161–170 of 182 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Heck, you can even move to a different country where the cost of living is lower :o) [Posted from Santiago, Chile....]
Heck, you can even move to a different country where the cost of living is lower :o) [Posted from Lima, Peru....]
[Posted from Monterrey, Mexico....]
I routinely have people begging me to work for them, but probably 4 in 5 clam up when I specify that -- while I'm happy to spend as much time with them as necessary to get the specs and make everyone comfortable -- I will not sit in their office to do the programming. I can not, for the life of me, understand why that is such a sticking point with so many people. Fortunately I have enough people who are willing to wo…
It's a sticking point because being virtual is much different than being co-located, especially when only one member is virtual. If you don't have the experience in managing or working with a virtual group, you're going to be reluctant to get into it. Aside from some good anecdotal pieces here, research shows that communications are the critical factor of successful telecommuting. Trust is based on communications, an…
Communication is essencial and harder to manage if just one member is virtual. So, it may not be worthwhile to manage just that one member differently, hence the requirment for "on-site" programming.
I like hiring people that are available to meet locally, and then let them work remotely for most things.
I would love to do more remote work, but then I hear horror stories about people having problems not being around people. Feelings of isolation set in after a couple of months, and people end up going to a gig where they are around people. To those doing remote work, is this common?
In my case, though, I solved this by getting out to twitter/tech meetups and other activies (e.g. I'm speaking at a conference in Amsterdam in June). This occasional socialization is enough for me, though your mileage may vary. Also, it might help that I work in a very social open-source field where I can have continuous contact with other developers and community members.
I must admit, I would hate to go back to regular commuting. In my previous life I only had a 40 minute total commute but even 40 minutes is really valuable nowadays!
I routinely have people begging me to work for them, but probably 4 in 5 clam up when I specify that -- while I'm happy to spend as much time with them as necessary to get the specs and make everyone comfortable -- I will not sit in their office to do the programming. I can not, for the life of me, understand why that is such a sticking point with so many people. Fortunately I have enough people who are willing to wo…
It's a sticking point because being virtual is much different than being co-located, especially when only one member is virtual. If you don't have the experience in managing or working with a virtual group, you're going to be reluctant to get into it. Aside from some good anecdotal pieces here, research shows that communications are the critical factor of successful telecommuting. Trust is based on communications, an…
Face-to-face communication is enormously disruptive to engineers, to the extent that -- even when I worked on-site -- I would spend 90% of my time communicating with other engineers over IM. At one company, I worked across the desk from another engineer, such that I could reach out and touch him. Yet we'd say good morning to each other, and we'd go to lunch together frequently, but the entire rest of the time we'd communicate via IM.
Engineers need to talk with the management and clients for three reasons: 1) To get the specification 2) to clarify the specification during development and 3) to get feedback during testing/qa. The only component of that which needs to happen during development is #2 and seeking clarification is engineer-driven, so if the engineer doesn't have a problem with picking up the phone or sending an email or scheduling a meeting (activities I do constantly with clients) then it's not a significant barrier.
One fourth type of communication between management and engineers is what I like to call "comfort talk": management hovering around engineers asking for "status updates," or small-talking about an unrelated project, or asking for an explanation of some technical point or the other, or fishing for some decision that needs to be made so that he can make it himself.
I call this "comfort talk" because most of it is useless but it makes the manager feel involved in the project. They don't want to do it over IM because IM doesn't give that same comfy feeling, and they can do it by phone, but there's a mental barrier to picking up a phone that makes them reconsider if it's important. It's much easier to roam over to an engineer and hover behind him until his concentration breaks.
Of course "comfort talk" is (almost never) beneficial to the engineer or his productivity. In fact it's the enemy of productivity. I still have to put up with a good deal of it by phone when working remotely, but far far less than I would in person (due to the mental barrier). The reduction in this "communication" is a godsend to me but makes the relationship feel less comfy for the manager, so once again we’re talking about psychological issues on the part of management.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Keep in mind that there's a natural unemployment rate in any economy. The natural unemployment rate is typically made up of two components: people in-between jobs and people with out-dated skills. In programming, we'll always have (in any month) some % of workers moving from one job to another (either because they quit, the company they worked for went out of business, or they were laid off - because the company perf…
The natural rate of unemployment is 6%. Inflation is 3-4%.
This is sort of a no-brainer. I'm pitched by recruiters about once a week, and they're all for far away positions - typically SF area, but other areas too. I can't sell my house any time soon - the market just isn't moving - so I'm somewhat held hostage by geography. This doesn't mean that I can't travel onsite and visit your office regularly, nor does it mean skype and phone don't work out here in the sticks :) Tele…
>> What I don't get is why more companies aren't structuring themselves to take advantage of remote workers. Lots of companies _are_ structuring to take advantage or remote workers. It's called outsourcing. After all, why pay high rates for a remote-US worker when you can pay low-rates for a remote Chinese or Indian worker. Sure, you're smart, and bright, and a hard worker, but there are a billion Indians, and more C…
This is sort of a no-brainer. I'm pitched by recruiters about once a week, and they're all for far away positions - typically SF area, but other areas too. I can't sell my house any time soon - the market just isn't moving - so I'm somewhat held hostage by geography. This doesn't mean that I can't travel onsite and visit your office regularly, nor does it mean skype and phone don't work out here in the sticks :) Tele…
>> What I don't get is why more companies aren't structuring themselves to take advantage of remote workers. Lots of companies _are_ structuring to take advantage or remote workers. It's called outsourcing. After all, why pay high rates for a remote-US worker when you can pay low-rates for a remote Chinese or Indian worker. Sure, you're smart, and bright, and a hard worker, but there are a billion Indians, and more C…
http://www.amazon.com/Job-Went-India-Pragmatic-Programmers/d...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes. And more to the point what happened to the people who used to _work_ in them? 'Cause those jobs are now being done outside the US by people prepared to work for far less. If decentralizing is an option then the US border certainly isn't a barrier. Understand that a telecomuting job is the easiest job to offshore. At the end of the day if you never come in to the office you might as well be living in India. Cause…
>Oh wait, there's some super-keen, super bright chap in India who'll do your work for a tenth of the price? Except he wont. If he's as good as you are his telecommuting rates will be close to what yours are. Think about it.
Sorry mate, but no. A developers rate factors in a number of things, including cost of living. A guy working from his home in Silicon Valley charges more than a guy sitting at home in Iowa or wherever (to make the same disposable income).
The guy in Iowa knows he can work for less, but still make more, in terms of disposable income. When it comes to foreign workers he can charge twice the going "local" rate and still cost way less than some guy living in the US.