San Francisco-based Splunk declares everlasting distant work
May 7, 2021Updated May 7, 2021 2:55 PM
File photo of a sign for Splunk’s main office in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco.
Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images
Last fall, San Francisco-based data analytics firm Splunk announced it wouldn’t be returning to the office until September 2021. Then CEO Douglas Merritt moved to Austin, Texas.
The letter was on the wall, but Splunk has just announced that the tech company will allow most of its employees to work remotely on a permanent basis, as first reported by the San Francisco Business Times. It also has nearly 100,000 square feet of office space listed for sublet at its headquarters at 250 Brannan St. in SoMa.
Despite the move to remote working, Kristin Robinson, Splunk’s chief people officer, told the Business Times that the company will keep an office in San Francisco. “Almost 100% of the roles we have in the company will have the flexibility to work the way they want,” said Robinson. “What we don’t yet know is how many people come into the office one day a week and how many people want to be there five days a week. We don’t necessarily know these numbers yet … but we have very few jobs that need to be done in an office. “
Splunk has 2,336 employees in the Bay Area, according to LinkedIn.
The supply of sublet space on the commercial real estate market is growing steadily. Many other prominent tech firms have released space in the sublet market – well-known names include Salesforce and Twitter – and sf.citi reported that 16.3 million square feet of office space is currently vacant in San Francisco.
Just this week, Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it would permanently close its offices in San Francisco.
Tessa is a local editor for SFGATE. Before joining the team in 2019, she specialized in food, drink and lifestyle content for numerous publications including Liquor.com, The Bold Italic, 7×7 and more. Contact her at tessa.mclean@sfgate.com.
