Working Remotely

http://arandomurl.com/2011/09/03/working-remotely.html

by daleharvey • 15 years ago

201 73 15 years ago

kvgr• 15 years ago

Great post, do you know if there is any list of techcompanies looking for remote/parttime workers? I am student from Europe and would really like to start working for some interesting company, but when I read job lists, most of them do not have option for remote work, and if they do then, just for US citizens.

epenn• 15 years ago

On the first of every month there is an automated "Who is hiring?" post to HN. Then people/companies reply in the comments with what they have available. There are always a good number of remote jobs posted as well. Here is a link to the current thread for August: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2831646

daleharvey4• 15 years ago

Thanks

the only remote job listings I have seen are on hacker news

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2719028 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2270791 (cant find a more recent one)

and as I mentioned in the post, working on open source / following open source companies is a good idea as there is quite a large correlation between being distributed and open source

mfowler• 15 years ago

Nice post, I'm curious if you ever make the venture to HQ to meet up with your coworkers or are you 100% virtual?

I've found that the occasional trip to the office to meet and greet, bond over drinks and do some rapid fire planning seems to recharge both those in the office and those on the remote teams.

daleharvey4• 15 years ago

yeh definitely, I am just back this weekend from a 3 week trip over to the office, I really enjoy spending time with coworkers and I even enjoy spending some time in the office, I just like having time not in the office as well.

warambil• 15 years ago

Great post. I work remotely and I feel great. 100% satisfied

cpenner461• 15 years ago

I've been working remotely as a dev for the past 6 months or so - love it! My take on his questions:

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Not really. I'm on IRC all day so have plenty of technical interaction throughout the day, and there's always the outside world (lunch, friends, etc).

“How do you get work done?” I almost think I get more work done working remotely than I do in an office because I won't spend 30m here and there talking about my weekend or whatever, I just work. Casual web surfing (HN etc) is about the same (i.e. occasionally when I need a break). I spend a few days every other month or so actually at the office, which has proven to be very productive, but in a different way. There's a dynamic that (I've found) you can only get in person, face to face, that doesn't involve cranking out lines of code, but just being able to talk through various issues/strategies/directions/etc. It's refreshing to have that time every over month or so.

“Doesn’t it affect your quality of life?” Absolutely! But in a very very good way. Granted I was commuting 1hr+ each way, so I immediately gained 10+ hours a week and save $3-400/mo on gas. The flexibility is amazing. Working at an office I had to leave early (6am) to try to beat the traffic. This morning I took my son to Panera to pick up bagels for the family before starting work (for example).

The whole experience thus far really makes me wonder why more companies don't embrace it more.

Tomis2• 15 years ago

At my current work place (which I'm looking to change, by the way) I work remotely but with a horrible twist.

First of all I have to come into the office and stay there for 8 hours a day -which is normal- but then I have to login to another computer via remote desktop and work on that environment, even though I have a perfectly functional computer right in front of me.

Things wouldn't be so bad if the remote server wouldn't be a few thousand kilometers away and the lag weren't so noticeable that it induced regular urges to go take a nap and took away most of the desire to write any kind of code.

I think most of you agree that anything less than instant response when you type a word or scroll a page is practically torture when done for 8 hours a day. I would have never imagined that it would be possible to have better working conditions at home than at work, but nevertheless here I am, living the horror.

One of the things I've learned from this experience is that I still tremendously enjoy programming stuff at home and that when I have a good working environment I can become more productive by orders of magnitude.

arethuza• 15 years ago

So you go into the office to then work remotely?

You have my profound sympathy.

Tomis2• 15 years ago

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I've confronted my manager about this and his first answer was an attempt to bullshit me by saying we're working remotely (as opposed to locally) for security reasons; the obvious reply to that monumental pile of crap was to employ my 1337 haX0r skills to copy a whole folder from the remote machine right onto my local desktop (ctrl+C/ctrl+V, actually) - there's your security right there.

Working at that place made me a witness to a constant stream of fail.

microarchitect• 15 years ago

I do this too. I work in the semiconductor industry where I'm told this is the norm.

