My Biggest Takeaway on 37Signals’s New Book on Remote Work

http://www.jasonshen.com/2013/my-biggest-takeaway-on-37signalss-new-book-on-remote-work-hint-its-not-technology/

by jasonshen • 13 years ago

81 62 13 years ago

LukeWalsh• 13 years ago

I had a software internship after my freshman year of college that lead in to working remotely while at school for the next 9 months.

I learned as much from that as I have from any internship, and it allowed me to optimize my time. I would go whole weeks without working, and then spend an entire weekend moving my project forward.

I completely agree that our generation will change the way we think about the structure of our "work week."

alabut2• 13 years ago

The millennial thing might be a distraction from the main point about the benefits of remote work. Some of the biggest taskmaster startup CEOs I've worked for were twenty somethings, whereas I have other friends in their 30's that have been working remotely for years. YMMV.

The best part about working remote is that it requires good teamwork because nothing will get done without solid communication, whereas colocated teams often skimp on process because they assume they'll make it up via adhoc meetings instead.

CaveTech• 13 years ago

My workplace is kind of a weird fusion between old and new; Our development side basically functions like a start-up, but development isn't our core business.

While our office does allow things like remote work, my manager is definitely has the mentality that if I'm not at work by 9AM sharp, I'm slacking off and unprepared. I've also caught a decent amount of flack for not always bring a pen and paper to meetings, as a lot of people seem dumbfounded that there's other ways of taking notes.

I guess my main point is that traditional businesses still have a ton of tradition and norms pressed against them by older generations. Sometimes I have to keep up an absurd charade to keep clients or managers happy, even though they provide no value, and sometimes even waste my time.

michaelt• 13 years ago

One of the things I'm wary about, as someone who has a first-world standard of living, is that if my employers think my job can be done over the internet from 50 miles away, they think it can be done over the internet from 5,000 miles away in some country with lower costs of living.

Those of you who work remotely: How do you differentiate yourself, in the employment market, from people in asia, eastern europe etc?

bennyg• 13 years ago

I think it comes down to a couple tangible, measurable metrics: language barriers and time of work barriers (ie you send an employee an email and the reply back at 2am your time).

Then, I think anecdotally, quality of work is another perceived advantage for not going with the complete outsourcing route.

jasonshen2• 13 years ago

I think it really depends on the kind of work you do. Part of the reason why remote working is great is economic - you have to prove you are a better programmer/designer/marketer/support person compared to anyone in the world with an internet connection.

A big part of why a firm might choose a US/Western worker is communication style and understanding of cultural norms, though that is changing too.

contingencies• 13 years ago

Differentation: skills, demonstrable experience (across multiple markets), previously successful experience remote working, communicative capacity, cultural comprehension.

Financial competition: charge less than 9-to-5ers, but live outside of the western spendzone (ie. Asia, Eastern Europe, etc.). This allows you to take equity-linked packages without sacrificing quality of life (or indeed, with higher net quality of life).

keithwarren• 13 years ago

For me it has to go beyond programming. When you hire me to help automate some process or improve some system, you are going to get a good programmer but you are also going to get someone who seeks to deeply understand your business and find ways to improve beyond what you put in front of me.

If 'outsource' to someone in another part of the world your need for a detailed specification is much higher, your need to mitigate communications risks are much higher. Something I have trouble putting into words but I know from experience is there - when I am working on some process I try to understand it deeply and ask questions that are often more business related than technical. Technology is a means to solving business challenges and you have to be part analyst and part developer to approach problems that way. A coder across the world who needs a very detailed spec will almost never give you that benefit.

smackfu• 13 years ago

In my experience, employers are very bad at judging what the appropriate salary in that other country should be. They get greedy about cost savings, lowball the market, take what they can get, and then are shocked that the work is shoddy and not up to standards.

So that's one practical reason a US remote worker often still has a job.

ryandrake• 13 years ago

In other words, if your job can be done from home, it can be done from India.

People promoting a world where telecommuting is widespread better be careful what they wish for.

