The State of Remote Engineering 2022: How Engineers Have Adapted to Remote Life

The State of Remote Engineering: 2022 Edition is here and available for download.

In this year’s report, we found that more than 60% of engineers reported that they were fully remote, and 74% would like to be remote 3 days a week or more. The majority of respondents found themselves happier and more productive as a result.

But what aspects of remote work do engineers like the most, and where is there room for improvement?

In the third edition of our annual State of Remote Engineering report, we share findings from our recent survey of 1,048 engineers and analyze how engineers are adapting to life working remotely. We cover a comprehensive set of topics to understand how engineers feel about remote work and examine how their opinions have evolved from years prior.

Key findings in this report include:

The majority of engineers want to work remotely. Seventy-four percent of engineers say they want to work remotely three days a week or more. But many foresee themselves being asked back into an office environment. Almost half of hybrid-remote engineers and 34% of fully remote engineers say they expect they’ll be asked to come into the office in the next year. In order to stay competitive in the midst of the tech labor shortage, it’s clear that leadership must consider the effects of returning to office workspaces on hiring and retaining talent.

Remote work makes engineers more productive. Sixty-eight percent of engineers say that working remotely makes them more productive and roughly a third (29%) say that it makes them more innovative. What’s more, burnout has modestly improved from last year. Twenty-four percent of engineers say they suffered from burnout and lack of motivation in 2021, down from 37% in 2020, and nearly 60% of engineers report that they have flexibility in their schedules as a way to manage burnout. Remote work has, on the whole, improved the lives of engineers while also allowing them to be more efficient. 

Eighty percent of engineers also report that they’re more productive when working with teams that operate in a similar time zone. Time zone alignment allows team members to work together seamlessly without creating bottlenecks, and it can help newer employees receive the support they need to get up to speed faster.

Pay transparency is critical to engineers, especially with location-based salaries. Seventy-four percent of engineers say remote salaries would be easier to navigate if recruiters were upfront about them being location-based, and 79% say job listings should include salary ranges. A third of engineers say they would leave their jobs if location-based salaries were enacted, up from 24% last year.

Remote engineers don’t want to relocate. They expect Silicon Valley compensation to come to them. Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed said equity compensation was important to them — 22% said it was “extremely important” — yet a full 46% of remote engineers receive no stock compensation at their places of work. Fifty-seven percent of Latin American engineers and 46% of Canadian engineers said equity wasn’t part of their compensation packages, revealing an important opportunity for global engineers to open conversations with hiring managers about this valuable piece of overall compensation.

Where we go from here

The Remote Work Revolution brought a slew of benefits for businesses and engineers alike, but it also brought drawbacks. In order to navigate remote work’s pitfalls, we must listen to remote engineers and learn what the members of this global community want from their day-to-day work environments as well as from their careers overall. Whether you’re an engineer who wants to learn how your peers feel about remote work or a leader who wants to understand how to proactively attract and retain remote talent, this is one report you won’t want to miss.

Ready to check out the State of Remote Engineering 2022 report? Download the full report today.