6 ms·

Building and Running a Geographically Distributed Engineering Team

54 points by ktothemc 9y ago

stingraycharles 9y ago
"Hiring remote engineers by flying them in turned out to be a disaster. Great engineers — and great people — can sometimes turn out to be shitty at being remote,” Smith said. “The reason is they’ve never worked remotely before and they’re not used to distractions at home so they’re on their best behavior." That's an interesting argument. I guess it's just an example and I shouldn't read too much into it, but to me the opposite is true: at home I am completely in sync with my surroundings, have no distractions and have certain "rituals" that make me more productive. It's the constant interruptions and distractions at the office that would make me terribly unproductive if someone would fly me in to assess my abilities on-site.
- ktothemc 9y ago
  Then you might be a great remote worker. The point is to trial them in the environment they're actually going to be working in.
  - maxaf 9y ago
    This also helps avoid chicken-or-egg problems such as "You haven't worked remotely before, so we won't hire you to work remotely".
- fapjacks 9y ago
  Absolutely this for me, too. I find it hard to buckle down and hack productively in flow in any open office plan (which is all startups). I end up going to one of the "meeting rooms" and staying in there holed up all day with headphones on facing away from the windows into the hallway just to get any work done, and even then, I get constant interruptions because I end up having to turn the lights off because they're too bright, and people think the room's empty and available (even when "booked" through those fancy systems some companies use). Meanwhile, working remote, I can lay on the couch or in bed and hack meaningfully for 12 hours and do it again the day after. Actually, this is what I do for side projects while I'm on vacation, and it's how I truly de-stress and relax. It strikes me as completely strange that I have to explain this to pretty much every single (non-recruiter) person that emails me about a job about why I am only interested in remote positions. How can the tech industry be so old and this idea still so foreign?
  - iamdave 9y ago
    I end up having to turn the lights off because they're too bright Hear hear; I work remotely and check-in physically maybe twice a month when delegates come down to our satellite office. I find artificial lighting absolutely grating. Working from home it's a rarity for me to turn on a light until as late as dusk.
    - metaobject 9y ago
      I work from home 3 days of the week and usually go into the office twice a week. In every location I've worked (we tend to get moved about every two years), I invariably end up standing on my desk to twist some/most of the fluorescent tube lights directly over/around my desk so they disengage and go dark. The only challenge then is fending off well-intentioned facilities personnel who want to replace the "failed" light.
      - iamdave 9y ago
        First job I ever had was as one of those well-intentioned facilities personnel, at the Denny's corporate HQ. First couple of months on the job was pushing a cart around a 40 story office tower replacing lightbulbs and ballasts before adding other tasks-it was meant to, and served a good purpose of helping me orient to getting around the building. Anyway, there were a few corner offices I eventually set up a little system with: if that office owner didn't want their bulbs replaced, to put a sticky note covering the light switch. I'd come through, check for a sticky "okay, no new bulbs for this manager" and move along. Was a pretty good system until our facilities manager politely asked me to stop and change the bulbs anyway.
        fapjacks 9y ago
        I am disappointed I can't give you more upvotes for building and maintaining this anti-bright-light system. Kudos!
  - pasbesoin 9y ago
    When I'm somewhere like that regularly, I've taken to bringing in my own torchiere floor lamp, if the ceiling's not too high and I have control over the built-in lighting. Nice, indirect light, off of the usually white ceiling tiles. Note that bulb choice/color also makes a difference, with such a lamp. IKEA now has them for like $8. Pop in a $1-2 LED bulb, and Bob's your uncle. Of course, my encounter with facilities involved convincing them I'd not brought in a halogen lamp (remember those, in torchiere lamps?) that was going to burn the place to the ground. (Back then, it was a compact fluorescent. A technology I've come to despise for various reasons.) For something more compact and portable, I might look for a lightweight sconce that I could hang on one of those 3M removable hooks. Or, if they don't bother you, a very compact/portable desk lamp. P.S. That place, I might have been better off if it HAD burned to the ground.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
