It is somewhat amusing to me that they re-used an image taken at Pivotal Labs for the header of the article, I'm in the image.

What you are looking at is the pair programming setup. Two monitors, two keyboards, one computer. It is a bit weird at first, but once you get used to it, you really start to see the advantages of it. Sure, it isn't perfect, but their model is proven and works well.

Pivotal is also one of the few places I've worked where there was very few jerks and a majority of very smart people. Pair programming really weeds out weak links pretty quickly as nobody will want to pair with you if you're a jerk.

I made some good friends and I loved my time there. I was a contractor just doing a ~6 month stint to learn about pair programming and help capitalize my startup. =)

Hey, if most people were able to study/learn in school like that, why can't they work like that? Just saying. I've pretty much accepted my fate. I will sit on the floor or in circles or in that format, just pay me and pay me well.

Because I demand more respect than that from my employer. It is a layout designed to cram the max number of people into the cheapest space. These people are shoulder to shoulder. You have zero privacy and anything you do on your screen 2 other people are going to inevitably see it. In that way it is also your employer enforcing their will on you- you will feel embarrassed to take a perfectly normal break to look at Facebook or Twitter or whatever.

I also dislike that a lot of the spaces there are for people with laptops. I personally would never accept a company laptop. It implies that your employer wants you to work at home or on travel. Fuck that. I want a desktop, and I will work for you when I am in the office. If you want me to work at any other time, pay me to come in.

Stand up for yourself. Start-up culture is increasingly bullshit and toxic, luckily I am getting out in a few weeks and do not intend to return.

> Start-up culture is increasingly bullshit and toxic

Does that apply mainly to SV, or have you had/seen similar experiences elsewhere?

Other than grade school, I rarely ever did serious work in school while sitting shoulder to shoulder with people as in this image. The only time I can think of being in this sort of setup in college were labs, and I only remember those as being chaotic, loud, hectic, and annoying.

The home page is incredibly bland. "Are you data-driven?" They might as well be advertising shampoo or something.

it looks familiar to me- I think it's Pivotal.

edit: you edited while I was writing my reply. :)

edit 2: if you didn't see this, is related- http://www.wired.com/2013/11/pivotal-one/

Thanks for the link. Yup, that is anathema to me, you couldn't pay me enough to ever consider working there.

>As each pair works, neither engineer is permitted to send email or text chat — much less surf the web

>The engineers don’t go onto their laptops unless it’s absolutely necessary. They don’t use their phone unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Anyway I will try to avoid buying whatever their product is, I don't want to support companies that would do this type of stuff. This is also why I refuse to move or work in America- I am dead serious, your employment law and corporate culture scares me.

I think this would actually be awesome for 20-60 minute sprints. The only change I'd make is to put the pairs into private offices, with comfortable room for 3 and cram for 6, ideally with glass walls or something. And then give everyone a private personal office to use for half of the day as well. When engineers cost $200-300k/yr and real estate is 18/yr/SF, I don't see a problem with burning 500 square feet per engineer.

As someone who gets distracted easily, I would actually love that.

Things are not always as they seem. The goals of this (Pivotal Labs') office layout and the company values are actually contrary to what you might assume.

In fact, they have evolved to help avoid and weed out the type of employees which the original article warned of - i.e. "The Flake", "The Heretic", "The Jerk"...

I've worked at Pivotal a long time [1], and here's the reality behind what you see in that picture (http://wrd.cm/1rseFPe):

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Close Quarters

Most of the people in that photo are programmers who are pair programming, or are designers, produce managers, or testers working closely with programmers. The close quarters are intentional, and intended to facilitate quick and easy communication between all of those team members, and minimize all feedback loops.

This means that the any one of those people can immediately ask another about any question or problem they might be having. A tester can ask a programmer about an edge case; the programmers can ask a product manager to clarify some requirements; a programmer could ask a designer to clarify exactly how a UI is intended to behave; etc...

The other thing you don't see is the huge open space in the rest of the office. It's an entire floor, with large areas for sitting, eating (catered) breakfast, playing ping pong or guitar, or having a morning standup meeting attended by several dozens of people.

These folks can get up at any time, and take a stroll, get one of the many free snacks or beverage, or step into a Tardus-style phone booth or privacy room for a private phone call.

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Privacy, "Anything you do on your screen 2 other people are going to inevitably see it"

Exactly. At least for the pair programmers in that picture, what they do on your screen is not private. Because it shouldn't need to be.

Because of pair programming and frequent pair rotation, there is collective code ownership. Two people always work on the same workstation. When a pair is working, they are working - not reading Twitter, not playing with their iTunes playlist, not reading email. They are programming, and always open to questions and interruptions from anyone else on the team.

There are no assigned workstations. Pairs switch up all the time, and work on new stories. The iMacs there all have a secondary monitor, keyboard, and mouse attached for pairing. At any time, the machine can be automatically re-imaged as needed.

Any personal email or other personal activities can be done on separate dedicated email machines at the end of the aisle, or on a personal laptop or phone, but NOT when you are pairing.

Of course, due to the nature of their jobs, designers and product managers, and sometimes testers, do not pair, and thus have dedicated workstations or laptops. But there's still no need for what they have on their screen to be "private", other than email or documents, and nobody is going to bend over and start reading someone else's email over their shoulder. It's a non-issue.

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Company Laptops

Most of the people with laptops are either designers, product managers, or testers. Again, because of the nature of their work, they tend to need dedicated machines, unlike programmers who are always pairing. They also tend to need to be more mobile. E.g., product managers taking their laptops to an iteration planning meeting to discuss a backlog. Also, company laptops are assigned for production support, but usually only to be used in during unexpected production incidents or after-hours deploys (which annoyingly don't always observe regular working hours).

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Expectation of Working from Home or while Traveling

There is no expectation to work from home at Pivotal Labs. In fact, a 40-hour work week is strongly encouraged and enforced for sustainability (http://pivotallabs.com/crunch-time/). Standup starts at 9:05 (after catered breakfast), and quitting time is 6 PM, with a regular lunch and 15-minute game of ping-pong. No expectation is ever made of working from home, or putting in overtime. Plus, everybody keeping the same hours supports the other values mentioned above - frequent pair rotation, close communication and tight feedback loops. And yes, laptops can be used while traveling, for employees which need them (e.g. product managers or production support programmers/ops).

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So, again, all of these things work together to avoid having employees like TFA mentioned - "The Flake", "The Heretic", "The Jerk". Those sorts of people just don't work out. In fact, because the Pivotal Labs hiring process involves pair programming, including interviewees live pairing with a Pivot on a real project, the most egregious of these personality types never even make past the initial interview stage.

Of course, not everything always works out exactly like I've described. But they do most of the time. The important thing is that they are embedded in the company values and culture, and fully supported from the executive levels and founders - not just paid lip-service.

On a personal note, I have worked at several different types of companies, including ones where I had a dedicated office (with a door) and personal workstation, ones where I had a dedicated cubicle, and also working from home as a full-time remote employee. I will say that Pivotal's arrangement is, in my opinion, by far the best. The energy and enthusiasm that flows through the air is powerful, with so many bright and talented people working hard in the same space, sharing, collaborating, and helping each other out. And playing ping pong.

[1] I've worked at Pivotal Labs (the consultancy) since '96, prior to their acquisition by EMC and subsequent incorporation into the newly-formed Pivotal company.

[edit: I've been at Pivotal Labs since '06, not '96. In '96 I was at IBM Global Services.]

> is that top picture of a hellish working environment typical? I have a panic attack just looking at it.

It's all about the "culture" man, you need to get with the times.