10 ms·

This is such a smart move. I was one of the first two simul-hire remotes at Mapbox (when the company was ~12 people) and, until I left in 2017, the longest-ter

This is such a smart move. I was one of the first two simul-hire remotes at Mapbox (when the company was ~12 people) and, until I left in 2017, the longest-term remote there at seven years. I've been fully remote for thirteen years. At Mapbox, I unofficially took on the role of internal advocate for remote culture. It wasn't always easy to be remote, but as the company grew, Eric, the CEO, was fond of saying that "everyone is remote" since more and more physical hubs for work sprang up across many timezones. It was a tough balance, particularly as increasingly more work and customer opportunities centered around the Bay Area, and the spiritual heart of the company switched coasts from the official HQ in DC to the larger and faster growing office in SF. Personally, I can't overstate how much being a remote employee and even freelancer has impacted my quality of life and my opportunities. For the most part, I was able to focus on my work and hook in to the rest of my teammates as needed. The best times of this were when the company engineering culture was very asynchronous and allowed for it. Slack and always-on expectations, as well as much more complex software in later years, made this more difficult, but still manageable. It wasn't without struggle, though. Often it was lonely, isolating, I felt out of the loop on some decisions, I didn't get some in-jokes and nicknames, I missed the non-holiday parties and happy hours, etc. Even with that stuff aside, it takes a real commitment from the leadership to fully integrate remote team members. Kudos to Stripe for putting themselves out there and holding themselves accountable to the goal with a public statement and metrics. The key snippet from the Stripe announcement is this: > improve our ability to tap the 99.74% of talented engineers living outside the metro areas of our first four hubs The future of much of the technical work that needs to happen is remote, and I'm glad to see Stripe embrace that.