  I've been remote for about 3 years, and I do agree a little with the idea that being at home can pose new distractions. But IME it's a solvable problem: Train others in the house that just because you're "home" doesn't really mean you're "home", during the workday. Improve soundproofing as needed. Adjust work-habits in some cases, etc. If companies would put as much money and attention into getting remote workers properly setup as that otherwise would have put into facilities management, office-space rental, etc., I bet the gap would close pretty quickly.
- jcadam 9y ago
  I've found these distributed companies are only interested in considering candidates who have 'remote' work experience. Another of life's little Catch-22s I suppose.
  - sytse 9y ago
    We're fully remote and regularly hire people with remote work experience. However, it is important that our team members are self managing and we do ask questions about that during the interview.
    - jcadam 9y ago
      Sure, the only thing I can point to is side projects (see I can be productive when noone is watching!), but that's not the same, I suppose. I'm an introvert and live inside my own head anyway. Problem, the industry I work in (defense) doesn't do remote, for obvious reasons.
- beisner 9y ago
  Anecdotally, I am completely unable to work at home. I need an office, or a cafe, or some space away from my personal private spaces. Keeps me accountable, and removes a large class of distractions that (from experience) I would be unable to resist.
lifeisstillgood 9y ago
OMFG. their hiring process is ... worrying. An online test, phone screen, hour of paired hacking then a conditional offer and a "hack week" - a weeks try out. I balk at doing screening tests like hackerrank. I don't get how you can expect someone to spend a probationary week, with no real guarantee of work. they stop the job hunt, tell other employers no thanks, and bang 50/50 pass rate perhaps? I don't get it. Hiring remote is hard but this seems too much.
- dhd415 9y ago
  Yeah, apart from contractors who are between gigs, I can't imagine very many people who can work for a week as part of the hiring process. And even if many applicants could, I think it takes longer, sometimes quite a bit longer, to accurately assess the degree to which a developer will contribute to a engineering organization.
- arenaninja 9y ago
  I'm in the same boat. I take a hard pass on any company/exercise that can't be done in the span of 2 hours. The one time I took one that was 4 hours it was (luckily for me) a disaster
  - walshemj 9y ago
    Interesting I just did a presentation for a job interview and threw it together in < 6 hours. Apparently it was better than other presentations (even though I didn't get the job) I suspect that I seem to have become to good at my specialisation
  - bitL 9y ago
    There is one company in Hamburg that sends their candidates a test from Codility whose difficulty is way higher than the ones from Google/FB, all for positions that pay between 40-100k (heavy bias to lower bound), in office where utmost discipline is required. They use bad results in negotiation to lower offers and then are surprised when most candidates walk away and they can't get any people working for them.
peterlk 9y ago
I strongly (very strongly) disagree with the idea of a "hack week". Having multiple rounds of interviewing and a programming challenge seems reasonable to me, but if you think you've found someone who is the right fit, hire them. Everyone makes mistakes, but have some courage, and be willing to fire fast if it isn't a good fit. People want to work at places that value them, and "conditionally" hiring someone does not convey that message
- edmundhuber 9y ago
  It's part of the continual corporate drive to push risks off the company and onto the employee. No self-respecting employee should do a take home exam, or do a "hack week", because every time you do, you normalize and reward this behavior.
  - mnm1 9y ago
    Yup. And when one does make a mistake and do it once, one quickly learns it's almost always not appreciated. I've done it twice before. Once it landed me a free trip to SF and a rescinded job offer after (I aced their interview and almost finished the problems they said no one finishes but they didn't actually want to hire remote). The other time I did something it was immediately ignored and never looked at by the company. Mind you, I knew better but I was desperate at the time so I still did it. In other words, I was an idiot.
  - ryanmarsh 9y ago
