141–150 of 191 posts
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I actually enjoy my commuting time. I listen to podcasts or think about what I need to do when I get to work (or home). If I'm on my bicycle, I find that my mine really wanders and I enjoy that. Once I'm at work, I get down to it and am good for about 4 hours or so (on good days) of really good work. Spend an hour or two on email, light reading, talking to coworkers, and that's my day.
You're the only one. Commuting SUCKS!
Other reasons to allow or even encourage remote work: In the US, there's a growing polarization between the coasts and middle America ("flyover country"). I, for one, don't want all the good programming jobs to be on the west coast. Remote work, where the workers bring their own equipment and office setup, is probably better for people with disabilities. For example, an employer doesn't have to care or possibly even…
> we lose the nuances that are communicated ... But think of all the kinds of discrimination That reminds me communist utopia: lets make all people equal ... by making everyone poor.
I agree with every word of this article and after 25yrs experience as a developer I have all similar experiences. Being a computer programmer is about the same as being a 'writer' (book author), and no one expects an author to sit with other authors in a special building to be able to write. With modern technology, and the wastefulness of time and energy spent commuting, there is just no longer any reason for a progr…
Most books don't require 10-100 authors, each focusing on the paragraph that they are experts in, needing to hold the pages together with APIs that are agreed upon by all co-authors. The collaborative aspect of a software project is much greater than that of a book. Yes, there are books that have a multiple of co-authors, but these co-authors tend to not operate lone-wolf.
Looking at software, it becomes very complicated when you throw multiple engineers. If it's written in a manner where people don't talk to each other for weeks and just showing up with the pieces as if building an oil tanker with prefabricated parts that are put together.
Software is much more complicated endeavour and it's fueled by the endless changes that can be made. Nothing is solid or have physical constraints that clearly limit options once the product is out the door, where as software can very easily ebb and flow with changing stakeholders and turnover.
50 shades of grey didn't have multiple authors that came before each other and a group of guys writing it together and readers demanding changes that caters to them.
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How does text chat or video conference not fix that issue? Look at all these open source projects that manage to flourish across languages, time zones, etc.
I have a feeling open source projects flourish in spite of their distributed contributors. Text chat is a poor replacement to in-person conversation as it is occasionally async and a lot of meaning is lost. Video conference is better, but is less spontaneous and makes it harder to pull someone else into the conversation. Above all, text and video eliminate serendipity - I won't overhear the the conversation my collea…
I completely agree with the author's points, except for one small caveat--the overall quality of projects that one can find in remote work (at least based on my personal experience and search) is usually abysmal. At first glance, a good indicator would be the salaries that remote companies pay, and most remote companies tend to pay peanuts, using 'remote' as an excuse to underpay, and thus also signaling that they do…
Remote work can be about enjoying your work (and work environment) as well as the lifestyle it provides (flexible work hours, no commute, live in the mountains/at the beach/etc). That is worth something and most remote workers who value those things gladly give up some pay and project 'quality' to have them. I wouldn't trade my daily lunch with my wife and kids for twice the salary.
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> If pivoting your engineering goals requires hallway conversations, there's something wrong. I agree but isn't there always something wrong? I'm in that spot, I worked mostly remote for the past 4 years and at every company it would have helped a lot to have a casual hallway conversation from time to time. It shouldn't be necessary but in reality it often is. It seem to me like you need well thought out, light weigh…
Do none of those companies utilize chat? My experience with "open office" arrangements is that most of the conversation (important and casual) takes place in chats anyway--even between people sitting right next to eachother--because generally people don't want to distract uninvolved parties.
Sure they do. But you're going to miss adhoc conversations that people in the same physical location have. Remote people aren't left out on purpose, but many times this chatter doesn't warrant saying "Hold on, let's not talk to each other's faces. Better do this on Slack.".
Source: Worked remote for about four years, really missed these kinds of random chatter.
I completely agree with the author's points, except for one small caveat--the overall quality of projects that one can find in remote work (at least based on my personal experience and search) is usually abysmal. At first glance, a good indicator would be the salaries that remote companies pay, and most remote companies tend to pay peanuts, using 'remote' as an excuse to underpay, and thus also signaling that they do…
Yep, Linux is really abysmal, isn't it? ;)
Yep, I've been 100% remote for 5 years now (wow, it feels weird to see that number!) and am never going back, for the same reasons. The only caveat is that it's important that you work in an organization that is aligned with remote work, if not remote-first. Just scoring 'permission' to work remotely somewhere not used to it, is probably a recipe for a pretty bad time.
Just scoring 'permission' to work remotely somewhere not used to it, is probably a recipe for a pretty bad time. Why is that?
Hence the idea that remote working is probably most effective when companies treat it as the norm--at least on a group by group basis.
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Yep, Linux is really abysmal, isn't it? ;)
There are some outliers like Digital Ocean and Github, but these are not the common case...
Here are just some successful companies that are heavily remote-based:
Automattic (WordPress) AgileBits (1Password) Basecamp Chef Gitlab Olark Percona Plex Zapier
WordPress powers over 25% of the web, remember. They have been remote since the beginning and have hundreds of employees.
I've worked remotely for many years. There are good companies and bad, but I've never seen evidence a company failed because it was remote and you've provided no data or examples. Companies fail for a multitude of reasons, but you're essentially saying that successful remote companies are a fluke. Nonsense.
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Do none of those companies utilize chat? My experience with "open office" arrangements is that most of the conversation (important and casual) takes place in chats anyway--even between people sitting right next to eachother--because generally people don't want to distract uninvolved parties.
> Do none of those companies utilize chat? Sure they do. But you're going to miss adhoc conversations that people in the same physical location have. Remote people aren't left out on purpose, but many times this chatter doesn't warrant saying "Hold on, let's not talk to each other's faces. Better do this on Slack.". Source: Worked remote for about four years, really missed these kinds of random chatter.
[1] My favorite post on the subject is Holman's: https://zachholman.com/posts/remote-first/