YZF• 13 years ago

Pretty much every big tech company already has an office in India so why does this matter? The reality is the number of people in India who can compete for your job is limited and their standard of living and salary will keep getting higher. The other thing is that this is not a zero sum game. The demand for software developers isn't constant. It keeps growing and the availability of more developers will accelerate it's growth. Think of how much bad code is written right now that will need a complete rewrite in two years ;-) or x10 people to maintain.

fhd23• 13 years ago

Sorry, but that's just wrong. To work with people in different time zones, you have to be truly asynchronous and somewhat spread out. To work with people with different cultures and native languages, you need to put some extra effort in.

And at the end of a day, a good remote worker in India knows what they're worth - not much less than a US remote worker. Free markets and all that. If that's not true now, I'll convinced it'll be true as soon as remote working becomes really popular.

And while we're at it - have you noticed how many Indians go to the US to do tech jobs on-site? What's the big difference?

davidw2• 13 years ago

People promoting a world where telecommuting is widespread better be careful what they wish for.

I imagine many HN participants who live in India would be quite happy to be able to remotely work for some of the various companies represented here without having to leave their friends and family, and deal with things like US immigration.

bigiain• 13 years ago

If you can't quickly, confidently, and credibly answer that question right now – you _really_ ought to spend some time working out why, and what you _ought_ to have ready to say to your manager if they propose exactly that. Either they are right, and your job _can_ be outsourced to the other side of the planet of 10% for what you need to be paid, and it will be eventually - or there's a very good reason why you (or someone else with the skills and compensation requirements like you) needs to be doing your role.

What is it that you do, that a dedicated educated and intelligent resident of Mumbai or Beijing or Bangkok or Kyiv can't do for your employer? You _really_should know that, at least for yourself…

fhd23• 13 years ago

I can't speak for larger companies, but as a small remoter company, we don't see much gain in saving a few thousand bucks each year trying to hire cheap. It's comparatively rare for us to find someone who's a good fit, it's not like there's a surplus of great developers with relevant experience.

That said, cultural differences exist, and coupled with timezone differences, it can get quite tricky. From my experience, at the end of the day, hiring people in the same (or a neighbour) country is cheaper anyway.

mgkimsal• 13 years ago

50 miles vs 5000 miles is still a big difference.

I do contract work, most of it is at home, but most client work I can be on site with enough notice (like... a morning phone call). Same time zone, same language, but can also be on site for f2f meetings.

hkarthik• 13 years ago

1) Being one or two time zones away is pretty critical to having more overlap during the day. While it's possible (in some cases) to work completely asynchronously, it's notoriously difficult to pull off in the early stages.

2) Bandwidth and latency is a real problem when trying to do video conferencing across continents or do some pair programming.

3) Cultural fit still applies with interpersonal interactions. Being able to identify with coworkers in similar life stages (mid 30s, small kids at home, living in suburbia) makes a huge difference when trying to plan and execute work.

poulsbohemian2• 13 years ago

First, some of what I do in my consulting practice is very specialized, but even for work that is commodity work, there's a difference between good, high-quality work and the product of the lowest bidder. Good, quality work is expensive everywhere. If a customer can't understand the difference between you as a $100/hr resource and a $10/hr offshore resource, then either you aren't providing enough value or you don't want them as a customer because they don't understand the difference in terms of quality and delivery. Even in lower-cost nations, the cost alone for getting senior, experienced resources is not sufficient enough for cost alone to be the deciding factor.

DigitalSea2• 13 years ago

I think companies need to move past the whole "no remote working allowed" thing. Old style management coupled with fear of procrastination are two reasons many companies don't embrace remote working. If you have proper management and metrics in place, it's easy to ensure remote workers are hitting targets and putting hours in; source control, time management, Google Hangouts/Skype for meetings, email. There is no excuse.

Marissa Meyer seems to be stuck in the old world of IT thinking herself. While she's taken Yahoo! to a better place because of her leadership, Yahoo! have lost a fair share of remote talent because of the rules she put in place banning remote working. Tonnes of companies embrace it (Github for one) and it opens up your recruitment opportunities 100 fold.

