The company I work for has 33 employees, 16 of which are developers. We have the choice to work remotely. We use GitHub for code, Google Docs/Drive for document

The company I work for has 33 employees, 16 of which are developers. We have the choice to work remotely. We use GitHub for code, Google Docs/Drive for document storage, and email, IM or Google Hangouts for communication - haven't found a need for anything else. There is a small office in the company's "base city" where a handful of employees work full-time (by choice), but the rest are remote throughout the region. Most of us are within a 1 to 2 hour drive. We gather at our space once or twice a month to catch up, show off new ideas, and hangout over a few beers - it's not a mandate, just whoever can make it. I'd say there's a 95% participation rate. We've found it takes the right employee to handle this environment - someone with a lot of drive and accountability. Bad apples shake down pretty quickly. A new hire will drive (or fly) to the office and spend 2 - 3 days in town getting his machine set up, filling out paperwork, training, meeting the rest of the team, etc., then head back out and work from whenever and wherever he/she likes. We have a policy that unless you declare you're "out of the office" (i.e., vacation), you should be generally available between the hours of 9-to-5, should someone need to contact you. In practice, though, to avoid being disturbed like that, we've found that we've all become excellent communicators and will set expectations appropriately for our co-workers. To date, not one of my co-workers has called me if I've been out during 9-to-5 because they needed me.