Being a security minded person, I tend to fall on the security side of secure/flexible. There is a point there that the flexibility is far more important than t

Being a security minded person, I tend to fall on the security side of secure/flexible. There is a point there that the flexibility is far more important than the security. Sometimes you just have to trust people. If you're not willing to let your work walk out of the building it's stored in, then perhaps you're not in a good position to higher remote workers. I would personally reserve that level of paranoia for core secrets like finance, personal/public safety, and non-code assets worth large sums of money. Tech IP can be decompiled, disassembled, and hacked directly, if it's a web app. Design fast enough to stay ahead of the curve, have better capacity, and protect you brand image by actually being good. That said, there are many measures you can take to protect code while allowing remote work. Setting up a virtual machine that allows an encrypted vpn connection, without the ability to copy/paste/save to hard drive, to allow the remote person to work on a server that doesn't connect to the internet outside of the encrypted vpn. If you're truly paranoid about security, hire a security firm to design a full setup that would allow a remote worker. Just remember, it will be a pain in the butt for the worker, and it may(likely will) negatively impact his/her ability to work efficiently. It may also negatively impact worker retention.