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A Decade of Remote Work

503 points by mvip 7y ago

oil25 7y ago
This was very well written and helpful to me as a newly remote employee. The tone in this article is very pleasant and uplifting. I especially like your point about having mental triggers to establish routines. When I worked in an office, I struggled most with others triggering me into unpleasant behaviors. Now that I'm remote, I feel a great burden has been lifted and I'm free to set my own habits in time. Thanks for sharing this!
- mvip 7y ago
  Thanks you! Glad you find it helpful.
- CameronBanga 7y ago
  I'm about to add our first remote hire to our team, where 4 will be based out of office and one will be remote. Would love to hear your thoughts on this and get some feedback as to how I should best plan for this on our side, if you're willing to share? My contact info is in my profile.
wolco 7y ago
I hate the idea of the yearly summit. People working remotely may have health or social issues on a greater average. There is a benefit to face to face but requiring the team to fly to remote locations yearly makes a local company with a normal christmas party seem more attractive.
- rebbie 7y ago
  Not everyone is suited to remote work. It sounds like you are better suited to working in an office. I can tell you from experience that the periodic get together events (whatever they are called) are really crucial to building a stronger team bond and to working efficiently together.
  - ehnto 7y ago
    To say someone isn't cut out for remote work just because they can't make an annual work event is pretty crazy and allienating of people who could benefit from remote work the most. How could it possibly matter more than the hundereds of other days of the year where you have been actually working together and honing your processes and efficiency? You shouldn't be struggling to be a competent team before having a hugathon. I love the idea of an annual face to face event, but none of the benefits I want from it are work related. They are opportunities to build friendships and have some fun with people I wouldn't mind knowing better.
    - ghaff 7y ago
      >They are opportunities to build friendships and have some fun with people I wouldn't mind knowing better. Which I would argue is very clearly a benefit to your ability to work together. My team off-sites certainly include formal information exchanges, but we specifically try not to spend too much time of things that could be equally well communicated via email or video conference.
  - wolco 7y ago
    I've worked remotely a number of times for years at a time. I've usually worked locally first and moved remote or only spoken to my team through chat/phone. The yearly meetings I can see appealing to a certain type of employee but for the older employee with a family it is not that appealing.
- jdewald 7y ago
  > People working remotely may have health or social issues on a greater average. I don't know any reason that working remotely would correlate to health/social issues. Is this a known statistic from somewhere? The social thing perhaps correlates to working (remotely or not) in a software field, but I'm not sure why remote workers would be statistically any different than non-remote workers. (I happen to be a remote worker)
  - brianwawok 7y ago
    Self selection? I assume a very social person applies to more in person than remote jobs. I assume more reclusive people apply to more remote jobs than in person jobs. Neither is a guarantee but it’s a reasonably safe bet.
  - wolco 7y ago
    I would think someone disabled or with mobility issues would seek out those opportunities over local employment at a higher rate. People with visa/passport/country of origin issues would have issues traveling would be another group.
  - b212 7y ago
    From my experience the health issues point is true. When I used to work from office my day looked more or less like this: a) WALKING to the car/public transport, b) sitting at a desk, meetings, multiple small breaks for lunches, chats etc., c) again some moving, coming back home, d) SITTING AT DIFFERENT CHAIR WITH DIFFERENT DESK AND DIFFERENT PERIPHERALS AT HOME. Right now: a) waking up, b) no one forces me to take breaks, c) I do not change peripherals twice a day, so before I was using two different keyboards and two different mouses and two different setups daily, now I'm using the same mouse and the same keyboard and the same everything in work and after work, this leads to RSI and after 8 years I'm facing carpal tunnel syndrome in near future, also changing chair even to a shitty one for a while is apparently much better for your body than sitting in Herman Miller ALL THE TIME (I have standing desk too BTW).
- greysonp 7y ago
  As a remote worker, I think some sort of in-person gathering is pretty crucial. We have plenty of video chats and whatnot, but nothing quite replaces the experience of meeting someone in person. Obviously doesn't need to be super frequent, but especially when you're a small company (which many fully-remote places tend to be), it really helps you feel more connected to your co-workers.
  - vidanay 7y ago
    Absolutely. I work remote full time and I just returned from spending a week in Germany (I am in USA) where I had meetings and social time with others both above and below me.
- knappe 7y ago
  The in face meeting is actually incredibly important. I've been remote for 7 years and it is just so important to put a "face" to a person. You get to bond on a personal level that is really hard to do remotely, even if you've been working with someone for years. As a strong remote advocate there really isn't a replacement for face to face communication, which is why I support annual summits.
  - throwaway171714 7y ago
    Face-to-face meetings are valuable (GP agrees). Requiring get togethers in unique exotic locales, not so much. It's a huge perk for some, and a not-insignificant cost for others (with most "regular" people probably somewhere in-between, but giving in to the peer pressure of emphasizing the glamor). Oh and it seems to inevitably blur this whole work-life balance thing people claim to care about. (Not to mention it's a bit of a bad habit, carbon footprint wise, and a dubious use of investor money.) If a company just picked a logically geographically central place (per its employee base), reserved a reasonable hotel w/business suite or rented an office for a week, that'd make a lot more sense and be a good bit fairer imo. Let people who enjoy exotic locales do so on their own, and not as a (required!) perk. Bonus, you're now being more serious about avoiding monoculture at work too (not everybody enjoys exotic travel, and companies that de facto require it will end up selecting for it).
    - mikekchar 7y ago
      Ideally work will pay for a summit (although day to day expenses are unlikely to be covered). If you were a single parent, it would be extremely tricky to work out, though. In my case, I have to fly 12 hours to get to the office of the company where I work. Virtually anywhere on the planet would be easier to get to :-) There is a bit of an advantage to "exotic" locations, though -- shared unfamiliarity. If it's new for everybody, then everybody is learning at the same time. It gives you something in common. Having said that, though, I've had discussions with the team I'm on where a lot of people would love to get together in a relatively boring place where the only thing we could do is code together. That has a lot of advantages too and I'd be surprised if you couldn't get some backing from other teammates to try it at least once.
- omnivore 7y ago
  In-person interactions dramatically improved my remote work experience and improved the bonding that happened outside of the project. I can see why someone reclusive might not like it, but it's almost always on the company dime anyway. In my case, it wasn't a retreat but meeting IRL for project work which I liked better.
- microtherion 7y ago
  In my experience, working remotely requires, if anything, more social skills than working in an office (though deploying them strategically instead of 9-5 may be easier to do).
theo31 7y ago
Hi, hiring remotely can be a pain payroll-wise. Use something like https://remotehr.co/ https://remotehr.co/ to manage it.
abhiyerra 7y ago
This is great advice. Being a remote worker the advice on having time in the morning to yourself before starting and a shutdown is super important. Another aspect I found is to get dressed up even if it is just wearing jeans as it mentally shifts you from leisure to work. The Deep Work in the morning to really dive into a single thing is important even just for self-discipline. But it does take a while to really hone this and as he said remote work isn’t for everyone. It feels like it’s better suited for introverts than extroverts.
- mvip 7y ago
  Spot on regarding getting dressed! After my morning excercise, I get dressed just as I were to go into the office. Regarding intra vs extraverts - I think you're right, it probably somewhat favors intraverts. However, I've worked with a number of extraverts over the years too that worked well remotely.
majorbugger 7y ago
Good advice, except, do not work 10 hours like that person, aim for 8 hours.
- brianwawok 7y ago
  Different people have different ideal workloads at different times in their life. People need to figure out their own healthy velocity.
- mvip 7y ago
  Author here. I don't factor in lunch (so take away 30-60 min). Also, the 19:30 stop is there as a hard stop. Sometimes I feel drained at 17:30 or 18:00 after a very productive day. In that case, I'm happy to wrap up the day.
- vvoyer 7y ago
  That was also my first thought, I feel 10 hours (or even 9 hours) is extremely long. Being laser focused for 9 hours is extremely hard to do on the long run. As others said, you need to find your own schedule but don't aim for 10 hours first thing, go slow
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
_nalply 7y ago
I wonder if remote work is a good thing for a Deaf developer. Do people who work remote sometimes need to make important phone calls, for example?
