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It would be good if more tech companies embraced this. I bet if they need tools for themselves we’ll see a lot of progress in remote collaboration tools. To ma

• dumbfoundded 6y ago
  Collaboration tools are already pretty solid. What else do you really need other than a remote desktop + video conferencing? I think the biggest use case will be helping recreate the virtual water cooler.
  • jeffbee 6y ago
    Why do I need either of those things? If I'm going to work from home permanently then whatever computers I need can come with me. Face-to-face meetings are a justification for middle management to exist; remote work due to pandemic is going to lay bare the stupidity of managers and their ranks will be greatly reduced. I predict that the written word is going to make a big comeback.
    • jariel 6y ago
      "Face-to-face meetings are a justification for middle management to exist; " Communicating is 1/2 of business; it's really odd that so many people have difficulty with this. I think because as Engineers, we measure value in 'code' then we tend to diminish all the other aspects of the business or process. Meetings can obviously be a waste but they are also critically important.
      • jeffbee 6y ago
        Meaningful communication happens between your ICs. The weekly hour-long team meeting where the manager polls the room and nobody has anything to say is just a waste of everyone's time. Reducing what you have to say to an email has the effect of distilling and refining it, and in many cases leads to the realization that it was wrong to begin with, or doesn't warrant saying.
        • icebraining 6y ago
          ICs?
          • TuringNYC 6y ago
            IC = Individual Contributor (worker who does not have a team under them)
          • guynamedloren 6y ago
            Individual Contributors. In this case, the engineers.
        • ryanwaggoner 6y ago
          Sounds like you need a new manager.
          • cmdshiftf4 6y ago
            Judging by the sheer level of resentment the poster holds for management, as a whole, it sounds more like it could easily be a case of their manager needing to replace a report.
    • dumbfoundded 6y ago
      I actually think the ranks of middle managers will increase as more people work from home. Especially on the engineering side. The whole point of managers is to facilitate communication between people and teams. WFH certainly doesn't help communication problems. HR should pretty much drop to 0 though.
      • ryanwaggoner 6y ago
        What are the functions of HR that you imagine them doing such that they’ll all be made obsolete by WFH?
        • dumbfoundded 6y ago
          Pretty much anything related to the work environment. This can include maintaining a safe work environment, accommodations for specific employee needs, handling employee disputes.
          • Joof 6y ago
            I don't see how this isn't still necessary.
            • ranci 6y ago
              You don't see why maintaining a work environment wouldn't be necessary if the entire company were allowed to work from home?
              • umbos 6y ago
                The work environment remains, it just shifts location.
            • dumbfoundded 6y ago
              Do you see how these problems greatly diminish if people cannot interact physically?
          • 6y ago
    • the_gipsy 6y ago
      Reminds of that Office Space clip, "What is it exactly, that you DO here?".
    • deeblering4 6y ago
      Yes, in my experience the key to a highly functional remote environment is async collaboration. By this I mean written roundtables/stand-ups (with a focus on putting the detail in the tickets and just bringing up blockers), written RFCs and review periods for larger initiatives, comprehensive action logs (admin logs, etc), detailed documentation, detailed commit messages, etc etc. Deadlines are fine, but people need to be able to be aware of the timeline up front and have autonomy to work within their own schedule to meet it. This becomes especially important when multiple time zones come into play. Essentially it's a matter of replacing as many meetings as possible with recored (written and/or multimedia) versions that convey the same content, focusing on maximizing transparency and collaboration.
    • ryanwaggoner 6y ago
      The hostility that many programmers have towards managers is short-sighted. If you’ve ever worked somewhere where the manager has way too many direct reports, you know it’s usually a shitshow. Can you name some companies of more than a few people that don’t have managers? If you think they’re all a waste and a drag, what’s your explanation for why manager-less competitors don’t rise up and eat their lunch? Better yet, why don’t you start your own company staffed with only ICs and take over the world?
