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I realise this is an unpopulair opinion somehow but as someone who dreamt of the future since my first line of code begin 80s; working from anywhere via 'phone'

I realise this is an unpopulair opinion somehow but as someone who dreamt of the future since my first line of code begin 80s; working from anywhere via 'phone'. I started doing that with friends via BBS. I had a BBS system running at night when my parents did not need the phone and we would work with a few people on assembly, pascal and c. I continued that until (via internet) now and besides some travelling it always worked well. Why do other people insist on offices and closeness all the time? Sure I meet up with people every 1-2 months but we do efficient and cool production software and hardware with a distributed team all over the place. Is it that management wants to be overly controlling or something else? I have nothing against offices but like elsewhere in this thread: make an office in st pete's and put people wanting to work for you there. Did that a few times (200, 50, 40 and 80 people in 3 different countries in different cities) and am doing it again in two countries. This would solve this but, as said as well, this might be just something to violate worker rights instead of something else.

lagadu 10y ago
You're not thinking small enough: many, if not most, companies would need like 1-2 new people. The overhead of opening and managing a new office isn't worth it in those scenarios. Plus you're ignoring that most companies aren't ready for remote development: they don't have the infrastructure or the means for remote knowledge transfer, there's a fairly big cost both in money and culture to change that. Finally you're ignoring that most companies aren't software houses. They operate in different industries and their IT/development departments rely on being close to their users, to these the effective cost of having remote employees is even higher than what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. As an aside: My company allows for remote work but I just can't stand it; unless I really need to be home for something I'll always work from the office, where I can work and be social with my colleagues. We've considered moving to cheaper, nearby countries with fewer taxes (Germany most likely) and decided against it because I really don't want to have to work from home despite having a financial incentive to do so. Remote work isn't for everyone.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  It is a matter of taste: some people like one, some the other. I cannot stand offices myself. And I do not ignore small companies: I always have a few devs somewhere working on things which are not part of the main company. Everything I do starts with 1 or 2 people working home. No issue. You do not like it or even cannot stand it: many others can. And yes, I do ignore industries I am not familiar with: the companies mentioned in the article are software houses. Also I work at a hardware company: software is just as important but the main part is the hardware. But yes that is why I said; some satellite offices and people working at home usually is a good mix. Some sit in the office, some at home, all happy. The main point, going after what is said in the article: If you are in Finland and need 100 coders and those coders are easy to the in St Petersburg then just open an office there.

lagadu 10y ago

You're not thinking small enough: many, if not most, companies would need like 1-2 new people. The overhead of opening and managing a new office isn't worth it in those scenarios. Plus you're ignoring that most companies aren't ready for remote development: they don't have the infrastructure or the means for remote knowledge transfer, there's a fairly big cost both in money and culture to change that. Finally you're ignoring that most companies aren't software houses. They operate in different industries and their IT/development departments rely on being close to their users, to these the effective cost of having remote employees is even higher than what I mentioned in the previous paragraph. As an aside: My company allows for remote work but I just can't stand it; unless I really need to be home for something I'll always work from the office, where I can work and be social with my colleagues. We've considered moving to cheaper, nearby countries with fewer taxes (Germany most likely) and decided against it because I really don't want to have to work from home despite having a financial incentive to do so. Remote work isn't for everyone.

tluyben2 10y ago
It is a matter of taste: some people like one, some the other. I cannot stand offices myself. And I do not ignore small companies: I always have a few devs somewhere working on things which are not part of the main company. Everything I do starts with 1 or 2 people working home. No issue. You do not like it or even cannot stand it: many others can. And yes, I do ignore industries I am not familiar with: the companies mentioned in the article are software houses. Also I work at a hardware company: software is just as important but the main part is the hardware. But yes that is why I said; some satellite offices and people working at home usually is a good mix. Some sit in the office, some at home, all happy. The main point, going after what is said in the article: If you are in Finland and need 100 coders and those coders are easy to the in St Petersburg then just open an office there.