18 ms·

I'm leaving GitLab to help everyone work remotely

• mooreds 8y ago
  I agree with a lot of his points about the value of remote work, but the biggest one is that the labor pool is much much larger. This is such an advantage that I believe it outweighs the higher bandwidth conversations and the deep talent pool in the Bay area, but it does require reconfiguration of the company. Sharing of data, leveraging of online tools, trust in employees, adjustment to communication differences. In fact, I don't know if you can take a company that is built onsite and revamp it to succeed in a 100% remote manner. Perhaps, if you replace one department at a time? I don't know, and haven't encountered any stories of such a transformation. Anyway, congrats to the OP. I don't know if we need another remote job board, but heaven knows we need more remote jobs.
  • ebg13 8y ago
    > I agree with a lot of his points about the value of remote work, but the biggest one is that the labor pool is much much larger. That's clearly an advantage for the employer, but not necessarily for the employees who live in globally-more-expensive places. Taken to the obvious conclusion, remote developers in India can do the same remote work for a lot less money than remote workers in the US can afford to. I know it sounds crass and protectionist, but US workers cannot afford globalization despite the increase in profits for employers.
    • mooreds 8y ago
      Ah, that's fair. I guess I'd say it's still a big advantage for an employee, because the number of firms that are available for remote work is most likely larger than the number of firms in any one locality (especially if you limit commute time). Maybe not the Bay area, I have never lived there. The pool is large for both companies and employees. But the biggest advantage to employees I'd say would be the lack of commute. Even with a quick commute (15 min) you are gaining 2.5 hours a week. That is a huge amount of time that employees are not compensated for.
      • lloyd-christmas 8y ago
        When I worked remote, I found I worked more hours than the days I went into the office and spent 40 minutes each day commuting. It's a lot harder to walk away from work when it is embedded in your home life. I actually quit my most recent job when they decided to close the office and move to full time remote work, so YMMV.
        • ehnto 8y ago
          A compromise could be a co-working space or separate office in the house. It is very beneficial to have a clear divider between home and work life, so if you felt you weren't achieving it I totally understand the departure.
      • robjan 8y ago
        If the time difference isn't a problem, there are people with a much lower cost of living who are willing to work for 20 times less money than anyone in the Bay Area.
        • JimDabell 8y ago
          The ones that are worth hiring don't charge 20 times less regardless of their cost of living, because why would they?
          • mdpopescu 8y ago
            I agree, but it takes a while for us to realize how much we are worth. Impostor syndrome is a big thing.
          • robjan 8y ago
            Market value is different in different parts of the world. It's called arbitrage
    • freddie_mercury 8y ago
      I'm always amazed at all the developers who are in favor of remote work....as long as you don't offshore.... If I'm going to hire remote workers why wouldn't I hire great talent in Vietnam or China or Poland instead of in the US?
      • ForHackernews 8y ago
        Hopefully those employees in Vietnam or Poland would soon start demanding higher salaries. If you're selling your labor into a global market, charge what the market will bear, which is evidently a small fortune.
        • arnvald 8y ago
          It is already happening. In Poland the salaries among developers are getting closer and closer to salaries in Germany or UK. The reasons are that developers can find a job for foreign companies (therefore local companies need to increase salaries in order to compete), but also that local companies get more foreign customers, therefore they can quote higher prices and offer higher salaries.
          • joelbluminator 8y ago
            I don't know how reliable Payscale is but it's showing software development salaries in Germany to be 2x those in Poland.
      • rock_hard 8y ago
        Because many tech companies are not looking for sweatworkers but people who fully understand the context in which the product they are working on exists...from my expierence you won’t find these folks offshore
        • freddie_mercury 8y ago
          I don't work in the US. I guarantee you those people exist outside of the US. You think the engineering team behind Alibaba's singles day sale are just a bunch of sweat workers? You think people in Bulgaria can't understand context? Engineers in Canada can't?
