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Just hired a remote developer via Upwork. Looks to me that he's installed a script to open random files in our repo and move the mouse around. There are way

Just hired a remote developer via Upwork. Looks to me that he's installed a script to open random files in our repo and move the mouse around. There are ways around it. Based on his output over the last 7 days he won't retain this contract....terrible stuff.

odysseas 7y ago
There is not much difference between hiring a local developer vs hiring a remote. Would you ever say: Just hired a local developer. He has been sitting on his desk playing games and reading HN? Terrible stuff? If that were to happen the problem would not be the "local" developer scene. It would have been most probably your hiring practice or your bad references. My point here is that there is no free meal when you try to hire a remote person via Upwork. The only difference is that you leverage the global talent pool and most probably you can find someone in weeks as opposed to months (or never).
- txcwpalpha 7y ago
  > Would you ever say: Just hired a local developer. He has been sitting on his desk playing games and reading HN? Terrible stuff? Yes, I can definitely see that happening. And the main upside of an onsite developer in that situation is that a 'local'/onsite developer is much easier to identify when they are just sitting at their desk and much easier to encourage them to do otherwise. As much as people hate the "manager looking over my shoulder" feeling, it is very important in most workforces because the vast majority of remote workers (in my experience) will absolutely take advantage of the "remoteness" and use it to slack off. Sure, if you're a small or top tier company you might be able to solve this by making your hiring practices more strict, but the reality for most managers is that you must hire some of these less-than-ideal candidates and mentor/watch them, and being remote makes that harder. I'm generally for the remote work model and this type of issue can mostly be solved by changing the way you interact with your team and do checkups, but regardless I find it strange that someone like yourself who is presumably very experienced in the remote work space would imply that there is no difference between a local slacker and a remote slacker.
  - benatkin 7y ago
    I'd also say if you hired a remote developer without using a marketplace, but by thoughtfully searching for a remote developer using networking/references/etc, and that still happened you would have some feedback on the broken chain in the network if this happened, and could adjust what you're doing. Hopefully you'd eventually get good at it. With UpWork you aren't meaningfully learning how to recruit and manage remote developers.
    - odysseas 7y ago
      I am sorry, I must be missing something. The Upwork marketplace is no different than any other source of people that may be looking for remote jobs. When we hire engineers, we post in Upwork and several other forums and we go through the identical process vetting candidates, via multiple interviews, screenings, reference checking etc etc. When we post in other places we have to explain that this is for a "remote" job - and many job posting sites make this very awkward - so in that sense Upwork posting is easier - since all the candidates understand/are remote ready . However, I don't use the Upwork reference history much (sorry Hayden :-) ) - because there are too few companies that hire their long term staff remote - but thats not an Upwork problem - its "the world is broken" problem. So this means that reference checking is hard. Shortcuts that we use, is that we trust the hiring practices of certain global companies. Yandex for example in Russia has very strong hiring practices - this means that an engineer from Yandex is a strong qualifier . Similarly for certain companies from other countries. I plan to put some of these practices I have learned in a follow up post - because I see how people like you end up getting burned.
      - benatkin 7y ago
        > The Upwork marketplace is no different than any other source of people that may be looking for remote jobs. The trouble is that people will typically do their reference checking on UpWork, which incentivizes people to leave positive reviews on it, just like Uber and AirBnb do. It does tend to require real names and you can often find information about people elsewhere, but a lot of people don't. So if you try to do a more thorough check, the candidate may not be expecting it.

odysseas 7y ago

There is not much difference between hiring a local developer vs hiring a remote. Would you ever say: Just hired a local developer. He has been sitting on his desk playing games and reading HN? Terrible stuff? If that were to happen the problem would not be the "local" developer scene. It would have been most probably your hiring practice or your bad references. My point here is that there is no free meal when you try to hire a remote person via Upwork. The only difference is that you leverage the global talent pool and most probably you can find someone in weeks as opposed to months (or never).

txcwpalpha 7y ago
> Would you ever say: Just hired a local developer. He has been sitting on his desk playing games and reading HN? Terrible stuff? Yes, I can definitely see that happening. And the main upside of an onsite developer in that situation is that a 'local'/onsite developer is much easier to identify when they are just sitting at their desk and much easier to encourage them to do otherwise. As much as people hate the "manager looking over my shoulder" feeling, it is very important in most workforces because the vast majority of remote workers (in my experience) will absolutely take advantage of the "remoteness" and use it to slack off. Sure, if you're a small or top tier company you might be able to solve this by making your hiring practices more strict, but the reality for most managers is that you must hire some of these less-than-ideal candidates and mentor/watch them, and being remote makes that harder. I'm generally for the remote work model and this type of issue can mostly be solved by changing the way you interact with your team and do checkups, but regardless I find it strange that someone like yourself who is presumably very experienced in the remote work space would imply that there is no difference between a local slacker and a remote slacker.
- benatkin 7y ago
  I'd also say if you hired a remote developer without using a marketplace, but by thoughtfully searching for a remote developer using networking/references/etc, and that still happened you would have some feedback on the broken chain in the network if this happened, and could adjust what you're doing. Hopefully you'd eventually get good at it. With UpWork you aren't meaningfully learning how to recruit and manage remote developers.
  - odysseas 7y ago
    I am sorry, I must be missing something. The Upwork marketplace is no different than any other source of people that may be looking for remote jobs. When we hire engineers, we post in Upwork and several other forums and we go through the identical process vetting candidates, via multiple interviews, screenings, reference checking etc etc. When we post in other places we have to explain that this is for a "remote" job - and many job posting sites make this very awkward - so in that sense Upwork posting is easier - since all the candidates understand/are remote ready . However, I don't use the Upwork reference history much (sorry Hayden :-) ) - because there are too few companies that hire their long term staff remote - but thats not an Upwork problem - its "the world is broken" problem. So this means that reference checking is hard. Shortcuts that we use, is that we trust the hiring practices of certain global companies. Yandex for example in Russia has very strong hiring practices - this means that an engineer from Yandex is a strong qualifier . Similarly for certain companies from other countries. I plan to put some of these practices I have learned in a follow up post - because I see how people like you end up getting burned.
    - benatkin 7y ago
      > The Upwork marketplace is no different than any other source of people that may be looking for remote jobs. The trouble is that people will typically do their reference checking on UpWork, which incentivizes people to leave positive reviews on it, just like Uber and AirBnb do. It does tend to require real names and you can often find information about people elsewhere, but a lot of people don't. So if you try to do a more thorough check, the candidate may not be expecting it.