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This guide is still in Beta. The research supplied in the research section does not fully account for the results of systematic literature reviews. For this reason, this guide should not be used (by itself) to demonstrate potential ROI.
The views presented in this guide are my own, not those of my past or present employers.
Since the pandemic, there has been a massive transformation in how technical work is done. Incorporating work from home has become the new normal. A hybrid approach is often employed when companies try to bring employees back into the office. This is a tremendously exciting time for workers and companies, with the potential for significant synergy. Programming in a well-equipped private office has always been the most productive way to code but was often not possible due to real estate limitations. These limitations no longer apply, and companies can realize these productivity gains with minimal expense. This is in addition to lower office costs for employers and lower commuting costs for employees. However, in most cases, work-from-home equipment is chosen and set up in a haphazard and disorganized manner. Compared to an optimized setup, this can cause productivity losses of 10-30%. Additionally, haphazard conferencing setups increase video conference fatigue, and they decrease communication quality and clarity so much that meetings can resemble the dreaded conference calls of the past. This hurts programmers, too: reduced productivity and reduced bonding with coworkers and leaders can lead to reduced job satisfaction and career growth.
The guide linked above aims to rectify this situation. It provides a comprehensive, normative, and easy-to-follow guide to get an optimized setup. A programmer can order all the needed equipment in 1-2 hours and set it up in less than 8 hours. This guide is driven by research and metrics, with a pessimistic and skeptical approach to the data available. The cost per programmer is $5849 for the first year, $1359 for the next two, for an average amortized cost of $2856 per year. This is justified by the likely ROI, backed up by the research. Additionally, the guide presents budget recommendations for individuals or early-stage startups.
Note: This guide also applies to flex spaces and office setups, though recommendations on the internet and how to handle expenses do not apply.
The vast majority of companies have not adopted the practices in this guide, despite the fact the supporting research starts in the 1990s. Leaving money on the table is irrational, and when accusing an industry of irrationality, one should understand the reason why. There is an old joke that goes as follows:
Two economists are walking down a street when one of them spots a $20 bill lying in the gutter. They point it out, but the other quickly rebukes them, saying: "That's not $20. If it was, someone would have picked it up already."
By the end of this section, I don't expect you to be convinced, but I do hope to open your mind to the possibility that a $20 bill is lying in this gutter. Our story starts with a chair, specifically the best chair in the world for 10 years running: The Herman Miller Aeron.
So how, might you ask, did it cause a decline in optimized setups? Well, those ten years were between 1994 and 2006, spanning the dot-com boom and the corresponding bust. In the dot-com boom, companies without viable business plans had boatloads of money thrown at them, and naturally, they spent it: on the fanciest offices, lavish parties, unsustainably high headcount, and yes, nice chairs. Then it all came crashing down. (As it turns out, to be a successful company, you need to make more money than you spend.) Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, everyone could grab a piece of the wreckage, more often than not the ever-present Aeron:
- Seeking relics amid Webvan's ruins
- Bankrupt visual effects firm Rhythm & Hues auctioning off assets
- Enron Auctioning Off Leftovers: Furniture, Computers and the Famous 'E'
Thus the Aeron chair became a symbol of the unfettered excess of these startups. From holding up the rear published in Salon in 2001:
Where did all that start-up money go? Clue No. 1: Today's dot-com auctions are flooded with opulent Aeron chairs.
Aeron chairs became to business what avocado toast is to millennial homeownership: a simple scapegoat for a complicated problem. Entrepreneurs were advised to eschew the Aeron chairs with other perks to [Keep] The Soda Money On The Field. One problem: a high-quality chair, along with an ergonomic, optimized setup, is a productivity tool. It is no more a perk than enough RAM is a perk. Sure, programmers like it... because it helps them do their job.
This false economy might have been fleeting if not for an alternative that emerged some time later. Laptops had improved a ton since the early 2000s, and the first MacBook Pro came out in 2006. All of a sudden, you could do your coding in a coffee shop and look great. Open-plan offices, incubators, and co-working spaces all thrived on this too, and work-from-home changed accordingly. This flexibility isn't always a bad thing: many billion-dollar companies started this way. You can code amazing things in a coffee shop or hanging off the side of a mountain. But in this transition, knowledge was lost and money was left on the table.
This guide will teach you how to pick the $20 bill out of the gutter. After all, it's the most frugal thing to do.
This guide should be treated as a checklist, with each page a single item category. It will first describe the key criteria that the item must meet. Then there will be two sections, Recommendation and Budget Recommendation. The Recommendation section should be followed whenever possible. I have tested all these items, and they work well together. An employer can expect to see substantial ROI for employees making > 60k. An employee purchasing the setup themselves can expect substantial ROI if they are making > 100k.
This guide will tell you what to buy, where to buy it, and how to set it up. These items all have good return policies, so you can safely order them all and return any that don't meet your needs. (Return policies were last checked November 8th, 2022). However, especially for the Recommendation products, they will almost certainly provide most of the gains. When there isn't a good one-size-fits-all option, as is the case for high-speed internet and laptop docks, the guide provides an easy-to-follow decision tree: what to Google and in which order. None of these items are optional. Download this excel checklist to check them off. You are more than welcome to buy a higher-end product, but you should be able to realize the productivity gains in the research using the products in this guide. Additionally, while the setup is designed to be ergonomic, modifications may be required for accessibility; please substitute in the relevant equipment where appropriate. When possible, I will include links to places to start looking for accessible substitutes.
For companies implementing this, I recommend treating this as a bonus or reimbursable expense, leaving ownership of the equipment with the employee rather than with facilities. The cost to manage, ship, and keep track of all this equipment will likely cost more than the actual equipment itself. It will also allow employees to upgrade particular items when appropriate. I advise requiring the completed checklist along with images of the setup as proof of compliance.
This is not a review aggregation site. There are no referral links or bonuses. The only goal of this site is to improve the professional WFH setups of technical workers.
Note: Much of the knowledge presented in this guide is not evenly distributed; it has been developed and distributed in demographically skewed communities such as contract software development and systems administration. Programmers who are privy to this information and act on it have an advantage. Therefore, a systematic application of this knowledge would help level the playing field while elevating everyone.
If you are skeptical, that's understandable. First and foremost this guide is backed up by extensive research. If you are the overly skeptical sort, read it first, because the rest of the guide assumes a certain amount of trust. Whenever possible, product reviews from trusted sources will be included alongside the recommendations. However, some of these recommendations come from my personal experience and best practices I've implemented in workplaces. From my technical experience, I can tell you that these recommendations apply to almost the entire range of development activities, including firmware/device development, web development, cloud infrastructure, and orchestration. From my leadership experience, I've found these recommendations, especially optimized conference setups and reliable internet, are critical for team bonding, collaboration, promoting others, and getting promoted yourself. I believe in what I'm saying, and have implemented this in some form in every company I've worked at or led. This guide is an attempt to scale my experience so every programmer can operate with maximum job satisfaction and productivity.
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