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Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

stripe.com

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Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#81

Post by sandGorgon »

brechin wrote: post #79
sandGorgon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@patio11 - thanks for your reply. > I cannot conceive of a reason we'd track screen time for employees, remote or otherwise. I can model why a company which had an adversarial relationship with employees might want to do that (to discourage shirking). We do not have an adversarial relationship with our employees, and (hopefully) have more interesting utility functions than that. its not about the company. See you guy…

> So it is a A versus B for those people - people who are having to commute for hours to work, mandatorily sit at their computer screens . Versus others who wake up late (because no commute) and can walk about the house in their pyjamas. It's a false dichotomy. It's not commute + "mandatory" screen time vs. sleeping in and wearing PJs. When I worked in offices, I enjoyed commuting, it gave me time to listen to podcas…

>Having remote coworkers allows us to engage more thoughtfully with each other, and often pushes us to write more (and more useful) documentation so that we _aren't_ expecting immediate answers from any specific human.

this is very interesting - is this emergent behavior or have you guys figured out some todos that makes this an effective tool ? for example, do you consciously allocate more time for documentation by developers, than you did before remote workers ? is there a particular way you do this that makes it better, etc ?

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#82

Post by sl1ck731 »

astura wrote: post #78

I always assumed work from home positions were very difficult to get because your pool of competition is so much bigger. Can anyone chime in if that's the case or not?

I think there might be fewer people who actively seek them out, so competition might be similar to any other job. I know a common sentiment I see spread around to would-be remote workers is that you need to work on-site for a while and then be given the chance, which isn't always the case.

This is just me speculating though. I had no issues finding a fulltime remote gig but I think it might be more common for people like me in the DevOps/cloud area than strict developers maybe.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#83

Post by throwaway55554 »

ngngngng wrote: post #61

I've always wanted to switch to fully remote. I worked from home for a couple weeks after my son was born and my current company didn't like it. My productivity was down and they noticed so they informed me I wasn't allowed to work remotely anymore because of it. Obviously it had nothing to do with the fact that they gave me 3 days of parental leave after the birth, so I was trying to help a recovering wife take care…

There are pros and cons. I've been partial remote for 6 years and full remote for nearly 5. I can do whatever I need to do to get into the flow of work; music, no music, lights, no lights, etc. I don't have to conform to what happens at an office. I can start early or work late (my "office" is several time zones away). I can take a personal call w/out feeling guilty.

What I cannot do is walk over to a colleague's desk and chat. I miss hallway conversations about the project. Phone meetings are always a pain as someone is usually too far from the mic and I can't hear. I don't work in a city that has a "tech" community. I can't take my setup with me and go sit at a coffee shop (part of my project is writing hw controls).

I love remote work. But, I miss people.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#85

Post by mherdeg »

ngngngng wrote: post #61

I've always wanted to switch to fully remote. I worked from home for a couple weeks after my son was born and my current company didn't like it. My productivity was down and they noticed so they informed me I wasn't allowed to work remotely anymore because of it. Obviously it had nothing to do with the fact that they gave me 3 days of parental leave after the birth, so I was trying to help a recovering wife take care…

I'm so sorry. This sounds like a very stressful experience.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#86

Post by patio11 »

selimthegrim wrote: post #73
patio11 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our jobs page is at https://stripe.com/jobs or you can attend a coffee chat with us and then let the conversation continue that way. https://stripe.events/remote-coffee

Are there any plans for remote data science or remote data engineering roles beyond those listed on the jobs page?

Specifically: We have remote data scientists (I work closely with one in Tokyo) and will have more in the future. Generally: every engineering workstream at Stripe will have remotes in it.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#87

Post by throwaway55554 »

sandGorgon wrote: post #24

Im wondering what learnings has Stripe figured out that makes their remote workers as productive as their in-office employees. Do they use things like OKR, slack,etc ? What works and what doesn't - is there a cognitive disconnect between remote teams and people who work in office . Is there an expectation of minimum screen time expected from remote employees?

> Im wondering what learnings has Stripe figured out that makes their remote workers as productive as their in-office employees.

Hmmm... you get done what you promised to get done during the sprint.

If a team member isn't doing what they promise to do, it doesn't matter if they're remote or not, you figure out a way to get them productive or help them pursue other interests. A remote employee isn't inherently less productive.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#88

Post by anbop »

patio11 wrote: post #37
sandGorgon wrote: post #24

Im wondering what learnings has Stripe figured out that makes their remote workers as productive as their in-office employees. Do they use things like OKR, slack,etc ? What works and what doesn't - is there a cognitive disconnect between remote teams and people who work in office . Is there an expectation of minimum screen time expected from remote employees?

We use Slack, Zoom, Google Docs, Github, and a handful of other widely-adopted technologies. They're really good and we couldn't do this without them, but they're probably not the lynchpin to making this work at scale. We're working constantly on improving the integration of peers throughout the company. Something Stripe Atlas does, for example, is schedule time for the team to low-key socialize without an explicit a…

Can you specify the “handful” of other technologies?

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#89

Post by yitchelle »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #34
domlebo70 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am full time remote for past 6mo. Never been less productive in my career. I'm looking to switch back to onsite as soon as I can. Edit: I'm not saying remote is bad - just that in my experience I'm definitely less productive.

Are you by chance just noticing all of the empty space that was previously filled with non-productive time in an office? I've worked remotely for about 5 years now. Without the water cooler talk, chit chat, and misc distractions, I can easily fit a 8+ hour day into less than 6 hours when I work from home.

> fit a 8+ hour day into less than 6 hours.

I suppose that could be one measure of productivity. Another view would be an increase in the number of backlog items closed in the 8hour.

Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote

#90

Post by throwaway55554 »

komali2 wrote: post #39
drb91 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect remote to be less efficient? Working in an open office is incredibly distracting—of course there’s productivity gains from going remote.

My experience is that some people genuinely are less productive without the social pressure net of their co-workers around them, or literally the boss on-hand as a sort of "productivity enforcer." It's varied wildly from job to job, office culture to culture, and at an individual level, but I take all those experiences with me and it tints my perceptions of productivity as well. I remember when I was a recruiter it w…

> "If you were still in the office at 7, you could expect a heartfelt appreciative email"

This is a failure of management and should not be rewarded. Staying late is not a badge of honor. It's a reification of failure. Period.

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