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Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
181–190 of 277 posts
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience is that some people genuinely are less productive without the social pressure net of their co-workers around them, or literally the boss on-hand as a sort of "productivity enforcer." It's varied wildly from job to job, office culture to culture, and at an individual level, but I take all those experiences with me and it tints my perceptions of productivity as well. I remember when I was a recruiter it w…
How could you be as productive as an office of hardcore recruiters with their managers setting excellent KPIs and tracking goals and establishing milestones and shouting "a bit quiet over there!" occasionally? By separating the performance of "productivity" (i.e. nearly everything you mentioned) from actual productivity. Not everyone does well with remote work. For those that do, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the…
I agree, but it seems silly to assume that offices are peak productivity for everyone—this is a common excuse for not allowing remote work. Some of this is understandable but it really comes down to resentment between remote vs in person.
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
When building remote teams, we've tried to hire within common geographic areas, so the regional team can meet once per week at a Starbucks or co-working space of their choosing. The commute may be up to a 1 hour for some members, but it addresses the isolation challenge. We also try to bring the entire company together in-person once per year an at annual tech conference.
So, not really remote. More like a "work from home" style. A good remote culture allows someone in any timezone to be part of it or it loses the greatest advantage of remote working. If working together is the only social activity the person has, he's not cut out for remote work.
Work from home, but primarily accountable to teams in other timezones. The regional teams coordinate their own in-person activities.
Culturally, the concept of remote work is not well understood in countries like the Philippines and India. The occasional social "meeting" is more to convince their family members they have a "real job" with physical place of business.
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#184This is such a smart move. I was one of the first two simul-hire remotes at Mapbox (when the company was ~12 people) and, until I left in 2017, the longest-term remote there at seven years. I've been fully remote for thirteen years. At Mapbox, I unofficially took on the role of internal advocate for remote culture. It wasn't always easy to be remote, but as the company grew, Eric, the CEO, was fond of saying that "ev…
The lack of parties and happy hours is music to my ears, personally. I can't stand these events, and they often work in the service of this strange social construct that we all know and love - "culture." At some point socializing with your teammates outside of working hours became part of the job. Its strange really, to almost force these things on people, as it doesn't even serve to strengthen the team bond that much. Soldiers don't bond at the bar, they bond on the field; they socialize at the bar.
Loneliness and isolation is often cited as a downside of remote work, but as someone who doesn't like to mix work/personal and has a healthy personal social life, I just can't see it being an issue for everyone.
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Often it was lonely, isolating, I felt out of the loop on some decisions, I didn't get some in-jokes and nicknames, I missed the non-holiday parties and happy hours, etc." I am in this boat now. . . and find it really tough. Many others I know feel the same way but it is rarely talked about. How do you get over the social isolation of being remote?
There are two parts to this: work and your local community. For work, you're not going to do it alone. Someone on the HR side (or just general management, if the company is still quite small) is going to have to be a willing sounding board for remote employee concerns. On the social side, this might be supporting a policy (as Mapbox did, maybe still does) of flying remotes to the holiday and other big parties, as wel…
> On the technical and process side, we had a policy of things not existing (or not existing properly) unless they were in written form. This included decisions, context, back-and-forth reasoning, announcements, etc. We used GitHub for non-code "tickets" this way, almost like an internal blog and topic-focused discussion forum.
We are working on making this process more scalable at Aether’s Pro version, it is especially useful for remote companies as you mentioned. It helps that we are a remote company as well, eating your own dog food is the fastest way to improve. If you’d like to get on the pilot, hit me up and I’ll add you in.
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean “why is this even a question?”? It’s a question that frequently comes up in remote worn discussions. Stripe being a big company, and now making a big commitment to remote work, is likely to be an example other companies draw from.
Can you name a single company that pays Remote Employees SF/Bay Area salaries? Edit: Fair enough. There are companies that pay everyone SF level salaries but you can also find companies like Gitlab - 100% Remote but they explicitly downscale from SF salaries based on location. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c...
Elastic https://elastic.co
Some stats:
- Not just "Remote but in the US"
- 1,000+ employees
- 40+ countries
- Local holidays
- Co-working Space stipend, if you want it
- Almost nobody goes to the offices we do have
- Everything is written down and x/referenced: GH, email, Slack
- Zoom for face to face
- Engineering All Hands: Usually twice a year, once EU, once US
- You work on your own Timezone, expecting otherwise is ridiculous
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you name a single company that pays Remote Employees SF/Bay Area salaries? Edit: Fair enough. There are companies that pay everyone SF level salaries but you can also find companies like Gitlab - 100% Remote but they explicitly downscale from SF salaries based on location. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c...
BaseCamp. https://github.com/basecamp/handbook/blob/master/making-a-ca...
Do you see any reported salaries? The numbers on Glassdoor for Basecamp are quite low when they claim top 10%.
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#188Is there any information on the application/interview process available?
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#189This is great to see. In the past, I had wanted to apply to Stripe, but left saddened when they didn't offer remote positions as I've worked remote for the past 3 or 4 years.
There are a lot of factors & regulations that make South America uniquely difficult. For example, regulations state that in Brazil the payment processors (like Stripe) cannot pay out funds until 30 days after they are earned.
This obviously isn't the best user experience. It will just take longer to build something truly great that can span the globe.
Re: Stripe’s fifth engineering hub is Remote
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are pros and cons. I've been partial remote for 6 years and full remote for nearly 5. I can do whatever I need to do to get into the flow of work; music, no music, lights, no lights, etc. I don't have to conform to what happens at an office. I can start early or work late (my "office" is several time zones away). I can take a personal call w/out feeling guilty. What I cannot do is walk over to a colleague's des…
There are certain jobs that I think could really benefit from pairing, akin to pair programming. I used to do compliance work for a bank, and I think as a whole our reporting defect rate would have plummeted had we worked in pairs. Obviously for some jobs this is cost prohibitive and otherwise impractical, but an ideal working environment for me would be remote and part-time pairing. You get consistent human interact…
We've done a few "mobbing" sessions with three remote people and it worked out very well. We got a lot done and we all felt a high level of energy for days afterward.