Real engineers prefer cubicles

Well, maybe not really, but I could never tell from the work environment of software engineers that I see today.

Jim Showalter recently wrote a blog post called Open Cubicles Must Die ranting against you-know-what. I think he made some interesting points, and it's a post worth reading. Jim is hardly the only person who argue that private offices are more productive, but what I find interesting is the seeming lack of desire for private offices from the engineers themselves. Jim's blog post got a lot of page views, but did not really get many comments supporting his position. I personally have not discerned much interest among my software engineer peers, even disregarding cost. People are actually proud of their wide open spaces and are disdainful of individual offices. Have individual offices gone the way of the dodo? Would you prefer your own office if given the choice?



Personally, I have experienced a range of options. I have indeed had a private office. I have had cubicles with 4 walls, cubicles with 3 walls, and once I worked in a hallway at a table with 2 legs (the other side of the table was held up by a cabinet). I have seen "cubicles" with 2 walls, which I suppose means they aren't really cubes, and cubicles with partitions maybe 4 inches taller than the desk surface. And of course there are those completely open spaces with no partitions. There are advantages that come with this status quo. Collaboration is easy, of course: I like being able to talk to a colleague by just turning my seat 180 degrees. And it's easy to yell "who's up for sushi?" over the cubes. On the other hand, I don't really need to smell what all my colleagues are having for breakfast/lunch.

I wonder if my experience has to do with the kind of developers I hang out with. I work mostly in startups that generally claim some "agile" mentality. Collaboration is frequent and necessary. In fact, I think there is something to be said about the idea that Agile is micromanagement. In this environment, you need to be constantly accountable to your peers, and a closed office door is an obstacle.

What about the productivity that you lose? Each interruption hinders your own work. Yet as Jim pointed out, disappearing into music with your headphones has its own productivity cost. I remember a colleague who would just grab his computer and go home when he needed to actually get work done. I think the key is that private offices optimizes getting your own work done, while open work spaces optimize helping other people get their work done. While you want to get your own work done, if you work in a highly collaborative environment the team's needs might take precedence, and expressing a desire for a private office will seem antisocial.