Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Best practices for remote software engineering

cacm.acm.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 205 posts

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#81

Post by sodapopcan »

titanomachy wrote: post #74
nomy99 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are telling me a person suffering from ADHD is not accountable for the $ lost in productivity. If I had ADHD, just for survival, I wouldn't ever let my boss know that I have this condition which is costing his company X amount of dollars a year.

Most knowledge workers are paid for impact, not hours worked. If your results-based performance is deemed adequate, that means either the company is getting good value for the money they pay you, or they have a broken performance management system. ADHD doesn't really factor into it. If ADHD leads an employee to have subpar performance, they will be fired just like anyone else. Caveat: the best companies think like t…

Yep.

I've worked with people who come in late, leave early, and make huge, disruptive, positive impact as well as slow, positive change.

I've also worked with people who work 15 hour days who don't work well with others and are constantly picking up after themselves as their silo'd work breaks daily (yet from management's point of view, everything is running smoothly not realizing they have a giant bus factor on their hands).

So ya, nothing to do with hours worked and, if you're working for a decent company, there should be reason not to be upfront about this.

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#82

Post by joncp »

philangist wrote: post #2

I was just having a discussion about this with my manager during 1:1. I'm curious how any fellow devs with ADHD have managed the transition to remote work over the last year? I love the freedom and ability to focus that working from home provides, but I often find myself taking advantage of that freedom and focusing instead on podcasts or reddit for 3 days to avoid 3 hours of writing unit tests.

I'll do your unit tests if you'll take my build scripts! :)

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#83

Post by animesh »

philangist wrote: post #2

I was just having a discussion about this with my manager during 1:1. I'm curious how any fellow devs with ADHD have managed the transition to remote work over the last year? I love the freedom and ability to focus that working from home provides, but I often find myself taking advantage of that freedom and focusing instead on podcasts or reddit for 3 days to avoid 3 hours of writing unit tests.

Are you me? One thing that led me to not turn on my desktop workstation is to complete a personal project. For at least half a week, I did not bother to reach out for instant gratification via reading HN, proggit, podcasts etc.

If I can only find the energy and appropriate time to do this, I figure I can save my work and work ethic.

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#85

Post by femiagbabiaka »

philangist wrote: post #2

I was just having a discussion about this with my manager during 1:1. I'm curious how any fellow devs with ADHD have managed the transition to remote work over the last year? I love the freedom and ability to focus that working from home provides, but I often find myself taking advantage of that freedom and focusing instead on podcasts or reddit for 3 days to avoid 3 hours of writing unit tests.

I have. Some keys:

- Lists.

- Checkins for accountability.

- Distinguish work space from other space.

- Develop routine around work start and end times. Block off heads down work as opposed to meeting time.

- Use the time flexibility that remote gives me to my advantage — if I want to start later and work later that’s fine. But keep routine.

In other words, all the same stuff as before. An office just gives you a sociotechnical system in which doing all of the above is easier.

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#86

Post by jacques_chester »

edabobojr wrote: post #35
jacques_chester wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't say it's for everyone. But for ADHD specifically, my personal experience is that pair programming is a godsend. I am able to use half my regular dose of ritalin while pairing.

I am glad it works for you. Maybe (hopefully?) I have just had an abnormal experience.

No, anecdotally a lot of people struggle. It is an intensive experience and places different pressure on a person than soloing does. For me it works great, for many people it works great, but not for everybody.

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#87

Post by nomel »

philangist wrote: post #2

I was just having a discussion about this with my manager during 1:1. I'm curious how any fellow devs with ADHD have managed the transition to remote work over the last year? I love the freedom and ability to focus that working from home provides, but I often find myself taking advantage of that freedom and focusing instead on podcasts or reddit for 3 days to avoid 3 hours of writing unit tests.

I’ve been using Immersed VR with some good success. I use different virtual environments for different tasks. The coffee shop for deep work, space for emails, etc.

Part of my problem is that my “office” is in my bedroom. I’m a strong believer in “physical” mental spaces, so it really helps me.

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#88

Post by znpy »

Since we're commenting a piece from the ACM: would you people recommend an ACM membership subscription and reading the communication of the ACM magazine?

What if you're not directly a software engineer but more like a system engineer / system administrator / DevOps engineer?

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#89

Post by znpy »

philangist wrote: post #2

I was just having a discussion about this with my manager during 1:1. I'm curious how any fellow devs with ADHD have managed the transition to remote work over the last year? I love the freedom and ability to focus that working from home provides, but I often find myself taking advantage of that freedom and focusing instead on podcasts or reddit for 3 days to avoid 3 hours of writing unit tests.

I kinda made it explicit with myself (not with my colleagues of course, duh).

I'll fuck off most of the morning, well aware that I'm doing so, and I'll work non stop in the afternoon.

Some important things though: during the morning I mostly spend time on stuff I find interesting, usually tech stuff not directly related with my job. A few times non work stuff. But seriously, it's a joy to be able to spend the morning to get better at something about your job.

I spent last week mornings playing with the kubernetes APIs and the client-go libraries, with only vagues ideas. Turns out, a colleague is findin one of the toy tools I've written useful. Wasn't expecting that. Last month I spent another week mornings diving into AWS IAM and now I finally finally understand stuff and I'm reporting problems to our head of it security, and we're fixing stuff before they become problems.

The key, imho, is to be self-aware: I'll fuck off in the morning, and I will work in the afternoon, no interruptions.

Important edit: I might be slacking, technically, but I always keep an eye on the company chat. If anyone or anything needs my attention, I drop my slacking off and be readily available (most often you only have to be able to hear the Slack client beeping)

Re: Best practices for remote software engineering

#90

Post by slaymaker1907 »

philangist wrote: post #2

I was just having a discussion about this with my manager during 1:1. I'm curious how any fellow devs with ADHD have managed the transition to remote work over the last year? I love the freedom and ability to focus that working from home provides, but I often find myself taking advantage of that freedom and focusing instead on podcasts or reddit for 3 days to avoid 3 hours of writing unit tests.

It definitely helps me to have at least some working in the office. I can work on something that is cool/exciting from home no problem such as implementing new features, learning some new API, etc. from home no problem, but going back to the office is very helpful for stuff like going through email.

Also, thank you for speaking up! I feel like a lot of the discourse for ADHD folks has been how freeing it has been to get away from the distractions at work. For me, and it sounds like also for you, working from home often doesn't have enough structure.

Post reply on HN