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Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

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Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#121
post #109
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried Slack's Screenhero integration? Being able to type /hero @username and start pair programming in seconds (with audio!) is a huge productivity increase.

Does this work in Linux ?

You still need to download the Screenhero client to work in conjunction with the Slack client. I don't think there's a Screenhero Linux client.

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#122
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Failure to recognize the importance of relating to other people is a technical deficiency.

Using flawed methods to do so is one too, probably more damning.

What's your point? That you shouldn't try to filter candidates for culture fit because your methods for doing so might be flawed?

Sure, anything done badly enough can be worse than not doing it, but that is a completely obvious and irrelevant assertion. It's still important to filter for culture fit.

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#123
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last two in my experience are handled by treating the remote employees as effectively contractors. They'll incorporate as an independent company, and then bill themselves out for whatever salary they're on, taking on responsibility for their own taxes and other requirements.

For US workers that may very well run afoul of labor and tax laws (and in fact almost certainly does). For foreign ones it depends on their laws.

Is that actually the case? As far as I'm aware in the UK at least its not that you're outright forbidden to work as a contractor under conditions that would otherwise be considered employment, you just have to pay tax on that basis rather than pretending you're really an independent company.

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using flawed methods to do so is one too, probably more damning.

What's your point? That you shouldn't try to filter candidates for culture fit because your methods for doing so might be flawed? Sure, anything done badly enough can be worse than not doing it, but that is a completely obvious and irrelevant assertion. It's still important to filter for culture fit.

No, it really isn't. If you have professionals on your team, they will be able to work together.

And once again, most places are using "culture fit" as a way to say, "Not like me", and using it to enable discriminatory hiring practices.

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Navy (reserve) vet here - I definitely agree that culture can be taught but unfortunately you have to find someone willing to learn. And unfortunately, most software developers aren't of the military "situationally adaptive" mindset but rather the "I'm a hot commodity where the hell is the ping pong table" mindset. It's far easier for most young companies with ping pong tables to hire developers that like ping pong t…

We are remarkably malleable. Being "situationally adaptive" is universally human.

You're correct and I was mistaken to give the impression that it is a "military-only" sort of thing - far from it. That being said, the human tendency to optimize for laziness often overrides our adaptive capabilities and instead pushes for maximizing comfort. The military does tend to train against this mindset (to varying degrees of success) - yet they are far from the only (or even most successful) of that ilk.

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#126
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? That you shouldn't try to filter candidates for culture fit because your methods for doing so might be flawed? Sure, anything done badly enough can be worse than not doing it, but that is a completely obvious and irrelevant assertion. It's still important to filter for culture fit.

No, it really isn't. If you have professionals on your team, they will be able to work together. And once again, most places are using "culture fit" as a way to say, "Not like me", and using it to enable discriminatory hiring practices.

> No, it really isn't. If you have professionals on your team, they will be able to work together.

Okay, would it feel more comfortable if we interviewed for "professionalism" instead of "culture fit"? Fully realizing that standards of professionalism are different for each company and team within a company, i.e. that professional standards are part of a team's culture?

> And once again, most places are using "culture fit" as a way to say, "Not like me", and using it to enable discriminatory hiring practices.

That is true sometimes, but not always.

More to the point, tightening the politically correctness standards of language around the problem does absolutely nothing to prevent discrimination--it just makes discrimination harder to identify. And in the process you're throwing out the idea that sometimes people aren't likely to get along--which is not a function of race/gender/class/etc. If you think someone is using "cultural fit" as an excuse for discrimination, the solution is to call them out for that, not to pretend that "cultural fit" doesn't describe a real phenomenon. What makes you think that a bigot can't say that someone isn't technically qualified in order to exclude them?

A perfect example of this: I said someone wasn't a cultural fit a year ago, but I was outvoted because of his technical abilities. Four months later he was fired for groping the administrative assistant, and afterward, more incidents came to light. Do you think that my workplace was more or less discriminatory because we hired someone without regard to his cultural fit?

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#127
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring teams that are just "getting their feet wet" with remote workers are going to be more hesitant. When there is an in-company precedent for what remote work is like, I find them to be more open. For me, making the transition from on-site to remote work was difficult. Like any job skill, it's something I had to be able to demonstrate proficiency and/or history with before I could land full-time, remote employment…

That creates a chicken-and-egg situation, though, since it is not a skill you can develop on your own. There are a set of skills (remote work, TDD, pair programming, Agile, etc.) that, almost by definition, you need to do professionally to become proficient at. If all the professional gigs expect you to already be proficient, you never get there.

I never worked remotely but I don't think it's hard and I want to do it in near future. The way to do that is to find a company that is open for new ideas. Start working on full time office job and after month or two if your job position allows for that, ask for day or two in a week of remote work. This will allow you and the company to test that solution and check it it's working for both of you.

Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#128
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Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#129

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Re: Why Remote Work Should Change Startup Culture

#130
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring teams that are just "getting their feet wet" with remote workers are going to be more hesitant. When there is an in-company precedent for what remote work is like, I find them to be more open. For me, making the transition from on-site to remote work was difficult. Like any job skill, it's something I had to be able to demonstrate proficiency and/or history with before I could land full-time, remote employment…

That creates a chicken-and-egg situation, though, since it is not a skill you can develop on your own. There are a set of skills (remote work, TDD, pair programming, Agile, etc.) that, almost by definition, you need to do professionally to become proficient at. If all the professional gigs expect you to already be proficient, you never get there.

Lots of finding work and vetting skills is actually a chicken or the egg problem. You have to find the places that are willing to offer opportunity with less proven background in order to open the door to bigger opportunities. This is like any job skill.
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