A Short Rant About Working Remotely • Hacker News Board

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#241

Post by chalst » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 7:37 PM UTC

rwhitman wrote: post #108

A few notes from someone who's worked remotely roughly 60% of the last 10 years - 1) Most investors know that startups are generally at a disadvantage with a remote team and give founders shit for hiring remote people. I've found thats one of the reasons early stage folks don't hire more remote people. And there is some truth to being more creative with a team around you... if the team is awesome. Also communication…

2) Working remotely when you are self-directed and not under tons of pressure, really does lead to awful productivity. At home there are just so many ways to procrastinate

This is not true for everyone. There is a huge variance in how vulnerable people are to procrastination.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#242

Post by artyom » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 7:40 PM UTC

bonchibuji wrote: post #160

I have a question here - 'Does biggies which acquire startups care whether the employees of the startup work remotely or from a central (base) location?;

From my experience, they absolutely do care. "Biggies" with a tight corporate mindset would consider remote work as a deal-breaker. Others may be able to work something out, like insane compensation for relocation, and such.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#243

Post by jstelly » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #145

"...But I don't see a reason why, in 2013, given the tools we have, a developer has to be on-site at a desk every day, as the normal operating procedure..." I am struggling with this same question, but from the other side. I help teams become more Agile, and I'm a startup junkie, so all I care about is performance here. I want to know what works best in terms of product quality and pivot ability. And guess what? So f…

I'm generally not interested in hiring remote workers at our company. While it can work in rare cases (where the need for collaboration is low) it is much more the exception than the rule for us. Our company culture and structure is based around trust and collaboration. We allow VPN/remote work, but as a tradeoff. For the most part, our employees are local and have a desk in the office that they spend most of their time in. I agree that in some cases working from home offers a greater opportunity for focus and freedom from distraction. But for that case we have VPN. The rest of the time everyone benefits from closer collaboration.

For what it's worth we have done several experiments. We even tried having a remote worker on a constant skype connection, with a monitor/camera in a shared office with other workers (over a period of several months). Based on our data I would say that there is a measurable decline in value when a person shifts to >50% remote work in our environment. That may not be true for other environments of course.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#244

Post by Claudus » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 7:57 PM UTC

I work remotely as a programmer / designer, it's the best job I've had, and I'm far more productive than I've ever been, with a lost less time spent.

I'm sure collaborating in person is necessary for some people, but if you're working with people who can visualize what you're talking about with words it seems pretty great to me.

Not everyone is suited for working remotely, but for those who are, I think it suits us very well.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#245

Post by adrianbg » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 7:59 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #232

el_cuadrado wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2006 happened 7 years ago. Time flies.

Software changes in 7 years - people don't. [I mean the average person; individuals age and get more experienced, but new ones come in.] Today's homo sapiens brains function the same way as in 2006. Productivity of mental workers responds to disruptions in the same way as in 2006. A large majority of programmers and other people working now in IT are the very same people that were analyzed in 2006.

Brain function is not the only variable at play here. Software and culture change constantly.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#246

Post by lifeguard » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 8:03 PM UTC

adrianhoward wrote: post #176

lifeguard wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "war room" solution is often a symptom of generalized poor management. And bad project management drives away experienced staff. The open office plan is a nightmare for tech work IMO.

Then how do you explain the many happy teams I see working in exactly that environment, and how do you explain the research? (Part of the confusion may be that "war room" and "open plan" are not synonyms. The former only includes people actively working on the project. This is not the environment where you have the sales guy yapping on the phone.)

I said it is often a symptom, not always. Of course it is possible to have a happy team in almost any environment.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#247

Post by samspot » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 8:09 PM UTC

I think part of the problem is that many companies are already incapable of managing on-site employees effectively (we've all experienced this!). If you can't effectively manage the people you see face to face, I imagine remote workers would be a disaster.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#248

Post by tacticus » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 8:20 PM UTC

laffra wrote: post #239

supercanuck wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Time 2. Networking, Networking, Networking 3. Be willing to talk about yourself a lot. 4. Act Confident in the face of uncertainty.

I could not help but misread #3 as "be willing to talk to yourself a lot".

That would be part of 4a. talk to the smartest person in the room, even if it is you.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#249

Post by reefoctopus » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 8:24 PM UTC

agotterer wrote: post #37

I'm personally not a big fan of remote workers. Not because I don't think the tools are adequate or that I trust they are actually working. I think there's something special that can't be reproduced when a small team that's just starting out is physically together. I've been at a few startups and I can't count how many times a good idea or breakthrough came while we were out getting lunch, a beer or playing pool in t…

I currently work remotely, and I agree with you that there is something special about working physically together. There isn't a good remote substitute for standing in front of a white board with another coder. We tended to get excited when we thought of a cool new feature or solved a problem. I fed off of their excitement and they fed off mine.

Re: A Short Rant About Working Remotely

#250

Post by wpietri » Thu, Jan 31, 2013, 8:33 PM UTC

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #63

adrianhoward wrote: post #43

(lightly edited copy of my usual plea for evidence on this topic ;-) Pretty much all the evidence (rather than anecdote) I can find shows that co-located teams in a single team room environment are the most productive - all other things being equal. (And I'm saying this as somebody who spends a lot of their time working from home, and talking to other folk over Skype, etc. There are reasons for telecommuting - person…

co-located teams in team-room like settings are much more productive Whenever I've seen this done, the very best employees leave. I am a firm believer that you can train yourself to hop in and out of a reasonable facsimile to the "zone" in much less than 20-30 minutes (I do it all the time)[1]; but the level of distraction of the warroom type environment massively favors your more extroverted engineers. My experience…

I think it depends on how you run the war room. The way I prefer it is no off-topic conversation, no distractions, inside voices, and a lot of respect for your co-workers. Also, you need to provide convenient nearby meeting and lounge spaces so that people who want to do those things can easily do it elsewhere. I think that's a great environment for focus.

It takes some commitment to make it happen. Without everybody committing to a low-distraction workplace, volume is definitely the default. But I think the benefits of a team environment make it worth the effort.