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Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#31

Post by gautamdivgi »

alistairSH wrote: post #28

My team (I'm the project manager/tech lead) is roughly half remote, with the remotes including my product owner and lead test engineer (among others). As noted elsewhere, thinking remote-first is required for non-co-located teams to be successful. Technical items, in no particular order: All meetings are conducted with full video teleconferencing. Most meetings are configured to default participants as muted (help st…

I work remote most of the time and so do almost all of my colleagues. But I think you've highlighted an important issue here. White-boarding!!!

No communication tool comes close to a human drawing pictures to explain complex concepts - a picture is worth a thousand words.

What I did is invest in a Wacom tablet (I do not work for Wacom) to be able to explain and draw to people I'm on calls with. It takes a bit getting used to but definitely makes my meetings much more productive.

From a technology standpoint I'm surprised there isn't a better integrated experience to mimic the actual whiteboard that can be shared across several people on a conference call with a digital pen.

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#32

Post by mgav »

@alistairSH is right about taking time for chitchat. I think of it as an investment in a relationship, like any other. Be interested in the other people and what they're passionate about in their lives. Share some of yourself as well. Sending an occasional article or image the other person might be specifically interested in takes very little time, but if it's of quality and a great fit for them it's a nice building block.

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#33

Post by junto »

vmateixeira wrote: post #6
junto wrote: post #4

I'm one of a few remote developers on a team of 15. Daily standups, dialed in on planning meetings and the odd visit for project kick off meetings all help to make me feel a little more integrated into the team. In saying that, I'll never be as integrated as the people that are in the office everyday, but I can live with that for the flexibility remote working gives me. I should also note that I don't work from home,…

I like you're thought about the future of the work environment. Can you tell me, from your experience, how easy was for your company to accept for you to work remotely? I work for a startup in the UK, with a very small team, and can't find an easy way to apply for that.

I'm pretty much the same as you. My main client is in the UK and they are a solutions provider. At the beginning I was due to move away from the area local to the company. I made the suggestion that we try the remote working and if it didn't work for either party, we'd call it a day. That was 2004.

The most important part is trust. People know I'm sitting at my desk working and checking in code, because they can see me/call me on slack or Skype and they can see a steady stream of code check-ins nd build server and JIRA tickets being closed off. Never take the piss, always be completely honest and upfront with your time and be respectful. I can't think of any other advice I can give over that, apart from that you should definitely try to work from a coworking space rather than from home!

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#34

Post by JabavuAdams »

kasey_junk wrote: post #22
planetjones wrote: post #7

With difficulty: 1) Use as many visual techniques as possible e.g. Screen sharing and drawing pictures and sketching examples of what you're talking about. 2) open chat channels all day 3) ability to build rapport e.g. During standup calls look at what the weather is like in their country or share something about what's happening in your area at the weekend. Ice breakers if you will 4) if possible get them to visit y…

Do you have a preferred sketching tool? One thing I've yet to figure out remote is a seemless whiteboard session.

I use the free edition of Autodesk's SketchBook pro, with a Wacom tablet. This is for teaching, not remote work.

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#35

Post by joesmo »

mbrock wrote: post #25

The prevailing ideal of a commercial software team is a tight knit tribe. Members are selected for "culture fit", ability to do pleasant small talk around the lunch table, personal hygiene, and so on. The team should huddle around every day for status updates, bonding, and small talk. Communication should be frequent and face-to-face collaboration is considered the ideal. You can adapt this ideal to remote work situa…

This is exactly how we work at my job currently. We use pull requests and each programmer picks a task and goes on his way. When it's done, it's submitted to the other programmer for review (we have two full time). Most communication happens in chat and pull requests and we rarely have meetings other than the daily scrum-like sync up meeting (which is tolerable). Most tasks are half a day to a day (except larger tasks) so the turnaround is quick in case something was misunderstood. I think this process could easily scale to more developers as long as they are independent and able to work by themselves most of the time, unsupervised. That doesn't mean they have to be senior, only that they are disciplined and won't get stuck on easy problems.

