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I've worked remotely for 3 years, for 2 different companies, and as with most things in life, there are positives and there are negatives. One of the biggest n

I've worked remotely for 3 years, for 2 different companies, and as with most things in life, there are positives and there are negatives. One of the biggest negatives for a remote employee, can occur if the entire company isn't remote: You're left out. Regardless of how much code you produce, how well you communicate on slack, how attentive you are to emails, or how perfect you are at attending all the meetings... Bonds form in the office. If you're interested in forming relationships, making connections, and nurturing the social side of your career, be cautious of remote positions. Either work for a company that is 100% remote, or, be aware that you may face a situation in which you don't feel entirely connected with the rest of your coworkers.

sremani 10y ago
Trust can be established from face to face, and no other form of communication comes close to it. My recommendation to people who are into remote is, once they take a Gig, if possible go to the physical office location and spend some time 2 to 5 days mostly meeting their team and esp. their boss face to face. Once the trust is established face to face, it will carry on to other forms of communication and will not diminish (if performance is good).
cjp222 10y ago
I've worked remotely for nearly 20 years in various configurations (all team remote, team collocated and I was the lead and remote, some local and some remote, as lead and as a team member) and this is spot on. My current situation is one where it's actually harder to be remote than it was when we all worked for a giant company that was openly hostile to teleworkers (If you're not in the office everyday, you're part of the problem). Even though I'm in a smaller company and an environment that brags about its startup culture and flexibility. In my current iteration, information does not flow naturally, but rather 1:1 and in-person along restricted paths, making it much harder to work remotely. So to build up a picture of what's going on, I connect with several other teleworkers and we try to compare notes on "what have you heard about X" and "who's working on y." If the whole team is remote or acts like it (open communications, info flowing visibly, etc.) then remote working, remote bonding, remote team-building is natural and easy. I know; I've done it for years, building high-performance teams that see each other once or twice a year. If you're the outlier and most everyone else is local, it takes a lot more effort, and even then can be very, very hard. Some places are just easier to work for than others.

sremani 10y ago

Trust can be established from face to face, and no other form of communication comes close to it. My recommendation to people who are into remote is, once they take a Gig, if possible go to the physical office location and spend some time 2 to 5 days mostly meeting their team and esp. their boss face to face. Once the trust is established face to face, it will carry on to other forms of communication and will not diminish (if performance is good).

cjp222 10y ago

I've worked remotely for nearly 20 years in various configurations (all team remote, team collocated and I was the lead and remote, some local and some remote, as lead and as a team member) and this is spot on. My current situation is one where it's actually harder to be remote than it was when we all worked for a giant company that was openly hostile to teleworkers (If you're not in the office everyday, you're part of the problem). Even though I'm in a smaller company and an environment that brags about its startup culture and flexibility. In my current iteration, information does not flow naturally, but rather 1:1 and in-person along restricted paths, making it much harder to work remotely. So to build up a picture of what's going on, I connect with several other teleworkers and we try to compare notes on "what have you heard about X" and "who's working on y." If the whole team is remote or acts like it (open communications, info flowing visibly, etc.) then remote working, remote bonding, remote team-building is natural and easy. I know; I've done it for years, building high-performance teams that see each other once or twice a year. If you're the outlier and most everyone else is local, it takes a lot more effort, and even then can be very, very hard. Some places are just easier to work for than others.