It seems that being able to work remotely is just a skill unto itself, and one that takes time and patience to cultivate. A lot of it is good written communicat

It seems that being able to work remotely is just a skill unto itself, and one that takes time and patience to cultivate. A lot of it is good written communication, especially when it comes to reading other people's communication, and a lot of it is just being good enough at your job to do the work without feeling like someone is watching you. Makes sense that these things would be hard for people. If you look at OSS maintainers, a lot of times their written communication is excellent, and they obviously manage their time really well. These are people who by the very nature of what they maintain are distributed. A lot of OSS software is also of excellent quality, because they don't have the luxury of being able to be in an offer, fire people, etc... I would argue to the people who complain about not getting stuff done or that they need structure... don't take those feelings as a sign that you need to automatically return to what you know. You can also take it as a sign that you have an opportunity to grow, but it's just hard... which is totally ok and normal. If you can overcome this, you will become an excellent engineer as a result.