    • lultimouomo 8y ago
      OTOH half the articles on HN are about how SF is made unliveable by the high salaries in software engineering, so maybe this will self correct, making some of the most expensive places in the US cheaper (I guess the process would not be painless though)
    • matz1 8y ago
      Because, assuming similar skill, as by living in cheap place I can afford to undercut other people living in more expensive place. That makes me more attractive to the employer.
    • mdpopescu 8y ago
      I first encountered this idea reading VoxDay. He was against free markets because - to paraphrase - US workers are too stupid to compete. This tribalism is so strange to me. I can sort of understand the US-vs-the-world thing (the US is huge), but being from Europe, with dozens of tiny countries, the ideas that Belgians are intrinsically worth more protection than Albanians is just nuts.
      • ebg13 8y ago
        > the ideas that Belgians are intrinsically worth more protection than Albanians is just nuts They aren't intrinsically worth more, but it matters if you happen to be one of those Belgians who loses your job to an Albanian who earns less than it costs for you to not live on the street.
        • mdpopescu 8y ago
          You can't lose your job; it's not something you owned in the first place.
    • vaibhavsagar 8y ago
      > I know it sounds crass and protectionist, but US workers cannot afford globalization despite the increase in profits for employers. That's because it is.
    • tracker1 8y ago
      Frankly, I think culture and localization have value. There will always be companies that prefer local. There are definite advantages to having people in proximity together for at least a portion of a given week. In terms of working with remote workers. I've done it in several environments. Often it's time zone differences and differences in approach and culture that wind up costing more, which may or may not offset other needs. The total cost may go down, but the time to complete a project often goes up. It depends on the needs of given project(s) to the company, as well as the distribution and size/scale of management. In the end, I'm happier to see offshore workers ask for more. I live in a city which has a higher pay to cost of income ration (for my field)... I stay here for that reason. I'm not taking less because the average is less.
  • a_imho 8y ago
    I agree with a lot of his points about the value of remote work, but the biggest one is that the labor pool is much much larger. Also, those people can bring their own connections even establishing remote teams.
  • jobvandervoort 8y ago
    Thanks - goal is not to build a job board. Goal is to move remote working forward. A job board is an obvious start if done well (note: we have a long way to go, right now). Hiring from anywhere is amazing, but there are many challenges in paying and employing people from different countries. We hope to make some dent in that, but I'm aware that's going to be very hard.
  • eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
    I think this is why so many people have a negative view of remote work. They worked at companies that hired remote workers but the majority of people were in-office. That rarely works out well. You need commitment from the top all the way down and throughout the organization. I’ve worked at 100% remote companies most of my career and they are excellent. Every person is invested in making communication work. My last gig was where we were a remote team but most employees were in-office. It was impossible to get even the slightest bit of adjustment on how work gets done (write stuff down, don’t have private meetings without us, etc). Eventually it created hostility and not much of anything got done.
• jaggederest 8y ago
  I was sitting in a meeting a while ago, and someone said something about being physically present in the office for an engineering process, and it just really struck me that I honestly didn't even consider that relevant, let alone valuable. At least in tech, anywhere that can hold a stable SSH session open is a workplace, as far as I am concerned.
  • ghaff 8y ago
    I do think F2F (and not just videoconference) time is valuable and companies need to budget that if they’re remote. You probably need some T&E to make up for people being scattered.
    • mac01021 8y ago
      > I do think F2F (and not just videoconference) time is valuable Can you say why?
      • closeparen 8y ago
        It's still a much higher bandwidth, lower friction channel than contemporary videoconferencing systems. Even a little bit of lag destroys normal human conversational flow. Big tech companies these days have multiple buildings and all their conferences rooms wired. You experience the difference between in-person and videoconference collaboration on a daily basis. Quite a bit can get done on Zoom, but for anything intricate the trek to the other person's office is worth it.