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#36

Post by dvcc »

dsp1234 wrote: post #29
dhd415 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about a remote-first culture is 110% true. It has to be in the DNA of the company or else remote workers end up as second-class citizens. While it does not have to be the case, it does seem to be true that if a large portion (~50% or more) of the team is not remote, the culture will rarely end up being remote-first. If the culture is not remote-first, you end being just that guy who comes into the office e…

A concrete example of this is if someone stops by your area to ask a "quick question" then culturing an environment where an answer of, "Why don't you bring that up in the global chat so everyone can contribute?", is welcomed rather than brushed off as being unfriendly.

Would anyone else find this tiring though? I feel like I am omitting the use of basic communication skills in favor of something less than ideal.

I guess I am just not a huge fan of remote work in general though, so I have a hard time coming around to the idea that quick questions must go through a chat at all times.

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#37

Post by Touche »

dhd415 wrote: post #26
up_and_up wrote: post #14

I have worked remotely for 4 years. Start by creating a remote-first culture. Everyone should think "remote" first. Thus it should never matter if a local employee is working from home, the HQ, from the other side of the world. Make all work processes remote friendly. That should be step zero when considering hiring a remote person regardless of the reason. The goal should be to avoid a two-tiered culture. Some diffe…

Your point about a remote-first culture is 110% true. It has to be in the DNA of the company or else remote workers end up as second-class citizens. While it does not have to be the case, it does seem to be true that if a large portion (~50% or more) of the team is not remote, the culture will rarely end up being remote-first. If the culture is not remote-first, you end being just that guy who comes into the office e…

Happened to me too. I lived on the east coast and my team, where I was the only remote employee, was in the west coast. They would schedule stand-ups in their afternoons not realizing it was 7:30 my time. I didn't stay at that job very long.

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#38

Post by brador »

I tried remote developers and couldn't get it to work efficiently. Remote devs start to have mental health issues from the loneliness and lack of supervision in down times. Regular employees can start to feel jealousy towards them, and organizing teams and talks becomes hell with a random face showing up.

My advice - have a core team in house and out-source what you would have given to a remote dev. You're going to be parcelling out jobs to the remote dev(s) anyway, but with freelance they're not your problem if they get lazy and you can next them easily. Also, a single cost for the job and no employee paperwork to deal with.

Plus, if a freelancer proves themselves an excellent part of the team you just throw them more and more projects of increased scope.

It's win-win.

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#39

Post by Touche »

dvcc wrote: post #36
dsp1234 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A concrete example of this is if someone stops by your area to ask a "quick question" then culturing an environment where an answer of, "Why don't you bring that up in the global chat so everyone can contribute?", is welcomed rather than brushed off as being unfriendly.

Would anyone else find this tiring though? I feel like I am omitting the use of basic communication skills in favor of something less than ideal. I guess I am just not a huge fan of remote work in general though, so I have a hard time coming around to the idea that quick questions must go through a chat at all times.

I guess the person who is always interrupting others in favor of their own issues would find it tiring. But the person who is constantly being interrupted would find it refreshing that they can prioritize themselves.

Re: Ask HN: How do you integrate remote developers?

#40

Post by colinbartlett »

kasey_junk wrote: post #22
planetjones wrote: post #7

With difficulty: 1) Use as many visual techniques as possible e.g. Screen sharing and drawing pictures and sketching examples of what you're talking about. 2) open chat channels all day 3) ability to build rapport e.g. During standup calls look at what the weather is like in their country or share something about what's happening in your area at the weekend. Ice breakers if you will 4) if possible get them to visit y…

Do you have a preferred sketching tool? One thing I've yet to figure out remote is a seemless whiteboard session.

Realtime Board is pretty good: https://realtimeboard.com

We've used it a few times with good success.

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