

Ask HN: Why are a majority of companies not-open to hiring remote developers? - mdink

I have worked in all types of settings. Fortune 250. 5 person startup. Mid-size companies. I have managed remote teams that have built amazing technology. I have been a part of local teams that can't get their head straight. In speaking with job prospects recently, it seems like very few companies (~ 5%) are open to some type of remote work. Now please understand, I am not looking to work remote b/c I want to live in the French Riviera. I have personal commitments where I am that prevent me from leaving (at least temporarily).<p>As a Ruby developer (from what I hear and see), my skills are in high demand. Take this awesome recruiter email to me:<p>-- start email ----<p>I am a recruiter here in the Bay Area working with several significant consumer-focused internet tech companies.
What's going on in the Bay Area right now (and why I am writing you) is a major shortage of qualified Ruby engineers. For that reason, there are Ruby openings at probably 30-40 of my portfolio clients (seriously); additionally, I am seeing much higher salaries in this area because of the shortage and increased demand in the market caused by increasing venture investment in startups and more dev teams adopting RoR.
This all boils down to you.
The reason I'm writing is that I would like for you to seriously consider the possibility of looking at a new full time role as a Rails dev in San Francisco. Is this something that you would be open to?
Some of the most innovative companies in the country are here in the Bay Area. I hope that you will be interested in at least looking at a few options that are = available to you.
Feel free to give me a ring or let me know a good number and time to reach you.<p>-- end email ----<p>Wow. OK so there is huge demand (I think). Now granted NO recruiter is going to help you get remote work, but how come more of these companies don't hire remote devs? Are they scared of lack of control? Is it more fun to run screaming into someone's office yelling "Fire" about some new idea then actually thinking things through and sticking to a plan? Sorry that sounded really negative, but I am baffled.<p>HN please advise!!<p>* Also feel free to post if you are looking for remote devs.<p><i></i> If anyone finds the "February Remote Workers" thread, feel free to post here too.
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ginolomelino
Not only is it the lack of control, it's also the fuzzy feeling managers get
from seeing you at your desk. Many managers don't understand that you're not
necessarily working when you're staring at your screen and vice versa. Being
able to walk by and see someone sitting at their desk gives gives them the
(possibly false) impression that work is being done. If every moment not spent
doing actual work was spent away from my desk, my employer would view me as
lazy. As is, a large portion of my time is spent not doing visible work but
because I'm at my desk, it's not a problem.

~~~
mdink
This floors me. But you are absolutely SPOT ON. I really had to laugh when I
read this b/c I feel like this is an ongoing joke in the dev and greater IT
community. Sigh... so true.

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michael_dorfman
_how come more of these companies don't hire remote devs? Are they scared of
lack of control?_

Yep. I've managed many programmers, both in-office and remote, and let me tell
you, the communication challenges with remote workers are enormous. That
doesn't mean that I'd rule it out under any circumstances-- as I said, I've
done it before-- but it would not be an attractive option for me as an
employer under normal circumstances.

You say you've managed remote teams-- what's your experience been?

~~~
mdink
Thanks for the input - I hear you that it can be a challenge. I have actually
had pretty good experiences managing remote devs. One team had a guy in NY, 2
in AZ, 1 in WA, and 1 in CO. The guy in NY did not last long, just b/c he went
MIA a lot. However, with the others I made it very clear that during "normal"
work hours they had to be online and ready to do video chat at anytime. The
amazing thing was that these guys appreciated it so much, I couldn't get them
to STOP working sometimes!! It would be 11pm CST and everyone was cranking on
late night sessions. I am sure their wives did not appreciate it - ha, but
from what I can tell, they loved it.

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gyardley
Don't overlook the pain-in-the-ass factor of having to support employees in
different jurisdictions with different regulations.

Employment contracts need to be customized slightly by state. You've got to
sign up for worker's compensation insurance, unemployment insurance taxes, and
sometimes disability insurance. You've got to pay state taxes, and for most
states you're going to need to do withholding on behalf of your employees.
You've got to make sure your benefit plan provides reasonable options in that
state. If you're following the letter of the law, every state has different
notices you've got to post in the place of work.

If you're not talking about employees in different states, but instead are
talking about employees in different countries, the complexity level just went
up another notch.

I'm usually happy to employ great talent wherever it lives (and there's
nothing at all wrong with living in the French Riviera), but decentralization
doesn't make it easy.

~~~
mdink
Great point. This was a total pain to deal with. I would argue that hiring
folks as contractors first would help test the waters to see if they are
employee potential? (and thus worth this headache?)

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Travis
Just trying to think like a corporation would...

Perhaps it's a signaling thing. Historically companies have wanted their
workers to be loyal and dedicated to them -- that's part of the reason they do
401k's, career paths, etc.

So perhaps the unwillingness to relocate to on-site tells the company that you
aren't as dedicated to their success as someone who is willing to be there.

Remember that most mid level management still seems to be stuck in 1975. They
don't understand that worker loyalty went by the wayside because of the recent
RIFs that became commonplace in the last 20-30 years.