It really sucks.

nivertech• 15 years ago

It's better work remotely even with lagging latency, that dress-up in funny suite and go to the clean room ;)

mgkimsal2• 15 years ago

I've got one project where I need to RDP in to a windows server, then RDP from that one in to another one. The second one is constantly unavailable - 'too many terminal services connections' or something like that. But this is only one client, and it'll be over soon. You have my condolences.

smiler• 15 years ago

Tip: log in to the console. From cmd line :

mstsc /v:servername /admin mstsc /v:servername /console

admin or console switch depends on version of Windows. One of them will work. Most ppl don't know this. It also has the advantage (in a pinch) that if you need to login to a server, you can log out the current console session and login yourself. Something you can't do with regular terminal sessions (Unless the server is in a domain, and you can connect to terminal services manager remotely and log ppl off)

neebz2• 15 years ago

I have been working remotely for around 8 months.

The best thing about remote work is not that you can work from home but the fact that you don't need to be in office to work.

We know you can work in cafes etc. but also you can work while travelling around the globe. That's one great advantage and I love it.

I get the luxury to go around, stay in new cities (heck even countries) and meet new people while working. All I need to ensure is that I have internet access.

JonWood2• 15 years ago

So very true - I'm going away for a week with extended family in the middle of August, and because I work remotely anyway work had no problem with me working from a different place.

That means I get a week of seeing family and relaxing with them in the evening without having to take any holiday to do so.

danenania3• 15 years ago

Yep, this has been my approach as well. I moved to Buenos Aires a month ago and I'm planning to stay for at least six months to learn Spanish, then who knows--I'd like to travel around Latin America (and Spain) to get some use out of my new language chops, but I'd also really like to spend some time in Asia, especially India.

One of the difficulties I've had with remote work, as mentioned in the op and comments here, is lack of daily structure and socializing. I think learning a new language is one of the best antidotes for this. You can do a language program for four hours a day and meet a huge variety of people from all over the world while picking up an incredibly useful and rewarding skill. The natural focus on conversation and collaboration is a great counterweight to the solitary nature of programming. Good programs also tend to offer a lot of cultural and social events outside of classes. It's pretty low stress and leaves plenty of time in the day to get work done.

Aside from all this, it's pretty awesome to be able to live in a nice, sunny, furnished, utilities and internet included studio with a balcony and view in one of the nicest areas of a giant cosmopolitan city for ~33% or less of what a similar arrangement would cost in SF or NYC.

atte• 15 years ago

Sounds like you read 4HWW. I'm doing pretty much the same thing. Half-way back from BA, kicking it in Panama for the moment.

outside1234• 15 years ago

how did people find a remote gig like this? I'm self motivated, an Android developer (which I only mention because there is huge demand for this so it seems like I should be able to find a good company that is interested in this), and it seems like I should be able to find a great company interested in this - but I haven't - any advice?

jamesteow• 15 years ago

Precisely. I was able to travel literally around the world while working remotely in apartments and cafes.

smackfu2• 15 years ago

I have been tempted by that, a working vacation, but how do time zones work out? Do you not need to be available at particular hours? I work from home but have a fairly regular schedule of phone meetings during the Eastern Time Zone working day. (Those same phone meetings would also get quite expensive overseas.)

neebz2• 15 years ago

Yup Time Zones does become an issue. You need to plan accordingly. You can't go to Australia where there is a full 12-14 hour flip. But still you are not really short of places to travel. Frankly it's good to start with travelling in your own country first.

Can't say about phone meetings as we usually have our conversations over Skype.

fortes• 15 years ago

Google Voice / Skype are the way to go here. Keep a US number that rings on your computer (or on your cell)

jonnathanson3• 15 years ago

Employers that understand the concept of flex hours seem to get it.

But it's a big leap for a lot of companies. It requires placing faith in employees and hoping for the best from them (i.e., that they'll tailor their schedules to their peak performance hours), rather than mistrusting them and fearing the worst (i.e., that they'll just slack off).

Incidentally, companies entrenched in that latter mindset -- those that fear the worst from their employees -- usually end up getting the worst from their employees. So it becomes a vicious cycle: company treats employees like dirt; employees feel demotivated; company sees demotivated employees and decides its lack of faith in them is justified; rinse and repeat.

mashmac2• 15 years ago

It is a big leap for a company...