    I went through a round of interviews as the interviewer and assigned take-home work. The problems were hard, fun hard, but would take time to solve. I had a number of people balk. They said they were too busy. I realized in that moment what an asshole I was being for assuming somebody would be able to dedicate free time over a week to solving some problem just to prove to me they could, just for the potential of getting hired, and no other benefit. Now, the way some people articulated (or yelled) their objections lead me to believe they wouldn't be a good culture fit. Others though opted for a lighter touch, "lets just talk through how we'd solve this" and I came away understanding how they think through problems. It was an attempt at saving the interviews. This stuff is hard, on both sides. That was a long time ago, I've since read way more horror (and success stories). Please don't give people take home projects. I sure as fuck won't do them. I'm busy with hard problems I actually find rewarding.
edmundhuber 9y ago
Companies employing the strategy of "everyone has to take the test" are missing out on great candidates. The best employees respect their own time enough to not spend time on an exam/busywork. The best employees often also have copious Github repos that you could read up on, or quiz them about. But maybe the "take home test" strategy is about identifying candidates that will sacrifice their free time for your company. No matter how you look at it, it doesn't look good.
- bryanh 9y ago
  Like everything in life, encoded into those decisions are tradeoffs. Just relying on code on Github is okay -- until you realize some people don't like to work on non-proprietary code in their free time, preferring to spend it with family. Just relying on deep questioning is okay -- until you realize some people are excellent at learning and communicating complex topics but haven't actually implemented it yet. Just relying on live coding is okay -- until you realize some people have bad anxiety and can't perform in that sort of environment. Just relying on take home tests is okay -- until you realize people don't like working for free on the off chance you'll hire them. While I don't like some processes more than others, I've also never been truly satisfied with any hiring process I've put together (and we've tried all types) -- perhaps because hiring is a fundamentally flawed process. Perhaps the best advice is: don't work for a company that interviews in a way you don't like, and don't hire people who don't like the way you interview. The best we can do at that point is be transparent up front.
DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
On the "running" side of things, lately I've been looking for solutions to fact that distributed teams can't gather in front of an actual whiteboard for discussion / design. I've been surprised by how hard it is to find cheap, effective alternatives. Cost is a particular concern when each person works from his/her own location. (1) At the high end, you have dedicated large-screen devices with dedicated software, like Google Jamboard. Gorgeous, awesome, very expensive. $5k+ USD. (2) Next step down in terms of price and glitz: the combination of a real whiteboard + a projector + special hardware for monitoring pens and/or hands. About $1k USD if you have to buy the whiteboard, and already have the computer. (3) Next step down in terms of size, but about the same price: tether a touch-/pen- sensitive display to your computer. E.g., iPad Pro, or Wacom Cintiq or a cheap knockoff. ~$400-$1200 USD, depending on device and size. Pros: Portable. Cons: Much smaller area to draw. (4) Status quo: Each person sits at his/her desk, using a mouse or (if they don't mind smudges and/or gorilla arms) a touch-sensitive laptop screen. Pros: Ubiquitous. Cons: Not fluid way to draw / annotate for most people. * Note: The breakdown above focuses on HW. I'm assuming that the SW side is at least somewhat solved by online, shared docs such as Google Draw, Realtimeboard, etc. * Note 2: A lot of the online collaboration sites are a hard sell in corporate environments if sensitive information is to be shared.
- sekou 9y ago
  The hardware may still be prohibitive cost-wise and/or underdeveloped, but mixed reality headsets may eventually be a potential solution for this problem.
- edmundhuber 9y ago
  I've experimented with zoom.us whiteboard + wacom tablet. I thought it was pretty good, though as you can imagine you quickly run out of space.
sheeshkebab 9y ago
It all sounded reasonable until a conditional offer with a week of trial... I’m a consultant and certainly used to that but WTF for an employee that’s going on a fraction of my rate. I guess if you hire really remote folks from other countries (that might not have internet connection or be on the right time zone), but still.

