Five years ago, in the midst of a global pandemic, it seemed like we were at the beginning of a remote work revolution.
At a time of huge uncertainty and mass layoffs impacting every industry, hitting tech particularly hard, companies scrambled to adapt to a remote-first approach in an effort to keep the wheels turning and retain staff, who were in most cases (particularly in Europe) required to stay at home, but still needed to earn.
Today, we see a mixed bag of companies who have well-and-truly adopted the remote-first approach, others operating in a hybrid style, and others reverting back to in-office full-time.
The pendulum has swung back and forth in just a few short years, from total freedom to cautious pullback. Companies once desperate to prove they could survive remotely are now reasserting the value of office life. Developers, meanwhile, have built new routines and identities around flexibility, resulting in a fascinating tension between organisations and developers, with little consensus among either about which approach works best, and why.
The Remote Recruitment Shift
While tech roles are, in theory, relatively straightforward to adapt for remote work, it still required companies and employees to re-think how they operated. For some, this meant providing staff with stipends (or support) to improve their home office environments, or investing in communication software like Slack to make asynchronous comms smoother, for others it meant completely re-thinking systems and processes.
For others, like GitHub, which was formed in 2008 as a remote-first company and continues to operate in this way with over 5000 staff members around the world, it was already the way that they operated, and for good reason.
While, at the time there was a general downturn in the number of roles listed (with mass layoffs, this is expected), the relative rise of remote-first roles meant that developers could take advantage of opportunities they could not have had had the roles been in-office only. For the employer, this means they have access to a wider recruitment pool, not limited to staff who live nearby or are happy to move.
When we met with GitHub COO Kyle Daigle back in 2024 at the Merge Festival, he echoed the importance of this, saying that it goes further, meaning that as well as them being able to hire the best people, regardless of their location, staff members can process their career without needing to upend their entire lives to do so, meaning they are likely to be happier individuals, and therefore more productive.
But wait … aren’t remote workers less productive?
Productivity
Over the last few years we’ve all seen studies, reports, analyses and news stories on the topic of remote work focusing on its impact on productivity, with very little consensus about the reality of the matter.
On on side, we hear that remote work undoubtedly results in more productive staff, and on the other we are told remote work is a death wish for companies struggling with unproductive team members.
For Luise Freese, the focus should be on more than just productivity, and by doing this, productivity itself will improve:
Personally, I love to work from home. Not because I need to walk my non-existing dog, but because my productivity and creativity don’t follow a fixed pattern of ‘on at 9, off at 5’. Sometimes I need silence, sometimes a coffee shop. What I always need is a space where I feel comfortable - where no one is watching me.
Following this idea forward, if someone were to measure Luise’s (or any developer who relates to this) productivity between 9-5, as has historically been the way in-office, it would produce results that are not flattering for the team members, but also don’t accurately reflect the contribution that they make.
Furthermore, the flexibility (and trust from company leadership) that remote work offers, will likely result in a happier employee, boosting their productivity as a secondary effect.
Luise is certainly not alone in this way of thinking. In the WeAreDevelopers 2024 survey over 70% of European developers said flexibility mattered more than salary increases, which at a time where the cost-of-living is relatively high across Europe, speakers volumes.
Perhaps the office is not the engine of productivity that some will have us believe.
The Pushback
While many developers fell in love with the flexibility afforded to them when switching to remote work, many companies, for example Dell, have reverted back to their pre-pandemic ways of working, unable to make the remote approach work, claiming productivity is the main reason for the change.
Skeptics of the in-office approach say that this is disingenuous, with expensive commercial real estate costs being the real reason for enforcing in-office working, costs that cannot be justified if the office is empty most of the time.
However, there is certainly an argument that remote working can make it trickier to train up junior employees, who would have more regular contact (or supervision, perhaps) from more senior team members in an office environment, and may be accidentally deprived of this mentoring due to communicating asynchronously or online.
Add to this the fact that many mental health charities now recognise that remote work can negatively impact the mental health of employees at all levels, and it’s certainly something that is more complex to implement successful than simply providing a staff member with a laptop and saying “DM this person on Slack if you get stuck”.
Some tech giants introduced structured hybrid rules - two or three days a week in-office. Others went further, mandating full returns. Across Europe, the tone is gentler than in the US, but the general trend is pretty clear, and it’s a trend toward being back in the office.
Is Hybrid the Happy Medium?
While most studies (including our own Developer Survey) suggest that in-office working in unpopular among developers, Dima Rubanov, co-founder of Intellipaper.ai says that it can be helpful for team cohesion, but shouldn’t be enforced too heavily:
There needs to be a good balance (…) Being in the office and talking to the team face-to-face is important for morale, but I also understand that some people, especially devs, prefer to work late evenings or in their home environment.
Eddie Jaoude, a long-time digital nomad and remote developer, says that occasional in-person contact is beneficial, but more so for morale and cohesion than any significant improvement in work-related output:
Remote 1000%. I’d never do in-office or even hybrid again. I like meeting the team once a year for an event, but otherwise, remote all the way.
Freelance Freedom
So how about freelancers? In theory, they all have the freedom to live the life of a digital nomad, and so being restricted to an office is out of the question, surely?
Jack Barber, owner of Hello Technology and a freelance developer with a young family at home, recently chose to move into a small office near home after years of working remotely, from home.
Working from home isn’t seen as negatively as it once was, but having a dedicated office makes client meetings easier. For me, it’s less about the environment and more about whether it works. The important thing is finding what works for you and your family - and recognising that what works will change over time.
Jack’s story highlights the fact it isn’t as simple as *X works best *or Y makes developers more productive, there are so many moving parts, it’s so personal to the individual and their circumstances that consensus about *what works best *will always be hard to find.
Company Culture
While companies go back and forth about whether to offer remote work as an option, developers have come to expect it. For many, the flexibility offered by a company is a symbol of the culture it has. Those offering remote options are communicating that they trust their staff, are able to adapt to external changes, and are forward-thinking or modern in their approach.
Salma Alam-Naylor, a streamer and senior engineer, sums it up perfectly:
Everyone has a preference for how and where they work, and workplaces should respect this. Personally, I work best remotely. I get my work done while also being able to deal with life admin and being a parent. Before the pandemic, I thought I was an office person. Now I go maybe twice a year - and honestly, I wonder how I got anything done before.
The Future of Remote Work
Any attempt to predict the future, especially when it comes to tech, is just a great way to be wrong. However, when it comes to remote work it seems like we’re in an age of negotiation.
Developers want, and value, autonomy and flexibility, and they won’t easily give it up. For companies, the challenge now isn’t deciding whether to allow remote work, but how to build culture, mentorship, and cohesion around it.
Remote work may have started as an emergency fix, but five years later, it’s become a mirror, reflecting what companies truly value, how much they trust their people, and how adaptable they are to change.
The question isn’t where we work anymore. It’s how we choose to work together, even if we’re miles apart.