Does anyone know where I could find resources (case studies, testimonials, etc) to promote remote work? 'Hard' data would certainly help convince the boss. Stories like this are great, but they'll need more concrete evidence to back it up.

allwein• 15 years ago

It's not directly on remote work, but I just finished reading "Why Work Sucks and How To Fix It", written by two of the people that helped institute Best Buy's Results Only Work Environment (ROWE). It's a great summary of ROWE, a lot of the troubles they had with corporate culture and perception, as well as ways to make an argument for ROWE in your own workplace.

Amazon Affiliate Link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591842921/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

robertpateii• 15 years ago

lately there's been a big push in the US government for an increase in teleworking. if you need specific examples, a 2010 telework report is available on this page: http://www.telework.gov/. There may be other public studies too with some hard data in them.

There's also a white paper linked on this page http://www.lifesize.com/Industry_Solutions/Government_Soluti... (but you have to register for it.)

full disclosure: i work at www.lifesize.com and we do eat our own dog food. One of my team members has been working remotely in another state for several months and many of our team often work from home.

rick8882• 15 years ago

The problem is that most people will slack off. To work remotely, you almost have to have the same discipline that you do when you work for yourself. Most people don't have this type of discipline.

bmj• 15 years ago

This is true. So it requires managers who, well, manage their teams and allow flex-time/remote privileges appropriately. That's how my employer works--do you get your work done while working remotely or at different hours? Great. Keep it up. Does it seem you're slacking off? In that case, you are going to be asked to adjust your schedule for awhile to get back on track.

matwood• 15 years ago

This isn't much different than many people who go to an office each day. The problem is the management/job that puts attendance over performance. If employers would put performance over all else, it wouldn't matter where someone worked as long as the work was done.

marknutter• 15 years ago

Not a problem if your employees actually enjoy what they do.

jonnathanson3• 15 years ago

True, but that's why flex time and/or remote work should be a two-way street. Almost an unwritten, social contract of sorts. In exchange for the flexibility and freedom to work in a self-directed fashion, the employee must demonstrate that he or she performs under self-direction.

Flex hours/location isn't for everyone. Personally speaking, I believe companies should offer it to everyone and not necessarily restrict it...BUT...let the buyer beware, so to speak. If an employee wants to take up a customized schedule, he or she had better be prepared to do good work under it.

famousactress3• 15 years ago

It requires placing faith in employees and hoping for the best from them

This seems completely ridiculous to me, as do some of the replies. The idea that you don't know whether or not you're getting the employee's 'best' or if the employee is 'slacking off' is frankly your problem at best. More accurately, it's irrelevant.

I think this is one of the ideas that remote work can help improve. I'd like to be paid for the value of my work, not for your impression of the amount of my potential that I appear to be exercising in your favor... and that's what it is, right? If the employee is in the office you determine whether he/she is 'slacking off' by whether you see them browsing facebook (or HN?)... That's a flawed way to evaluate someone's worth as your employee. I find it interesting and compelling that remote employment forces us to change that dynamic.

jonnathanson3• 15 years ago

I don't think you and I are in any general disagreement here.

Perhaps I should clarify: when I say that adopting flex time requires a leap of faith for certain companies, I'm simply making an observation. I don't condone that mindset. In fact, I think it's every bit as ridiculous and antiquated as you do. But a lot of employers are old-school that way: they don't trust their employees, and opening up to a concept like flex time is inherently going to require a bit of a leap of faith for them.

My entire point was that such companies -- as it so happens, a lot of companies -- still view their employees from an inherent place of mistrust or wariness. Yes, it's their problem. And yes, it will prevent them from getting the best and brightest. No argument there. I was simply pointing out that such a mindset exists and that it is still fairly prevalent. I was not in any way justifying it or lending credence to it.

In a perfect world, I agree: it should not have to be a leap of faith. But in the world as it exists, it's still a big jump for many, many employers.

feint• 15 years ago

I previously worked remotely as a freelancer and loved it. Now being in a position to build a team for Pen.io, I'm certainly looking at having some remote devs.

gordonguthrie5• 15 years ago

Dale and I worked together (more or less remotely) for a number of years. There is another side to this story that he doesn't bring out.