The only downside of remote workers is that they are separate from the core physical team, so they don't nearly get close to enough opportunities to partake in social bonding and that rapport you establish with your co-workers getting to physically speak to them in the office and eat lunch with them. Remote working means you are detached from the company culture which depending on the place could either be a good or bad thing. If a job is just a job to you and you are good at what you do, then this is hardly an issue.

robotys• 13 years ago

In case of Marissa Mayers, i think the ban of remote working is more towards trimming their workforce from poisonious group of remote workers that did not perform. They just suck the money out of Yahoo, and many of them are.

I assume remote working will be unbanned in near future if the condition allowed.

RogerL• 13 years ago

"core physical team"

What is that, in the context of remote work?

I worked remotely for 3 years at my last job. The lead lived half way across the country from HQ, as did I, and as did the lead QA. More importantly, we regularly traveled for different installations and tests, so today to talk to Joe you were calling Texas, but week he'd be in NM, and so on. Meanwhile you were on your own rotation. I perhaps exaggerate the amount of travel, as there were plenty of times where most people were at HQ except for the permanent remote workers, but the larger point is that it had to work with no core team in one place, because many times during the year there was no such beast.

It works.

DigitalSea2• 13 years ago

Core team as in people physically in the one location within the same time zone who can solve problems in person. As someone who works for a company where people are moving about it does work most of the time and quite well, but the time zone differences can sometimes be frustrating when you need an answer on something important the other person is sleeping.

I understand some places might not have a core team, but a lot of places do. Sometimes it is required to have people you can physically talk to, Internet connections can be unreliable as can Skype and syncing files across the country or world can sometimes hinder progress if one or the other have slow Internet connections.

jusben1369• 13 years ago

I still want to see a good argument against the startup notion that you have to all come together and work as a team. That a close knit group of 5 - 50 people in a startup in one location has a competitive advantage (via constant facetime) than a remotely built comparable startup. Every year the Bay Area becomes more insanely expensive yet young devs and entrepreneurs still flock there in droves.

lowboy• 13 years ago

Work can be done remotely, but it's the extra-curricular stuff where geography counts. In-person networking, the ability to go to meetups, talks, conferences, etc.

fishtoaster2• 13 years ago

Even if you start from the premise that, for a given developer, that developer contributes more locally than remotely, there's still a pretty good argument for remote work: talent pool.

You can have a fair-to-middling programmer in the bay area locally, or the best programmer in all of Michigan remotely. What you lose by not having people locally you gain by having better people, in theory.

This applies to any locale as well. If you limit your search to only those people within driving distance of your office, you're almost guaranteed to get a lower caliber dev than if you were able to hire any dev in the world.

wensing• 13 years ago

Most web apps are not that difficult to program. What needs the most innovation in a startup is the business model. Communicating that locally is hard enough. Remote? No thank you.

hosh• 13 years ago

I know of at least one startup that is quietly doing it remote. It's bucking the trend of having everyone come together. The advantage of being able to hire from anywhere instead of Bay Area is too great. We'll see if it pays off.

johnjlocke• 13 years ago

I wonder if there is any competitive advantage to having everyone gather together in the factory, sorry, office. It seems very strange that we still cling to the idea that we have to fight our way through traffic to get to the work space when we have so many tools like Skype, Good Hangouts, etc. at our disposal.

general_failure• 13 years ago

It feels like we are focusing on the wrong things. It's not just about getting things done. It's about having fun doing it. I cannot be happy working remotely. I have worked alone for many years and I went back to proper employment because I missed work place. I like working closely with like minded people. I like dropping by people's offices and thinking out loud about ideas and discussing on whiteboard. I like the energy of doing together.

I currently work in a team which is spread over 5 countries. It's honestly quite miserable. I hate all the communication overhead and constantly irritated when I cannot reach people in person in 2-3 hours.

chrissnell2• 13 years ago

I'm not a huge fan of remote work and I'll tell you why.

First, though, I'll tell you that I'm currently working remote for an SFO startup and before that, I spent six years working remote for a large cloud provider based in Texas. Before all of that, I was an on-site worker for the first 14 years of my career.

I don't like remote work. It's not because I'm not efficient or don't get shit done (I am and I do). My chief complaint about remote work is how it socially isolates the worker. No matter how many Google Hangouts or morning standups you do, you are losing out on a huge part of the social experience of working onsite. One of the greatest things about working around smart people is the chit-chat that you get by working right next to them. I'm talking about the conversations you have on the way to lunch or standing around the soda fountain. This stuff is spontaneous and fast-flowing and it's precious. As much as I wish this could be replicated over IRC or IM, it just doesn't happen that way. There's something magical about the conversation from four geeks riding together in a car on the way to lunch.

