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Just a consideration: I don't believe that remote is so much more productive. The central advantage that I see is that in other regions than the Bay Area, the c

Just a consideration: I don't believe that remote is so much more productive. The central advantage that I see is that in other regions than the Bay Area, the costs of living are much cheaper. Since for the employee, the central metric of revenue is "salary - costs of living" you get: - "better programmers/employees for the same money", - "cheaper programmers with the same quality", - you have it easier to find good employers (less skill shortage) since you can also include potential employees who live somewhere else and are not willing to relocate.

jddj 7y ago
As a remote worker, it feels like spin to me too. Or, at least it's only being compared to cubicle farms or cargo-cult open plan spaces. I know that personally the most productive I've ever been was attending an office each day which had people co-located in rooms of 4-7 people by team / project. I absolutely love my remote situation, it's 1000% better for my general happiness (I feel like my work is a part of my life rather than something which puts my life on hold) and stress levels, and there are days where I can be very productive, but due to the simple factor of motivation and the symbiosis which can occur in co-located teams it simply doesn't compare to the productivity I experienced as a part of a good team in a well-planned office. As an employee I definitely prefer remote, but as a (heartless) employer optimising only for medium term productivity (and ignoring the trade-offs of overheads etc) it wouldn't be so straightforward and would probably depend on the people and projects. Edit to add: here I'm talking about productivity as quality output per unit time
- meowface 7y ago
  Yeah, remote work seems to be a double-edged sword for productivity. As you say, the quality of life/work improvements are great, but the motivation and accountability and shared situation of a co-located team can provide the morale and accountability that push you to actually be productive. I think remote work can theoretically be a lot more productive for solo-ish tasks like coding. On some days this is definitely the case for me, after I pull marathon coding sessions that likely couldn't have really happened so smoothly in an office setting. For some days or weeks where I'm consistently in the "zone", I really feel like I've gotten more done than I could've if I spent those days in an office. But in practice, unless you have very high self-discipline, you're probably going to be battling motivation and boredom to some degree on a daily basis. You often might in an office, too, but it's not the same. In an office, you see everyone else working around you, probably talking about work, some of whom can see your screen (maybe not ever actually looking, but still in line of sight), and that's a potent cocktail for human psychology. At home, you're in or right near the same place you watch TV and movies and relax and sleep, alone or with your SO/family, and there's probably nothing really going on around you, so the environment is basically the same as your non-work environment. There's nothing around to light a fire under your ass. I also prefer remote work, but I'm definitely trying to find ways to feel more motivated and symbiotic, and am interested in ways a manager or employer could help foster that for remote employees. I've been trying to work from coffee shops more, and that sometimes seems to help.
  - avgDev 7y ago
    I think the team needs to be set up quite well for remote work. You need good tools and workflow in place. Otherwise, people will get bored, carried away and won't feel like getting their stuff done. Skilled management is really a must. My place is trying remote, and sometimes I'm more productive in the office. However, if I get in the zone at home I will accomplish significantly more. I would definitely rather go outside for 10 minutes to take a break instead of chatting in the office. Unfortunately, it seems like there is no attention on how to make people more comfortable and engaged.
    - geerlingguy 7y ago