kweinber 7y ago
"Often it was lonely, isolating, I felt out of the loop on some decisions, I didn't get some in-jokes and nicknames, I missed the non-holiday parties and happy hours, etc." I am in this boat now. . . and find it really tough. Many others I know feel the same way but it is rarely talked about. How do you get over the social isolation of being remote?
- ghaff 7y ago
  There are really two different things in that quote. Being out of the loop on decisions is a combination of a company with a mix of remotes and company locations who would benefit from better documentation/communications practices. In practice, it's also something remote workers often just need to be more proactive about. The latter is really about separating work as social activity from work as work. You arguably lose something in the process but, if you're remote in a different location, you're not going to be at work happy hours, other gatherings, or software league. What you can do is join other local groups of your choosing.
- incanus77 7y ago
  There are two parts to this: work and your local community. For work, you're not going to do it alone. Someone on the HR side (or just general management, if the company is still quite small) is going to have to be a willing sounding board for remote employee concerns. On the social side, this might be supporting a policy (as Mapbox did, maybe still does) of flying remotes to the holiday and other big parties, as well as, if able, just having them in every month or two to work alongside the non-remotes and make those connections. When I first started, I'd fly from Portland to DC for a week every 6-8 weeks. It helped that I lived in DC prior for five years (before Mapbox), so it felt like a natural connection. On the technical and process side, we had a policy of things not existing (or not existing properly) unless they were in written form. This included decisions, context, back-and-forth reasoning, announcements, etc. We used GitHub for non-code "tickets" this way, almost like an internal blog and topic-focused discussion forum. This broke down in later years, but even to the scale of dozens of people was a great way to make sure that being 3,000 miles away and three hours "behind" wasn't as isolating. For the local community part, go to meetups. Organize a weekly/biweekly social gathering with likeminded friends or peers. Work in coffee shops or other places out of the house. I found that I went stir crazy when I first started remote, because I wouldn't leave the house and needed some human contact. Placing all of that expectation on your employer and not on yourself is unreasonable. It takes effort.
  - rolleiflex 7y ago
    > On the technical and process side, we had a policy of things not existing (or not existing properly) unless they were in written form. This included decisions, context, back-and-forth reasoning, announcements, etc. We used GitHub for non-code "tickets" this way, almost like an internal blog and topic-focused discussion forum. We are working on making this process more scalable at Aether’s Pro version, it is especially useful for remote companies as you mentioned. It helps that we are a remote company as well, eating your own dog food is the fastest way to improve. If you’d like to get on the pilot, hit me up and I’ll add you in.
kaikai 7y ago
Also a former Mapbox employee, and the effort that you put in to making it a remote-friendly culture showed in huge ways. I've carried those lessons to other companies, and I'm really grateful for your work <3
- jaryd 7y ago
  What were some of the key lessons or most impactful things?
  - kaikai 7y ago
    Some of my key lessons were: - remote-first meetings; is someone is remote / in another office, everyone takes the call from their laptops. That way no one ends up being forgotten on a screen in a room full of people. - habitually reverting to written communication, so that information doesn't get lost in 1:1 conversations. That means writing thought processes into tickets, so folks can search for things later. We worked across 3 timezones (including PT to IST, ~12 hours off) so async communication was key. - not having a central office. "Everyone is remote" wasn't perfect, but there wasn't a true home office in the same way as my current company. For example, it was considered rude to "@here" in the general chat channel for things like donuts, because hey, many folks are in other states/countries, and don't need to hear about y'alls treats. Little things like that make a big difference in employee experience.
sparkpy724 7y ago
> improve our ability to tap the 99.74% of talented engineers living outside the metro areas of our first four hubs Bbbut the only good engineers are in the Bay Area!!!! /s
- sidlls 7y ago
  Most of them are in tech hubs like the bay area. I know it's popular to dismiss that view as unjustified arrogance or whatever, but I've actually made a living in the Midwest and other "not a tech hub" locations. The difference in interest and ability cannot be overstated: my colleagues in SF are heads and shoulders above the typical developer I worked with in those other places.
  - sparkpy724 7y ago
    Yeah actually you're right, all the engineers in Chicago, Boston, NYC, Raleigh, Austin and Boulder are trash. If they weren't why wouldn't they live in the place with the highest cost of living on earth?
orestes910 7y ago
The lack of parties and happy hours is music to my ears, personally. I can't stand these events, and they often work in the service of this strange social construct that we all know and love - "culture." At some point socializing with your teammates outside of working hours became part of the job. Its strange really, to almost force these things on people, as it doesn't even serve to strengthen the team bond that much. Soldiers don't bond at the bar, they bond on the field; they socialize at the bar. Loneliness and isolation is often cited as a downside of remote work, but as someone who doesn't like to mix work/personal and has a healthy personal social life, I just can't see it being an issue for everyone.
mourner 7y ago
Hey Justin, we miss you very much! Happy to see you chime in here. > it takes a real commitment from the leadership to fully integrate remote team members This is so true. I thought this would only be manageable for relatively small companies, and that it was natural for Silicon Valley companies to loose this culture as they grow rapidly, so it's very inspiring to see this kind of commitment from a company as large as Stripe.

kweinber 7y ago

"Often it was lonely, isolating, I felt out of the loop on some decisions, I didn't get some in-jokes and nicknames, I missed the non-holiday parties and happy hours, etc." I am in this boat now. . . and find it really tough. Many others I know feel the same way but it is rarely talked about. How do you get over the social isolation of being remote?

