alt Hacker NewsResearch is not corporate labor. Rarely are there “good problems” to work on. I’d bet dollars to donuts 99.99999% of employed HNers could close their door at work, or work from home, rarely interact with anyone, and know exactly what needs to be worked on. It’s another CRUD app.
Conflating actual productive academic research with the mundane triviality of a day job is crazy.
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Keep your eyes open for a better job? The work you do should have impact of some kind. In the corporate world there is business impact (increase revenue, decrease direct costs or improve system efficiency), social impact (make a product that directly helps people in some way), or personal impact (work on something that you find intrinsically interesting or helps you grow your skills or understanding).
I don't see any reason to permanently stay in a role filled with mundane triviality .
I prefer heads down time. At my remote workplace, I found several channels where people ask for help. Combined with office hours, it is the main way I keep in touch with what is going on.
We also write up a weekly priorities (by team), and all the leadership put it together into emails. It is a great way for me to read what is going on.
I shift between deep work and collaborative problem solving.
It is not as if you can’t try structure things to have both.