The other aspect to social isolation is personal happiness and the desire that most of us have to be in the presence of others. Over the last six years of working remote, I've gotten really tired of being alone all the time. Working from a busy coffee shop helps, but you're still not chit-chatting and you have to contend with shitty Internet connections and poor security (pack up your laptop to use the restroom, etc).

Working remote is not all that it's cracked up to be. It took me several years of actually doing it to realize this. I love my job at this awesome company but if I could work onsite and still have my family here with me, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

jasonshen2• 13 years ago

I've never done remote so I'm totally asking because I'm curious: have you ever tried working at a co-working space?

chrissnell2• 13 years ago

That's a good question. Yes, I've been wanting to do this for a while but I've not found one in my city (Tacoma, WA) that meets my needs. We do have one and when I toured it on a Tuesday in the early afternoon, it was almost deserted. Definitely not the social place that I want. It might be worth taking the train to Seattle on occasion to work at one of the great co-working places there, which are more focused on startups, new tech, etc.

MJR• 13 years ago

I completely agree about social isolation and missing the in-between conversations. I also don't think the next generation will suddenly all become insular thinkers because of technology.

I'm someone who really enjoys and needs discussions with my coworkers about ideas, strategies or tactics. Some people prefer to take a question and mull it over for a while and return with their thoughts. Others, like me, prefer to think out loud and talk it out. The act of having a conversation - in person - is a major factor in that. When I have tasks to get done that require pure execution then working remotely is fine, people put on headphones in the office during this type of work as well. For everything that requires definition and discussion, reading body language, etc - I prefer and believe that I work better with others in person.

itomatik• 13 years ago

You could try working at one of those Regus offices in order to have somewhat more social atmosphere.

tyoma• 13 years ago

Completely agree. I have been working remotely for about a year now. What I miss the most is social interaction and the random ideas that spring from live discussions with other smart people. No amount of video conferencing and IRC has been able to replicate the same environment.

xoail• 13 years ago

Strongly recommend trying a co-working space nearby. I was at a similar situation and hated every bit of working remote (from home) until I started working from a co-working space near my hours (a couple miles). I made new friends, we have lunches together, play volley-ball at nights and I couldnt be more happier with a great job and friends I made.

ollysb• 13 years ago

This is what I do, it's actually filled with other remote working techies so I don't really feel like I'm getting any of the downsides.

bravura• 13 years ago

You hit the nail on the head. But your advice is still not applicable for most people.

In-person interaction is a hugely valuable thing.

The point for remote work, though, is that some people have a spouse or family or friends in a particular location. That location might not be the same as the job you desire.

So if the tradeoff for many people is: In-person interaction with those folks vs. in-person interaction with co-workers, most people prefer the former.

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

If working remotely secures you a fantastic job in another city or fits with the role (e.g. dedicated support for B2B customers), by all means. But it's worth acknowledging the downsides when we're talking about someone who has good local choices, or even has a local job but wants to work from home.

hackula12• 13 years ago

I am in a position where I could work remotely, and I would like to, but for one reason: career advancement. I am pretty early on in my career (about 5 years in), and I have basically two competing routes ahead of me A) be a highly technical dev who will be a high value "mercenary" type or B) move into a technical lead/CTO type role. I always thought that I wanted to do be A, but as I have gotten into product design, building up a team, mentoring, negotiating deals, etc. I have found that I really enjoy B. Being a lone wolf type dev is almost ideal in a remote setting (all of my clients are already off site anyway). Being a manager, technical lead, or anyone core to a business team, however, seems a lot more difficult to pull off.

I used to love the idea of working as that story book hacker who can spin out code from a laptop in an RV traveling where ever the wind took me. I work with a guy who literally owns a laptop, a suitcase, and the clothes and toiletries to fill it. Every morning I talk to him he could be in German, Brazil, Japan, or where ever the hell he feels like going. That is awesome, and I highly respect anyone with the spine to live that way, but...

