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I've been remote for over 10 years, and this article mostly rings true. The employer has to put extra effort into communication and documentation. But that ends

I've been remote for over 10 years, and this article mostly rings true. The employer has to put extra effort into communication and documentation. But that ends up being good for everyone - even in hybrid companies we're not everyone is remote. I think my current employer, FullStory, gets a lot of this right. Even before they went fully distributed, they were really good at documenting things - from PTO policies to postmortems on every outage we've ever had. The onboarding process is the best I've ever seen. > There is no Pair-Programming, That's just not true. I do frequent pair programming, it's just over a screen sharing / video call rather than sitting beside the person I'm pairing with. There's a million tools you can use for this. The other thing I'll say, is that as a remote employee, having a dedicated quiet space to work in can be really beneficial. Especially if you have young children at home. Usually that means a spare bedroom, where you can shut the door. For a couple of years after my daughter was born, I actually rented a small private office that was a short bike ride from my house. I didn't go there every single day, but the days that I did were definitely my most productive ones during that time period. It was really the best of all worlds from my perspective.

goodpoint 5y ago
> I do frequent pair programming, it's just over a screen sharing / video call rather than sitting beside the person I'm pairing with If anything, pair programming with a good headset and good quality audio is better than in person. 100% audio clarity and no external noises.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> The employer has to put extra effort into communication and documentation. Not just the employer. The employees also need to put extra effort into their own communication and documentation. This needs to be actively mentored to the employees and included as part of performance management with clear expectations. A common mistake for first-time remote companies or managers is to think that the managers alone can make up for the communication deficits inherent to remote work. Not so. It’s everyone’s job. Managers should be setting examples and mentoring everyone though.
- nfriedly 5y ago
  Yeah, that's a fair point. Everyone has to put in the effort. My thinking was that the employer has to make it part of the duties of the employees, and, more importantly, ensure employees have the time, tools, etc. available to do it. E.g, when there's an outage, an entire day of someone's time might be spent writing up the post-mortem.

goodpoint 5y ago

> I do frequent pair programming, it's just over a screen sharing / video call rather than sitting beside the person I'm pairing with If anything, pair programming with a good headset and good quality audio is better than in person. 100% audio clarity and no external noises.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> The employer has to put extra effort into communication and documentation. Not just the employer. The employees also need to put extra effort into their own communication and documentation. This needs to be actively mentored to the employees and included as part of performance management with clear expectations. A common mistake for first-time remote companies or managers is to think that the managers alone can make up for the communication deficits inherent to remote work. Not so. It’s everyone’s job. Managers should be setting examples and mentoring everyone though.

nfriedly 5y ago
Yeah, that's a fair point. Everyone has to put in the effort. My thinking was that the employer has to make it part of the duties of the employees, and, more importantly, ensure employees have the time, tools, etc. available to do it. E.g, when there's an outage, an entire day of someone's time might be spent writing up the post-mortem.