There are managerial challenges when you are responsible for for is working remotely. For the first 3 years or so of Hypernumbers we were rotating between 7- and 6- day working, going down to 5-day working in the summer.

The real concern when you are working with young developers (I was mid-40s, Dale was early 20s) is about burnout. Particularly with software developers. Young men working long and engaging hours with addictive work practices, with the usual poor dietary habits - this is a bad accident waiting to happen. At if.com we had a particular developer who physically turned green during a big push. Easy to spot in the work place, remotely not so much...

Dale has a quite common tendency for diurnal drift - a 25 hour cycle. Nothing wrong with it, slightly alarming when you sign off in chat at midnight, go to bed, start up at 7am when you get up and he's still there. Diurnal drift can rapidly turn into social isolation though (and a one way ticket to the bin).

Our industry has a lot of people at one end of the autistic spectrum - and remote working is not an policy for everyone.

Domestic circumstances also count a lot - support at home, friends, community stuff.

I heartily agree with what Dale says about communication, practices and procedures. I have long thought that the main lesson of open source projects is that they can only succeed if all the modalities are tip-top. We adopted 'open source processes' at hypernumbers to drive quality - and remotish working helped drive them in.

The circumstances of hypernumbers were a bit different though. Normally you would look to colocate the person specifying the system and the people who are writing it. With hypernumbers we spent the first couple of years essentially cloning Microsoft Excel so the business processes were optimised for remote working. (This is also one reason why open source programmes are dominated by clones.)

So it is a bit more nuanced I think than in his write up.

Would I hire remote workers again? Yes I would. Contrary to received wisdom I try and hire people from the 'other' end of the autistic spectrum (the end I would put Dale on).

On conventional measures of productivity (production SLOC per person per day) I would regard the experience at hypernumbers very highly - although the total difference in working procedures versus if.com where I have 'before' measurements from make it hard to allocate outcomes to a particular aspect of how we worked.

Ixiaus3• 15 years ago

I work from home all the time and I agree heartily with what you've said regarding burnout. It's that "work feels empty and I don't want to touch a computer" feeling and I can always tell when it starts to come on, usually following an intense week-two week push. When it does, I make sure not to touch the computer or atleast touch it minimally until I start to feel excitement to work on something again (usually takes 3 to 4 days).

I also have to take issue with his routine - diurnal drift has always been a problem for me (hard for me to get up early, easy to stay up late == bad sleeping habits and a sloppy daily routine); I find I cannot maintain a structured and meaningful routine if I start slipping outside of my established "get up early (early here is 7AM or 6AM), shower, work, exercise, read, sleep" cycle (excluding other creature habits like meals &c...).

I'm a rare one in that I don't actually socialize with any developer community at all - but I do have a vibrant and active social life outside of computers - most of my friends aren't anywhere near the programmer/developer culture. I would say exercise (I hit a CrossFit gym three times per week) and an active social life, whatever that means to you, and a structured daily routine are the keys to working remotely and on your own.

gordonguthrie5• 15 years ago

From a managers perspective it is very difficult to manage.

Internet startups have a cult-like culture at the moment - uber-important, the 'next Google' and all that statistically unlikely guff - with remote working that can make a perfect storm for mental illness.

That was the sort of stuff that used to keep me up at nights. People were doing long hours for shite wages, the last thing you want is to fry their neurons. Burn out is more than just 'don't want to touch the computer for a couple of days' - you can really damage people.

kellishaver• 15 years ago

I agree completely.

I'm also naturally prone to staying up late and sleeping late. I've been that way since I was a (young) teenager. My normal routine is going to bed between 2 and 3am and getting up between 9 and 10am. It works out fine, but if I don't keep that schedule, I'm worthless the next day.

After years of working from home and feeling rather unsatisfied with it, a couple of years ago I started to lay down a more firm schedule. Work from 10 to1, break for lunch, work from 1:30 to 5:30 or 6. A few months ago, I turned the guest bedroom into a dedicated office space. Both of these things have made a tremendous difference.