- jon-wood 7y ago
  It’s obviously going to depend on the person, and how deaf they are, but I’ve seen things like Google Meet’s new automatic subtitling making it easier to participate in meetings for someone who’s hard of hearing than it would be in person.
- cs02rm0 7y ago
  IME, audio calls are relied on less in a remote environment than in person meetings in an office. They do feature heavily though. However, it probably makes instant messaging, or web based tools a more natural way if interacting rather than grabbing a meeting room for everything. I've never worked with a deaf developer but I'd imagine it easier to accommodate in a fully remote environment.
- throwaway9298 7y ago
  Deafness is a spectrum. If you've got sufficient hearing - and pick the right phone - it can work out. I usually have a second party on the call who can explain anything I mishear via instant messaging. I've experimented with a wide variety of techincal solutions over the years, and I've learnt that the often-compressed bandwidth of cell phones is bad -- I avoid calls using cell phones like the plague these days. Since I work remotely, in a private office, I can get away with using a really high quality speaker phone. With hearing aids as they are today, including digital processing and noise discrimination, it works OK. P.
  - _nalply 7y ago
    I don't hear anything.
knappe 7y ago
So one thing that isn't mentioned in this article that I think is incredibly important is making sure you maintain a social life outside of work. When working at an office you tend to spend time with your coworkers outside of work and that is something you don't really get an opportunity to take advantage of when you're remote. Be sure to make some effort to get out of the house and be social in some form. Otherwise it becomes too easy to become isolated and you can suffer because of it. It also helps with counteracting the problem of overworking, since you have other obligations in you day that push you towards wrapping up work for the day.
- pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
  stop being a pussy
- mvip 7y ago
  Author here. I 100% agree with this. That's one of the many reasons why I enfoce the 19:30 stop. After that is for socializing and other offline activities (such as reading).
  - atemerev 7y ago
    Working 10 hours per day? Looks extreme to me, as a European.
    - nfriedly 7y ago
      I'm an American, and 10 hours a day seems extreme. I've worked remote for about 10 years now, and I aim for about 8 hours a day. Sure, I might hit 10 or 11 hours in a day occasionally, but that doesn't happen very often.
    - xenocyon 7y ago
      It's worth remembering that the 10 hours include "commute" and lunch, so it's about the same as as a nominally 8 hour workday.
    - novok 7y ago
lukasm 7y ago
The article has some good advice. I've been working remotely for 2 years and here are my observations: - When you work from a coworking space with others, it's easier to meet people and make friends. They are not your colleagues which removes certain "fakeness" from the relationship (you are not force d to spend time with someone, no office politics, no boss-employee dynamic, no zero-sum games like promotions). - It could be a good idea to spend a few months working together and then transition to remote work. - Use Block Site and block youtube.com etc. on your work machine - Don't stay at home 100% of the time. Work from a cafe from time to time.
carimura 7y ago
Go Broncos!
BlackRing 7y ago
Remote work taught me that working in batches can really drive up my efficiency. 2.5 hours at the start of the day, a half hour break, then another period of work about the same length, and then finally one more. I find this breaks up things and allows the 'down time' to settle in my head so I can come back and prep to get "in the zone" for another two hour purely focused work period. All that ties in wonderfully to his routine keeping, which is a great template to work with. It helps to shut off all notifications on your phone or computer as well, including email.
- mvip 7y ago
  Author here. Yep, "batching" is great advice. I am a big fan of Pomodoros. Also, I usually only check my email twice per day: once time in late morning and once in the late afternoon. Each time I spend roughly one Pomodoro just one email. After implementing this routine, I've found myself far more on top of my mailbox despite spending less time. Kudos to Cal Newport for recommending this in his book Deep Work, which is where I got it from.
  - BlackRing 7y ago
    I didn't realize it was called The Pomodoro Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) until now, and it's been the one approach to my work that's had the most success. Cal Newport's book looks interesting, so I'll take a look at that and give it a look. Thanks!
  - wjossey 7y ago
    I love this too. I actually wrote a simple web-app that I use to "pause" my emails throughout the day for this very purpose. Starting at 8AM, my emails batch until 11AM, then again until 4PM. I found the notifications hitting my phone were a big distraction, so pausing them helped me to ignore them during working hours.
    - mixmastamyk 7y ago
      I don’t use the email app on my phone, problem solved, haha.
letstrynvm 7y ago
I've worked for over 30 years only remote on one thing or another... most of this guy's points are on the money. Unless it's enforced to share information properly, if some people are in an office and others are not, there are two classes of political animal created immediately and that will affect everything. Unless I missed it, he didn't get into how variable work really is... this 10h thing is kind of a crock for the kind of work I do anyway... sometimes you are blocked on the one thing you have to be doing and it's difficult to focus on things that are of secondary importance just because you should be working. Other times you're being paid, but there's nothing to do for one reason or another. You can usually find useful things to do but at these times, they already know the situation. They want you to just note it, keep your head down and do something you can do yourself that should be somewhat helpful, and pick up immediately the thing is unblocked. It's just not always possible to move things forward for 10h each day... be transparent about it. Sometimes if it's an architectural or philosphical issue, you need to study it and then do something else while your brain thinks about it. Some days nothing is going to move forward no matter what you do because of your personal state... you learn to recognize it and let it go... tomorrow or the day after you'll be back in triple force and more than make it up. The people who are paying you usually care about results not hour by hour but week by week. So long as it's all happening on that scale everyone's happy.
- EastSmith 7y ago
  I am working remote for 3 and a half years now. Meeting the "week by week" expectations is the most important thing, period.
  - blazespin 7y ago
    The fundamental problem with scrum is that bugs happen and nothing interesting from a development point of view can be predicted effort wise before hand, at least not accurately. The right way, is to do all velocity analysis backward-looking. Create a culture where code reviews are done constantly and long after they've been merged in. Use metrics like KLOC, duplicate lines of code, changes to code, stories completed, etc. That's the way to measure velocity. Measuring done done done by end of sprint, is really wasteful as some engineers get it into their head to pad their estimates to make sure it's completed by some arbitrary date. This just leads to a culture of padding estimates rather than completing work when it's done. That said, I do like letting engineers pull tasks as they like. If a more senior engineer in a certain area can complete a task better and more thoughtfully, than he should have a chance to pull it. This also does require technical PMs which can discuss and understand the cost of their stories. This is important regardless however.
mrosett 7y ago
Thanks for the article. When you read in the morning, does that include things like Hacker News or do you earmark it for books?
- mvip 7y ago
  Author here. Rarely digital. Mostly good old fashioned books. When I read on a tablet or similar I find it too easy to get side tracked and look up other things, and before you know it you've used up all your morning "quota" raeding about other things (that may or may not be related). That said, once in a while, I use this time to make a dent in my Pocket backlog.
chapium 7y ago
> Usually, people who fail at remote work tend to either lack the self-discipline it requires, or they are simply socially oriented and thrive being around other people. In the latter case, working from a shared office can help, but even then, if you lack the self-discipline and habits required, you are likely not going to thrive. While there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, young people (early 20s) tend to struggle more with this than people who have reach their late 20s and early 30s. These are probably valid points, but it pigeon holes the employee. There are lots of reasons remote work may not work out for someone. The organization matters as much as the individual. One terrible boss can be hell for a remote worker who does not have presence in the company.
brightball 7y ago
Going on 8 years remote and I 100% agree with the authors.
ljiljana 7y ago
I recently started remote work for a company I've been working for ~3 years and it's been great so far, I'm more productive and I feel I just have more energy overall. But the reason I think it's been great is that I already know people I work with quite well, I have a lot of slack conversations with my teammates so I don't feel left out or lonely at all (well, so far at least, it may be too early to say). I do wonder if the experience is different when you start remote for a new company from the beginning?
cosmodisk 7y ago