      • michaelt 8y ago
        If I ask someone "We need to add spidev to the dtb, can you do that?" there are several possible answers they can give: "Yes" meaning "This is a <1 hour job for me, I've done such things several times and have all the tools, skills, data and experience needed" "Yes" meaning "This is a <1 day job for me, I've done similar things once or twice with some difficulty" "Yes" meaning "This is a <1 week job for me, I don't know precisely what to do but I can probably figure out how to do it with my general programming knowledge, and Google" "Yes" meaning "I have no idea, but you wouldn't be asking if it was impossible and I don't want to say no to my senior" The differences between these yeses is often lost in nonverbal communication.
• m0zg 8y ago
  I wish he'd write a book about how to run fully remote companies, especially _international_ ones, like GitLab. Having recently founded a company myself, I have no plans of ever renting a permanent office if I can avoid it. So far though, I only had to deal with regulatory stuff in two states (DE and WA), and I get a throbbing headache from just contemplating doing this in every state and internationally as well. Would be pretty cool to know where the rakes are buried under the leaves so to speak, and how best to structure/manage such an organization, even besides the usual communication related challenges.
  • thirdsun 8y ago
    You probably already know the book, but Basecamp's founders collected their thoughts on the matter a while ago: https://basecamp.com/books/remote https://basecamp.com/books/remote
    • munchor 8y ago
      Unfortunately, this book does not address any of the complicated legal logistics aboute remote work (setting up multiple companies abroad like GitLab has done, hiring contractors, giving stock and stock options to people around the world, benefits, exclusivity, etc.). I haven't read a lot about this online but I know it's one of the problems with remote work.
      • mikro2nd 8y ago
        I'd guess that the whole arena is just so complicated and idiosyncratic that it's basically impossible to generalise the way you'd need to for a book. Details/legalities are going to vary depending on where your company is registered, where your nominal "offices" are (some/most legal jurisdictions still insist on the fiction of a registered office, even though the whole point is to work completely decentralised) and where you're hiring people. So a book/website/wiki/whatever covering all the legal, tax, compensation, worker rights, healthcare, etc., etc. for all the combinatoric possibilities seems unlikely. A high bar and of limited value, since the rules are in any case shifting all the time. So it ends up roughly where we are, with each company hacking through the specific cases that cross their paths with their respective lawyers and accountants. In this regard, the one thing I have seen is that most Remote First/Only companies I've tripped across seem to throw the questions of healthcare, home office allowances and even income taxes over to the employees... it's already too complicated for them to deal with unless they severely limit the number of countries they'll hire from.
• sigmaskipper 8y ago
  I am glad he is expanding remote work as it can be beneficial to companies who need it and motivate workers morale; however, working remotely full time is not always the greatest if you do not have other priorities in your life. For example, for my first job out of college, I was placed in a team where my manager was working in a different city, and half the team was in a timezone 12 hours ahead. It was great if I wanted to leave at 3 or come into work at 10, but man, it was isolating as a new hire coming into the office and not speaking a word to anyone or interacting with anyone on my team while other teams around me had productive meetings or team lunches. Working remotely in this case did not give myself any extra motivation to work for the team or help the team because I did not know them personally. Maybe there are other ways to work remotely and still foster this camaraderie, but I find it hard to see when most conversations are phone calls where people looking into their computer screens.
  • dx87 8y ago
    I had the same experience when I first started working remotely, I would go a couple of days in a row without talking to anybody at work because everyone had there own thing they were working on. Another coworker left his remote job after 7 months because he felt so lonely that he ended up working at bars and coffee shops with free wifi just so he could have normal human interaction. I'm at a new remote job, and my solution to loneliness has been hanging around in smaller twitch channels talking to streamers and regular viewers. I get less work done, but I don't feel like a miserable piece of a machine now.
