sonnet.io/posts/hi/</a> (Feel free to come and say hi!)<p>I'm not the most social person in the room, but I've met so many fascinating people through this channel. Even though it's not the same as sitting with those people in the same room, I was surprised to see how much energy, satisfaction, inspiration I get from those calls.<p>It also makes it easier for me to meet people IRL and helps my consulting gig.
My NYC-based startup is struggling with this from the other side right now.<p>Half of us are "in person people" and the other half have never been happier working remote, so we're doing it team by team. My team has decided to be in-person. We show up 3+ days a week, have in-person happy hours, grab lunch together, and optimize our meetings for in-person. I love it.<p>But now hiring for this team has become impossible. We have other teams that will take on remote engineers, but ours looking for someone who also prefers in-person is just filtering so many people so early in the pipeline.
Curious what people thing is the reason this post is being downvoted (while also having decent responses in the comments.)<p>On the surface, that would seem to indicate it is a polarizing topic.
Hey, thanks for asking this question. I feel the same way. However, I think you've already answered your question, (and I have too) which is -- it's the pandemic, not the job. Your pre-pandemic SWE job had enough socialization in it to satisfy you. My best advice would be to either continue waiting until things get back to normal, or, start applying for jobs that require 3-5 days a week in the office.
Forget about your job, use the free time you spend not commuting going out and simply socialising. Work 'friends' often aren't really friends and don't keep in touch when you move on, friends made outside of work are generally ones you actually choose and can keep longer.
You could become a project manager. There's still an engineering side to it since you'll be working with your team on how to solve various problems. You'll also be talking to pretty much every other department in the company (assuming it's a small- to mid-sized company)
I'll also say don't expect to socialize at work. It should be a given now but you should never ever ask a co worker out.<p>It's too risky for everyone involved. Conduct which is okay at a bar or a party has no place in an office.<p>That said I have made great friends at work. This should be a bonus. If you want to make friends and date do that at a bar , alumni events , concerts, etc.<p>If you step to a girl and ask if you can buy her a beer at a pub, the worst that happens is she'll say no. If you do it at work, you might come off as rude , seriously don't date co workers. It's easy for HR to get rid of you.<p>For my part I've had a gay co worker aggressively hit on me. At a bar I'd laugh this off ( or even let him buy me a drink ). At work I felt very uncomfortable. No I don't want to know I look like your husband, why is that an appropriate thing to say in the office!
Have you considered just looking for a job that still requires in-person attendance. Not sure what it's like where you are, but here in the UK there seem to be plenty of those.