      It’s definitely a team effort, and management has to be remote first for (imho) any remote success. Too many places dip their toes in the water, but as a remote employee, I can sniff out immediately if a team is ‘backchanneling’ in the office, starting or ending meetings before/after the remote call is over, etc. If the team is not remote-first, living and breathing with the sense that nothing should be isolated in a single physical location, it’s not going to be fun, especially for the remote workers. It can sort of work in a sense where everyone gets together for some time, then everyone breaks off and does something, then they get back together. But more often I see a team where 3 people are in the office, and 2 or 3 are remote—I’ve never seen this model be successful in the long run.
      - davidjnelson 7y ago
        I’ve seen it work great. At Autodesk our team was half remote. People would come in at varying frequencies. Mostly for release planning.
  - davidjnelson 7y ago
    Having a separate room dedicated to only work really helps. When I’m done I go downstairs and “leave the office”.
marktangotango 7y ago
cheaper...same quality This is the offshoring holy grail. Let’s be honest here please, exactly the same structures and cultures that allow effective remote work also enables continued and increased offshoring. With the accompanying negative effect on US developer salaries. Indeed companies should be focusing on this significantly!
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > This is the offshoring holy grail. Let’s be honest here please, exactly the same structures and cultures that allow effective remote work also enables continued and increased offshoring. The (microeconomic) problem with offshoring is that other countries (think of India, to use a stereotype) have a quite different level of education, work morale, sense of quality etc. That is why it worked so badly. On the other hand, inside a common cultural area, this should be much less of an issue.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    I have development teams in a variety of locations around the globe (including Boston and Mumbai areas). The Indian primary education system is quite good, as is IIT. We get excellent work out of India, with the primary downsides being the related factors of 10.5 hour time zone difference to either US coast and higher demands for coordination/communication. If India was in a time zone with more overlap with the US, the situation would be far more dire for the average US software developer I think.
    - geerlingguy 7y ago
      Well, you also get what you pay for; many companies are not willing to put in serious HR groundwork and hiring efforts in India, and it shows. There are plenty of great devs and employees I’ve met and am friends with in India... but many companies I’ve worked for/with are not willing to spend the money or time investment in consistently getting this level of employee.
      - 7y ago
PostOnce 7y ago
Cost of living is cheaper, so you'll just accept less money and let the company keep it? You shouldn't determine how much you charge by how much you need to survive, but charge instead by how much the company can afford to pay, or how much they're going to make (harder to determine the latter). After all, the company doesn't price its products by how much it needs to stay solvent, it prices them by how much they can get people to pay.
- wolfgke 7y ago
  > Cost of living is cheaper, so you'll just accept less money and let the company keep it? Let's rather put it this way: the company saves money; if they give some amount of the savings back to the employee (via salary), both sides should be satisfied.
- GFischer 7y ago
  Cost of living is cheaper, so you'll just accept less money and let the company keep it? Yes. I work remotely from Uruguay. It´s basically the only option to compete with U.S. talent, the whole point of remote work for the company is to get the best talent at a price they wouldn´t get in the U.S. I know that if I get an H1B visa or whatever my salary would immediately go up. Location and salary are unfortunately correlated (it´s not even cost of living, Uruguay is more expensive than 2/3rds of the U.S.).