At the same time, I want to be in the fight, shaping people instead of just machines. I want to be able to shake the hands of the people I work with, and look my competitors in the eye. For now anyway, I am sticking to the office and reaping the career rewards of being a central figure to my team.

TLDR: work can be done from anywhere; leadership.. not as clear.

fhd23• 13 years ago

I'm a lead developer who works remotely, it does work. Most of my team is remoting, but I can imagine that it'd be tricky if all the other developers worked on-site.

Since I remote, I do actually get around to some hands-on development, about half of my time currently.

I suppose the key to becoming a lead is to join a company early on. If you pick one that's open for remote working, you can nurture that culture and hire people that are good at asynchronous working. That, in turn, puts a lot of talented people in your hiring pool that otherwise weren't there, it's a competitive advantage when it comes to hiring.

We still offer relocating for everyone, some people prefer to work in an office and that's perfectly fine. At the end of the day, I just want my people to be happy and productive.

prawn• 13 years ago

I wonder if we'll see desk spaces with large screens showing real-time feeds at the end, simulating a co-worker adjacent to you but without the need to be in the office. Benefit of some social side, but able to be paused if you're concentrating.

Incidentally, here's That Mitchell and Webb Look on working from home: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk

danielhookins• 13 years ago

I kinda agree, but I think it depends on the type of work, and your own personality.

From my perspective it's kinda like a band. Look at the Beatles - they did everything together for almost ten years - and it was that connection with each other that made the band (and as a result, the music) so awesome. The same can be true for business. A team that works together in physical proximity is gonna be so much stronger and have a much better connection with each other.

However, if you're working for a huge multi-national corporation that's so big that you don't know the names of everyone in all the other departments - then you're not gonna get that same connection anyway. In this case, you might as well work in whatever way is more efficient and more comfortable for you. For some people it will be the freedom of working remote - for others it will be the structure of a 9-5 work day.

Some people (mostly gen-y, but not limited to) find the traditional office-culture too stifling. Everyone is putting on their 'professional persona' in the office. Now it's possible to work remotely and instead hang out with 'real' people.

tejay• 13 years ago

Working remote is not all that it's cracked up to be. It took me several years of actually doing it to realize this. I love my job at this awesome company but if I could work onsite and still have my family here with me, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Even with all of the not-so-nice things about remote work listed in your post, you've still chosen to work remotely -- to avoid upending your family. And I assume you would probably quit if your company were to say 'move to the Bay Area tomorrow, or else,' out of concern for your family.

That's, I think, the key point about remote work. You aren't forced to make that choice.

And that alone tells me it's better for workers (and therefore companies). Particularly if you're the best person the for the job (which I assume you are, since you work there!).

davidw2• 13 years ago

"Two economists see a Ferrari. "I want one of those," says the first. "obviously not," replies the other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference

As always, it's about the economics of various tradeoffs: there are some big advantages to working in person, but there is a wider potential pool of employees who work remotely. In a relatively efficient economy, those firms who can take advantage of the remote workers will do so, whereas those firms that really need people in person will likely stick to people who can be in the office every day.

Everyone has to judge for themselves what they prefer.

vectorpush• 13 years ago

Some people view this is an advantage rather than a disadvantage. In the context of remote work, keeping discretionary social interaction time to a pragmatic minimum means more time available for your friends, loved ones, or even just other personal interests.

mkramlich• 13 years ago

For me it's meant more blocks of uninterrupted time to do intellectual tasks, like the focus & analysis needed to do software engineering with peak efficiency/productivity and innovation, or, deep creative immersion that's ideal to do creative writing (I wrote a book earlier this year, for example).

Plus, the things you said: more time for friends, family, naps (when you need it and would be a net win), time off to give your brain/body a break, and to generally work most when you're at peak and work least when you're naturally in a trough. Furthermore, if you have any family or friends with serious health issues/crises that sometimes need you to give them much more time/focus than normal, unplanned, then you also have greater freedom to do that too, without having to "get permission" from an HR department or a manager. Overall, it's a more humane lifestyle I've found.

