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Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

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Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#171

Post by ebiester »

vsareto wrote: post #145
cyphar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whiteboards are absolutely indispensable for communicating ideas quickly in a small group of people. It's effectively just a bigger (and easier to erase) version of grabbing a scrap of paper to scribble something down when explaining or describing something to someone else. I'm honestly more surprised that this isn't a universally known concept on HN. Scribbling on scraps of paper is something most people in western…

I'd actually prefer less whiteboarding to people spending a bit more of their own time on their ideas. Think about it and research it for a few days before calling a meeting.

If three people have 1/3rd of the knowledge needed to solve the problem (for example, a front end designer, a back-end designer from team 1, and a back-end designer from team 2), the total time expended is shorter if the three people research their part for 2 hours and then get together for an hour than one person writing based on faulty assumptions and having to go back to the drawing board anyway.

The larger the organization, the less one person can hold the entirety of the solution in their head.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#172

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

tadzik_ wrote: post #45
dt3ft wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I experienced both ends of the scale, having lived in a very poor country and currently in a very rich country.

It also works (and is similarly disgusting) in a single country where the salary discrepancy is large. I live in Poland, where the gap between IT and non-IT is staggering. Teaching programming easily nets me 5 times as much money as a regular public school teacher would get. Same goes for regular development work: developer salaries here are 4-6x the average salary. Are we making that much of a bigger impact on socie…

If you feel you're being paid unfairly in contrast to others, move to a high tax, high income country like any in Scandinavia where everyone makes a decent income and everything is more expensive that your software engineer salary won't seem so high anymore.

But be careful what you wish for as now you'll be able to afford much less. Nice house in a family friendly neighborhood like back in Poland? Forget about it!

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#173

Post by joeconway »

adolfoabegg wrote: post #150

From the manifesto: The results of work over the hours put in. How do you adapt that to the scrum process which has a burndown chart based in the time spent on tickets.

Scrum burndowns should not be related to time spent at all. That’s not an actual agile technique, that’s your company not trusting you and not understanding how software works. Story points that are meant to represent unknowns and complexity, not hours, used for estimation and burndowns are one solution to this

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#174

Post by dsukhin »

jasonkester wrote: post #166
rdsubhas wrote: post #100

How do people whiteboard remotely? This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting. And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf... . Is there…

I've seen a pretty big uptick in new Twiddla [1] accounts in the last few weeks, and a bunch of mails from teachers and schools who want to start using it. I market it to teachers for use as a remote classroom, so it's nice to be able to help out a bit. Though I'm a bit conflicted about marketing it too much right at the moment. The last thing I want to do is profit from the current situation. [1] https://www.twiddla…

Marketing your product that helps people be more productive in an unfortunate situation is not unethical or taking advantage of anyone. Every business needs a catalyst for people to realize you are solving a genuine problem for them. Embrace your established position with a functional product and solution and become a market leader by solving the current problem of the day better than anyone else! Good luck!

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#175

Post by rickspencer3 »

rdsubhas wrote: post #100

How do people whiteboard remotely? This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting. And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this: https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf... . Is there…

I have not experienced this as a big problem for teams. There are many ways to collaborate, iterate, capture, and communicate ideas other than whiteboards, and people naturally find and adapt such methods based on their remote culture.

In fact, whiteboards, imo, are not particular good for this as they require everyone to be present in one place at one time to participate, you can add links, you can't capture side comments, there is no edit history, etc...

We use Google Docs heavily to capture rough ideas, blast them out, get comments and input, and iterate. If we decided that we would benefit from the input of someone that we did not anticipate, it's trivial to send them a link and ask them to comment when they have a chance. Those docs often get thrown away after they served their purpose, in the same way that a whiteboard gets erased.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#176

Post by mihaaly »

mosselman wrote: post #55
mihaaly wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But it is not that trivial. Paying the same will be unfair to those living in an expensive location, finding the means of living while others retain more for the same amount of job.

Could you explain to me how it is unfair for people who choose to live in expensive places that people who don't choose that lifestyle get paid exactly the same amount for the same work?

It's cute, you really think it is a choice to move to an expensive place for a high paying job? Believe me, you have no choice, you MUST move there! Then work hard to hang on otherwise you are f*d, paying a lot just for your bare existence!

Also some are born there perhaps, all human connections tie them there...?

Choice of lifestyle? Hahaha!

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#177

Post by roneesh »

adolfoabegg wrote: post #150

From the manifesto: The results of work over the hours put in. How do you adapt that to the scrum process which has a burndown chart based in the time spent on tickets.

That isn't agile. Tickets should be based on relative effort, not hours, and certainly not more hours being better.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#178

Post by bluntfang »

sweeneyrod wrote: post #141
Thorentis wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch, even within Australia they have large discrepancies between capital cities. One of the reasons why remote work appealed to me, was that I was hoping to escape the unfair wage difference between cities. The fact GitLab maintains it despite not having to pay for real estate in the city you work from is totally unreasonable. Same work, same pay. I'll never apply for them.

Is it unreasonable for a random Indian company not to pay the same wages as one in SF (assuming the work is the same)? What about if both companies are consultancies doing projects for Gitlab? If differences in those cases are fine, why is there a sudden change if the employees of the above companies start working for Gitlab directly rather than through a proxy?

I'm not sure anyone here is a big advocate for off-shoring as a cost savings measure, and I don't see anyone in this thread defending it as a practice.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#179

Post by cyphar »

dickeytk wrote: post #164
cyphar wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whiteboards are absolutely indispensable for communicating ideas quickly in a small group of people. It's effectively just a bigger (and easier to erase) version of grabbing a scrap of paper to scribble something down when explaining or describing something to someone else. I'm honestly more surprised that this isn't a universally known concept on HN. Scribbling on scraps of paper is something most people in western…

Indispensable for who? Perhaps designers? As an engineer I spent 5 years working remote and this has never been an issue. We just never needed—or even considered—drawing things. Even now that I’m not remote all we use the whiteboard for is bulleted lists which easily can be done with notion or google docs

I'm a software developer and I always find that grabbing a whiteboard and drawing diagrams or other such information is very useful when trying to agree on a solution (or even agree on the problem). I work remotely and very rarely see the rest of my team in person, so the clear benefit (to me at least) of in-person whiteboarding in those situations is very stark.

Yes, you could probably accomplish the same thing by writing up a proposal spec document (which you'll need to do eventually) but the downside of doing that during the drafting stage is that it lengthens the feedback loop and not everyone will read such a document thoroughly and leave a thorough review. In-person whiteboarding is usually much faster and everyone in the room is almost always on the same page.

Re: Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote

#180

Post by Shivetya »

One issue I heard coming up recently is bandwidth many companies have to support remote access is not capable of dealing with a majority doing so. Then there are those using by license VPN solutions having insufficient simultaneous access.

I am used to the web ex approach for collaboration but again this is limited by bandwidth issues. if anything hopefully this shows people how many meetings are just unnecessary

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