Without a dedicated workspace and a set schedule, I find that I end up working off and on throughout the day, easily distracted, tending to wander. As a result, I would be less productive, but yet it would feel like I was always working. That lead to some serious issues with burnout and depression and made it very difficult to spend any sort of quality time with my family.

mgkimsal2• 15 years ago

I've had mixed results, both with myself and other people I've used, and part of the difference is focus. If you're a remote developer for one company, with one set of tasks, I've found it's easier. If you're doing remote contract work for multiple clients, you've just added in some more hurdles.

I'm considering taking on a full-time developer to help out with my work, and while I'm OK working for people remotely, I'd probably prefer this person to be local and we get an office, at least for part time meeting space (if there was a coworking area nearby I'd use it). The difficulty I've had is finding other developers who are communicative with emails, ticket systems, phone calls, whatever. I've worked with a couple dozen devs over the past few years, and can count on one hand those that were strongly professional in their attitude towards communication - documenting things clearly, keeping in regular contact, knowing when to ask questions, preemptively helping out with ambiguous issues, etc.

Certainly "working from home" can be great, but you do need an emphasis on "work" rather than the "from home" to be successful with it. I know people see what I do and say "awesome, I'd love to work from home". The reality is, many people need the structure that going to an office provides (I wouldn't even mind it myself now and then).

beanstr• 15 years ago

At one of my jobs about 2 years ago I regularly used to work remotely once twice a week. Until now the most I have worked remotely in one stretch is 1 week.

I have been working on an online / smartphone based food ordering project for about 6 months. This work was getting done on the side along with my day job which required me to be in the office from 9 to 5. I always thought about the day when I would become fully involved with my personal project and leave my day time job. That day came sooner than I was hoping for and it come on the terms of my employer rather than mine because of some budget cuts and project discontinuations. This is my first week working from home on my personal project.

Yesterday I contacted a couple of shared office spaces where I can find a cubicle. I am still debating whether to work from home or to find a shared cubicle and get into the routine of going to office and interacting with other startups that share office space in the same building.

This phase and my personal experience in this phase will help me lay some guidelines on working from home when we actually have employees. So far I feel good. I can work until late in the night and wake up late because I do not have to take a shower and drive to start working in the morning and use my lunch time as shower time. I am feeling that working from home requires better planning and focus than working from office with other employees.

I feel somewhat inexperienced in writing a whole lot on this subject as I am in my first week of working from home but for me there will not be a better time to read other people's comments on this topic.

bcl2• 15 years ago

I've been working remote for over 5 years now. Some keys are: Have a door on your home office so the family doesn't interrupt. Use IRC, email, IM to maintain communication with your team. Have enough self-discipline to work instead of slack off when you run up against hard problems. Hobbies outside the house so that you don't spend 24 hours a day working.

I personally don't work at coffee shops, I find them too distracting. I love my quiet office where I can concentrate for large blocks of time.

As a company you should be hiring remote developers. It makes it alot easier for you to find good employees when you aren't limiting yourself to only locals, or only those who want to relocate.

dataminer• 15 years ago

I agree with you on coffee shops, they are too distracting. I found my refuge at the local library, it is 5 minutes drive from home, the environment is very respectable, no distractions, openvpn and ssl works perfectly.

bcl2• 15 years ago

Good idea! I'll have to give that a try.

mattvot• 15 years ago

How do you get into the developer scene in Edinburgh, Where do you hangout?

daleharvey4• 15 years ago

tonight there is refresh, a bunch of designers / developers go for burgers and beer - http://refreshedinburgh.org/ I wont be able to make it tonight though.

next wednesday there is techmeetup, some talks + beer and pizza, then we go to the pub afterwards - http://techmeetup.co.uk/

through techmeetup its usually quite easy to find out about a lot of the other events that go on, edinburgh uni run a lot of events, there are side meetups like the lean startup meetings and functional programming meetup, and the usual python / ruby / java / linux user groups.

mistrQ• 15 years ago

Just turn up? I'm a CS student at Edinburgh and always planned to hit up techmeetup but something always came up (coursework).

Last year now, last chance!

jconley• 15 years ago

I work remotely and have done so off and on for much of my career. For about 9 months of the last year I took a trip around the US and lived in a RV. All the while being as productive as my colleagues.

