161–170 of 210 posts
I'm not sure there's much valuable advice however, as the way you should set up your process seems pretty obvious once you really decide that including remote workers is a high priority.
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>It's not always easy to work for a month from a Caribbean island while squeezing in scuba certifications (ง'-')ง
Is that a fisticuffs emoticon? I'm stealing it.
Any recommendation for video conferencing? We are using hangout and it is not reliable at all :(
Tried amazon chime 2 times I think. As far as I can tell, software seemed good.
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Or I can drive to the city whenever I feel like. Imagine how open the highways would be if this was how everyone worked/lived. Clear the highways. Save the planet. Work from home.
How can we make this happen? I've been thinking of this as a potential startup idea. What hardware/software can we build that would make companies feel comfortable with many remote workers, and also ensure those remote workers are able to collaborate and work efficiently?
I've worked with people from all over the world across many different time zones. Email, Google Hangouts / Skype, IRC and Slack are all what I use on a regular basis to communicate with clients and it works out well.
I offset working alone from my place of residence by going outside a bunch of times per day for exercise and talking with people around the neighborhood. I also try to goto local tech meetups when I can.
Overall I would say I feel happy and generally feel like I'm making the best use of my time. I don't think I would trade this life style in for anything (within reason :D).
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Pairing is very much a cultural thing. It's either normal or it's not. If it's not it tends to only be a "ask me for help if needed", which leads to not doing it. That's not really pairing either, that's just "Let me know if anybody needs any help." The perks of pairing are regularly unsticking stuck people, getting another set of eyes on a problem, learning from each others development habits as a side effect of doi…
This is the typical response to pair push-back. And I have no interest in convincing anyone why it is not for me. I will interview.
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Or I can drive to the city whenever I feel like. Imagine how open the highways would be if this was how everyone worked/lived. Clear the highways. Save the planet. Work from home.
And spend much less money on commuter infrastructure. If a highway can realistically be cut down to two lanes per direction instead of three, there's less to maintain.
The positive is that I am entirely focused on GSD. I'm not sure about everywhere, but the place I was in-house at was fairly sparse and focused as well. I dread the thought of ever working at a place with pool tables or other distractions.
Working remotely puts a lot of trust in my work. They trust that I'm doing what I say I'm doing when I track hours. I've never had an issue disputing hours, so that's not a negative.
Working remotely pegs you as one of the smart ones. Apparently I earned the right to work remotely? I don't know, it's just work to me, but I also do a lot of short-term contracts, so the image is probably different.
This leads to the big downside. Out of sight, out of mind, out of personally caring. This somewhat goes both ways, but it's difficult to make text friends. Humans are simply wired for face-to-face, and I don't think Skype really replaces that.
This causes some problems with impedance. If I ask a question, I would need an answer right away because that's likely a blocking issue. If everyone else is on lunch, in a meeting, and so on, it leaves me hanging.
A positive is seeing a whole lot of codebases. It really helps you understand where you and everyone else is in the pecking order. It also brings up a lot of issues surrounding the meaning of good -vs- bad code, experts programmers, and so on. Exposure has shown me that these concepts are murky at best.
A negative is that some companies try to pay lower, selling remote work as a benefit. It isn't. I often have to split my day and work odd hours to keep myself on the same page as everyone else, nullifying whatever inconvenience I gain from not going to and from a local company.
But, really, it all comes down the company that you are working with. It is obvious when they haven't worked with outside developers, so I think it's a lot more about the company than the actual ability to work remotely.
Remote work is just work, and I don't think that, outside of direct human interaction and speed of communication, there is a significant difference between in-house and remote. Either way, code is written and shipped.
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> - You're constantly alone. Even if nowadays we have great communications tools, the reality is that you'll spend 95% of your time alone in front of a computer in an empty apartment. I am excluding working from coffee shops because of the noise and bad setup (chair/table), this can only work once in a while. I had this issue as well, but managed to solve it by renting an office with a few of my remote working friend…
It's a fine fix but many companies don't pay for that so you're out $200+ a month in a large city. It also gets complicated if you take the home office deduction
I had a totally different experience from the author of this article. Maybe, this was due to the fact that I was working remotely for 4 years with different startups maniacs. Biggest issues were : - Nobody sees how much you are invested into your day to day work. They just see bunch of commits / builds and the little gray or green presence indicator on your messenger app. But if you are struggling for 3 days x 10 hou…