    • sigmaskipper 8y ago
      That's a great solution, and I think too companies realize that by people working remotely, they are sacrificing 100% total productivity. Another thing that I did was explain my situation to management to transfer me to a new thing and explain the isolation that I was feeling. It also does not help that when I was working remotely, I was expected to work the standard work day hours. The problem with that was that you do not get the benifits of doing a hobby spontaneously because you are expected to be on call or available at those hours.
    • 8y ago
• markbnj 8y ago
  I love this post, and as someone who has worked remotely for a decade or so, and currently works for an all-remote company, I agree strongly with his points. I'd add that remote work offers us an opportunity to spread the economic benefit of working in tech into more areas that don't traditionally have a lot of tech employment. In the U.S. wealth is heavily concentrated in a few coastal and metropolitan regions. Encouraging the growth of remote work should help us spread it around, and I think that would be awesome.
  • isostatic 8y ago
    But why spend $80k employing someone in Kentucky, when you could spent $20k employing someone in Khatmandu?
• shaklee3 8y ago
  I think he overvalues temporary documentation. There is a difference between writing extremely detailed notes on something because you know you won't be available for 12 hours rather than documenting a summary and asking questions if needed. The former is only a shortcoming of working remotely. You end up writing a tremendous amount of documentation that is really ephemeral, just to allow people to work in that manner. There is no substitute for face time, and video conference doesn't do that. The only companies I've seen be successful at this are extremely small, and the employees they do have are highly independent.
  • sverhagen 8y ago
    "Big" is a subjective measure, so I don't know if you think 450 is big; it is in my world. This 450 staff company GitLab, that this person is leaving, is well-known for being successful at being 100% remote. Maybe they're an outlier (probably they are), maybe they're the one proving you wrong. Maybe your experience is with "remote-friendly" companies, versus GitLab being a 100% remote company. Purportedly, they don't have any number of people that are commonly colocated.
    • shaklee3 8y ago
      I suppose they might be the one to prove me wrong. But I think the larger they get, the more they'll hit the problems big companies face, and it's compounded by being remote. Good for them for making it this far, and from what I've read their product is great.
  • chrismorgan 8y ago
    > You end up writing a tremendous amount of documentation that is really ephemeral Yet I find that writing more about what I’m doing (most commonly in the form of extensive code comments and verbose commit messages, but also in other forms) helps me produce better work. Time and time again I explain in writing how something is or why it’s done the way it is, and realise in the process substantial ways in which it might be improved; or how it’s actually completely broken for an important case that I hadn’t considered; or any number of other reasons why further work is desirable.
• Zarath 8y ago
  Is anyone else not as optimistic about remote work? I feel that the workplace is the single largest facilitator of friendship/relationship/community building that most adults have in the modern day. If this goes away I really fear that the loneliness problem will become even worse.
  • Down_n_Out 8y ago
    Remote work doesn't mean solitude, it means being free to work wherever, and often times whenever, you feel comfortable. It also means less commute, less cars, less pressure on the environment. If friendship/relationship/community is a worry go work in a nearby co-work space or a coffee shop or the park even, it might be a walk or bike ride away.
    • joelbluminator 8y ago
      You're simplifying things. I don't think parks or co-work spaces will cut it for most people. Many software developers are introverts to begin with so meeting new people will become impossible for them in a remote work setting.
      • lostctown 8y ago
        Yeah, as someone who is on the extreme end of introverted (not shy, just happy to be alone) this was the case for me. I got a membership to the co-working space, did many of the social events, attended some meetups even, but the connections just wouldn't stick. On the flip side, when I have worked at an office I have always come out after a year or so with a couple close friends in the organization. Because of the physical proximity many of the shared experiences are more intense. Putting out production fires, after work beers, dropping in on a co-worker to talk about the product, etc, lead to longer lasting relationships. Developers have a tendency to assume that technology can solve more of our issues than possible. I have plans to start my own company with a bit more savings and network under my belt, and I will be doing zero remote, assuming I can afford to.
