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Remote work: 6 months later

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Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#61

Post by couac »

pryelluw wrote: post #43
michalstanko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working remotely for 7 years now. Do you ever miss contact with other people? Fun in the office, interesting conversations, etc.

Ive been working remotely for almost the same time as you. I do miss some of the interactions but I've replaced them with connecting with other tech folk through social media and going to local meetups. Almost as good.

There is one thing we did not mention, and I'll likely blog on it later this year: being remote does not mean (for us) working at home or even working completely "alone".

For instance, I work in a co-working space where other co-workers are either remote or freelance. I chose a co-working space that is not IT-specific, which is even better. So I have sort of colleagues there, we discuss about many things, sometimes about our respective jobs/works, but most of the time about life in general.

Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#62

Post by couac »

pryelluw wrote: post #46
agibsonccc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a 16 person 5 timezone startup cofounded in the valley. I moved to asia from SF. The best thing about this is lack of "startup-y things". All of those things are huge distractions to getting things done. Many companies run remote fine. Schedules allow people to be home with their kids when needed, no commute over head for most. Emphasis is on self management. Communication is async. We have 1 stand up a week.

Wow 5 timezones. That's gotta be pretty tough. Can you tell more about it?

Yes I'd be interested to hear more about that setup too!

Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#63

Post by amyfransz »

Yeah working with people in different timezones definitely comes with even more challenges. I've been working with a 13-hour time difference with my co-founder on our startup called "The Remote Trip" for three months now (I'm working from Thailand while she's working from Costa Rica). The best tool we've used so far has definitely been Trello, it's so easy to keep track of each others work activities and to ask/answer any questions (that's a benefit from working with such a time difference: you leave a question late at night and its answered the next morning!). Next to that, we use Skype for elaborate weekly calls and Google Drive as it is so useful for working in docs simultaneously (plus I love the autosave function). We now also have two additional team members, one from the USA and one from Germany, and although time differences are a challenge - with the right tools and a commitment to written communication it's definitely manageable. We've written an overview of all the tools we find helpful when working remotely in this blog post: http://www.theremotetrip.com/2016/10/21/7-tools-will-boost-r...

Does anybody else have any other tool that they would really recommend for a remote team?

Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#64

Post by k__ »

couac wrote: post #61
pryelluw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive been working remotely for almost the same time as you. I do miss some of the interactions but I've replaced them with connecting with other tech folk through social media and going to local meetups. Almost as good.

There is one thing we did not mention, and I'll likely blog on it later this year: being remote does not mean (for us) working at home or even working completely "alone". For instance, I work in a co-working space where other co-workers are either remote or freelance. I chose a co-working space that is not IT-specific, which is even better. So I have sort of colleagues there, we discuss about many things, sometimes a…

Yes.

I work 70% of my time at home and 30% where I just happened to be :)

But I got the best equipment (table, PC, chair) at home, so I prefer to work from there.

Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#65

Post by couac »

rekoros wrote: post #56

"Our only office is Slack" But they're also doing consulting. What if one client adds them to HipChat and another to Skype? Three offices this way?

Ha ha. If they use HipChat and Skype, then it is a bit like we are "outside of the office" ;-)

Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#66

Post by couac »

amyfransz wrote: post #63

Yeah working with people in different timezones definitely comes with even more challenges. I've been working with a 13-hour time difference with my co-founder on our startup called "The Remote Trip" for three months now (I'm working from Thailand while she's working from Costa Rica). The best tool we've used so far has definitely been Trello, it's so easy to keep track of each others work activities and to ask/answe…

We love iDoneThis here at TailorDev.

Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#67

Post by dev360 »

pryelluw wrote: post #43
michalstanko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working remotely for 7 years now. Do you ever miss contact with other people? Fun in the office, interesting conversations, etc.

Ive been working remotely for almost the same time as you. I do miss some of the interactions but I've replaced them with connecting with other tech folk through social media and going to local meetups. Almost as good.

I'd see this as more valuable, for me personally.

Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#69

Post by agibsonccc »

couac wrote: post #62
pryelluw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow 5 timezones. That's gotta be pretty tough. Can you tell more about it?

Yes I'd be interested to hear more about that setup too!

Basically all of us are async. A few of us in the bay area,a few on the east coast, 1 in australia, 1 in eastern europe, and a few in japan/korea.

We have 1 weekly standup at 3:00 PM PST which is ~8am Japan Time (where I live). All of our messaging is async. Most people manage themselves. Tasks tend to be longer sprints.

Half of our team has kids. Work is more independently scheduled. We all collaborate asynchronously.

We use gitter for all of our communications. The reason for this is customer support, user support, team chat, all in 1 place. It works fairly nicely.

All of our communication is remote first. This means most things happen via text or hangout.

Our business development is split in 2 main time zones. "Asian timezone" and "US timezone". Many of us fly.

Marketing material gets cross pollinated across language and time zone via 1 shared folder. (Language is important due to selling in japan,korea,china, and parts of the US).

I usually come back to the US every few months for conferences to try to keep touch.

I also get on a call every other day or so with my cofounder during his afternoon and my morning to make sure things stay in sync across time zones.

We started as 2 people in San Francisco.

Re: Remote work: 6 months later

#70

Post by cyrus_ »

junke wrote: post #35
chrisan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a minor thing but 'Zzz' really sends the wrong signal to the sender: if you are not available, then you are sleeping (i.e. unproductive). Working remotely, is that a bad thing? If you are unavailable due to deep coding or a need for a nap does it matter?

Ideally, only results should matter. But 'Zzz' somehow reinforces the default assumption that a remote worker will try to be paid for slacking off. Now, I am going back to bed.

I mean, the product itself is named Slack...
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