4 ms·

That would be nice, but these are ultimately US based and US lead companies. Moving work into other countries does create complications, especially with the Wes

by bb123 6y ago

That would be nice, but these are ultimately US based and US lead companies. Moving work into other countries does create complications, especially with the West coast only having a workday overlap of a few hours (at best) with Europe. That really has a non-trivial impact on productivity and decision making latency.

JeremyBanks 6y ago
I know several Apple employees who have been fighting to be allowed to move from Cupertino to Vancouver, without success.
- data_spy 6y ago
  If they really want that, they should just get a job in Vancouver with a different employer.
  - data_spy 6y ago
    I love how personal responsibility always gets down-voted.
  - JeremyBanks 6y ago
    They probably will, but they're pursing the less-disruptive option first.
- kube-system 6y ago
  Sounds like a problem for them specifically. Apple lists jobs in Vancouver.
  - Afton 6y ago
    When I last had a 'man inside', the Vancouver office was only for a specific (set of?) teams. That may have changed in the last couple of years.
52-6F-62 6y ago
It would be a benefit to have dev teams in the Toronto/NYC time zone. We’ve worked with the Cupertino devs since the start of Apple News and there’s a bit of a disconnect there because of the time difference. Apple has had other teams here but few devs. (In Toronto anyway)
arkitaip 6y ago
I remember when everyone said remote work as the default was impossible but then it happened and now it's as if it was the same and rational option all the time...
- thebean11 6y ago
  Not sure we can make that claim yet, it's only been a few months. We still have that residual in office-culture, things might be different when the majority of the office has turned over since remote work became a thing.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    My assumption is that many remote workers will still live within driving radius of an office and will get together semi-regularly. And that those who do not will still fly for on site meetings of some sort on a regular basis.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      Kinda defeats the point of working remotely, imo. Sounds more like a WFH option twice a week type of workplace. Which isn’t really remote, IMO.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        It depends. I could live anywhere I want in the US now. As it happens, I do live fairly near a couple of our offices and could (normally) go in regularly--and used to go in more. But I'm perfectly happy where I live. But, yes, if you live in SV only because some large tech company pays you a bunch of money to live there and they want you to stay in a radius that lets you come in once or twice a week, you don't have the option of moving anywhere you want. (Though you may have the option of moving somewhere that's OK for a once-a-week drive but not daily.)
- bb123 6y ago
  Ah well remote work where everyone is co-located is very different to remote work where the people are 8 timezones away. Synchronous communication will always be hard between teams so far apart.
ghaff 6y ago
In my experience, real-time collaboration between US East Coast and Europe works pretty well. One of my roles involves a lot of calls with Central Europe and sometimes I (US East Coast) am on calls a bit earlier than I'd ideally like and Europe may end up going past 5 sometimes, but it's not really a problem. Add 3 more hours to the difference and it gets harder.
- bb123 6y ago
  Yes 100%. East coast - UK/Europe collaboration is much easier than West coast. Frequent meetings between Europe and SV mean someone is staying late or coming in early on a regular basis. In the worst case the transatlantic bandwidth can be 2 emails a day.
- malandrew 6y ago
  I am on the West Coast and regularly do calls with India since we added teams there. 12.5 hours difference is absolutely awful and has me wanting to quit my job or at least move to a team that isn't so far apart. The number of times I've had to wake up early or cancel dinner plans is super disruptive and has crushed my work life balance since there is no clear time when the workday starts an ends.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    I’ll never do calls with India again. For some reason, the India team we had to work with refused to have a meeting at any other time than 3am west coast. Absolutely insane. Eventually, I just skipped the meetings - told them it wasn’t worth my time and to write better emails.

by bb123 6y ago

JeremyBanks 6y ago

I know several Apple employees who have been fighting to be allowed to move from Cupertino to Vancouver, without success.

data_spy 6y ago
If they really want that, they should just get a job in Vancouver with a different employer.
- data_spy 6y ago
  I love how personal responsibility always gets down-voted.
- JeremyBanks 6y ago
  They probably will, but they're pursing the less-disruptive option first.
kube-system 6y ago
Sounds like a problem for them specifically. Apple lists jobs in Vancouver.
- Afton 6y ago
  When I last had a 'man inside', the Vancouver office was only for a specific (set of?) teams. That may have changed in the last couple of years.

52-6F-62 6y ago

It would be a benefit to have dev teams in the Toronto/NYC time zone. We’ve worked with the Cupertino devs since the start of Apple News and there’s a bit of a disconnect there because of the time difference. Apple has had other teams here but few devs. (In Toronto anyway)

arkitaip 6y ago

I remember when everyone said remote work as the default was impossible but then it happened and now it's as if it was the same and rational option all the time...

thebean11 6y ago
Not sure we can make that claim yet, it's only been a few months. We still have that residual in office-culture, things might be different when the majority of the office has turned over since remote work became a thing.
- ghaff 6y ago
  My assumption is that many remote workers will still live within driving radius of an office and will get together semi-regularly. And that those who do not will still fly for on site meetings of some sort on a regular basis.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    Kinda defeats the point of working remotely, imo. Sounds more like a WFH option twice a week type of workplace. Which isn’t really remote, IMO.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      It depends. I could live anywhere I want in the US now. As it happens, I do live fairly near a couple of our offices and could (normally) go in regularly--and used to go in more. But I'm perfectly happy where I live. But, yes, if you live in SV only because some large tech company pays you a bunch of money to live there and they want you to stay in a radius that lets you come in once or twice a week, you don't have the option of moving anywhere you want. (Though you may have the option of moving somewhere that's OK for a once-a-week drive but not daily.)
bb123 6y ago
Ah well remote work where everyone is co-located is very different to remote work where the people are 8 timezones away. Synchronous communication will always be hard between teams so far apart.

ghaff 6y ago

In my experience, real-time collaboration between US East Coast and Europe works pretty well. One of my roles involves a lot of calls with Central Europe and sometimes I (US East Coast) am on calls a bit earlier than I'd ideally like and Europe may end up going past 5 sometimes, but it's not really a problem. Add 3 more hours to the difference and it gets harder.

bb123 6y ago
Yes 100%. East coast - UK/Europe collaboration is much easier than West coast. Frequent meetings between Europe and SV mean someone is staying late or coming in early on a regular basis. In the worst case the transatlantic bandwidth can be 2 emails a day.
malandrew 6y ago
I am on the West Coast and regularly do calls with India since we added teams there. 12.5 hours difference is absolutely awful and has me wanting to quit my job or at least move to a team that isn't so far apart. The number of times I've had to wake up early or cancel dinner plans is super disruptive and has crushed my work life balance since there is no clear time when the workday starts an ends.
- bradlys 6y ago
  I’ll never do calls with India again. For some reason, the India team we had to work with refused to have a meeting at any other time than 3am west coast. Absolutely insane. Eventually, I just skipped the meetings - told them it wasn’t worth my time and to write better emails.