        • 8y ago
• stevenacreman 8y ago
  Has anyone tried signing up for remote.com? I just did and they wanted an email for jobs which I thought was OK. Then I tried to add a profile and it prompted me to export my entire LinkedIn history. It says to export "The Works". My LinkedIn is quite massive and I've checked the export for "The Works" includes my entire contact list. That's pretty shady. Why not just import my profile? There's an option to export only profile data. How many people will follow these default instructions and upload everything they have ever done on LinkedIn?
  • jobvandervoort 8y ago
    We should be much more transparent about this, you're right. We're going to split this up between your profile and your contacts, and make it explicit what happens.
    • giancarlostoro 8y ago
      Thank you. I never like to import my contacts cause they don't necessarily give me consent to share their contact information, but importing the other bits from a profile is certainly useful.
    • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Are you actually doing anything with the contacts currently or is that data discarded?
    • purephase 8y ago
      I know it's nice to see you in here and commenting, but I have to weigh in a bit to offer advice. These types of issues shouldn't exist in a modern application. Particularly one that deals with a fairly sensitive subject for a lot of people (looking for work). I hope it's not an indication of the overall data handling approach within the application in general and just an oversight for launch. It might be worthwhile to re-visit your internal policies/review practice for safe harbour and be upfront about it. Just a suggestion!
  • aptwebapps 8y ago
• rajasimon 8y ago
  Wow, that cool domain he has!
• arosier 8y ago
  Interesting interview about the acquisition of the domain remote.com https://www.namepros.com/blog/inside-interview-why-this-company-paid-six-figures-for-remote-com.1013432/ https://www.namepros.com/blog/inside-interview-why-this-comp...
• neya 8y ago
  There's an interesting downside about remote work that most articles don't talk about. Pay. The brutal fact is most companies simply re-brand outsourcing as "Remote" employees. Case in point, a few years ago, a DIY website builder (a company with a name of a coniferous plant species which I won't name directly) contacted me for a "remote" position. I passed all their tests and we eventually went to the salary negotiation stage. I agreed to this interview in the first place because I read online they paid really well for their employees, particularly in the US (Bay area). So, when we were discussing the pay, I threw in a number that's common for the Bay area employees and what seemed very, very reasonable for me. In fact, my current salary was almost the same, just so to make it clear to you that I wasn't trying to take advantage of them or anything. Immediately, the founder got offensive and told me, "What? Are you serious?? You live in Asia (I was living in Singapore at the time, which already had better pay as opposed to PH), for our employees in Philippines we pay 1/3rd of that and I can still get the job done. Why would I want to pay you that salary?" I told him, "Well, this is what you pay your Bay Area employees, don't you? Besides, my experience more than matches the job profile and requirements and my test results just proved to you I am more than capable for this position." His answer? "But, you don't live in the Bay area". I thanked him for his opportunity and advised him to contact some sweatshops instead of playing the "remote" game. Since then, I very very carefully ask anyone who uses the word "remote" a LOT of questions, qualify them if they really know remote isn't the same as outsourcing before even going into the interview. I would have happily agreed to a lower salary if it was fair enough. But, asking me to go down to 1/3rd of my price because of where I lived in seemed ridiculous to me. In the last 10 years, I've lived in 7+ different countries and 35+ different locations within them as I'm that sort of person who likes to travel and explore new cultures. Basing my salary or worth based on where I'm from, where I live in at present seems the most ridiculous thing to me about remote work. Edit: Typos and clarifications
  • JimDabell 8y ago
    > when we were discussing the pay, I threw in a number that's common for the Bay area employees > I thanked him for his opportunity and advised him to contact some sweatshops instead of playing the "remote" game. > asking me to go down 1/3rd of my price because of where I lived in seemed ridiculous to me. I agree with the general principle that you shouldn't give massive discounts because you live in a lower cost of living area, but you're comparing it to a Bay Area salary as if that's the norm. It's a massive outlier. Going down 1/3rd of a Bay Area salary (I'm assuming a developer of some sort from context) still puts you in the top 1% or so of earners virtually anywhere in the world. Offering two thirds of a Bay Area salary certainly can't be described as a "sweatshop" salary.