Pretty strong article. As someone who has to manage onsite/offsite people( non IT thought), the flow of information is essential and it's very hard to balance it.The people in the office will always have more access to additional info unless there are some processes in place to balance it. Also,what the author of the article doesn't mention is client ability to work remotely. I'm currently dealing with one: cc'ing everyone on everything ( <20 people company,all sit in the same room). Emails are often without much sense and you have to reiterate again and again. There's a category of people who can't write and express themselves well,which makes them impossible for remote jobs.
- rob_b 7y ago
  Communication is definitely huge with remote work. I think it’s the crux for a lot of newly remote workers. You have to adjust your communication style when working remotely, which some people just can’t handle. This goes for all sides as well though. I’ve been in a situation where onsite employees refused to participate with remote employees, which obviously didn’t end well.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
kzisme 7y ago
I've been working fully remote for a little over a year now. I enjoy the freedom it grants me to live where I want, but the main issue I have is feeling like I'm not meeting enough co-workers and having some sort of network while I'm still new in the industry (and fear of not learning enough). It's also quite annoying to have a laptop that doesn't even have an SSD in it, and having to email IT or someone from a different group and never hear back without sending 3+ follow up emails. It would be easier to walk and go see them if I were just working there. One thing I learned from my first remote job was to examine how your direct manager treats remote work, and that will quickly tell you how your experience might turn out. My boss communicated with me hardly ever (even to relay requirements for new projects), and frequently stayed up all night to finish stuff.
- icebraining 7y ago
  Rather than sending that third email, why not call them? Even in my company, where I don't know any remote workers, people webcall each other all the time, since we're often on different buildings.
  - kzisme 7y ago
    Calling doesn't show or track attempts to get a hold of these individuals. CC'ing managers on emails being sent to other groups/IT is what I've been told to do now since I'm not the only one having issues with this. Also I would be lucky for them to pick up the phone.
    - rob_b 7y ago
      This is where the follow up email to your attempt comes in handy. You try to speed things up by the phone call, but if you don’t get an answer, then you send an email and mention that you called as well. In the cases where you do speak with someone, then you can adjust the content to reflect your appreciation for them speaking with you and then outline the issue(s) still remaining, assuming they weren’t resolved. There are obviously various iterations and combinations but the gist is to be persistent and try to take more control of the situation by incorporating a follow up into the mix.
hevi_jos 7y ago
Remote work needs development. We have a long history of work in the Office, a History over 100 years long, with a significant fraction of the population working there. Lots of companies have experimented and risked with different approaches of management and few remain. That is not the case with remote work. We don't really understand it yet. Writing down "remote is not for everyone" implies that we know everything about remote working and our particular model or management style is THE only one, which is not. It implies that the worker is not prepared for remote when probably it is the company who is not. In fact, with remote work you can measure the output of each worker way better than in traditional working conditions. Instead of measuring a worker punching in and out and then buying at Amazon or doing facebook at work, you can measure actual work. In the future, there will be companies that will specialize at remote work, for example they will come at your house and prepare a room for working remotely without distractions, and they will do it, not you, because they know what they do, just like your dentist, and your company will pay the bill. Lots of things will change, but we are yet in the mindset of Office work, and can not see it.
- detaro 7y ago
  > In fact, with remote work you can measure the output of each worker way better than in traditional working conditions. Instead of measuring a worker punching in and out and then buying at Amazon or doing facebook at work, you can measure actual work. Why can't you apply whatever "better" measure you propose for remote workers not to workers sitting in an office?
rdiddly 7y ago
The information flow, specifically the lack thereof, and even more specifically the lazy/disorganized/maybe-even-passive-aggressive way it was (not) handled, ended up being the primary disadvantage of the remote arrangement for me. If you get a chance to work remotely, make sure management is fully committed to the idea, and to all that it entails. If they subscribe to the "blurt things out and wander off" management style, and people just kind of yell out whatever's bothering them in the office, that's already a pretty bad sign, but see if they're willing to promise to document everything in writing. If they're not willing, or they have any misgivings at all, you're probably better off staying in the office.
notacoward 7y ago
As someone who has worked remotely for not quite a decade myself, there are a few other points I'd consider essential. The big one is remote workers being left out of meetings. "Oh, you can't make it then? We'll just make you optional and fill you in later." Except it doesn't work. If someone's not there, they get no input. They don't get to correct any facts that are incorrect or out of date. They don't get to bring up a point or principle that's important in the moment, before people start taking sides on what might be a moot point. The quality of the output is usually awful too. The "catch up" often doesn't happen at all. If it does, it's usually just a few action items and open issues. It doesn't capture the ebb and flow of the conversation - what people spent the most energy on, what the points of contention were, pros and cons that flew by so fast nobody wrote them down (but could later turn out to be crucial). That stuff matters as much as the bullet points, not just for the topic under discussion but to understand how people go about their business and thus how to work effectively with them. Maybe even to coach them on how to present their ideas more effectively. As a senior engineer that's something I'm supposed to do, I enjoy doing it, I can if I'm there, but if I'm "optional" that door closes. There's an art to making meetings effective for people who are remote. If you're remote yourself, expect to spend a certain amount of time coaching and coaxing your team mates on this stuff. They'll usually welcome such advice IMX. People mean well, they just don't have the right knowledge or habits yet. It's worth it to become an advocate and mentor for effective remote or cross-site meetings. Everyone will benefit, but especially you. There are other fine points to do with time zones, the effect that an 80ms delay has on our unconscious "who speaks next" protocol, and more, but I feel I've gone on long enough.
blazespin 7y ago
The most important thing for remote workers is to tell them they have to give up subtext/implied context because it gets lost over remote channels very quickly. This is probably the hardest I've found. I've asked people who are not skilled in being explicit to throttle their attempts to initiate comms and watch how people are skilled in initiating and to try to learn from them. For example, don't start a conversation off with "Hi", or "Can I get your help with that problem yesterday?" Or even "We're having difficulty resolving JIRA-2341" Rather, immediately narrow in on the specific, crisp question you need answered. Subtext and context can only be used when you expect someone to supply it. Senior people on my teams know to call this out, even if they know what the other person is talking about. Also, everyone has to have ipads with pen or some type of drawing tablet for white boarding sessions. A camera pointed down at a whiteboard works well too. Remote is very doable, but everyone has to be all in, and those who do not communicate properly can destroy the effectiveness of remote culture very quickly. And if they are the senior technical talent on your team, they can do it all the faster. Especially if they are co-located in an office as they'll communicate via non remote channels and vital discussions will get lost / unrecorded. The other problem is there is pretty senior talent that doesn't look for remote work because they've learned to use charisma to short-cut and speed up getting things done rather than making complex arguments about things they already know to be true. This is in my opinion is the greatest blockage to making remote more effective than people wasting time and risking their lives by driving every day into an office.
- xemdetia 7y ago
  I find your last point to be the thing that sticks out to me the most. I feel like the whole charisma to grease the wheels allows you to guide a company easier as a SME/senior technical when vision and leadership are failing. When I go down the complex argument route I can only convince some people but lose others from the differences in expertise and audience (or the people who somehow feel they can say any complete technical idea in 10 words or less and reject reading). When I am in the room you are just better enabled to deal when you start losing some of the people on the fringe. In fact it feels like most times I try the complex argument route I end up in a charisma meeting anyway so who knows.
oldman123456789 7y ago
I can't work remotely. Wife and kid constantly sneak in and before you know it she is sitting on the floor and my daughter is jumping on my lap. It's useless to fight it... better go to the office. Can other family men in here get this done? I am curious
