Comment by kingnothing

I've worked full time remote for over a decade, with most of that as an IC but several years in management as well. It really depends on who the teammates are in the quote. You can definitely get more focus work done in a quiet environment free from distractions, such as at home. But that comes at a pretty big sacrifice for the type of collaboration that higher level ICs (Staff+) and managers often, but not always, need to do.

Think things like quarterly and annual planning, or getting a group of cross-team engineers together for a day or a week with a whiteboard to design a new system or major improvements. Miro exists for virtual whiteboarding, and I successfully use it all the time, but for big planning I would much rather do that in person.

If you move further up the chain to the level of VPs and Execs, their entire job basically consists of attending meetings to solve problems other people can't. For them, they probably would heavily prefer working in person.

My preference is working at home with quarterly week-long trips to the office -- it's historically the best for me and I'd recommend it to anyone wherever possible.