Will tech companies reverse course on remote work in a post-Covid world?

I have no insider knowledge, and I’m speaking in broad terms here, but it is my assumption that the largest companies who have made it very public that they are doing permanent work from home policies (ie Spotify and the like) will continue to broadly have that policy for the long term. There may be some teams within those larger companies that require, or strongly prefer, office time.

It’s my assumption that other companies will be a mixed bag, with things settling in the next five to 10 years into something like “working from home is common, but not always an option”.

Remember that not everyone likes working from home all the time, and those who do like working from home now may change their opinion as their life changes (eg having kids). I save this to partly explain why I think work from home policies will slightly and slowly erode over time.

Of course. Bosses are gonna Boss. Save this reply and come back in 1.5 years and say I was wrong.

Yes. For the majority of employees. While software engineers can work remotely, sales and pre-sales at tech firms are much better off working in office.

Any role with sales targets are coming back to office.

It can be an option for downsizing without calling it downsizing (just call it being more efficient), e.g. Yahoo 2013

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/25/yahoo-chi...

https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3453-no-more-remote-work-at-y... - Related HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5278949

not if they want to retain talent. a lot of engineers are moving to cheaper areas far from the cities. I plan on doing the same in a couple of years.