- grzm 7y ago
  Remote doesn’t have to mean work from home.
  - pacomerh 7y ago
    Exactly, I was gonna write this. In fact I feel that working remotely is more difficult from home. Go to a co-working space or rent a shared office space, it's a win win you get other people around you
- kareemm 7y ago
  Absolutely. It helps that my wife runs her own business so she understands that home time isn’t necessarily family time. Having an office with a door that closes is key. Having my wife run interference on the kids is key wouldn’t happen if she didn’t play ball. With those two factors I’ve worked remotely for a dozen years (only the last five with kids).
- avip 7y ago
  Yes I hit the road and work from closest cafe/library. Home has too many distractions (kids, pets, musical instruments... you name it).
- jmb12686 7y ago
  I completely sympathize with your struggle. I have 3 children <= age of 3. Prior to having children of toddler age (as in, children able to physically bang on my locked office door), working from home was the only time I was able to maintain deep focus and accomplish difficult tasks. My wife does an amazing job keeping my 3 children happy and occupied, but the noise and distraction level at times creates an atmosphere worse than being in the office. I have come to the realization that this is just a temporary phase that will pass. In a few years, once the kids are in school M-F 8~3, WFH glory will one day return. In the meantime, I've discovered quiet places in the office to hide out and perform deep thinking / heads down work. If I was paid more $$, I suppose I'd probably rent a temporary or shared space to periodically work from.
cfarm 7y ago
In the "remote only or not at all" argument, I think it's really up to the leadership to set the example. You can have an office, but if the leaders of the company stress how important it is to work remotely, this will be ok. The employees just need to understand how all remote workers feel; when they have to go through the same patterns as remote workers do, then these habits get adopted well into the culture.
- rickyc091 7y ago
  I believe the whole remote only or not is really about the process as you mentioned. I've worked in a company where we had physical offices, but folks would work remotely several days a week. When we did standups, everyone would hop onto Zoom on their computers. Everyone would also be very punctual to meetings and respect the time setting agendas and providing notes for those who couldn't make it. Now in a company that operates as an in-office, but supports remote work, it functions very differently. Everyone in the office huddles around the scrum master's computer and the remote folks are dialed in. Often times the audio is incomprehensible since people are too far from the one laptop. Meetings are randomly canceled or moved without knowledge. There were a number of times I would sit in a meeting for 10 - 15 minutes waiting for people and posting on the Slack channel if the meeting was still happening. Dead silence. Any larger team meetings, forget about it; I'll have to catch up from the slides later or ask my colleagues what I missed.
  - cfarm 7y ago
    I think we're saying the same thing. My added point is just that leadership needs to set this example.
return1 7y ago
> remote is not for everyone I view this as a problem. Everyone should be able to work remotely in tech, especially in 2019. Office and commutes should be legacy concepts. What do we need to do to enable better and more remote cultures? Society has currently adapted to Office norms, with regards to working hours, interpersonal interactions etc. With the rise of remote work and indie work we 'll need to develop new ways to live.
- mattnewport 7y ago
  Office work is not for everyone. It's nice that remote is an option in tech now but lots of people do jobs that aren't really office based and often they say that it's at least in part because office work is not for them. Really it's office work that's a 19th and 20th century aberration.
arduinomancer 7y ago
How does it work with time zones in a remote company? Is everyone allowed to live anywhere they want? Do they usually restrict the time zone the employees live in?
- JimDabell 7y ago
  It depends on the company. Some companies have core hours where everybody is supposed to be working. Others work asynchronously, so that people work whenever they want. It seems to me that the organisations that embrace remote work fully tend to go async. and the ones that are new to it or don't fully buy into it have core hours.
- mvip 7y ago
  Author here. Usually you need a few hours overlap per day at least across a given team. This can be challenging depending on where the team members are located. We've had team members in Australia working with Europe, and there's literally no convenient overlap. In that case, someone needs to stay up late (or get up early).
angarg12 7y ago
My biggest fear regarding remote work is career progression. It seems that the author is a founder, so this isn't an issue for him, but my anecdotal evidence tells me that remote workers are left behind in terms of promotions and professional growth. This might be less relevant for remote only companies, but I would need to see it first hand before I become less sceptic.
- ivarojha 7y ago
  For devs, there are usually two path choices. Engineering Management or Individual Contributors. As a remote engineer, you will tend towards being IC than being EM and this is because most engineers, as the post mentions, are self-motivated and self-disciplined. And being an IC, it's not as hard to climb up the ladder, although, the problem is, most remote companies don't have a defined ladder. I think with companies like Gitlab, setting an example of a fully-remote company of a considerate size, the view will change and more companies will take this path in future. If you notice, most remote companies are really in their early stage and there's no need to define career progression path yet, given the things they have to prioritize at that stage.
ivarojha 7y ago
I've been working remotely and concur with the author's thoughts. Freedom can also be a curse in disguise. Cannot emphasize more on self-discipline and getting a separate room as the office in the home. Also, socializing! I was pretty introvert as a person. Would hardly initiate conversations with strangers. Now I get cravings to just go outside and meet friends. I cope up with this by attending meetups and catching up with friends in the evenings.
bernardlunn 7y ago
From 20 years experience, mostly nodding along except that engineers are easier to manage remotely than sales. Depends on who is doing the managing, not inherent in the job
davman 7y ago
From a UK perspective, my question is how do you find roles that allow remote work? It always seems to be a blocker and I end up having to take non-remote roles to pay the bills.
frindo 7y ago
>Either you’re remote-only or you don’t do remote at all. Lots of companies brag about giving their staff the freedom to work remotely. I've worked on three different "remote" teams now and I think the author's point is spot on. The first time we did it everyone was remote, scattered across different states in America. It was a great experience. Everyone had a ton of freedom and flexibility and there was a lot of trust across the team. The next two teams I worked in had each "division" headquartered in different regions. Design was based in one area, Engineering in another, product in another. It was so much worse. The people I worked were wonderful but we just couldn't develop the trust needed to build at the pace the market demanded. How I describe the issue now is that we thought we were a "remote team" but we were actually just a handful of employees working remote from HQ. The HQ was wherever the core work was being done at the moment (usually with engineering) and the rest of us were just remote employees.
- CameronBanga 7y ago
  I'm about to add our first remote hire to our team, where 4 will be based out of office and one will be remote. Would love to hear your thoughts on this and get some feedback as to how I should best plan for this on our side, if you're willing to share? My contact info is in my profile.
ubermonkey 7y ago
Most of this seems obvious to me. I've been working mostly or completely remotely since October of 2001. For a brief period in there, at one startup, I had an office in an incubator a few blocks from my house, but after 6 months or so we decided it wasn't a good use of money, and everyone went remote. The only other "exception" is my current job, which I've had for almost 12 years. We've never had office space anywhere, so it's been 100% remote EXCEPT that early on, we did a lot of travel to client sites. We haven't really done that much AT ALL since about 2010/2011, owing to the greater acceptance of remote presence/screensharing tools, and that's been awesome. I haven't seen my boss in a year. I have coworkers I talk to (skype/voice/email) daily that I have never met in the flesh, because they're in other cities. For us, this has worked VERY WELL. We all mostly work a normal day for our timezone, though obviously sometimes there are extended hours. The only downside for us that I can really see is that we can't really hire fresh or inexperienced devs. There's no water cooler. You can't go sit with $senior_dev_guy for a day to get a feel for things, or learn the stack, or whatever, so we tend to only hire midcareer or later folks. OTOH, we also have absurdly low turnover, which means hiring doesn't come up THAT much anyway.
- scapegoat444 7y ago
  what sort of stuff are you working on? And, are you hiring?
  - ubermonkey 7y ago
    We're a software company, and unfortunately no, not right now.
tom_hirst 7y ago
Thanks for this post, Viktor. A lot of this hits home. You inspired me to write up my own experiences of 10 years in remote work https://theremotedev.com/10-years-remote/ https://theremotedev.com/10-years-remote/
pinkano 7y ago
Brilliant post, thanks for sharing! Starting my 4th year of working fully remote and love it.