54 points by ktothemc 9y ago

"Hiring remote engineers by flying them in turned out to be a disaster. Great engineers — and great people — can sometimes turn out to be shitty at being remote,” Smith said. “The reason is they’ve never worked remotely before and they’re not used to distractions at home so they’re on their best behavior." That's an interesting argument. I guess it's just an example and I shouldn't read too much into it, but to me the opposite is true: at home I am completely in sync with my surroundings, have no distractions and have certain "rituals" that make me more productive. It's the constant interruptions and distractions at the office that would make me terribly unproductive if someone would fly me in to assess my abilities on-site.

ktothemc 9y ago
Then you might be a great remote worker. The point is to trial them in the environment they're actually going to be working in.
- maxaf 9y ago
  This also helps avoid chicken-or-egg problems such as "You haven't worked remotely before, so we won't hire you to work remotely".
fapjacks 9y ago
Absolutely this for me, too. I find it hard to buckle down and hack productively in flow in any open office plan (which is all startups). I end up going to one of the "meeting rooms" and staying in there holed up all day with headphones on facing away from the windows into the hallway just to get any work done, and even then, I get constant interruptions because I end up having to turn the lights off because they're too bright, and people think the room's empty and available (even when "booked" through those fancy systems some companies use). Meanwhile, working remote, I can lay on the couch or in bed and hack meaningfully for 12 hours and do it again the day after. Actually, this is what I do for side projects while I'm on vacation, and it's how I truly de-stress and relax. It strikes me as completely strange that I have to explain this to pretty much every single (non-recruiter) person that emails me about a job about why I am only interested in remote positions. How can the tech industry be so old and this idea still so foreign?
- iamdave 9y ago
  I end up having to turn the lights off because they're too bright Hear hear; I work remotely and check-in physically maybe twice a month when delegates come down to our satellite office. I find artificial lighting absolutely grating. Working from home it's a rarity for me to turn on a light until as late as dusk.
  - metaobject 9y ago
    I work from home 3 days of the week and usually go into the office twice a week. In every location I've worked (we tend to get moved about every two years), I invariably end up standing on my desk to twist some/most of the fluorescent tube lights directly over/around my desk so they disengage and go dark. The only challenge then is fending off well-intentioned facilities personnel who want to replace the "failed" light.
    - iamdave 9y ago
      First job I ever had was as one of those well-intentioned facilities personnel, at the Denny's corporate HQ. First couple of months on the job was pushing a cart around a 40 story office tower replacing lightbulbs and ballasts before adding other tasks-it was meant to, and served a good purpose of helping me orient to getting around the building. Anyway, there were a few corner offices I eventually set up a little system with: if that office owner didn't want their bulbs replaced, to put a sticky note covering the light switch. I'd come through, check for a sticky "okay, no new bulbs for this manager" and move along. Was a pretty good system until our facilities manager politely asked me to stop and change the bulbs anyway.
      - fapjacks 9y ago
        I am disappointed I can't give you more upvotes for building and maintaining this anti-bright-light system. Kudos!
- pasbesoin 9y ago
  When I'm somewhere like that regularly, I've taken to bringing in my own torchiere floor lamp, if the ceiling's not too high and I have control over the built-in lighting. Nice, indirect light, off of the usually white ceiling tiles. Note that bulb choice/color also makes a difference, with such a lamp. IKEA now has them for like $8. Pop in a $1-2 LED bulb, and Bob's your uncle. Of course, my encounter with facilities involved convincing them I'd not brought in a halogen lamp (remember those, in torchiere lamps?) that was going to burn the place to the ground. (Back then, it was a compact fluorescent. A technology I've come to despise for various reasons.) For something more compact and portable, I might look for a lightweight sconce that I could hang on one of those 3M removable hooks. Or, if they don't bother you, a very compact/portable desk lamp. P.S. That place, I might have been better off if it HAD burned to the ground.
DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
I've been remote for about 3 years, and I do agree a little with the idea that being at home can pose new distractions. But IME it's a solvable problem: Train others in the house that just because you're "home" doesn't really mean you're "home", during the workday. Improve soundproofing as needed. Adjust work-habits in some cases, etc. If companies would put as much money and attention into getting remote workers properly setup as that otherwise would have put into facilities management, office-space rental, etc., I bet the gap would close pretty quickly.
jcadam 9y ago
I've found these distributed companies are only interested in considering candidates who have 'remote' work experience. Another of life's little Catch-22s I suppose.
- sytse 9y ago
  We're fully remote and regularly hire people with remote work experience. However, it is important that our team members are self managing and we do ask questions about that during the interview.
  - jcadam 9y ago
    Sure, the only thing I can point to is side projects (see I can be productive when noone is watching!), but that's not the same, I suppose. I'm an introvert and live inside my own head anyway. Problem, the industry I work in (defense) doesn't do remote, for obvious reasons.
beisner 9y ago
Anecdotally, I am completely unable to work at home. I need an office, or a cafe, or some space away from my personal private spaces. Keeps me accountable, and removes a large class of distractions that (from experience) I would be unable to resist.

