Lessons from 2 months of remote working • Hacker News Board

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#31

Post by pault » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 7:55 PM UTC

atox wrote: post #22

Interesting read. I recently moved to a country with a low cost of living whilst continuing my old webdevelopment role as part of a remote team. Some things that we do: - daily short standup on google hangout - everyone is available on an instant messenger when working - every office/home office has a continuous webcam feed going on over google hangout - remote pairing (not the biggest myself) Planning to do a writeu…

> every office/home office has a continuous webcam feed going on over google hangout

We've talked about doing this with my all-remote team, but it seems incredibly invasive. How has your experience been?

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#32

Post by pault » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 8:07 PM UTC

buttsex wrote: post #10

Kind of on topic, but I'm a web developer who is partnered with a designer in NYC. I'm already working remotely (a few hours away) and it is really great. I'm in my mid 20s and don't have kids or a relationship at the moment. I've always wanted to travel and I'd rather do it while I am young. I've been thinking of taking 6 months and going around the world, staying at any location for 2-4 weeks. I want to continue wo…

Doing what you suggest will be an absolute disaster if you promise your clients you'll be available while you travel. Your concerns about being locked in your hotel room are totally valid, and you'll need superhuman willpower to get anything done. What you can do, however, is set up shop somewhere cheap for 3-6 months and spend your weekends doing day trips. At the end of this period, you will have actually saved money because of your reduced living expenses. Then repeat the same process on anther continent. 2-4 weeks is barely enough time to get your feet wet. You absolutely should do this right now before you get tied down by work and family life. Source: I work remotely and have spent the last 4 years in Brazil, Thailand, and Belize. 3-6 months turns into 1+ years pretty quickly.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#33

Post by lukethomas » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 8:28 PM UTC

I'm on my third week of working remotely - Here's what I've learned so far:

1. Massive sense of freedom - you own your time, and it's yours to be productive. YesGraph (my employer) is results based, and not hours-based. This is awesome as a remote employee.

2. Exercise isn't Easy - I used to walk over 2 miles/day to work, so I have to force myself to get enough exercise during the course of the day.

3. Tendency to Overwork - I'm being very proactive about trying to balance work. It's easy to fall into the trap of working too much (especially with 2 hours saved on the commute)

4. Social Interaction is Important - this is really important internally and externally. If I want social interaction outside my job, I simply need to go to a coffee shop or co-working space. It's important to do this internally too - which means doing hangouts with fellow employees.

I've actually been keeping detailed notes on my productivity (using Rescuetime) and exercise (using Fitbit), you can track my progress here -> http://lukethomas.com/working-remotely-tracking-progress/

We actually had an onsite last week, so I have some data to benchmark remote productivity vs. onsite that I'll publish soon.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#34

Post by nitrogen » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 8:30 PM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #9

agentultra wrote: post #6

I've been working remotely more often than not over the last four years (a brief 1-year interlude when I was back in an office full-time broke up the streak). I definitely prefer it. The advantages are too awesome! I get to spend more time with my daughter (I'm a first-time father and she is just turning a year old today). There is hardly anything in this world that makes me happier than spending time with her. If I…

+1 on Swiggle. I had my team using that for a while until a reorg broke up the team. It's awesome to be able to see when someone is at their desk, click their picture, ask a quick question, and hang up. It really helps feel like you're more connected to the team while avoid the noise problems on being in the office.

I've also had some exposure to Sqwiggle. It works very well for quick interactions with other developers; the call quality is good, latency is low, etc. I just wish there was a "knocking" feature for someone starting a chat, and/or additional states between offline, busy, and normal. Introverts may not like the constant camera exposure, and developers "in the zone" may not like the sudden presence of a voice and watching eye without any sort of ringing or pre-chat announcement (in real life, interruptions are at least preceded by footsteps and visible reflections of the approaching person). If they could address those concerns, I could see myself using Sqwiggle extensively.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#35

Post by micro_cam » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 8:32 PM UTC

We have a small team based in Seattle with people as fat away as France. I definitely agree with this post and with what others have said both about increased productivity and about the difficulty of working with a team that is mostly centrally located and missing out on casual socialization.

However we have also found that having a spread out team can lead to increased collaboration and outreach as people go to seminars/meetups etc locally. It is also nice that people who are normally in the office can easily participate in meetings when traveling or staying home for whatever reason.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#36

Post by lukethomas » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 8:54 PM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #6

I've been working remotely more often than not over the last four years (a brief 1-year interlude when I was back in an office full-time broke up the streak). I definitely prefer it. The advantages are too awesome! I get to spend more time with my daughter (I'm a first-time father and she is just turning a year old today). There is hardly anything in this world that makes me happier than spending time with her. If I…

How do you personally measure "a good day's work?" Is it based on gut feelings or do you have specific hours that you work? Also, do you follow a strict schedule, or leave your day open for "sporadic" opportunities?

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#37

Post by bdcravens » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 8:56 PM UTC

2.5 billion people in the world have internet access. Statistically speaking, the chances that the best person for us to hire for any position is among the 0.023 billion people in the New York metro area is unlikely.

Of course, we all know that all the good programmers live in SF.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#38

Post by dinkumthinkum » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:04 PM UTC

I really like these posts from people actually doing remote work. I think with more stories like this we can counteract this idea that remote work can't work. Obviously, we need examples from many different sized organizations.

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#39

Post by dinkumthinkum » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:06 PM UTC

lukethomas wrote: post #36

agentultra wrote: post #6

I've been working remotely more often than not over the last four years (a brief 1-year interlude when I was back in an office full-time broke up the streak). I definitely prefer it. The advantages are too awesome! I get to spend more time with my daughter (I'm a first-time father and she is just turning a year old today). There is hardly anything in this world that makes me happier than spending time with her. If I…

How do you personally measure "a good day's work?" Is it based on gut feelings or do you have specific hours that you work? Also, do you follow a strict schedule, or leave your day open for "sporadic" opportunities?

This applies to traditional work too, doesn't it? Sure, a brick layer can measure based upon how many bricks but I don't think it makes sense for programmers to measure a "good day's work" in terms of just time spent coding ... I think it is more about progress. Even if you didn't write any code, did you make some conceptual breakthroughs that will lead to better coding tomorrow?

Re: Lessons from 2 months of remote working

#40

Post by philjr » Mon, Nov 25, 2013, 9:07 PM UTC

For companies who are considering going remote have you considered the "global" problems you may have (e.g. payroll, local compliance laws - holidays etc.) ?

Do you have solutions for them?

There's a cost for most businesses to being in different countries. Typically, for larger businesses, finance and HR pick up most of the slack here. Having 17 employees potentially in 17 different companies feels like it might be a bit of a logistical burden. Any counter experiences?