ghaff 7y ago
There are really two different things in that quote. Being out of the loop on decisions is a combination of a company with a mix of remotes and company locations who would benefit from better documentation/communications practices. In practice, it's also something remote workers often just need to be more proactive about. The latter is really about separating work as social activity from work as work. You arguably lose something in the process but, if you're remote in a different location, you're not going to be at work happy hours, other gatherings, or software league. What you can do is join other local groups of your choosing.
incanus77 7y ago
There are two parts to this: work and your local community. For work, you're not going to do it alone. Someone on the HR side (or just general management, if the company is still quite small) is going to have to be a willing sounding board for remote employee concerns. On the social side, this might be supporting a policy (as Mapbox did, maybe still does) of flying remotes to the holiday and other big parties, as well as, if able, just having them in every month or two to work alongside the non-remotes and make those connections. When I first started, I'd fly from Portland to DC for a week every 6-8 weeks. It helped that I lived in DC prior for five years (before Mapbox), so it felt like a natural connection. On the technical and process side, we had a policy of things not existing (or not existing properly) unless they were in written form. This included decisions, context, back-and-forth reasoning, announcements, etc. We used GitHub for non-code "tickets" this way, almost like an internal blog and topic-focused discussion forum. This broke down in later years, but even to the scale of dozens of people was a great way to make sure that being 3,000 miles away and three hours "behind" wasn't as isolating. For the local community part, go to meetups. Organize a weekly/biweekly social gathering with likeminded friends or peers. Work in coffee shops or other places out of the house. I found that I went stir crazy when I first started remote, because I wouldn't leave the house and needed some human contact. Placing all of that expectation on your employer and not on yourself is unreasonable. It takes effort.
- rolleiflex 7y ago
  > On the technical and process side, we had a policy of things not existing (or not existing properly) unless they were in written form. This included decisions, context, back-and-forth reasoning, announcements, etc. We used GitHub for non-code "tickets" this way, almost like an internal blog and topic-focused discussion forum. We are working on making this process more scalable at Aether’s Pro version, it is especially useful for remote companies as you mentioned. It helps that we are a remote company as well, eating your own dog food is the fastest way to improve. If you’d like to get on the pilot, hit me up and I’ll add you in.

kaikai 7y ago

Also a former Mapbox employee, and the effort that you put in to making it a remote-friendly culture showed in huge ways. I've carried those lessons to other companies, and I'm really grateful for your work <3

jaryd 7y ago
What were some of the key lessons or most impactful things?
- kaikai 7y ago
  Some of my key lessons were: - remote-first meetings; is someone is remote / in another office, everyone takes the call from their laptops. That way no one ends up being forgotten on a screen in a room full of people. - habitually reverting to written communication, so that information doesn't get lost in 1:1 conversations. That means writing thought processes into tickets, so folks can search for things later. We worked across 3 timezones (including PT to IST, ~12 hours off) so async communication was key. - not having a central office. "Everyone is remote" wasn't perfect, but there wasn't a true home office in the same way as my current company. For example, it was considered rude to "@here" in the general chat channel for things like donuts, because hey, many folks are in other states/countries, and don't need to hear about y'alls treats. Little things like that make a big difference in employee experience.

sparkpy724 7y ago

> improve our ability to tap the 99.74% of talented engineers living outside the metro areas of our first four hubs Bbbut the only good engineers are in the Bay Area!!!! /s

sidlls 7y ago
Most of them are in tech hubs like the bay area. I know it's popular to dismiss that view as unjustified arrogance or whatever, but I've actually made a living in the Midwest and other "not a tech hub" locations. The difference in interest and ability cannot be overstated: my colleagues in SF are heads and shoulders above the typical developer I worked with in those other places.
- sparkpy724 7y ago
  Yeah actually you're right, all the engineers in Chicago, Boston, NYC, Raleigh, Austin and Boulder are trash. If they weren't why wouldn't they live in the place with the highest cost of living on earth?

orestes910 7y ago

The lack of parties and happy hours is music to my ears, personally. I can't stand these events, and they often work in the service of this strange social construct that we all know and love - "culture." At some point socializing with your teammates outside of working hours became part of the job. Its strange really, to almost force these things on people, as it doesn't even serve to strengthen the team bond that much. Soldiers don't bond at the bar, they bond on the field; they socialize at the bar. Loneliness and isolation is often cited as a downside of remote work, but as someone who doesn't like to mix work/personal and has a healthy personal social life, I just can't see it being an issue for everyone.

mourner 7y ago

Hey Justin, we miss you very much! Happy to see you chime in here. > it takes a real commitment from the leadership to fully integrate remote team members This is so true. I thought this would only be manageable for relatively small companies, and that it was natural for Silicon Valley companies to loose this culture as they grow rapidly, so it's very inspiring to see this kind of commitment from a company as large as Stripe.