lifeisstillgood 9y ago

OMFG. their hiring process is ... worrying. An online test, phone screen, hour of paired hacking then a conditional offer and a "hack week" - a weeks try out. I balk at doing screening tests like hackerrank. I don't get how you can expect someone to spend a probationary week, with no real guarantee of work. they stop the job hunt, tell other employers no thanks, and bang 50/50 pass rate perhaps? I don't get it. Hiring remote is hard but this seems too much.

dhd415 9y ago
Yeah, apart from contractors who are between gigs, I can't imagine very many people who can work for a week as part of the hiring process. And even if many applicants could, I think it takes longer, sometimes quite a bit longer, to accurately assess the degree to which a developer will contribute to a engineering organization.
arenaninja 9y ago
I'm in the same boat. I take a hard pass on any company/exercise that can't be done in the span of 2 hours. The one time I took one that was 4 hours it was (luckily for me) a disaster
- walshemj 9y ago
  Interesting I just did a presentation for a job interview and threw it together in < 6 hours. Apparently it was better than other presentations (even though I didn't get the job) I suspect that I seem to have become to good at my specialisation
- bitL 9y ago
  There is one company in Hamburg that sends their candidates a test from Codility whose difficulty is way higher than the ones from Google/FB, all for positions that pay between 40-100k (heavy bias to lower bound), in office where utmost discipline is required. They use bad results in negotiation to lower offers and then are surprised when most candidates walk away and they can't get any people working for them.

peterlk 9y ago

I strongly (very strongly) disagree with the idea of a "hack week". Having multiple rounds of interviewing and a programming challenge seems reasonable to me, but if you think you've found someone who is the right fit, hire them. Everyone makes mistakes, but have some courage, and be willing to fire fast if it isn't a good fit. People want to work at places that value them, and "conditionally" hiring someone does not convey that message

edmundhuber 9y ago
It's part of the continual corporate drive to push risks off the company and onto the employee. No self-respecting employee should do a take home exam, or do a "hack week", because every time you do, you normalize and reward this behavior.
- mnm1 9y ago
  Yup. And when one does make a mistake and do it once, one quickly learns it's almost always not appreciated. I've done it twice before. Once it landed me a free trip to SF and a rescinded job offer after (I aced their interview and almost finished the problems they said no one finishes but they didn't actually want to hire remote). The other time I did something it was immediately ignored and never looked at by the company. Mind you, I knew better but I was desperate at the time so I still did it. In other words, I was an idiot.
- ryanmarsh 9y ago
  I went through a round of interviews as the interviewer and assigned take-home work. The problems were hard, fun hard, but would take time to solve. I had a number of people balk. They said they were too busy. I realized in that moment what an asshole I was being for assuming somebody would be able to dedicate free time over a week to solving some problem just to prove to me they could, just for the potential of getting hired, and no other benefit. Now, the way some people articulated (or yelled) their objections lead me to believe they wouldn't be a good culture fit. Others though opted for a lighter touch, "lets just talk through how we'd solve this" and I came away understanding how they think through problems. It was an attempt at saving the interviews. This stuff is hard, on both sides. That was a long time ago, I've since read way more horror (and success stories). Please don't give people take home projects. I sure as fuck won't do them. I'm busy with hard problems I actually find rewarding.