• barbs 8y ago
  What do people here use to find remote work? Is remote.com a decent option?
• sam0x17 8y ago
  Being well-rested pretty much all the time (no commute, no two-hour pre-work morning routine), having a much bigger talent pool, not having to pay for a physical office, and eliminating office-related distractions (open offices suck) all make remote work pretty much a win-win for employees and employers. My company is in the middle of the transition, and the dividends are paying off already.
  • ehnto 8y ago
    It isn't always a win win. I prefer remote myself, but not everyone has a quiet or understanding home to work in and not everyone can work well completely isolated. When the last place I worked at asked if the team wanted to go remote, only a handful said yes and even those people still wanted the option to come into the office. For a lot of people, the workplace is where they have friendships and structure that makes them feel happy and like they are progressing in life. I don't feel the same way but I empathise and I suspect it may even be the majority.
    • mooreds 8y ago
      > It isn't always a win win. Agreed. Especially with less experienced folks, remote work can be hard because there's less context. You can't see someone struggling quietly at their desk, they have to ask for help or you have to ping them.
  • beavis2 8y ago
    It's give-and-take. At a butt-in-seat job, I'd turn up on time and leave on time - and that's the end of it. If during those hours I happen to be in an unproductive mindset (eg, unable to concentrate) then so be it. I'm paid for my time. If I happen to be in a productive mood after hours, their loss. Now that I'm working remotely, if I'm feeling unproductive then I will stop work and do something else (shopping/walk/etc.) and resume when I'm more productive. I also don't mind being contacted out of hours (I'll decide if I'm busy or not) - they're flexible with me, so I'm flexible with them. They'll get the same number of clock-hours from me, but with more work output.
    • 8y ago
• skydv 8y ago
  remote.com website sucks in so many ways, scrollbars keep appearing/disappearing, when I click Pricing it doesn't scroll down to pricing section, if I reload neither. Seems like done in old AngularJS
• stephenr 8y ago
  I'm sure the hive-mind will make itself known in response to this, but I think the 'problem' is more nuanced than just "you pay X in SF, I want X". I agree completely that location shouldn't really affect the pay - I've worked with a company (heavily skewed to remote work) that favoured (Central/Eastern) European workers because they could hire 2 for the price of a single US worker to do the same job. I think the issue with the OP's case specifically is that SF salaries are ridiculously over-inflated - the solution is to pay people less and encourage them to live somewhere that's actually liveable. Factor in how much money the company is probably spending on it's own costs in SF (i.e. office rental etc) and they should probably pay the remote workers more because they provide the working space/etc themselves.
  • autotune 8y ago
    That’s fine if you hire employees to work remote outside of SF only, but if you try to pay less in the Bay Area an employer is only going to get either poor quality employees or those who will switch companies immediately when a better offer is inevitably presented. Have to be competitive if you want good talent in the Bay Area.
    • stephenr 8y ago
      There is "good talent" literally all over the world, that's the point. We hear stories about people moving from all over the place, to be in SF and the ridiculous salaries, and simultaneously how it's so expensive to live there, and then how it's expensive to hire/retain "good talent". Both sides of the fence are to blame for this ridiculous catch-22 of bullshit. But ultimately, thats what startups are all about isnt it? Burning through insane amounts of money for no real gain. Why am I so surprised the same logic applies to the salaries of their workers.
  • apta 8y ago
    > I think the issue with the OP's case specifically is that SF salaries are ridiculously over-inflated When the employing company is making billions of dollars, it's only fair to pay its employees accordingly. This attracts talent. There's a reason why you generally find the best tech workers in the Bay Area and other tech hubs.
