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We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

remotebase.io

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Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#121

Post by hashkb »

vertex-four wrote: post #119
bad_user wrote: post #94

I work remotely. I'm from Romania and we have a team that's distributed across the country, with some members from other European countries as well. We do have a small office where I live, but it is provided just as a place to come to in case you don't like working from home and I do go to our office almost daily, but most of the team is on the other end of a Gmail/Skype/Slack connection. Today I got tired at 1 PM, g…

That is generally not compatible with the American way of working - especially in the startup scene - where ever second you're not working is considered a second that your competitor companies have over you.

...but we also all know how untrue and unhealthy that attitude is. 'murica.

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#122

Post by ctrl-j »

vertex-four wrote: post #119
bad_user wrote: post #94

I work remotely. I'm from Romania and we have a team that's distributed across the country, with some members from other European countries as well. We do have a small office where I live, but it is provided just as a place to come to in case you don't like working from home and I do go to our office almost daily, but most of the team is on the other end of a Gmail/Skype/Slack connection. Today I got tired at 1 PM, g…

That is generally not compatible with the American way of working - especially in the startup scene - where ever second you're not working is considered a second that your competitor companies have over you.

And that's just one of the many problems with the SF startup scene.

Many other corps in many other parts of the US are perfectly compatible with what was described.

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#123

Post by ryandrake »

resmote wrote: post #113
ryandrake wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The motto for this goes like 'teams work better if they are collocated, yada, yada'. The real reason is that managers want to feel in control (plus they want to drive away a lot of people by taking RW away). Sorry, but I've got to be the party pooper in this thread. I have worked with teams over the years that indeed DO work better co-located, and who ARE more productive when forced to communicate in an open office…

> who ARE more productive when forced The key word there is "forced".

Yep. Some people default-to-productive, and others need guidance, coaching, "forcing", whatever you want to call it. It's almost as if different people have different motivations, work habits and communication styles!

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#124

Post by resmote »

crispyambulance wrote: post #71
wccrawford wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree! I hate being stuck in a meeting and thinking, "If I could hit Google right now, we'd have this answered already." Luckily, this company doesn't have many meetings, so it isn't a big deal.

I sort-of agree that meetings are often a waste of time BUT if you have to google something _during_ the meeting, you haven't prepared sufficiently or the meeting organizer hasn't provided a clear agenda before the meeting. Meetings can be valuable if people take them seriously (and if there aren't too many).

Lots of times, unforeseen questions come up at meetings, in fact, if they don't; that's a sign the meeting wasn't really productive at all. Google should be on a large screen in the conference room. Or Bing if you're into that. Most meetings I get invited to end up with "action item" which means really, people go back to your desks and Google, research, test, decide, etc. so we can have a followup meeting to decide what we could have decided together in the first meeting if we didn't shut ourselves into a conference room, away from the world on the pretense that the meeting will be 100% productive that way.

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#125

Post by marcosdumay »

tbrownaw wrote: post #117
chrishynes wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't go based on something purely objective like lines of code, but a good code review will tell you if someone is working or slacking.

And when I spend the day planning ahead, or helping other team members research things, or bug hunting, or...?

Well, you really shouldn't measure any kind of human productivity on a daily scale.

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#126

Post by [deleted] »

agibsonccc wrote: post #64
random42 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Half of our hiring happens on gitter as well. Can you please elaborate on that?

It happens impromptu. I see a pull request or an interesting project someone built with us. If they stick around and seem interested in the project, I reach out via direct message and see what their goals are. I half heartedly ask them if they'd like to do this full time. If they seem interested, we setup a minor call and we talk about current projects they're working on, and what we're working on at the company. We…

[deleted]

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#127

Post by legitster »

vertex-four wrote: post #119
bad_user wrote: post #94

I work remotely. I'm from Romania and we have a team that's distributed across the country, with some members from other European countries as well. We do have a small office where I live, but it is provided just as a place to come to in case you don't like working from home and I do go to our office almost daily, but most of the team is on the other end of a Gmail/Skype/Slack connection. Today I got tired at 1 PM, g…

That is generally not compatible with the American way of working - especially in the startup scene - where ever second you're not working is considered a second that your competitor companies have over you.

I would not say this is an accurate view of most US jobs. I have yet to have a job that was not flexible with working hours or working location.

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#128

Post by marcosdumay »

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #112
cephaslr wrote: post #83

I love this topic. On one hand, many tech giants spent an exorbitant amount of money hiring and bringing their technical talent to one location. Easy examples such as Google and especially Amazon come to mind. On the other hand, any studies on the subject strongly imply anyone farther than 50 feet rarely speaks anyway so you are better off with remote teams as they are setup with better tooling (slack, et tal). https…

I'm all for being remote (been working from home for about 8 years now for 3 different companies). Two scenarios where face-to-face wins: 1. "Onboarding + noob training". Sure, this can be done remotely but it's vastly more effective face-to-face especially when the tech isn't limited to the computer and there are "real life" gadgets involved in getting set up for development. 2. If the team isn't 100% remote it take…

For #1, it's enough to not make the team remote 100% of the time. If you get everybody together for a week or so every few months, you'll get those activities done.

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#129

Post by fernandotakai »

robinhowlett wrote: post #120

Does anyone work in a remote team with an always-on video conference? I really, really prefer being able to shout out a quick question but the friction costs (and fear of interrupting deep thought) about calling someone, sometimes even a Slack message, prevents communication at times. The times where I've been pairing or on a long call "in the background" have been great I thought. Any downsides for those who do this…

we don't do always-on video conferencing where i work, but with slack + zoom, you can really easily start a conference call on the DM chat (/zoom -> works)

Re: We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams

#130

Post by mordocai »

legitster wrote: post #127
vertex-four wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is generally not compatible with the American way of working - especially in the startup scene - where ever second you're not working is considered a second that your competitor companies have over you.

I would not say this is an accurate view of most US jobs. I have yet to have a job that was not flexible with working hours or working location.

Every single job across industries that I have ever worked at (and i've only worked in the US) has been inflexible on hours and location.
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