503 points by mvip 7y ago

This was very well written and helpful to me as a newly remote employee. The tone in this article is very pleasant and uplifting. I especially like your point about having mental triggers to establish routines. When I worked in an office, I struggled most with others triggering me into unpleasant behaviors. Now that I'm remote, I feel a great burden has been lifted and I'm free to set my own habits in time. Thanks for sharing this!

mvip 7y ago
Thanks you! Glad you find it helpful.
CameronBanga 7y ago
I'm about to add our first remote hire to our team, where 4 will be based out of office and one will be remote. Would love to hear your thoughts on this and get some feedback as to how I should best plan for this on our side, if you're willing to share? My contact info is in my profile.

wolco 7y ago

I hate the idea of the yearly summit. People working remotely may have health or social issues on a greater average. There is a benefit to face to face but requiring the team to fly to remote locations yearly makes a local company with a normal christmas party seem more attractive.

rebbie 7y ago
Not everyone is suited to remote work. It sounds like you are better suited to working in an office. I can tell you from experience that the periodic get together events (whatever they are called) are really crucial to building a stronger team bond and to working efficiently together.
- ehnto 7y ago
  To say someone isn't cut out for remote work just because they can't make an annual work event is pretty crazy and allienating of people who could benefit from remote work the most. How could it possibly matter more than the hundereds of other days of the year where you have been actually working together and honing your processes and efficiency? You shouldn't be struggling to be a competent team before having a hugathon. I love the idea of an annual face to face event, but none of the benefits I want from it are work related. They are opportunities to build friendships and have some fun with people I wouldn't mind knowing better.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >They are opportunities to build friendships and have some fun with people I wouldn't mind knowing better. Which I would argue is very clearly a benefit to your ability to work together. My team off-sites certainly include formal information exchanges, but we specifically try not to spend too much time of things that could be equally well communicated via email or video conference.
- wolco 7y ago
  I've worked remotely a number of times for years at a time. I've usually worked locally first and moved remote or only spoken to my team through chat/phone. The yearly meetings I can see appealing to a certain type of employee but for the older employee with a family it is not that appealing.
jdewald 7y ago
> People working remotely may have health or social issues on a greater average. I don't know any reason that working remotely would correlate to health/social issues. Is this a known statistic from somewhere? The social thing perhaps correlates to working (remotely or not) in a software field, but I'm not sure why remote workers would be statistically any different than non-remote workers. (I happen to be a remote worker)
- brianwawok 7y ago
  Self selection? I assume a very social person applies to more in person than remote jobs. I assume more reclusive people apply to more remote jobs than in person jobs. Neither is a guarantee but it’s a reasonably safe bet.
- wolco 7y ago
  I would think someone disabled or with mobility issues would seek out those opportunities over local employment at a higher rate. People with visa/passport/country of origin issues would have issues traveling would be another group.
- b212 7y ago
  From my experience the health issues point is true. When I used to work from office my day looked more or less like this: a) WALKING to the car/public transport, b) sitting at a desk, meetings, multiple small breaks for lunches, chats etc., c) again some moving, coming back home, d) SITTING AT DIFFERENT CHAIR WITH DIFFERENT DESK AND DIFFERENT PERIPHERALS AT HOME. Right now: a) waking up, b) no one forces me to take breaks, c) I do not change peripherals twice a day, so before I was using two different keyboards and two different mouses and two different setups daily, now I'm using the same mouse and the same keyboard and the same everything in work and after work, this leads to RSI and after 8 years I'm facing carpal tunnel syndrome in near future, also changing chair even to a shitty one for a while is apparently much better for your body than sitting in Herman Miller ALL THE TIME (I have standing desk too BTW).
greysonp 7y ago
As a remote worker, I think some sort of in-person gathering is pretty crucial. We have plenty of video chats and whatnot, but nothing quite replaces the experience of meeting someone in person. Obviously doesn't need to be super frequent, but especially when you're a small company (which many fully-remote places tend to be), it really helps you feel more connected to your co-workers.
- vidanay 7y ago
  Absolutely. I work remote full time and I just returned from spending a week in Germany (I am in USA) where I had meetings and social time with others both above and below me.
knappe 7y ago
The in face meeting is actually incredibly important. I've been remote for 7 years and it is just so important to put a "face" to a person. You get to bond on a personal level that is really hard to do remotely, even if you've been working with someone for years. As a strong remote advocate there really isn't a replacement for face to face communication, which is why I support annual summits.
- throwaway171714 7y ago
  Face-to-face meetings are valuable (GP agrees). Requiring get togethers in unique exotic locales, not so much. It's a huge perk for some, and a not-insignificant cost for others (with most "regular" people probably somewhere in-between, but giving in to the peer pressure of emphasizing the glamor). Oh and it seems to inevitably blur this whole work-life balance thing people claim to care about. (Not to mention it's a bit of a bad habit, carbon footprint wise, and a dubious use of investor money.) If a company just picked a logically geographically central place (per its employee base), reserved a reasonable hotel w/business suite or rented an office for a week, that'd make a lot more sense and be a good bit fairer imo. Let people who enjoy exotic locales do so on their own, and not as a (required!) perk. Bonus, you're now being more serious about avoiding monoculture at work too (not everybody enjoys exotic travel, and companies that de facto require it will end up selecting for it).
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    Ideally work will pay for a summit (although day to day expenses are unlikely to be covered). If you were a single parent, it would be extremely tricky to work out, though. In my case, I have to fly 12 hours to get to the office of the company where I work. Virtually anywhere on the planet would be easier to get to :-) There is a bit of an advantage to "exotic" locations, though -- shared unfamiliarity. If it's new for everybody, then everybody is learning at the same time. It gives you something in common. Having said that, though, I've had discussions with the team I'm on where a lot of people would love to get together in a relatively boring place where the only thing we could do is code together. That has a lot of advantages too and I'd be surprised if you couldn't get some backing from other teammates to try it at least once.
omnivore 7y ago
In-person interactions dramatically improved my remote work experience and improved the bonding that happened outside of the project. I can see why someone reclusive might not like it, but it's almost always on the company dime anyway. In my case, it wasn't a retreat but meeting IRL for project work which I liked better.
microtherion 7y ago
In my experience, working remotely requires, if anything, more social skills than working in an office (though deploying them strategically instead of 9-5 may be easier to do).

theo31 7y ago

Hi, hiring remotely can be a pain payroll-wise. Use something like https://remotehr.co/ https://remotehr.co/ to manage it.

abhiyerra 7y ago

This is great advice. Being a remote worker the advice on having time in the morning to yourself before starting and a shutdown is super important. Another aspect I found is to get dressed up even if it is just wearing jeans as it mentally shifts you from leisure to work. The Deep Work in the morning to really dive into a single thing is important even just for self-discipline. But it does take a while to really hone this and as he said remote work isn’t for everyone. It feels like it’s better suited for introverts than extroverts.

mvip 7y ago
Spot on regarding getting dressed! After my morning excercise, I get dressed just as I were to go into the office. Regarding intra vs extraverts - I think you're right, it probably somewhat favors intraverts. However, I've worked with a number of extraverts over the years too that worked well remotely.

majorbugger 7y ago

Good advice, except, do not work 10 hours like that person, aim for 8 hours.

brianwawok 7y ago
Different people have different ideal workloads at different times in their life. People need to figure out their own healthy velocity.
mvip 7y ago
Author here. I don't factor in lunch (so take away 30-60 min). Also, the 19:30 stop is there as a hard stop. Sometimes I feel drained at 17:30 or 18:00 after a very productive day. In that case, I'm happy to wrap up the day.
vvoyer 7y ago
That was also my first thought, I feel 10 hours (or even 9 hours) is extremely long. Being laser focused for 9 hours is extremely hard to do on the long run. As others said, you need to find your own schedule but don't aim for 10 hours first thing, go slow
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_nalply 7y ago

