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How to set junior employees up for success in remote

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Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#121

Post by josephd79 »

doubled112 wrote: post #83
selfhoster11 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% disagree. I will NOT be productive at a desk if you put me in front of a single monitor, period. That has been the case since I first tried a dual screen in a professional setting and realised the benefits. A related note is that I loathe garbage keyboards. If you make me type on some garbage rubber-dome with unbalanced and scratchy keys, I will not be happy.

I have been using a single 28" 4K screen for a while and I've never felt like I needed more pixels since. At 100% scaling there's a ton of space. No need to go through the minimize, maximize, switch, switch back usage pattern. I've never understood why people are willing to put up with garbage gear either. I'm not talking about the computer itself, but the things you touch. You sit at this machine and use it for 8h+…

I 100% agree. IF you spend 8h+ a day at your workstation or computer use the best equipment you can afford to get.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#122

Post by verve_rat »

simias wrote: post #29
_dain_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's penny wise, pound foolish thinking. A good keyboard and mouse and monitor for your developers (who directly earn you revenue) is not going to break the bank. But the lack of them will reduce productivity and morale, possibly even causing (on the margin) some talented people to leave. RSI and posture problems are no joke! In other industries you need immense capital investment in equipment for workers to be pro…

I wouldn't expect my employer to provide anything but a decent quality membrane keyboard and a middle of the range logitech mouse by default. Then people who prefer higher end hardware can ask for an upgrade. I'm typing on a 300 euro keyboard right now but I would consider it a gross waste of money if a company decided to give them to every single employee regardless of need or preference. For instance for most peopl…

That's why people should get a budget to pick their own gear.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#123

Post by RHSeeger »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #35
_dain_ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's penny wise, pound foolish thinking. A good keyboard and mouse and monitor for your developers (who directly earn you revenue) is not going to break the bank. But the lack of them will reduce productivity and morale, possibly even causing (on the margin) some talented people to leave. RSI and posture problems are no joke! In other industries you need immense capital investment in equipment for workers to be pro…

Your comment reminds me of all the people screeching about their good school district, as if it is somehow capable of covering for them if they choose to be a crap parent. In both cases the stuff people are fussing over is basically a rounding error compared to the big factors. Beyond some basic utility, e.g. being able to compile the code in under 5min, the hardware one uses is of negligible impact to their success.…

A glitchy mouse or bad keyboard will definitely make or break a developer's productivity. I can only spend so long correctly typos before it starts to negatively impact my mental state. And since so much of my job is building mental models of things, that is a direct impact to my productivity. I experience it every time I'm forced to use the keyboard/trackpad on my mac (because I can't type effectively on membrane keyboards).

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#124

Post by l30n4da5 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #106

"I think anyone who can’t work well remote, on average, will not be your top performers anyway." Ah, there it is, the bountiful blind arrogance I have come to expect from threads like this on HN. It's like you didn't even read my post, just looked for the hook to drop in and proclaim your superiority.

> It's like you didn't even read my post, just looked for the hook to drop in and proclaim your superiority.

Seemed to me it was just a counter-point to your post. If you don't have anything productive to add, that's fine, but resorting to personal attacks doesn't really make your argument/viewpoint look better.

From my own personal experience, I'd mirror what the previous poster said. Most of the top performers in a remote setting (at least with software engineering) are usually also a top performer in an office setting. Does that mean there are not outliers? No.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#125

Post by lkrubner »

(quoting book)

Amanda Nock, a tech leader and devops expert who posts frequently to Twitter, offered this in response when I posted on Twitter about how to hire good people remotely, “When I hire remotely, I ask about their online friends.” Nock doesn’t need the details of anyone’s online friendships, but she needs to know that the person has developed a serious friendship online; otherwise that person probably doesn’t communicate easily and naturally online, so working with them remotely is going to be difficult.

Nock says, “I often hire remotely, and I make a point to ask about what people's online lives are like. No details. If someone, for instance, has good relationships on Twitter or they're active in a Discord server, that tells me they're good at asynchronous remote communication. I don't care if the Discord server they're active in is a furry community or whatever, the details don't matter — the skill for forming relationships and communicating in a personable way over asynchronous text is there.”