      • jeffbee 6y ago
        I hate to tell you but one of the reasons why google ate the world was their hands-off management and peer-to-peer project management and feedback schemes, which are efficient and effective. I know experiences at large organizations can vary, but for years at that company I had managers who existed, yes, but never showed their faces and were there chiefly to make sure that everybody had desks and chairs and computers. This style scales extremely well. I also had managers who were just other ICs to whom I reported, because there had to be a path from Larry to everyone in the org chart, but who were otherwise peers. Not every large organization is choked with weekly/daily meetings and org charts full of useless functionaries.
        • ryanwaggoner 6y ago
          I hate to tell you, but the only reason Google “ate the world” during the times you describe (which I’m skeptical of, but that’s a separate discussion) was that they figured out they could sell ads against their search results. Almost everything else seemed exactly like what you’re describing: a bunch of ICs with no managers building cool stuff that didn’t affect the bottom line, had bad usability, didn’t have a clear use case, overlapped the work of other teams, or all of the above. The Google of today is different: multiple billion dollar business units, all well-staffed with managers.
  • Ididntdothis 6y ago
    I think there is still a lack of things like white boarding tools. I haven’t seen anything that could replace a big whiteboard. Also webcam images generally look horrible. I am sure something could be done about that. Better microphones and speakers in laptops would help. Better suppression of background noises like kids would help. I think there are a lot of little things that could improve tools a lot.
    • callalex 6y ago
      It seems silly, but I think one of the biggest reasons to have an all-MacBook shop is the microphones built into the laptops. Their far-field noise cancelling just beats the pants off of any alternative I’ve tried.
      • rubber_duck 6y ago
        Still doesn't come close to a dedicated microphone
      • sneak 6y ago
        You can also just issue $200 AirPods to each user that doesn't already have them (which will pair to anything that speaks Bluetooth), which may be a simpler/cheaper solution to this problem. A $20 USB gaming headset with a mouth mic arm might work, too.
    • IngoBlechschmid 6y ago
      I love this online free self-hostable open source collaborative whiteboard: https://wbo.ophir.dev/ https://wbo.ophir.dev/ Unlike many others, this one is nice and lean and hence works smoothly even on old hardware.
    • rubber_duck 6y ago
      If you plan on working from home full time then invest in a decent camera/microphone. I already had focusrite audio interface for guitar, an XLR mic gives amazing sound, decent interface and will probably get a usb camera (is there an action cam like GoPro that can double as a webcam ?)
  • alexbanks 6y ago
    Video conferencing is pretty bad IME. I think that all too many companies view Slack as an acceptable option for communication most of the time, and I think that's an extremely inhibiting factor for most remote work. I think some innovation around the tools we use for remote work would be great, fwiw.
    • Ididntdothis 6y ago
      For example Teams and Outlook have terrible search. Documents basically go into a black hole to never be seen again. We need the same search quality we have for web searches.
      • emiliobumachar 6y ago
        Good suggestions for improvement, but I don't think they fit this context. Face-to-face communications are extremely unsearchable.
        • alexbanks 6y ago
          Interesting
          • emiliobumachar 6y ago
            [edit: lost context after parent edited] What I can think of is a smartphone app that's always listening and transcribing, best-effort, all it listens. This can capture in person speech and make it searchable. Also, are any of the current videoconferencing options offering machine transcribing out of the box? I know users could always hand-feed recorded video to a separate tool, but ease-of-use matters. Emulating face-to-face-ness remotely is precisely the hard problem. As pg once said, the real world is incredibly high-bandwidth.
      • CodeCube 6y ago
        that's why you shouldn't use _either_ of those as repositories of information ... they're great for the ephemeral discussions, but once consensus is reached, you should have other ways of tracking that, whether it's: github/devops/jira issues and tickets, or some kanban board somewhere, or design documents, or a wiki. The discussion itself shouldn't be the artifact that records the decision.
  • johannes1234321 6y ago
    There's lots of communication which is hard to do remote. The water cooler is o e thing. But even in a meeting when presenting something the feedback is limited. When sitting in a room it's simpler to see whether people are following and one should go faster or iterate on a point. Also one can simpler intercept with a question or comment. The text based back channel is limited for that. (I WFH exclusively for 10+ years and still regularly miss the office for anything which isn't deep down coding, but requires communication)
    • VectorLock 6y ago
      Presentations always seemed to me like one of those things that can be done without a meeting at all.