~~~
mdink
Interesting points. I also think that most mid level managers do not have the
technical skill set to review remote developer's work and thus it is easier to
walk into a room of developers and yell "Go do X! And it better work!!" :)

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fomojola
Having done significant amounts of remote work with teams in India, I will say
that the amount of planning required to efficiently use remote developers who
have varying skill sets is beyond most startups. If you have got star
programmers who are self-organizing and working on completely independent
pieces then that's great, but if you are dealing with a complex app and
everyone has their fingers in the pie its like (not the best analogy coming
up, but give me some credit for the effort) trying to bake a cake with
everyone mixing a portion of the ingredients in different cities then flying
to the same city and pouring it all together and expecting to create an award
winning cake on the first try.

Its a significant management challenge, and as a startup if you can avoid
adding yet another significant management challenge by requiring your dev team
to be local to the rest of the operation then you should.

~~~
mdink
International remote work is a whole different ball game and #1 I admire
anyone who can power though it, #2 Ultimately believe it is only beneficial
when given very specific conditions. I had one team that was based in Eastern
Europe / Russia and they could write code like demons, but explaining business
requirements nearly put everyone over the edge. Communication was a serious
barrier, not to mention the time schedules. I love the tech talent there but
wow, could totally understand not wanting to jump into that kettle.

I like your analogy about the cake and definitely respect your thought process
there. The way I have gotten around this is that I (or another team member)
always played the role of gate keeper / "integrator" to make sure the merging
of branches went as smoothly as possible. Now we also had the benefit of full
test suites to run, user stories to compare against, etc. but it seemed to
work. The drawback is that as the "integrator" my actual development time
would be cut in order to keep timelines met. However the plus was that I could
question the dev's intentions maybe make some extra adjustment / cleaner code
and ultimately produce a more maintainable code base. I also was never caught
off guard about garbage coming in - ha.

Does anyone else use this sort of "integrator" role and seen these challenges
/ benefits?

~~~
fomojola
Hehe: we finally found a guy to run the Indian team who had worked in the US
and he filled that integrator role. It was honestly an order of magnitude
performance improvement after he was in place, plus he (partially) solved the
time zone issue, which you are right was quite frankly a major pain. If I
never have another 11pm or 7am conference call I will be forever grateful.

Communication was a serious issue: even in English it was bad enough, and I
shudder to think about what it would be like with a non-English speaking
country. I guess ultimately you CAN make it work and there are SOME cost
efficiencies to be gained but even in India we see large companies like IBM
and Verizon who end up building out these massive facilities (regular power
generation comes to mind: Delhi had these huge power outages and we eventually
had to buy our team there power inverters just so they could work part of the
time between 11am and 4pm) to normalize the development experience: I question
if there are any cost savings left after that kind of infrastructure build
out.

And yes, it completely destroys your personal productivity, but the hope is
that the multiplier effect gets you more value than writing the code yourself:
I'm as yet unconvinced that it really works that way, but what do I know.

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sebilasse
Have you considered to offer relocating for 2-3 months work onsite, and then
transition to work remotely?

~~~
mdink
You know that is a great question, and I have mentioned this (not on every
occasion). It almost always gets the "Umm maybe that will be an option but we
can't guarantee it". This always screams to me "Yeah this ain't gonna happen".
Ha.

~~~
sebilasse
You have to prove yourself in that period. If they're hooked they will let you
do anything. Also of course you have to be lucky to find open-minded managers.

In my experience if they see that you are a valuable resource management
accepts A LOT.

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ig1
Communication and team bonding. I've regularly worked with teams that spanned
across multiple offices, and without doubt there's huge communication barrier
introduced with distance.

Even development teams which are split across different locations in the same
building see this problem (to a lesser extent). It's one of the main reason
investment banks will put developers on the trading floor, seats on the
trading floor tend to be very expensive (everything has multiple redundancy,
etc) but the teamwork advantages are so great that it's worth doing.

~~~
mdink
Great point. I had a similar experience with the healthcare startup where we
would take developers (when they came in town) to our client requirement
gathering sessions. While one could easily argue that is not their role, they
always offered great input and I think it furthermore motivated them to better
understand issues and opportunity areas.

I wonder then if remote

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adaml_623
I think you have to realise that when you say a majority of /companies/ you're
actually talking about a few key decision makers in this company. The HR
manager and your team leader and probably the CTO equivalent have to back this
plan.

These people generally have to justify what they do not only to their
superiors but to other people in the business. And hiring someone who isn't
physically there is always going to be riskier (to them) than someone sitting
at their desk whatever they are doing.

That's my 2p worth anyway.

~~~
mdink
Agreed - it usually falls on a few people's shoulders, BUT I am curious, why
is it riskier? (I am sure I can guess as to what you will say but just
interested in your reasoning..)

