Just wanted to echo this - the lack of in-person discourse leads to strained relationships IME. There is so much nuance lost in pure digital (especially email/

Just wanted to echo this - the lack of in-person discourse leads to strained relationships IME. There is so much nuance lost in pure digital (especially email/chat but also video calls) that it puts up communication barriers/friction. As a result people communicate less, or even "come out swinging" (i.e. angry/forcefully) if they feel their work/decisions/etc are being questioned. I am sure pure remote works well when requirements are 100% understood, there is a perfectly groomed list of prioritised bugs/features to fix/implement, and the design/architecture is both correct (now and in the future) and understood by all engineers. If not then I don't understand how you can easily and efficiently resolve these problems in a remote way without taking hours and hours or even days and weeks for chat or stilted video calls. Sometimes nothing beats just getting in a room with everyone for 90 mins and talking things through around a whiteboard or whatever.