New Fog Creek Office
- Transfer
Remember the bionic office ? Fog Creek moved there in 2003. After a couple of years, we outgrew it, and therefore expanded and occupied the entire floor. By the time the rental period expired in 2008, 25 people worked in an office designed for 18 people, and we understood that we needed to move. In addition, the dirty Midtown, excellent for startups, five years later began to annoy. Now we had a little more money, and so we began to look for a place with an area twice as large for the price, four times higher than the old one.
It is worth mentioning once again that our goal at Fog Creek is to create the very best workplace for developers. Finding a great room was not easy. Our ideal - to provide each developer with a personal account - is unusual, and therefore it is almost impossible to find a ready-made office built on this principle. It turned out that we had no choice but to design our own interior.
We knew it would take some time. After our first office, I realized that about ten months pass from the moment the search starts until the move. I also knew that if I was not completely involved in every detail of the construction, we would get the very dull office with the partitions that was sucking up life juices, which became popular thanks to the utopian workplace in the film “Office Space”.
AfterAfter a tiring search, we signed a 10,600-square-foot lease on 55 Broadway, practically in the center, with fantastic views of the Hudson, Statue of Liberty and Jersey.
We found a homeowner with his own construction team who offered to create an interior for us for free. The only problem was that his idea of a good office was much closer to Initech from Office Space than to FogCreek. And so we had to invest about half a million dollars in order to finalize literally everything.
Creating a cool office space for developers serves two purposes: increased productivity and an increased pool of candidates. Dashboards with lockable doors protecting programmers from interference and allowing them to focus on the code, rather than on the interesting conversations taking place in the room. It’s worth it, especially in a world where so many software companies offer only the most primitive and dull offices with partitions. Here are some of the distinguishing features of the new office:
Many well-lit classrooms located around the perimeter of the building. Each developer, tester and project manager has a personal account. All except two rooms have windows facing the street (the remaining two receive plenty of daylight through two glass walls)
Tables designed for programming . Long and straight tables are equipped with motorized lifts for maximum ergonomics and comfort, and therefore part of the day you can work if you wish while standing. Standard 30-inch monitors. Tables are straight, not L-shaped, which makes pair programming and code review more convenient. There are 20 electrical outlets at each table, and most developers also have a small hub for connecting additional computers. Our standard seat is Herman Miller Aeron. Guest chairs - the famous Series 7 Arne Jacobsen. Bedside tables are equipped with wheels, soft top and are designed for additional guest seats.
Glass boards for notes . Easy to wash, look great, do not deform.
Coffee bar and dining room. There is a coffee machine, a large refrigerator full of drinks, an inexhaustible supply of snacks and a delicious lunch that the catering company brings daily. We have lunch together and this is one of the distinguishing points of our work. A huge saltwater aquarium brings light and color to the center of the office.
Plenty of room for meetings. There is a projector and a motorized screen in the dining room (mainly used to play Rock Band, thank you, Jeff Atwood); there are also several meeting tables, two conference rooms and a large S-shaped sofa around.
The library is chock-full of antediluvian paper books, as well as two reclining chairs, which are great for afternoon nap.
Have a shower(marble from top to bottom), so you can get to work or move during the day by bicycle.
Wooden floors around the perimeter - you can ride scooters. Carpets in the office for silence. Concrete in the dining room - it is bright and cool looking.
You cannot insert a sufficient number of images in the article to give you the opportunity to feel the atmosphere, but I posted a lot of photos of our new office on the Picasa service. If you are interested in learning more about the reasons why we spend such a lot of money on creating an excellent workspace, read the article “Practical Guide for Developers”.
- From a translator:
For ease of editing, I posted the article on the site translation wiki-serverjoelonsoftware.com . You can correct all translation inaccuracies right there.
Posted by Joel Spolsky
Translator: Denis Baluev .
The original article was called The new Fog Creek office and was written on December 29, 2008.
PS Transfer, plz to the Project Office blog. As far as I understand, the place is right for him.
It is worth mentioning once again that our goal at Fog Creek is to create the very best workplace for developers. Finding a great room was not easy. Our ideal - to provide each developer with a personal account - is unusual, and therefore it is almost impossible to find a ready-made office built on this principle. It turned out that we had no choice but to design our own interior.
We knew it would take some time. After our first office, I realized that about ten months pass from the moment the search starts until the move. I also knew that if I was not completely involved in every detail of the construction, we would get the very dull office with the partitions that was sucking up life juices, which became popular thanks to the utopian workplace in the film “Office Space”.
AfterAfter a tiring search, we signed a 10,600-square-foot lease on 55 Broadway, practically in the center, with fantastic views of the Hudson, Statue of Liberty and Jersey.
We found a homeowner with his own construction team who offered to create an interior for us for free. The only problem was that his idea of a good office was much closer to Initech from Office Space than to FogCreek. And so we had to invest about half a million dollars in order to finalize literally everything.
Creating a cool office space for developers serves two purposes: increased productivity and an increased pool of candidates. Dashboards with lockable doors protecting programmers from interference and allowing them to focus on the code, rather than on the interesting conversations taking place in the room. It’s worth it, especially in a world where so many software companies offer only the most primitive and dull offices with partitions. Here are some of the distinguishing features of the new office:
Many well-lit classrooms located around the perimeter of the building. Each developer, tester and project manager has a personal account. All except two rooms have windows facing the street (the remaining two receive plenty of daylight through two glass walls)
Tables designed for programming . Long and straight tables are equipped with motorized lifts for maximum ergonomics and comfort, and therefore part of the day you can work if you wish while standing. Standard 30-inch monitors. Tables are straight, not L-shaped, which makes pair programming and code review more convenient. There are 20 electrical outlets at each table, and most developers also have a small hub for connecting additional computers. Our standard seat is Herman Miller Aeron. Guest chairs - the famous Series 7 Arne Jacobsen. Bedside tables are equipped with wheels, soft top and are designed for additional guest seats.
Glass boards for notes . Easy to wash, look great, do not deform.
Coffee bar and dining room. There is a coffee machine, a large refrigerator full of drinks, an inexhaustible supply of snacks and a delicious lunch that the catering company brings daily. We have lunch together and this is one of the distinguishing points of our work. A huge saltwater aquarium brings light and color to the center of the office.
Plenty of room for meetings. There is a projector and a motorized screen in the dining room (mainly used to play Rock Band, thank you, Jeff Atwood); there are also several meeting tables, two conference rooms and a large S-shaped sofa around.
The library is chock-full of antediluvian paper books, as well as two reclining chairs, which are great for afternoon nap.
Have a shower(marble from top to bottom), so you can get to work or move during the day by bicycle.
Wooden floors around the perimeter - you can ride scooters. Carpets in the office for silence. Concrete in the dining room - it is bright and cool looking.
You cannot insert a sufficient number of images in the article to give you the opportunity to feel the atmosphere, but I posted a lot of photos of our new office on the Picasa service. If you are interested in learning more about the reasons why we spend such a lot of money on creating an excellent workspace, read the article “Practical Guide for Developers”.
- From a translator:
For ease of editing, I posted the article on the site translation wiki-serverjoelonsoftware.com . You can correct all translation inaccuracies right there.
Posted by Joel Spolsky
Translator: Denis Baluev .
The original article was called The new Fog Creek office and was written on December 29, 2008.
PS Transfer, plz to the Project Office blog. As far as I understand, the place is right for him.