Thanks for sharing, I've always thought that seemed like the right compromise. If I was looking to build a similar space, would you have any advice or observations?
I've been in such an office, and I loved it. Some people, like me, spent most of their time in the main open space. Others camped out all day in a private office. Most moved between the two.
From a design perspective:
- Glass walls are nice. This office was a group space surrounded by smaller rooms (which had the windows). The offices were glass on the interior wall (facing the group space), which allowed light in, but opaque on the walls between offices, allowing for privacy.
- Variety was important. Iirc, we had like 4-6 offices that would fit 2 people at desks, 3 that would fit 4 or 5 people around a table, and 1 that fit about 12 around a small conference table. This was for a 25-person company, and seemed to provide about the right amount of space.
- We ended up soundproofing a few rooms because people would use them for calls or loud music playing and it'd disturb the neighboring offices.
Unfortunately, I've only ever been a spectator in the design of offices, I've never played much of an active role in their organization. The best advice I can offer is to have the utmost respect for your developers, since they are your prized assets. Give them good equipment, choices, and solicit them for feedback on what they want.
I wish I could upvote this more than once. It's too common for developers to assume they're more valuable rather than benefiting from a currently tighter job market.
There's some of that, to be sure, but different employees are different. Everyone spends some amount of time doing collaborative work, and some amount of time doing individual work that requires concentration and focus. Different jobs require a different mix of these two kinds of work. Developers tend to spend most of their time on the individual concentration end of the spectrum, which is why you see comments like the parent's. But it applies just as much to anyone who requires an equivalent amount of individual focused work time each day.
The logical outcome of this is that your office layout should be different for employee groups doing different types of work, but since having an office is seen as a perk of upper management, giving offices to some groups and open plan areas to other groups is seen as favoritism and elitism rather than simply providing the best environment for everyone's job, and I think that's a big reason why it doesn't often happen.
In economics terms, that's the same thing. Tighter job market, more competition for dev talent, devs have more choices, the good ones choose the environment that values them the most.
Only in the most simplistic understanding – anyone serious will factor in limited information and human irrationality rather than assuming that observed market behaviour represents Econ 101 game-theoretical optimal decisions.
If you work at a large company, you might be well paid because you're working on the CEO's pet iOS project and there's a developer shortage. The market is working to give you higher pay but there's no relation to any sort of actual value. Most places don't even make a serious effort to quantify value or cost in a remotely scientific manner.