I wonder if remote work is a good thing for a Deaf developer. Do people who work remote sometimes need to make important phone calls, for example?

jon-wood 7y ago
It’s obviously going to depend on the person, and how deaf they are, but I’ve seen things like Google Meet’s new automatic subtitling making it easier to participate in meetings for someone who’s hard of hearing than it would be in person.
cs02rm0 7y ago
IME, audio calls are relied on less in a remote environment than in person meetings in an office. They do feature heavily though. However, it probably makes instant messaging, or web based tools a more natural way if interacting rather than grabbing a meeting room for everything. I've never worked with a deaf developer but I'd imagine it easier to accommodate in a fully remote environment.
throwaway9298 7y ago
Deafness is a spectrum. If you've got sufficient hearing - and pick the right phone - it can work out. I usually have a second party on the call who can explain anything I mishear via instant messaging. I've experimented with a wide variety of techincal solutions over the years, and I've learnt that the often-compressed bandwidth of cell phones is bad -- I avoid calls using cell phones like the plague these days. Since I work remotely, in a private office, I can get away with using a really high quality speaker phone. With hearing aids as they are today, including digital processing and noise discrimination, it works OK. P.
- _nalply 7y ago
  I don't hear anything.

knappe 7y ago

So one thing that isn't mentioned in this article that I think is incredibly important is making sure you maintain a social life outside of work. When working at an office you tend to spend time with your coworkers outside of work and that is something you don't really get an opportunity to take advantage of when you're remote. Be sure to make some effort to get out of the house and be social in some form. Otherwise it becomes too easy to become isolated and you can suffer because of it. It also helps with counteracting the problem of overworking, since you have other obligations in you day that push you towards wrapping up work for the day.

pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
stop being a pussy
mvip 7y ago
Author here. I 100% agree with this. That's one of the many reasons why I enfoce the 19:30 stop. After that is for socializing and other offline activities (such as reading).
- atemerev 7y ago
  Working 10 hours per day? Looks extreme to me, as a European.
  - nfriedly 7y ago
    I'm an American, and 10 hours a day seems extreme. I've worked remote for about 10 years now, and I aim for about 8 hours a day. Sure, I might hit 10 or 11 hours in a day occasionally, but that doesn't happen very often.
  - xenocyon 7y ago
    It's worth remembering that the 10 hours include "commute" and lunch, so it's about the same as as a nominally 8 hour workday.
  - novok 7y ago

lukasm 7y ago

The article has some good advice. I've been working remotely for 2 years and here are my observations: - When you work from a coworking space with others, it's easier to meet people and make friends. They are not your colleagues which removes certain "fakeness" from the relationship (you are not force d to spend time with someone, no office politics, no boss-employee dynamic, no zero-sum games like promotions). - It could be a good idea to spend a few months working together and then transition to remote work. - Use Block Site and block youtube.com etc. on your work machine - Don't stay at home 100% of the time. Work from a cafe from time to time.

carimura 7y ago

Go Broncos!

BlackRing 7y ago

Remote work taught me that working in batches can really drive up my efficiency. 2.5 hours at the start of the day, a half hour break, then another period of work about the same length, and then finally one more. I find this breaks up things and allows the 'down time' to settle in my head so I can come back and prep to get "in the zone" for another two hour purely focused work period. All that ties in wonderfully to his routine keeping, which is a great template to work with. It helps to shut off all notifications on your phone or computer as well, including email.

mvip 7y ago
Author here. Yep, "batching" is great advice. I am a big fan of Pomodoros. Also, I usually only check my email twice per day: once time in late morning and once in the late afternoon. Each time I spend roughly one Pomodoro just one email. After implementing this routine, I've found myself far more on top of my mailbox despite spending less time. Kudos to Cal Newport for recommending this in his book Deep Work, which is where I got it from.
- BlackRing 7y ago
  I didn't realize it was called The Pomodoro Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique) until now, and it's been the one approach to my work that's had the most success. Cal Newport's book looks interesting, so I'll take a look at that and give it a look. Thanks!
- wjossey 7y ago
  I love this too. I actually wrote a simple web-app that I use to "pause" my emails throughout the day for this very purpose. Starting at 8AM, my emails batch until 11AM, then again until 4PM. I found the notifications hitting my phone were a big distraction, so pausing them helped me to ignore them during working hours.
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    I don’t use the email app on my phone, problem solved, haha.

letstrynvm 7y ago

I've worked for over 30 years only remote on one thing or another... most of this guy's points are on the money. Unless it's enforced to share information properly, if some people are in an office and others are not, there are two classes of political animal created immediately and that will affect everything. Unless I missed it, he didn't get into how variable work really is... this 10h thing is kind of a crock for the kind of work I do anyway... sometimes you are blocked on the one thing you have to be doing and it's difficult to focus on things that are of secondary importance just because you should be working. Other times you're being paid, but there's nothing to do for one reason or another. You can usually find useful things to do but at these times, they already know the situation. They want you to just note it, keep your head down and do something you can do yourself that should be somewhat helpful, and pick up immediately the thing is unblocked. It's just not always possible to move things forward for 10h each day... be transparent about it. Sometimes if it's an architectural or philosphical issue, you need to study it and then do something else while your brain thinks about it. Some days nothing is going to move forward no matter what you do because of your personal state... you learn to recognize it and let it go... tomorrow or the day after you'll be back in triple force and more than make it up. The people who are paying you usually care about results not hour by hour but week by week. So long as it's all happening on that scale everyone's happy.

EastSmith 7y ago
I am working remote for 3 and a half years now. Meeting the "week by week" expectations is the most important thing, period.
- blazespin 7y ago
  The fundamental problem with scrum is that bugs happen and nothing interesting from a development point of view can be predicted effort wise before hand, at least not accurately. The right way, is to do all velocity analysis backward-looking. Create a culture where code reviews are done constantly and long after they've been merged in. Use metrics like KLOC, duplicate lines of code, changes to code, stories completed, etc. That's the way to measure velocity. Measuring done done done by end of sprint, is really wasteful as some engineers get it into their head to pad their estimates to make sure it's completed by some arbitrary date. This just leads to a culture of padding estimates rather than completing work when it's done. That said, I do like letting engineers pull tasks as they like. If a more senior engineer in a certain area can complete a task better and more thoughtfully, than he should have a chance to pull it. This also does require technical PMs which can discuss and understand the cost of their stories. This is important regardless however.

mrosett 7y ago

Thanks for the article. When you read in the morning, does that include things like Hacker News or do you earmark it for books?

mvip 7y ago
Author here. Rarely digital. Mostly good old fashioned books. When I read on a tablet or similar I find it too easy to get side tracked and look up other things, and before you know it you've used up all your morning "quota" raeding about other things (that may or may not be related). That said, once in a while, I use this time to make a dent in my Pocket backlog.

chapium 7y ago

> Usually, people who fail at remote work tend to either lack the self-discipline it requires, or they are simply socially oriented and thrive being around other people. In the latter case, working from a shared office can help, but even then, if you lack the self-discipline and habits required, you are likely not going to thrive. While there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, young people (early 20s) tend to struggle more with this than people who have reach their late 20s and early 30s. These are probably valid points, but it pigeon holes the employee. There are lots of reasons remote work may not work out for someone. The organization matters as much as the individual. One terrible boss can be hell for a remote worker who does not have presence in the company.

brightball 7y ago

Going on 8 years remote and I 100% agree with the authors.

ljiljana 7y ago

I recently started remote work for a company I've been working for ~3 years and it's been great so far, I'm more productive and I feel I just have more energy overall. But the reason I think it's been great is that I already know people I work with quite well, I have a lot of slack conversations with my teammates so I don't feel left out or lonely at all (well, so far at least, it may be too early to say). I do wonder if the experience is different when you start remote for a new company from the beginning?