jddj 7y ago

As a remote worker, it feels like spin to me too. Or, at least it's only being compared to cubicle farms or cargo-cult open plan spaces. I know that personally the most productive I've ever been was attending an office each day which had people co-located in rooms of 4-7 people by team / project. I absolutely love my remote situation, it's 1000% better for my general happiness (I feel like my work is a part of my life rather than something which puts my life on hold) and stress levels, and there are days where I can be very productive, but due to the simple factor of motivation and the symbiosis which can occur in co-located teams it simply doesn't compare to the productivity I experienced as a part of a good team in a well-planned office. As an employee I definitely prefer remote, but as a (heartless) employer optimising only for medium term productivity (and ignoring the trade-offs of overheads etc) it wouldn't be so straightforward and would probably depend on the people and projects. Edit to add: here I'm talking about productivity as quality output per unit time

meowface 7y ago
Yeah, remote work seems to be a double-edged sword for productivity. As you say, the quality of life/work improvements are great, but the motivation and accountability and shared situation of a co-located team can provide the morale and accountability that push you to actually be productive. I think remote work can theoretically be a lot more productive for solo-ish tasks like coding. On some days this is definitely the case for me, after I pull marathon coding sessions that likely couldn't have really happened so smoothly in an office setting. For some days or weeks where I'm consistently in the "zone", I really feel like I've gotten more done than I could've if I spent those days in an office. But in practice, unless you have very high self-discipline, you're probably going to be battling motivation and boredom to some degree on a daily basis. You often might in an office, too, but it's not the same. In an office, you see everyone else working around you, probably talking about work, some of whom can see your screen (maybe not ever actually looking, but still in line of sight), and that's a potent cocktail for human psychology. At home, you're in or right near the same place you watch TV and movies and relax and sleep, alone or with your SO/family, and there's probably nothing really going on around you, so the environment is basically the same as your non-work environment. There's nothing around to light a fire under your ass. I also prefer remote work, but I'm definitely trying to find ways to feel more motivated and symbiotic, and am interested in ways a manager or employer could help foster that for remote employees. I've been trying to work from coffee shops more, and that sometimes seems to help.
- avgDev 7y ago
  I think the team needs to be set up quite well for remote work. You need good tools and workflow in place. Otherwise, people will get bored, carried away and won't feel like getting their stuff done. Skilled management is really a must. My place is trying remote, and sometimes I'm more productive in the office. However, if I get in the zone at home I will accomplish significantly more. I would definitely rather go outside for 10 minutes to take a break instead of chatting in the office. Unfortunately, it seems like there is no attention on how to make people more comfortable and engaged.
  - geerlingguy 7y ago
    It’s definitely a team effort, and management has to be remote first for (imho) any remote success. Too many places dip their toes in the water, but as a remote employee, I can sniff out immediately if a team is ‘backchanneling’ in the office, starting or ending meetings before/after the remote call is over, etc. If the team is not remote-first, living and breathing with the sense that nothing should be isolated in a single physical location, it’s not going to be fun, especially for the remote workers. It can sort of work in a sense where everyone gets together for some time, then everyone breaks off and does something, then they get back together. But more often I see a team where 3 people are in the office, and 2 or 3 are remote—I’ve never seen this model be successful in the long run.
    - davidjnelson 7y ago
      I’ve seen it work great. At Autodesk our team was half remote. People would come in at varying frequencies. Mostly for release planning.
- davidjnelson 7y ago
  Having a separate room dedicated to only work really helps. When I’m done I go downstairs and “leave the office”.

marktangotango 7y ago

cheaper...same quality This is the offshoring holy grail. Let’s be honest here please, exactly the same structures and cultures that allow effective remote work also enables continued and increased offshoring. With the accompanying negative effect on US developer salaries. Indeed companies should be focusing on this significantly!

wolfgke 7y ago
> This is the offshoring holy grail. Let’s be honest here please, exactly the same structures and cultures that allow effective remote work also enables continued and increased offshoring. The (microeconomic) problem with offshoring is that other countries (think of India, to use a stereotype) have a quite different level of education, work morale, sense of quality etc. That is why it worked so badly. On the other hand, inside a common cultural area, this should be much less of an issue.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  I have development teams in a variety of locations around the globe (including Boston and Mumbai areas). The Indian primary education system is quite good, as is IIT. We get excellent work out of India, with the primary downsides being the related factors of 10.5 hour time zone difference to either US coast and higher demands for coordination/communication. If India was in a time zone with more overlap with the US, the situation would be far more dire for the average US software developer I think.
  - geerlingguy 7y ago
    Well, you also get what you pay for; many companies are not willing to put in serious HR groundwork and hiring efforts in India, and it shows. There are plenty of great devs and employees I’ve met and am friends with in India... but many companies I’ve worked for/with are not willing to spend the money or time investment in consistently getting this level of employee.
    - 7y ago

PostOnce 7y ago

Cost of living is cheaper, so you'll just accept less money and let the company keep it? You shouldn't determine how much you charge by how much you need to survive, but charge instead by how much the company can afford to pay, or how much they're going to make (harder to determine the latter). After all, the company doesn't price its products by how much it needs to stay solvent, it prices them by how much they can get people to pay.

wolfgke 7y ago
> Cost of living is cheaper, so you'll just accept less money and let the company keep it? Let's rather put it this way: the company saves money; if they give some amount of the savings back to the employee (via salary), both sides should be satisfied.
GFischer 7y ago
Cost of living is cheaper, so you'll just accept less money and let the company keep it? Yes. I work remotely from Uruguay. It´s basically the only option to compete with U.S. talent, the whole point of remote work for the company is to get the best talent at a price they wouldn´t get in the U.S. I know that if I get an H1B visa or whatever my salary would immediately go up. Location and salary are unfortunately correlated (it´s not even cost of living, Uruguay is more expensive than 2/3rds of the U.S.).