      • johannes1234321 6y ago
        If it's unidirectional, true. If it's supposed to be a discussion it's different.
  • Shivetya 6y ago
    Training people, both workers and management, how to work in such environments. Plus for many companies expanding the bandwidth and security for their entry points for the corporate network. This can include locking down connected equipment to block high data volume sites and activities; you cannot believe the number of people who try to stream across their vpn connection. Not everyone wants to be remote, where I work they asked for volunteers for the first wave and had to turn people down for some groups. For these the separation of work and home is line they don't like to cross.
  • syshum 6y ago
    >>I think the biggest use case will be helping recreate the virtual water cooler. I dont think that is hard to replicate. Group chat / slack / teams is a common feature and can easily be used to fill this void.
    • dumbfoundded 6y ago
      It's hard to force WFH people to create non-job related relationships. Like if your jobs don't overlap, you'll probably never talk in a WFH setting. In an office setting, forming relationships is both personal and functional. Maybe some of this communication isn't efficient but it probably has value.
    • TylerE 6y ago
      That's recreating a water cooler with an HR drone sitting there spying.
      • syshum 6y ago
        There are ways to do it with out "HR Drone" spying and further if you are saying things that would get you in hot water with HR then it is unlikely that a verbal conversation is better, in fact in many of these instances having a record of the conversation can be helpful....
        • HighPlainsDrftr 6y ago
          Yeah, it is harder to be friends with your coworkers when you are remote. You do end up developing relationships though. My mom, for 30 years, spent so many years on the phone with other people, when they finally met up, it always ended up in friendship. I work from home exclusively. I am in the same boat. Earlier in my career, it was easy to make friends at work. I miss that. Lets go golf! Lets go drink! Lets go do this... etc. I do think that ended up creating 'cliques' inside the groups though. Its probably better in the long run to try to establish a more professional relationship with coworkers. Just my opinion - and i'm likely wrong.
• the_watcher 6y ago
  As you move up the chain in global companies such as Twitter, it becomes more likely that you'll have a superior or direct report based in a different location than you, and this has been true for years. The "people person" executive theory only holds for companies that do not already have a substantial number of teams that are not all located in the same place.
  • ska 6y ago
    I'm not sure how your conclusion follows - it's undoubtedly true that more and more folks are involved in teams that at least partly remote. However, the skills needed to manage these effectively are mostly the same as co-located teams. To whatever degree "people person" was needed, it seems mostly the same to me.
    • fragmede 6y ago
      If a coworker or employee comes in to work distraught for some reason, it's far easier to reach out in person and find out that their dog got ran over/relationship broke up/parent is in the hospital. It's not impossible remote, but it's harder, on all levels. A manager that has strong in-person skills but is weaker on digital communication skills may result in poorer outcomes all around. (I'm pro WFH but pretending it's the same just seems foolish to me.)
      • CodeCube 6y ago
        We are an adaptive species ... just because some folks are strong in-person (due to years of experience at it), doesn't mean they won't adapt to have better digital communication skills when it becomes a more prevalent practice. I think people will be fine ... even if there's an adjustment period :)
      • ska 6y ago
        I guess I don't buy the idea that there is such a strong dichotomy between in-person communication skills and digital communication skills. Sure, there are adjustments to new needs and technologies. But fundamentally, that's the easy part, I think. Communication skills are needed, and they mostly transition well. I find it plausible there are some people who don't make the transition well (in either direction) but that hardly points to a paradigm change. Do you really think there is a big pool of people who would be effective at these roles if they just didn't need to communicate in person? Doesn't match my experience at all. Certainly agree that people are stronger or weaker on various types of communication, but in my experience that is definitely a 2nd order effect, compared to whether or not they are skilled communicators at all. I totally agree that all of this stuff is harder remote, but if anything that leans harder on communication skills.
• Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Maybe, but it would also be good if more (tech) companies offered a decent working environment. That's coming from personal experience btw, where most jobs / assignments I've had, it was usually open plan, flexible seat arrangements. I have a new job now where I have a fixed desk with a set of drawers. It's a breath of fresh air and honestly it sounds so stupid and trivial. But employers don't have their employees' best interest in mind. My cynical take on this move is that the company doesn't have to pay as much for office space + worker transport anymore.