cosmodisk 7y ago

Pretty strong article. As someone who has to manage onsite/offsite people( non IT thought), the flow of information is essential and it's very hard to balance it.The people in the office will always have more access to additional info unless there are some processes in place to balance it. Also,what the author of the article doesn't mention is client ability to work remotely. I'm currently dealing with one: cc'ing everyone on everything ( <20 people company,all sit in the same room). Emails are often without much sense and you have to reiterate again and again. There's a category of people who can't write and express themselves well,which makes them impossible for remote jobs.

rob_b 7y ago
Communication is definitely huge with remote work. I think it’s the crux for a lot of newly remote workers. You have to adjust your communication style when working remotely, which some people just can’t handle. This goes for all sides as well though. I’ve been in a situation where onsite employees refused to participate with remote employees, which obviously didn’t end well.
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kzisme 7y ago

I've been working fully remote for a little over a year now. I enjoy the freedom it grants me to live where I want, but the main issue I have is feeling like I'm not meeting enough co-workers and having some sort of network while I'm still new in the industry (and fear of not learning enough). It's also quite annoying to have a laptop that doesn't even have an SSD in it, and having to email IT or someone from a different group and never hear back without sending 3+ follow up emails. It would be easier to walk and go see them if I were just working there. One thing I learned from my first remote job was to examine how your direct manager treats remote work, and that will quickly tell you how your experience might turn out. My boss communicated with me hardly ever (even to relay requirements for new projects), and frequently stayed up all night to finish stuff.

icebraining 7y ago
Rather than sending that third email, why not call them? Even in my company, where I don't know any remote workers, people webcall each other all the time, since we're often on different buildings.
- kzisme 7y ago
  Calling doesn't show or track attempts to get a hold of these individuals. CC'ing managers on emails being sent to other groups/IT is what I've been told to do now since I'm not the only one having issues with this. Also I would be lucky for them to pick up the phone.
  - rob_b 7y ago
    This is where the follow up email to your attempt comes in handy. You try to speed things up by the phone call, but if you don’t get an answer, then you send an email and mention that you called as well. In the cases where you do speak with someone, then you can adjust the content to reflect your appreciation for them speaking with you and then outline the issue(s) still remaining, assuming they weren’t resolved. There are obviously various iterations and combinations but the gist is to be persistent and try to take more control of the situation by incorporating a follow up into the mix.

hevi_jos 7y ago

Remote work needs development. We have a long history of work in the Office, a History over 100 years long, with a significant fraction of the population working there. Lots of companies have experimented and risked with different approaches of management and few remain. That is not the case with remote work. We don't really understand it yet. Writing down "remote is not for everyone" implies that we know everything about remote working and our particular model or management style is THE only one, which is not. It implies that the worker is not prepared for remote when probably it is the company who is not. In fact, with remote work you can measure the output of each worker way better than in traditional working conditions. Instead of measuring a worker punching in and out and then buying at Amazon or doing facebook at work, you can measure actual work. In the future, there will be companies that will specialize at remote work, for example they will come at your house and prepare a room for working remotely without distractions, and they will do it, not you, because they know what they do, just like your dentist, and your company will pay the bill. Lots of things will change, but we are yet in the mindset of Office work, and can not see it.

detaro 7y ago
> In fact, with remote work you can measure the output of each worker way better than in traditional working conditions. Instead of measuring a worker punching in and out and then buying at Amazon or doing facebook at work, you can measure actual work. Why can't you apply whatever "better" measure you propose for remote workers not to workers sitting in an office?

rdiddly 7y ago

The information flow, specifically the lack thereof, and even more specifically the lazy/disorganized/maybe-even-passive-aggressive way it was (not) handled, ended up being the primary disadvantage of the remote arrangement for me. If you get a chance to work remotely, make sure management is fully committed to the idea, and to all that it entails. If they subscribe to the "blurt things out and wander off" management style, and people just kind of yell out whatever's bothering them in the office, that's already a pretty bad sign, but see if they're willing to promise to document everything in writing. If they're not willing, or they have any misgivings at all, you're probably better off staying in the office.

notacoward 7y ago

As someone who has worked remotely for not quite a decade myself, there are a few other points I'd consider essential. The big one is remote workers being left out of meetings. "Oh, you can't make it then? We'll just make you optional and fill you in later." Except it doesn't work. If someone's not there, they get no input. They don't get to correct any facts that are incorrect or out of date. They don't get to bring up a point or principle that's important in the moment, before people start taking sides on what might be a moot point. The quality of the output is usually awful too. The "catch up" often doesn't happen at all. If it does, it's usually just a few action items and open issues. It doesn't capture the ebb and flow of the conversation - what people spent the most energy on, what the points of contention were, pros and cons that flew by so fast nobody wrote them down (but could later turn out to be crucial). That stuff matters as much as the bullet points, not just for the topic under discussion but to understand how people go about their business and thus how to work effectively with them. Maybe even to coach them on how to present their ideas more effectively. As a senior engineer that's something I'm supposed to do, I enjoy doing it, I can if I'm there, but if I'm "optional" that door closes. There's an art to making meetings effective for people who are remote. If you're remote yourself, expect to spend a certain amount of time coaching and coaxing your team mates on this stuff. They'll usually welcome such advice IMX. People mean well, they just don't have the right knowledge or habits yet. It's worth it to become an advocate and mentor for effective remote or cross-site meetings. Everyone will benefit, but especially you. There are other fine points to do with time zones, the effect that an 80ms delay has on our unconscious "who speaks next" protocol, and more, but I feel I've gone on long enough.

blazespin 7y ago

The most important thing for remote workers is to tell them they have to give up subtext/implied context because it gets lost over remote channels very quickly. This is probably the hardest I've found. I've asked people who are not skilled in being explicit to throttle their attempts to initiate comms and watch how people are skilled in initiating and to try to learn from them. For example, don't start a conversation off with "Hi", or "Can I get your help with that problem yesterday?" Or even "We're having difficulty resolving JIRA-2341" Rather, immediately narrow in on the specific, crisp question you need answered. Subtext and context can only be used when you expect someone to supply it. Senior people on my teams know to call this out, even if they know what the other person is talking about. Also, everyone has to have ipads with pen or some type of drawing tablet for white boarding sessions. A camera pointed down at a whiteboard works well too. Remote is very doable, but everyone has to be all in, and those who do not communicate properly can destroy the effectiveness of remote culture very quickly. And if they are the senior technical talent on your team, they can do it all the faster. Especially if they are co-located in an office as they'll communicate via non remote channels and vital discussions will get lost / unrecorded. The other problem is there is pretty senior talent that doesn't look for remote work because they've learned to use charisma to short-cut and speed up getting things done rather than making complex arguments about things they already know to be true. This is in my opinion is the greatest blockage to making remote more effective than people wasting time and risking their lives by driving every day into an office.

xemdetia 7y ago
I find your last point to be the thing that sticks out to me the most. I feel like the whole charisma to grease the wheels allows you to guide a company easier as a SME/senior technical when vision and leadership are failing. When I go down the complex argument route I can only convince some people but lose others from the differences in expertise and audience (or the people who somehow feel they can say any complete technical idea in 10 words or less and reject reading). When I am in the room you are just better enabled to deal when you start losing some of the people on the fringe. In fact it feels like most times I try the complex argument route I end up in a charisma meeting anyway so who knows.