edmundhuber 9y ago

Companies employing the strategy of "everyone has to take the test" are missing out on great candidates. The best employees respect their own time enough to not spend time on an exam/busywork. The best employees often also have copious Github repos that you could read up on, or quiz them about. But maybe the "take home test" strategy is about identifying candidates that will sacrifice their free time for your company. No matter how you look at it, it doesn't look good.

bryanh 9y ago
Like everything in life, encoded into those decisions are tradeoffs. Just relying on code on Github is okay -- until you realize some people don't like to work on non-proprietary code in their free time, preferring to spend it with family. Just relying on deep questioning is okay -- until you realize some people are excellent at learning and communicating complex topics but haven't actually implemented it yet. Just relying on live coding is okay -- until you realize some people have bad anxiety and can't perform in that sort of environment. Just relying on take home tests is okay -- until you realize people don't like working for free on the off chance you'll hire them. While I don't like some processes more than others, I've also never been truly satisfied with any hiring process I've put together (and we've tried all types) -- perhaps because hiring is a fundamentally flawed process. Perhaps the best advice is: don't work for a company that interviews in a way you don't like, and don't hire people who don't like the way you interview. The best we can do at that point is be transparent up front.

DoofusOfDeath 9y ago

On the "running" side of things, lately I've been looking for solutions to fact that distributed teams can't gather in front of an actual whiteboard for discussion / design. I've been surprised by how hard it is to find cheap, effective alternatives. Cost is a particular concern when each person works from his/her own location. (1) At the high end, you have dedicated large-screen devices with dedicated software, like Google Jamboard. Gorgeous, awesome, very expensive. $5k+ USD. (2) Next step down in terms of price and glitz: the combination of a real whiteboard + a projector + special hardware for monitoring pens and/or hands. About $1k USD if you have to buy the whiteboard, and already have the computer. (3) Next step down in terms of size, but about the same price: tether a touch-/pen- sensitive display to your computer. E.g., iPad Pro, or Wacom Cintiq or a cheap knockoff. ~$400-$1200 USD, depending on device and size. Pros: Portable. Cons: Much smaller area to draw. (4) Status quo: Each person sits at his/her desk, using a mouse or (if they don't mind smudges and/or gorilla arms) a touch-sensitive laptop screen. Pros: Ubiquitous. Cons: Not fluid way to draw / annotate for most people. * Note: The breakdown above focuses on HW. I'm assuming that the SW side is at least somewhat solved by online, shared docs such as Google Draw, Realtimeboard, etc. * Note 2: A lot of the online collaboration sites are a hard sell in corporate environments if sensitive information is to be shared.

sekou 9y ago
The hardware may still be prohibitive cost-wise and/or underdeveloped, but mixed reality headsets may eventually be a potential solution for this problem.
edmundhuber 9y ago
I've experimented with zoom.us whiteboard + wacom tablet. I thought it was pretty good, though as you can imagine you quickly run out of space.

sheeshkebab 9y ago

It all sounded reasonable until a conditional offer with a week of trial... I’m a consultant and certainly used to that but WTF for an employee that’s going on a fraction of my rate. I guess if you hire really remote folks from other countries (that might not have internet connection or be on the right time zone), but still.