Does allowing your employees to be happier people increase their productivity and loyalty? Yup, I think so.

brendanlim• 15 years ago

I worked remotely for close to four years. I started realizing that there was little separation between work-life and personal-life. I was at my "office" all of the time and my employers knew this. I started working more during off-hours because that's what I was used to doing at home. Also, communication through IM, Campfire, etc. got pretty tiring and my face-to-face social skills ended up deteriorating after a while.

Just my personal experience.

equalarrow• 15 years ago

I second this - and add a little more.

I worked with a company - as a contractor - for a number of years in the beginning of their startup mode. Out of the 4 developers in the company, I was the only one that came into the office. For me, it was lame. Everything over email, im, or phone is not the way I like to work. There's something about face to face that makes a difference. I saw many, many times things getting blown up out out of proportion because it was not conveyed correctly over email or im.

I want that social interaction that you can only get being face to face with other devs - lunches, coffee, after work drinks, etc. Not only that, there's all kinds of office activities like whiteboarding, pairing (I know you can do this via remote too, but again, face to face is still valuable), going over to someone's desk and just talking about something.

The other thing I've noticed at my office is we need to now bring in all these other tools to keep everyone apprised of when builds have been deployed, etc. And all these tools detract from the amount of time someone can focus on something - there are guys that have all this hooked into their im and it's really distracting when you're sitting with them.

In closing, I'm of the opinion that I would prefer to have everyone in the office 5 days a week. If someone wants to work at home a day here or there thats totally fine, but overall, I've just experienced it not being beneficial for the group.

clueless1233• 15 years ago

I've worked remotely for the the last six years. It started because of having to work for a Fortune 100 with overseas resources (at crazy hours) then operations support for another huge company (crazy hours again) Then for the last 2 years doing contract python/django development.

clueless1233• 15 years ago

By now I think I know the subject :), here are some useful tidbits I've learned over time.

I work on an home-office space, it is quiet,it holds all my work stuff, it is "the" office. The kids know if I am in there.. I am "at work".

I do plenty of one-to-one over chat/skype/phone with peers,vendors and customers. Nothing different then on a real office.

I regularly do 2/3 hour pair programming sessions with members of my team. We use x11vnc + skype, (we use the pilot-copilot technique ), we get lots done and by the end of a session, our thought-spaces are 100% in sync.

I don't miss the "social interaction" at the office, I got plenty of friends in the "real world" and they don't care to hear from my work (nor would understand it if I told them)

I also get plenty of "geek interaction" with other developers, over beers at the local pub.

The key for remote development is to realize that development is creative work. Hours of work are not important, tasks done are.

clueless1233• 15 years ago

Another technique that I find very useful for assigning remote work:

I "purchase" tasks from my team for X $ with deliverable at Y time. I don't really care how long or when they do it, as long as the deliverable is on time I am happy.

I can do this, because I am a developer and know how long a task should take,(at least to me) so I know if I am getting a "good deal" for my money. If the developer that "sells" me the finished task got it done in 5 minutes or 5 hours is irrelevant to me.

bjc• 15 years ago

approx 11300miles for me, for last 4 years and loving it

theone• 15 years ago

From employers perspective, remote working doesn't gives confidence, if they doesn't have faith in employee. And its really difficult to have faith on any new / average employee.

ChrisGrey2• 15 years ago

The way Dale describes his working practices feels contradictory. He addresses loneliness by saying he goes out to coffee shops and bars. While that may be nice for Dale it wouldn't enfuse me with confidence (were I his boss) that he is focussed on MY needs. He says that it is very important that a remote worker is open to as many communications channels as possible. But he doesn't start work until late morning and then works through into the night. If his colleagues need to speak to him at 0900 where are the communication channels into his dream cycle? If he needs to talk to them at 2100 does he call them at home when their working day is done?

My gut feeling is that this works nicely for Dale but not so much for his colleagues!

gordonguthrie5• 15 years ago

Actually it worked well when Dale and I worked together. Most comms are near-real time: e-mail to the mailing list. For 'now' real-time you have chat, and for 'actually now, really now' you get on the mobile phone. My working hours were typically 7am to about 4pm and then again 9pm til midnight so we got good overlap.

As his boss, addressing his loneliness and isolation was one of MY needs - people's performance isn't in isolation of the rest of their life. For Dale this never turned out to be a problem, for others not so...

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