  • mjayhn 6y ago
    I won't go near an open office after COVID19 and I doubt I'm alone, I think things will change greatly.
    • _nhynes 6y ago
      I'm not sure that I understand this sentiment. Is the worry about COVID specifically (and hence would be abated by a vaccine or herd immunity), or is it about increased awareness of all infectious diseases? My lack of understanding stems from a (perhaps naive) assumption that social distancing will eventually go away along with the threat. I'd be glad to hear others' opinions on the matter.
      • TylerE 6y ago
        It is unlikely the vaccine will be perfect. Strains mutate. Plenty of people still get the flu despite a flu vaccine.
      • mjayhn 6y ago
        I was already sick of getting sick 3-5 times a year just being in an open office, the fact that I'm more aware now that I can get something that will do more than knock me out of being able to code for a week is a huge deterrent to me ever wanting to work in a hamster cage surrounded by hundreds of other people with hundreds interactions with whoever. I mean, I'm not a germophobe or something but I already thought it was gross how often I got sick and I'm 100% certain it was from my office environment, now I have a real reason that "suck it up stupid" doesn't just brush away. Every winter someones kid gets sick then it just blasts through the open office. Then it happens 3 weeks later, then again, then again..I'm pretty sure I got sick 3 times earlier this year, maybe 4.
• jekriro7 6y ago
  It would be good if AWS and GCE were leveraged by workers at home as generic data centers to store their private data Working on a UI and server for just that. Plug an API key for a cloud provider into the UI which will help users move data from their laptop to a private bucket for example, or spinup basic infra, enable sharing with other users accounts for opt-in data collection Sell or donate access to specific data in your account on your terms. The web is dead. With the right tools anyone can leverage the cloud to regain a ton of privacy and control of their data. Maybe we can dismantle through free market effort, the technocracy middleman now that building such software is trivial
  • sitkack 6y ago
    Wasm and weed is a powerful drug.
  • icebraining 6y ago
    Yeah, I get what you mean. Native applications store your data locally, which is privacy-friendly, but sharing is hard. SaaS brought easy sharing of data, but it also brought data mining. So the goal is to have data in the cloud, but isolated, rather than in a big shared database in some SaaS provider. If you trust the privacy of cloud providers, you can spin up a server and use https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/, which is designed around that: private infra, with granular sharing of data. If you don't, you need local compute and encryption. Keybase would be a decent example - while you can't use your own cloud account, they only see encrypted data. That said, there's a reason a lot of people deleted their Keybase accounts when they got acquired by Zoom. Data mining is very enticing, so outside of projects ran by idealist volunteers - which will always have a hard time competing with funded companies -, how do you keep developers from adding mining abilities even to the native/self-hosted applications?
  • luis8 6y ago
    What about https://blockstack.org/ https://blockstack.org/? With this approach you own the data
• sneak 6y ago
  I've always wondered if that was a side effect of them being slow/bad at typing. Higher ups usually don't end up having to type a lot themselves, and many are bad at it.
  • Ididntdothis 6y ago
    That’s mainly because they have better things to do. Where do you think more money is to be made? Worry about your typing or be very good at meeting people?
• sylens 6y ago
  I would love for more companies to embrace this just to open up the candidate pool for positions. There are so many positions at Microsoft, for example, that I would have loved to apply for, but they require you to be in Redmond, and I'm just not in a position to relocate.
  • TacoToni 6y ago
    Completely agree - I've tried and failed many times to move from Orlando to Bay area. FAANG (finance work) wasnt willing to pay to relocate so they always went with local candidates over me. There are little to no interesting companies in my area. I want to work and help build the future. I was willing to take a paycut from MCOL to HCOL area for jobs and willing to go down in seniority for a chance to work at a big company in the Bay area. It would be nice if they finally start opening the applicant pool to those in other cities.
    • hoveringcto 6y ago
      If you are willing to take a pay and level cut, why not just pay your relocation yourself? It's not expensive long term if you think you will do well and be rewarded at the new company.