• nnd 8y ago
  I've been working remotely for the last few years. Here is my take on the arguments presented in the article: > First, it becomes easier to focus on merit, actual work, rather than on how long people stay in the office. In other words: you don’t need to count hours to see whether someone is being productive. You can now allow people to work whenever they want. Sure, working remotely boosts individual productivity, but it deteriorates group productivity due to the inherent inefficiency of online communication. It works better for more senior specialists and in scenarios where everyone is working more independently doing heads down work. I've also noticed that because I could work whenever I wanted and because I was judged by my output only, I tended to work overtime and eventually became more and more burnt out. I'd argue that separating life from work when working remotely is a challenge in itself, and one has to have a very strong discipline to not work all the time. > Third, you can now hire the best people on the planet in any particular function. Not necessarily. Most of the time a mediocre developer would do just fine, and this essentially becomes a form of outsourcing labor to cut the costs down. Then, there is an issue of trust online. Unless you have an established relationship with a professional, you'd probably use middlemen marketplaces like Upwork or Toptal to mitigate the risks of making a wrong hire. So even if it's true that there is a vast amount of talent available worldwide, it's still a challenge to tap into that talent not only due to trust issues but also because of the legal restrictions and international payments. Most importantly, when working remotely you are making a sacrifice when it comes to your career development. Likely, the work you'll be doing wouldn't be as challenging as what you could do in top tech companies. It does allow for more flexibility to work from wherever and whenever you want, but personally, I didn't find that as valuable, as having meaningful work. Again, this is just must experience, and I'm curious if anyone is happy with their career path working remotely.
• ArthurBrussee 8y ago
  The more you think about salary based on location the less it makes sense. I got an offer for FB London that is as half of offer for bay area. Where does that $$$ go? Maybe some tax, but then a bay area office is also more expensive. I'd be doing the exact same work. Coming from a freelance perspective, the only equation should be 'how much value do I provide company X, how much of that do they give back'
• buboard 8y ago
  It's always good news to hear about people promoting remote work. I wonder how are interpersonal relationships for people who work in fully remote companies. Things like , are you friends with your coworkers, or do you share your personal lives and to what extent?
• thedevilslawyer 8y ago
  Some of the comments here criticizing the remote work concept are doing it on the following lines: 1. It's bad for SF workers - pay is worse. 2. No separation of home and work life. 3. It's lower quality work. 4. Regulations require local residents. Then let's agree that remote work/process is to be the default, as long as 1. the measure of quality is quantifiable. 2. the work does is not for the government. 3. work pays for a co-working seat/equivalent. The above is close to 95% of the tech/startup industry. It's probably bad for SF engineering, but that's OK. They'll figure it out. This is better for the world, and for the industry. Let's do this. Everyone has a birthright to opportunity of good life, not those that luck allows to move to SF.
• apohn 8y ago
  Quote from the article "The first day in the hospital, I left a message to my colleagues in Slack and didn’t worry about work for another two months. When I did check in with my co-workers, there were no frantic demands for my time - in fact, there was nothing but support and people telling me to take it easy." Not that the author attributed this to remote work, but companies respecting people taking time off is less about remote and just more about having a good manager and being in a company with a good culture with typically a positive cash flow. Gitlab will probably get some applicants based on this paragraph. I had a remote job in the past where there was always an overwhelming amount of work. One time an amazing colleague needed some time off to handle a major personal issue, and was at 50% productivity for a few months after. I could see our manager and other folks resented them for this. There was simply no culture to support people who needed time for their personal lives. At the time I didn't have the sense to realize how toxic the work environment was. At least with "ass-in-seat" time you can sit in a conference room doing personal stuff and people will assume you are working. That being said, I love remote work!
• tracker1 8y ago
  I've generally stayed in the Phoenix area because the local pay for software development is far better than the average cost of living for the area. Just because the average person here doesn't make what I do, doesn't change the average for the industry in this area. That's why I wouldn't even interview for GitLab.