I don't paint it with a perfect/panacea brush, of course, because it does have some disadvantages in comparison to on-site/in-person/office/F2F work, certainly. But lots of advantages that are compelling if your tastes, needs, goals or strengths are different.

kayoone• 13 years ago

Agree, people often say "but you have more social interactions with your family that way" and while thats true, its still different. There might be new people (or annoying coworkers) in the office regularly that you need to interact with which is different than hanging out only with the people you know anyway.

A co-working space could change all that, but i havent really found a good one in my (rather small) german city.

alabut2• 13 years ago

Have you worked on an entire team that worked remote? Or been a remote worker on an otherwise co-located team?

Just from personal experience, I've found a huge difference between the two.

MichaelTieso• 13 years ago

After working remotely for several years, I actually look forward to going back into the office and connecting with others. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if a co-working space was available to me but I find that I really need people around me to communicate and interact with every so often.

Sukotto• 13 years ago

Lately I've been thinking a lot about finding remote work and have just posted an Ask HN about it.

Would love to hear about people's experiences: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6709601

jrochkind1• 13 years ago

The author's "biggest takeaway" is "The shift to remote work will be driven by Millenials"... and the author actually thinks they're recommending the book?

poulsbohemian2• 13 years ago

I have nominally been a remote worker since 2006 - during some of that I've been a road warrior, the past two years I've been predominantly at home. I've hired and managed dozens of remote workers as well. To me the big advantages are: 1) Good talent exists everywhere, so why limit where I can hire them? 2) I have better equipment and working conditions at my home office than any employer or customer site I've ever works at - thus, I am more productive. I find cubicles and florescent lights, along with the constant disruptions of offices to be killers on productivity. I recognize that many people want that environment, but I really don't. My social life is outside the office as well, so I can't even speak to that as being a boost of an office environment. Your milage might vary, but for me, I won't ever work in a centralize office environment or ask others to if I can avoid it. When I travel to meet with customers, honestly I'm repulsed by the lack of productivity I see in the face time that is suppose to be a bolster. For example, when you aren't face-to-face for hours at a time, it forces you to be more diligent at good communication and choosing the right channel for communication. When you know you can just lean over the cube wall or invite people to a conference room, you are more likely to kill an hour of their day wasting time.

bitL• 13 years ago

I am firmly in the camp of remote work lovers.

It allowed me to travel around the world while working on world-class engineering and mathematical problems, make artistic movies from my travel, compose trendy music, get influences from outstanding random people I met, collaborate, have unexpected fun, experience different cultures.

And this all while I am one of the fastest developers of my company, solving some of the most difficult problems that come (inventive and creative problems, not CRUD). Internal communication can be handled easily if people understand and trust each other. The unearned mistrust targeted towards high performers and envy of less competent managers/coworkers is what is killing corporations nowadays, not remote work.

I love to work alone (on deep analytical problems) as well as love to collaborate with others in person or over Internet (putting pieces together and having fun creating) - location doesn't matter nowadays anymore and if it matters to you, you might end up behind the times as you won't be attractive to many people, some of them invaluable.

MarkMc• 13 years ago

"In today’s economy, the quest for talent is so great that organizations can no longer afford to merely look at individuals co-located in their physical presence"

Is that true? Isn't it more important for the talent pool to have a high ratio of good to bad applicants? If I add 'you can work remotely' to a job description will it mean I have to wade through twice as many poor applicants before I find a good one?

h2s• 13 years ago

When the first line of your article contains an Amazon referral link to buy the book and make you a quick buck, how is anybody expected to take your subsequent glowing praise of the book's contents seriously? Ending the post with a quick disclaimer doesn't mitigate this loss of credibility.

karlmdavis• 13 years ago

Using that logic, how could you possibly take the book itself seriously, since the publisher isn't just giving it away for free?

henrik_w• 13 years ago

"I remember working on a number of student groups at Stanford where we might have had meetings once a week for an hour or two where we’d talk about what needed to get done, and then actually did the work on our own..."

It sounds like the weekly meetings were in person, which makes sense. When you figure out what to do, and maybe how to do it, face-to-face is very valuable. In software development, there is a lot of this kind of decision-making. Actually implementing what you have decided doesn't require collaboration as much, so then remote is fine.

My Biggest Takeaway on 37Signals’s New Book on Remote Work

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