We Don’t Simply Get Remote Jobs, We Join Remote Teams • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by ArtDev » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

I don't see any valid reason why anyone vaguely technical should commute to an office.

I think this is really overvalued: "communicating with co-workers while working remotely is not as simple as going up to their desk and starting a conversation".

Anyone technical despises being interrupted when working. This is why Hipchat/Slack/irc is the best way to communicate, even when sitting right next to eachother.

Communicating by text is also better because you never have to say/type the same thing twice. You never forget what a teammate told you because you can look up the conversation.

Company "culture" must be something for people who don't have families or friends. Personally, I don't get it.

I have worked remotely for 3+ years as a contractor. The last office I worked at involved a long commute even though I mostly communicated by Hipchat.

I don't ever see going into an office again unless it my my own leased space. Remote work is the future!

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

#132

Post by ChemicalWarfare » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 3:53 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #128

ChemicalWarfare wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure it's doable. Getting everyone together often can get pretty expensive though (flights, hotels, less stuff gets done), flying the noob over to shadow an experienced person 1-on-1 is probably a better way to go.

The point is there are cases where face to face is preferable.

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

#133

Post by komali2 » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 3:54 PM UTC

mordocai wrote: post #130

legitster wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's almost as if... different people have different experiences at different companies... as if, dare I say it, not all people and companies are the same?

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

#134

Post by vonnik » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 4:04 PM UTC

To follow up on what @agibsonccc has been saying: Remote, open-source hiring is one of the best ways to match companies and candidates. I used to have to recruit for a closed-source company, and it was really hard to get good information - for the company and for the applicants.

Wrote about it here, if anyone's curious. Recruiting is a trail of tears: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/0_03COrPtojnK4VxI2N1tX...

In open-source, you have nearly perfect information: the contributors see the company's code and how they operate as a team; the company see the contributor's code, persistence, reliability and friendliness. And anyway, it's open-source, so everyone is solving their own problems for their own reasons, so they get something out of it in the end no matter what.

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

#135

Post by ozim » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

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...?

Yeah, I spent last week clarifying stuff with business analyst and QA person. Cleaning up delivery with small changes. When my team mate wrote quite a lot of code that need bunch of fixes. How to measure productivity.

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

#136

Post by BadassFractal » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 4:20 PM UTC

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.

A startup is a temporary organization searching for a repeatable and scalable business model. Speed and agility are your only advantages. Working all the time is practically essential for most startups. Are we seriously saying that startups should be comfortable 9 to 5 jobs? There are hundreds of millions of jobs out there that will give you that lifestyle, why complain about that exception where it is actually sensible? Or have we repurposed the word "startup" to mean small business?

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

#137

Post by dasmoth » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

ArtDev wrote: post #131

I don't see any valid reason why anyone vaguely technical should commute to an office. I think this is really overvalued: "communicating with co-workers while working remotely is not as simple as going up to their desk and starting a conversation". Anyone technical despises being interrupted when working. This is why Hipchat/Slack/irc is the best way to communicate, even when sitting right next to eachother. Communic…

>>> Anyone technical despises being interrupted when working.

>>> This is why Hipchat/Slack/irc is the best way to communicate, even when sitting right next to eachother.

I probably fall into this category (actually, for a lot of "serious" things I prefer e-mail to Slack/Hipchat/whatever), but I'm not at all sure this applies to "anyone technical": there does seem to be another culture of technical folks who genuinely do thrive on open offices or "team spaces" and lots of discussion.

I don't think there's any environment that will keep everyone happy.

I wonder if we'll eventually see people sorting into distinct introvert-oriented and extrovert-oriented organisations?

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

#138

Post by abysmallyideal » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 4:26 PM UTC

At this one trench of a large corp where I had a minor contract, they had an office in multiple locations. The idea was, to avoid traffic jams people would work from the satellite offices until the traffic cleared. They opened these up in areas where a large number of their employees commuted from. It was pretty slick, with private sound proof rooms, open spaces for team meetups where they would work then carpool to the main offices, cubicles, lounges, super nice kitchens, etc... In fact it was a shitton nicer than the places they called their main office.

They ended up selling some of it, or downgrading because teams just stayed at the nicer satellites and some ended up getting poached by cunning recruiters and other internal teams.

Edit: The floorplan was pretty far out there and I think they were emulating some European layout. It was super dynamic, so people and teams could migrate between conference rooms, private enclosures, private shared offices, lounges, etc... as they needed or desired and remote conference to the main office. Though after some super important team that had the floor above us lost several key developers and admins to a local company , and people from the main offices were commuting to the satellite offices instead, they started selling off floors or closing off access.

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

#139

Post by random42 » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 4:35 PM UTC

agibsonccc wrote: post #109

random42 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this. Interviews are supposed to be proxy of how successful / valuable the team member is going to be on the job. Since the person is already contributing, makes sense to cut out the "algorithmic quiz". Too bad I am not a java developer! :)

We also do a lot of c and scala :D. That was the idea. One of the things I wanted to do was avoid using a degree or "pedigree" as an indicator. I myself dropped out of my undergrad at a no name university in the midwest. I don't have "pedigree". I'm also not a large believer in the way things are done in the valley (did 2.5 years, that was enough for me..). This is my opinion, I don't claim this is fact, but I know a…

Do you plan to include python in your roadmap in near future (I can possibly help if you don't have in-house expertise on it ;), or choosing to avoid competing with Tensorflow?

I suspect Python would be fairly popular amongst companies looking to build deep learning based products.

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

#140

Post by vertex-four » Fri, Sep 16, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

BadassFractal wrote: post #136

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.

A startup is a temporary organization searching for a repeatable and scalable business model. Speed and agility are your only advantages. Working all the time is practically essential for most startups. Are we seriously saying that startups should be comfortable 9 to 5 jobs? There are hundreds of millions of jobs out there that will give you that lifestyle, why complain about that exception where it is actually sensi…

> Speed and agility are your only advantages.

Are you sure? Having experts in a given field isn't an advantage to look for? The mere fact that you're able to turn on a dime if necessary without having to reorganise thousands of employees and projects towards your new goal?

If your definition of "startup" includes "doing things that literally anybody else with enough money could do" and "trying to establish a monopoly at all costs", speed and agility are things you need. Unfortunately, that's the definition that most of SV seem to use. But if you're trying to push boundaries and do something new with experts in your chosen field? Not so much.