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> “There is more opportunity for tech professionals in more places than ever before,” > wrote Terence Chiu, vice president of Indeed Prime by email, citing

> “There is more opportunity for tech professionals in more places than ever before,” > wrote Terence Chiu, vice president of Indeed Prime by email, citing cities such as > Austin, Boston, Seattle, and New York City. Or simply from home. I've been working from home the last year, doing coding for a startup idea (for others, not my own project). Seriously, in the age of the Internet, and of looong traffic jams on 101 and on the various Bay bridges, if an employer insists every programmer has to hang around in that area something is off in their thinking. As someone who did hang around there (during the dot com boom), at several companies and visiting many more as part of the job, it is overrated, especially for programmers. Sure it's better to be around the coworkers everything else being equal - but everything else is not equal. The costs of doing so (not just monetary) is very high. It's a beautiful area alright, I lived in the Presidio at the end (that's the huge park right next to the Golden Gate bridge), perfect. But not all people can live in the same place... (PS: By the way, the East Bay has great places too! The Oakland hills near the top, for tens of miles, have some of the most beautifully located properties in the entire Bay Area. Plus endless parks and trails and horse riding, etc., not to mention the incredible views. And in Oakland visit Jack London Square and then walk downtown.)

yladiz 10y ago
> ... if an employer insists every programmer has to hang around in that area something is off in their thinking. Yeah, I think that one of the only potential issues with working remotely is that timezones may cause issues, but as long as meetings are planned well ahead of time and there's some kind of overlap with time so coworkers and bosses can communicate, working remotely makes more sense than working in an expensive place like the Bay Area. However, even with respect to timezones, companies such as Zapier have no issue with working remotely as far as Thailand (iirc) even though they're based in the Bay Area, so even that issue may be moot.
- 49531 10y ago
  Typically a good remote team should have "core hours". Usually 4 - 6 set hours each day where team members are expected to be online. Some team members end their day with the core hours, while some begin their day with it. It makes _most_ locations doable, but I've had some far flung teammates with odd sleeping schedules to account for it.
- jaggederest 10y ago
  My experience as a full time remote worker since 2011 is that it can be tough in those ways, but at least for me, office work has its own challenges that nobody seems to give much credence. If you compare them without defaulting to office work, it's pretty balanced. I find it more difficult to get work done in an office environment, so whatever downsides there are re: meetings, (and I'm not certain that most meetings deliver a lot of value) there are upsides in terms of personal productivity that outweigh them.
etangent 10y ago
There's a common attitude that goes something like, "It's the Internet age! What in the world could be stopping X from employing Y who lives in a place Z?!" Well, I worked at a place where most of the team was remote. It absolutely sucked. I barely knew what the coworkers were doing (sure, my boss had a better idea than I did, but I am certain even he would have preferred to have employees physically around him for routine interaction), what kind of people they were, and the reverse was true with respect to their knowledge of myself. The time zone difference only exacerbated the problem. This "lack of people knowledge" problem at remote workplaces causes everyone to under-invest in building long-term relationships with everyone else (because nobody really knows what everyone else is really like), and the culture nosedives. [1] Now, clearly, remote employment can be necessary (consulting offers a typical pattern), but the common attitude that there's no reason at all for not just having everyone work remotely is incredibly annoying. [1] Speaking of culture, remote workplaces offer a clear explanation via counterpoint of the vaunted but often misunderstood term "company culture"---culture is what you don't have when everyone is working remotely.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  My experience is that you can easily just as well not know what your coworkers are doing when they sit right next to you. I don't think it has much of anything to do with if they are onsite or not, but with other factors in your organization. For example, I found it very valuable to already have a great relationship with everyone else. We kept the conferencing software going all day, the boss in it too, and it never felt like being watched, instead it felt like being connected to people I like. Whenever we had an issue we talked, voice or chat depending on the issue, just like in the office. When you try the same in an environment where you already don't care much for one another - I'm not even talking about negative feelings! - the the same setup will only make it worse and lead to even less cooperation. When I'm not sure of someone then of course I use remote work as an excuse to interact with them even less. But that's not a question of working remote or not - only that "remote" enhances dysfunction that's already there. Yes, when it doesn't work it works better on-site, which is not an argument against remote, but to fix the atmosphere and the relationships.
  - 10y ago
Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago
It's weird that people don't consider the East Bay when it's often faster to get to downtown SF from Berkeley or Oakland than it is from e.g. the Sunset. Great place to be and the weather is nicer.

yladiz 10y ago

> ... if an employer insists every programmer has to hang around in that area something is off in their thinking. Yeah, I think that one of the only potential issues with working remotely is that timezones may cause issues, but as long as meetings are planned well ahead of time and there's some kind of overlap with time so coworkers and bosses can communicate, working remotely makes more sense than working in an expensive place like the Bay Area. However, even with respect to timezones, companies such as Zapier have no issue with working remotely as far as Thailand (iirc) even though they're based in the Bay Area, so even that issue may be moot.

49531 10y ago
Typically a good remote team should have "core hours". Usually 4 - 6 set hours each day where team members are expected to be online. Some team members end their day with the core hours, while some begin their day with it. It makes _most_ locations doable, but I've had some far flung teammates with odd sleeping schedules to account for it.
jaggederest 10y ago
My experience as a full time remote worker since 2011 is that it can be tough in those ways, but at least for me, office work has its own challenges that nobody seems to give much credence. If you compare them without defaulting to office work, it's pretty balanced. I find it more difficult to get work done in an office environment, so whatever downsides there are re: meetings, (and I'm not certain that most meetings deliver a lot of value) there are upsides in terms of personal productivity that outweigh them.

etangent 10y ago

There's a common attitude that goes something like, "It's the Internet age! What in the world could be stopping X from employing Y who lives in a place Z?!" Well, I worked at a place where most of the team was remote. It absolutely sucked. I barely knew what the coworkers were doing (sure, my boss had a better idea than I did, but I am certain even he would have preferred to have employees physically around him for routine interaction), what kind of people they were, and the reverse was true with respect to their knowledge of myself. The time zone difference only exacerbated the problem. This "lack of people knowledge" problem at remote workplaces causes everyone to under-invest in building long-term relationships with everyone else (because nobody really knows what everyone else is really like), and the culture nosedives. [1] Now, clearly, remote employment can be necessary (consulting offers a typical pattern), but the common attitude that there's no reason at all for not just having everyone work remotely is incredibly annoying. [1] Speaking of culture, remote workplaces offer a clear explanation via counterpoint of the vaunted but often misunderstood term "company culture"---culture is what you don't have when everyone is working remotely.

Noseshine 10y ago
My experience is that you can easily just as well not know what your coworkers are doing when they sit right next to you. I don't think it has much of anything to do with if they are onsite or not, but with other factors in your organization. For example, I found it very valuable to already have a great relationship with everyone else. We kept the conferencing software going all day, the boss in it too, and it never felt like being watched, instead it felt like being connected to people I like. Whenever we had an issue we talked, voice or chat depending on the issue, just like in the office. When you try the same in an environment where you already don't care much for one another - I'm not even talking about negative feelings! - the the same setup will only make it worse and lead to even less cooperation. When I'm not sure of someone then of course I use remote work as an excuse to interact with them even less. But that's not a question of working remote or not - only that "remote" enhances dysfunction that's already there. Yes, when it doesn't work it works better on-site, which is not an argument against remote, but to fix the atmosphere and the relationships.
- 10y ago

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 10y ago

It's weird that people don't consider the East Bay when it's often faster to get to downtown SF from Berkeley or Oakland than it is from e.g. the Sunset. Great place to be and the weather is nicer.