(end quote)

But I think the opposite is also true: a lot of people do not easily form friendships online, and they lack online social skills, so they are not going work well remotely. These people are more productive in a traditional office.

From what I've seen, many people struggle to truly express themselves in written form. This includes well educated people. And those who are extroverted need to talk. Remote work tends to put an emphasis on written communication, and that is only partly offset by having a lot of Zoom meetings.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#126

Post by mihaic »

lettergram wrote: post #101
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #46

This is not a surprise to me. I think it also applies to some people who are senior and new on a project or team. Or people with a more synchronous working style. I think remote has been toxic to productivity in all sorts of companies and for all sorts of people. I think there's in general a "personality type" that does really well with remote in a certain kind of job and thrives with fairly asynchronous disconnected…

I think anyone who can’t work well remote, on average, will not be your top performers anyway. What I mean by that — as a manager and one of the senior engineers, I had insight across our organization to projects and employee performance. Those who thrived being remote were those who already were the top performers. Those who were followers; who lacked discipline, failed faster and more obviously. Most software engin…

> I think anyone who can’t work well remote, on average, will not be your top performers anyway.

This sort of overgeneralization just tells me we'll have people in 5-10 years "realize" that many of the benefits of remote work were just built on relationships and processes created in the days before. It's like the "open office" floor planning all over again, but with higher stakes.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#127

Post by koonsolo »

M0r13n wrote: post #59

I can not relate to this. I found my first real job after university in a medium sized company (100-200 employees). This company is a truly in-office company by heart. Before covid everybody had to go to the office. Working from home was not an option. Not even for one day. The whole culture was built around the in-person work experience. But due to covid everybody worked remote. So did I. I actually never met most o…

Let me make a bet here: You are self-taught in a lot of ways, and in your spare time also like to fool around with software development stuff.

That's why you don't need hand holding. A lot of your peers do need hand holding to get stuff done.

I'm a 43 year old developer, and I can work remotely without any issues. Partly because my development experience was always broader than my job alone.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#128

Post by giantg2 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #85
giantg2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I used to be more productive WFH when I was already acclimated on a team. When I joined a new team and it turned fully remote, my productivity dropped and it took me longer to come up to speed than if I were in the office.

Honestly, I was on a team @ Google that was doing consumer hardware. It had problems before WFH started, but it got 5X worse once we got sent home. The whole situation was highly unproductive, a combination of bad politics, but also a degraded tech stack with a pile of technical debt and a build system that took forever to finish, and then because of Google's "no source code on your laptop" policies (which they stubb…

Our company handled remote fairly well. The overall team/work organization has been poor whether remote or in office. In our case, the resignations have been driven by the fact that people leaving the company can get 1.5-2x their current salary. We have had a lot of other team member move to new teams at the same company too (hopefully I'm one of them in the next couple weeks).

Good luck at the new job!

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#129

Post by avgcorrection »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #106

"I think anyone who can’t work well remote, on average, will not be your top performers anyway." Ah, there it is, the bountiful blind arrogance I have come to expect from threads like this on HN. It's like you didn't even read my post, just looked for the hook to drop in and proclaim your superiority.

HN holds that mythical lone^W solo^W remote hacker in high regard.

Re: How to set junior employees up for success in remote

#130

Post by cmrdporcupine »

l30n4da5 wrote: post #124
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #106

"I think anyone who can’t work well remote, on average, will not be your top performers anyway." Ah, there it is, the bountiful blind arrogance I have come to expect from threads like this on HN. It's like you didn't even read my post, just looked for the hook to drop in and proclaim your superiority.

> It's like you didn't even read my post, just looked for the hook to drop in and proclaim your superiority. Seemed to me it was just a counter-point to your post. If you don't have anything productive to add, that's fine, but resorting to personal attacks doesn't really make your argument/viewpoint look better. From my own personal experience, I'd mirror what the previous poster said. Most of the top performers in a…

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