Applied to a “remote” job, went through five rounds of interviews, got the offer. Nobody mentioned an office once. Now they’re saying it’s 3 days a week onsite and I genuinely don’t know what to do.

I’ve been job searching for about four months. Found this posting in February, it was listed as fully remote, the job title had Remote in parentheses, and every single conversation I had during the process was on video. First screening call with HR, then a technical assessment, then a panel with four people from the team, then a final conversation with the director. Five separate interactions over six weeks. I asked about the team structure, the tools they use, how async communication works. At no point did anyone say anything about an office. I assumed there wasn’t one.

Got the offer two weeks ago. Signed and returned it the same day because I’d been searching for a while and was genuinely excited about the role. Gave notice at my current job on Monday. Tuesday I got an email from HR with onboarding details, and buried in paragraph six of a seven paragraph email was a line about “our hybrid schedule” which is described as three days per week at their headquarters. Their headquarters is in a city 47 miles from where I live. I had specifically filtered my job search to remote only. I moved to where I currently live eight months ago partly because I thought I’d secured a remote setup long term.

I called the recruiter immediately. She was very pleasant about it and said she was sorry for any confusion and that the role was always intended to be hybrid but that they list positions as remote to reach more candidates. I asked if there was any flexibility given that I’d already resigned. She said she’d escalate it. That was four days ago and I’ve heard nothing. I’ve sent two follow up emails. I have a start date in twelve days. I have no idea if I should show up, keep pushing, consult someone, or accept that I made a very expensive mistake by not asking more explicitly. If anyone has been through something like this I would really appreciate knowing how it went.