  • benkaiser 6y ago
    Just so you're aware, it is possible in Microsoft to some extent, just not very publicly visible (the careers site doesn't help you find these jobs). I started working in one team and switched to another team internally because they are pro-remote and I plan on moving back to Australia. Broadly across Microsoft there are also about ~30 other engineers already working from Australia for Redmond-based teams.
    • badfrog 6y ago
      > switched to another team internally because they are pro-remote and I plan on moving back to Australia I don't know about Microsoft in particular, but from what I've seen it's much easier to find a remote position while you're already at a company working onsite than it is before you get hired.
• brlewis 6y ago
  The body language thing is important. I think it helps to position the camera and your hands in a way that lets people see your gestures.
• luckydata 6y ago
  It's more about being effective managers. There's tons of writing and proper follow up and prep work necessary to make remote work happen and most people aren't just that diligent to do it regularly. Most managers especially at the top are also not the most diligent people, they have employees to do the stuff that they dislike doing so when they are faced with having to do more prep work and move at what they consider a slower speed (they are wrong, all that prep work and due diligence pays off, Bezos and Amazon are a great example of that) they recoil.
• nostrademons 6y ago
  > I guess most top executives are people persons so not seeing things like body language or using body language takes away an important skill set of theirs. This might also be a trust thing. Studies have found that in-person social interaction leads to increased levels of trust among the group, but remote social interaction doesn't have this affect. The higher you go up the management chain, the more trust is required to perform your job effectively. ICs usually work under well-defined, measurable conditions: you can determine from their work product whether an engineer, salesperson, or designer is being productive. Executives do not work under these conditions, and arguably the job of an executive is to define those metrics. To get everyone rowing in the same direction requires an immense amount of trust and collaboration amongst the high-level leadership of the company, and it seems like it'd be challenging to achieve that virtually.
• nlbrown 6y ago
  A potential compromise I am hoping for would be an increased willingness of companies to open satellite or smaller offices in secondary or tertiary real estate markets.
  • Ididntdothis 6y ago
    That would be great and healthy for the whole country if things were more spread out.
    • makapuf 6y ago
      Maybe even for the whole world. There surely is talent some places you dont expect, that cannot move to bay area but would love (and could do) a top it job and cannot move out. In ok countries, with few salary differences from USA, even.
      • HighPlainsDrftr 6y ago
        I live in Wyoming. A few years ago, I was debating about trying to build up some decent 'tech spaces/small campuses' in some of the more remote/less populated and desirable area's. Some of my thoughts were: - Make sure there is good high speed internet - Good conferencing - Good office / working conditions - Great outdoor activities nearby For a flat rate per month, a person could have a furnished apartment, a working space nearby, and access to the great outdoors. If I had multiple locations, you could switch locations after a week or two. Why wouldn't someone in the Bay area want to go live in Sheridan, wyo for a few weeks, then possibly Laramie, Wyo. Maybe some Zion in Utah for a bit. Royal Gorge in Colorado. Every few weeks, you just pack up your laptop, clothes, bikes, and go to the next spot. I guess its office/lifestyle timeshare space. I never pursued it beyond thinking about it.
        • mFixman 6y ago
          That sounds like what WeWork should have promised.
    • 6y ago
• enjo 6y ago
  As an executive (Product and Technology specifically) at a mostly work from home company: I find that engineers can do a pretty good job of effectively collaborating thanks to PR's, Slack, JIRA, and a host of other asynchronous tools. It's on the product side that things are tougher. Great product work is often about finding meaningful insights in the data available to you, and that often involves long conversations between people with lots of different viewpoints. There's something about doing that in person that is just really hard to replicate remotely. Even getting the environment exactly right only goes so far. I find that over Zoom people are just a little bit less engaged and that means getting to those really important insights takes a lot longer. Previous to covid we had solved this by colocating our product team and then bringing the engineering team together once a quarter with product folks to engage them in those conversations. Now we're just sort of feeling our way though it...
  • ksec 6y ago
    Yes, Engineering especially coding could work whether you it is Remote, WFH or anything else. Product and Design so far doesn't seems work well without close face to face collaboration.