oldman123456789 7y ago

I can't work remotely. Wife and kid constantly sneak in and before you know it she is sitting on the floor and my daughter is jumping on my lap. It's useless to fight it... better go to the office. Can other family men in here get this done? I am curious

grzm 7y ago
Remote doesn’t have to mean work from home.
- pacomerh 7y ago
  Exactly, I was gonna write this. In fact I feel that working remotely is more difficult from home. Go to a co-working space or rent a shared office space, it's a win win you get other people around you
kareemm 7y ago
Absolutely. It helps that my wife runs her own business so she understands that home time isn’t necessarily family time. Having an office with a door that closes is key. Having my wife run interference on the kids is key wouldn’t happen if she didn’t play ball. With those two factors I’ve worked remotely for a dozen years (only the last five with kids).
avip 7y ago
Yes I hit the road and work from closest cafe/library. Home has too many distractions (kids, pets, musical instruments... you name it).
jmb12686 7y ago
I completely sympathize with your struggle. I have 3 children <= age of 3. Prior to having children of toddler age (as in, children able to physically bang on my locked office door), working from home was the only time I was able to maintain deep focus and accomplish difficult tasks. My wife does an amazing job keeping my 3 children happy and occupied, but the noise and distraction level at times creates an atmosphere worse than being in the office. I have come to the realization that this is just a temporary phase that will pass. In a few years, once the kids are in school M-F 8~3, WFH glory will one day return. In the meantime, I've discovered quiet places in the office to hide out and perform deep thinking / heads down work. If I was paid more $$, I suppose I'd probably rent a temporary or shared space to periodically work from.

cfarm 7y ago

In the "remote only or not at all" argument, I think it's really up to the leadership to set the example. You can have an office, but if the leaders of the company stress how important it is to work remotely, this will be ok. The employees just need to understand how all remote workers feel; when they have to go through the same patterns as remote workers do, then these habits get adopted well into the culture.

rickyc091 7y ago
I believe the whole remote only or not is really about the process as you mentioned. I've worked in a company where we had physical offices, but folks would work remotely several days a week. When we did standups, everyone would hop onto Zoom on their computers. Everyone would also be very punctual to meetings and respect the time setting agendas and providing notes for those who couldn't make it. Now in a company that operates as an in-office, but supports remote work, it functions very differently. Everyone in the office huddles around the scrum master's computer and the remote folks are dialed in. Often times the audio is incomprehensible since people are too far from the one laptop. Meetings are randomly canceled or moved without knowledge. There were a number of times I would sit in a meeting for 10 - 15 minutes waiting for people and posting on the Slack channel if the meeting was still happening. Dead silence. Any larger team meetings, forget about it; I'll have to catch up from the slides later or ask my colleagues what I missed.
- cfarm 7y ago
  I think we're saying the same thing. My added point is just that leadership needs to set this example.

return1 7y ago

> remote is not for everyone I view this as a problem. Everyone should be able to work remotely in tech, especially in 2019. Office and commutes should be legacy concepts. What do we need to do to enable better and more remote cultures? Society has currently adapted to Office norms, with regards to working hours, interpersonal interactions etc. With the rise of remote work and indie work we 'll need to develop new ways to live.

mattnewport 7y ago
Office work is not for everyone. It's nice that remote is an option in tech now but lots of people do jobs that aren't really office based and often they say that it's at least in part because office work is not for them. Really it's office work that's a 19th and 20th century aberration.

arduinomancer 7y ago

How does it work with time zones in a remote company? Is everyone allowed to live anywhere they want? Do they usually restrict the time zone the employees live in?

JimDabell 7y ago
It depends on the company. Some companies have core hours where everybody is supposed to be working. Others work asynchronously, so that people work whenever they want. It seems to me that the organisations that embrace remote work fully tend to go async. and the ones that are new to it or don't fully buy into it have core hours.
mvip 7y ago
Author here. Usually you need a few hours overlap per day at least across a given team. This can be challenging depending on where the team members are located. We've had team members in Australia working with Europe, and there's literally no convenient overlap. In that case, someone needs to stay up late (or get up early).

angarg12 7y ago

My biggest fear regarding remote work is career progression. It seems that the author is a founder, so this isn't an issue for him, but my anecdotal evidence tells me that remote workers are left behind in terms of promotions and professional growth. This might be less relevant for remote only companies, but I would need to see it first hand before I become less sceptic.

ivarojha 7y ago
For devs, there are usually two path choices. Engineering Management or Individual Contributors. As a remote engineer, you will tend towards being IC than being EM and this is because most engineers, as the post mentions, are self-motivated and self-disciplined. And being an IC, it's not as hard to climb up the ladder, although, the problem is, most remote companies don't have a defined ladder. I think with companies like Gitlab, setting an example of a fully-remote company of a considerate size, the view will change and more companies will take this path in future. If you notice, most remote companies are really in their early stage and there's no need to define career progression path yet, given the things they have to prioritize at that stage.

ivarojha 7y ago

I've been working remotely and concur with the author's thoughts. Freedom can also be a curse in disguise. Cannot emphasize more on self-discipline and getting a separate room as the office in the home. Also, socializing! I was pretty introvert as a person. Would hardly initiate conversations with strangers. Now I get cravings to just go outside and meet friends. I cope up with this by attending meetups and catching up with friends in the evenings.

bernardlunn 7y ago

From 20 years experience, mostly nodding along except that engineers are easier to manage remotely than sales. Depends on who is doing the managing, not inherent in the job

davman 7y ago

From a UK perspective, my question is how do you find roles that allow remote work? It always seems to be a blocker and I end up having to take non-remote roles to pay the bills.

frindo 7y ago

>Either you’re remote-only or you don’t do remote at all. Lots of companies brag about giving their staff the freedom to work remotely. I've worked on three different "remote" teams now and I think the author's point is spot on. The first time we did it everyone was remote, scattered across different states in America. It was a great experience. Everyone had a ton of freedom and flexibility and there was a lot of trust across the team. The next two teams I worked in had each "division" headquartered in different regions. Design was based in one area, Engineering in another, product in another. It was so much worse. The people I worked were wonderful but we just couldn't develop the trust needed to build at the pace the market demanded. How I describe the issue now is that we thought we were a "remote team" but we were actually just a handful of employees working remote from HQ. The HQ was wherever the core work was being done at the moment (usually with engineering) and the rest of us were just remote employees.

CameronBanga 7y ago
I'm about to add our first remote hire to our team, where 4 will be based out of office and one will be remote. Would love to hear your thoughts on this and get some feedback as to how I should best plan for this on our side, if you're willing to share? My contact info is in my profile.

ubermonkey 7y ago

Most of this seems obvious to me. I've been working mostly or completely remotely since October of 2001. For a brief period in there, at one startup, I had an office in an incubator a few blocks from my house, but after 6 months or so we decided it wasn't a good use of money, and everyone went remote. The only other "exception" is my current job, which I've had for almost 12 years. We've never had office space anywhere, so it's been 100% remote EXCEPT that early on, we did a lot of travel to client sites. We haven't really done that much AT ALL since about 2010/2011, owing to the greater acceptance of remote presence/screensharing tools, and that's been awesome. I haven't seen my boss in a year. I have coworkers I talk to (skype/voice/email) daily that I have never met in the flesh, because they're in other cities. For us, this has worked VERY WELL. We all mostly work a normal day for our timezone, though obviously sometimes there are extended hours. The only downside for us that I can really see is that we can't really hire fresh or inexperienced devs. There's no water cooler. You can't go sit with $senior_dev_guy for a day to get a feel for things, or learn the stack, or whatever, so we tend to only hire midcareer or later folks. OTOH, we also have absurdly low turnover, which means hiring doesn't come up THAT much anyway.

scapegoat444 7y ago
what sort of stuff are you working on? And, are you hiring?
- ubermonkey 7y ago
  We're a software company, and unfortunately no, not right now.

tom_hirst 7y ago

Thanks for this post, Viktor. A lot of this hits home. You inspired me to write up my own experiences of 10 years in remote work https://theremotedev.com/10-years-remote/ https://theremotedev.com/10-years-remote/

pinkano 7y ago

Brilliant post, thanks for sharing! Starting my 4th year of working fully remote and love it.