  • ilaksh 6y ago
    It sounds like the product people are sitting in long meetings. Have you considered the idea that people were already disengaged in those meetings, they were just putting up a better front because they could tell everyone was watching them closely in person? And now that they are at home, they are not trying as hard to pretend they are listening closely, and since they are more comfortable, they are staying in the meetings and saying what they want? Whereas before they would let the most assertive person talk, and after a few minutes could not tolerate the in person meeting anymore and so pretended that they were all in agreement so you would let them go, knowing they would work out the actual details amongst themselves later? And now they don't have the option of working things out after the meeting, which is another reason the meetings are taking longer. The biggest issue for you is probably that you have a lot of wasted time where only a part of the team is working together in the meeting but other people who are not involved in that part are just waiting for them to finish. Do some research on the tools that engineers use to work asynchronously and train your product team. Also consider smaller video chat meetings, and chat rooms, etc.
• CodeSheikh 6y ago
  The higher you go up the older they get. It is a culture shift and lets be honest no one wants to leave their comfort zone.
• z6 6y ago
  Lots of companies are followers. I appreciate Twitter taking the lead here.
• smithza 6y ago
  It is generally an oversight to assume that people have ideal work conditions at home and could be more productive. Going to a reliable and steady office is absolutely salutary for many people. There are trade-offs, yes, but no one-size-fits-all. Physical work location and conditions is one potential issue, and emotional/relational conditions are another. Would we want to overlook these issues while still searching for the best talent for our companies?
• yibg 6y ago
  Anecdotally I'm not really sure how much of people persons higher ups are, at least in engineering. Pretty much all of the SVPs / CTOs at the medium to large (but not huge) companies I've worked were not really people people. They've been somewhat socially awkward and naturally introverted. They can stand in front of a crowd and speak of course, and present in relatively high pressure situations, but I don't think they actually enjoy dealing with people all that much.
• Unbeliever69 6y ago
  We are a small SAAS startup that is funded by a slightly larger architectural services firm. My partner was staunchly against WFH until he saw productivity rise and employee satisfaction go through the roof when the business was forced into WFH. While he will continue to come to the office (because he is an old dog), everyone else is WFH forever. He owns the building so i'm sure he'll attempt to rent out the vacated office space. When he realizes nobody is going to want his office space due to severe oversupply, I wouldn't be surprised if he sells the building or converts the land into something more profitable. You might ask, what changed? He assumed that people who work from home won't be effective. He lacked trust. The employees proved to be trustworthy.
• Traster 6y ago
  Frankly, I dread the situation where working from home is the norm and suddenly a core part of my job is building remote working relationships that I find easy to build in person.
  • intended 6y ago
    People are underestimating the issues which need to be overcome with WFH Infrastructure: Do homes have chargers, desks, screens? If not people will soon get carpal tunnel or lose productivity. Internet/VPN security costs are real. Productivity creep : Some of the main issues with WFH have been work hour creep. Managers and other employees feel its easier to make requests for more time given that you are now a few feet from your laptop. Lack of discipline also means that people now work longer. Rewards and promotions I can't find it right now, but I recall WFH resulting in lower pay relative to people with the same qualifications who went to office. Mental costs: One of the main issues with WFH has been loneliness. Fixing this requires immense effort to recreate physical proximity. Creativity is also lost when you cant engage in banter and catching up with people.
    • steev 6y ago
      I work from home as a software engineer at a major tech company. Infrastructure: my company provides money to setup your workspace. Buying a desk is the most expensive part here but really you can get a solid setup for < $500. Internet costs: I was already paying ~$120/mo and I get some of that reimbursed. This seems like a standard living cost though, not something unique to working remotely. Productivity creep: I define my schedule based on my deliverables. At least with my team, no one expects me to be available 24/7. I work a full day but if I need to run an errand or take care of something during work hours it is no big deal. As long as I am getting my work done, everyone is happy. Rewards/promotions: who knows - anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much here. Mental costs: if you live alone, this could definitely be very lonely. I am lucky enough to have a wife, kid, and dog so loneliness isn't an issue. But this really depends on a case-by-case basis. Personally I love working from home. It is more comfortable, I am paid incredibly well despite be scaled for a low COL area, and the work is super interesting. The most important part of this is now we can move wherever we need to for my wife's career. This flexibility is hard to put a price on.