
Building and Running a Geographically Distributed Engineering Team - ktothemc
https://medium.com/initialized-capital/how-to-build-and-run-a-geographically-distributed-engineering-team-609ffc897a79
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stingraycharles
"Hiring remote engineers by flying them in turned out to be a disaster. Great
engineers — and great people — can sometimes turn out to be shitty at being
remote,” Smith said. “The reason is they’ve never worked remotely before and
they’re not used to distractions at home so they’re on their best behavior."

That's an interesting argument. I guess it's just an example and I shouldn't
read too much into it, but to me the opposite is true: at home I am completely
in sync with my surroundings, have no distractions and have certain "rituals"
that make me more productive. It's the constant interruptions and distractions
at the office that would make me terribly unproductive if someone would fly me
in to assess my abilities on-site.

~~~
fapjacks
Absolutely this for me, too. I find it hard to buckle down and hack
productively in flow in _any_ open office plan (which is all startups). I end
up going to one of the "meeting rooms" and staying in there holed up all day
with headphones on facing away from the windows into the hallway just to get
any work done, and even then, I get constant interruptions because I end up
having to turn the lights off because they're too bright, and people think the
room's empty and available (even when "booked" through those fancy systems
some companies use).

Meanwhile, working remote, I can lay on the couch or in bed and hack
meaningfully for 12 hours and do it again the day after. Actually, this is
what I do for side projects while I'm on vacation, and it's how I truly de-
stress and relax. It strikes me as completely strange that I have to explain
this to pretty much every single (non-recruiter) person that emails me about a
job about why I am only interested in remote positions. How can the tech
industry be so old and this idea still so foreign?

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iamdave
_I end up having to turn the lights off because they 're too bright_

Hear hear; I work remotely and check-in physically maybe twice a month when
delegates come down to our satellite office. I find artificial lighting
absolutely _grating_. Working from home it's a rarity for me to turn on a
light until as late as dusk.

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metaobject
I work from home 3 days of the week and usually go into the office twice a
week. In every location I've worked (we tend to get moved about every two
years), I invariably end up standing on my desk to twist some/most of the
fluorescent tube lights directly over/around my desk so they disengage and go
dark. The only challenge then is fending off well-intentioned facilities
personnel who want to replace the "failed" light.

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iamdave
First job I ever had was as one of those well-intentioned facilities
personnel, at the Denny's corporate HQ. First couple of months on the job was
pushing a cart around a 40 story office tower replacing lightbulbs and
ballasts before adding other tasks-it was meant to, and served a good purpose
of helping me orient to getting around the building.

Anyway, there were a few corner offices I eventually set up a little system
with: if that office owner _didn 't_ want their bulbs replaced, to put a
sticky note covering the light switch. I'd come through, check for a sticky
"okay, no new bulbs for this manager" and move along. Was a pretty good system
until our facilities manager politely asked me to stop and change the bulbs
anyway.

~~~
fapjacks
I am disappointed I can't give you more upvotes for building and maintaining
this anti-bright-light system. Kudos!

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DoofusOfDeath
On the "running" side of things, lately I've been looking for solutions to
fact that distributed teams can't gather in front of an actual whiteboard for
discussion / design.

I've been surprised by how hard it is to find cheap, effective alternatives.
Cost is a particular concern when each person works from his/her own location.

(1) At the high end, you have dedicated large-screen devices with dedicated
software, like Google Jamboard. Gorgeous, awesome, very expensive. $5k+ USD.

(2) Next step down in terms of price and glitz: the combination of a real
whiteboard + a projector + special hardware for monitoring pens and/or hands.
About $1k USD if you have to buy the whiteboard, and already have the
computer.

(3) Next step down in terms of size, but about the same price: tether a
touch-/pen- sensitive display to your computer. E.g., iPad Pro, or Wacom
Cintiq or a cheap knockoff. ~$400-$1200 USD, depending on device and size.
Pros: Portable. Cons: Much smaller area to draw.

(4) Status quo: Each person sits at his/her desk, using a mouse or (if they
don't mind smudges and/or gorilla arms) a touch-sensitive laptop screen. Pros:
Ubiquitous. Cons: Not fluid way to draw / annotate for most people.

* Note: The breakdown above focuses on HW. I'm assuming that the SW side is at least somewhat solved by online, shared docs such as Google Draw, Realtimeboard, etc.

* Note 2: A lot of the online collaboration sites are a hard sell in corporate environments if sensitive information is to be shared.

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edmundhuber
I've experimented with zoom.us whiteboard + wacom tablet. I thought it was
pretty good, though as you can imagine you quickly run out of space.

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peterlk
I strongly (very strongly) disagree with the idea of a "hack week". Having
multiple rounds of interviewing and a programming challenge seems reasonable
to me, but if you think you've found someone who is the right fit, hire them.
Everyone makes mistakes, but have some courage, and be willing to fire fast if
it isn't a good fit. People want to work at places that value them, and
"conditionally" hiring someone does not convey that message

~~~
edmundhuber
It's part of the continual corporate drive to push risks off the company and
onto the employee. No self-respecting employee should do a take home exam, or
do a "hack week", because every time you do, you normalize and reward this
behavior.

~~~
mnm1
Yup. And when one does make a mistake and do it once, one quickly learns it's
almost always not appreciated. I've done it twice before. Once it landed me a
free trip to SF and a rescinded job offer after (I aced their interview and
almost finished the problems they said no one finishes but they didn't
actually want to hire remote). The other time I did something it was
immediately ignored and never looked at by the company. Mind you, I knew
better but I was desperate at the time so I still did it. In other words, I
was an idiot.

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lifeisstillgood
OMFG. their hiring process is ... worrying. An online test, phone screen, hour
of paired hacking then a conditional offer and a "hack week" \- a weeks try
out.

I balk at doing screening tests like hackerrank. I don't get how you can
expect someone to spend a probationary week, with no real guarantee of work.
they stop the job hunt, tell other employers no thanks, and bang 50/50 pass
rate perhaps?

I don't get it. Hiring remote is hard but this seems too much.

~~~
arenaninja
I'm in the same boat. I take a hard pass on any company/exercise that can't be
done in the span of 2 hours.

The one time I took one that was 4 hours it was (luckily for me) a disaster

~~~
bitL
There is one company in Hamburg that sends their candidates a test from
Codility whose difficulty is way higher than the ones from Google/FB, all for
positions that pay between 40-100k (heavy bias to lower bound), in office
where utmost discipline is required. They use bad results in negotiation to
lower offers and then are surprised when most candidates walk away and they
can't get any people working for them.

~~~
arenaninja
Yep, many companies are choosing beggars; wondering why they can't
attract/retain talent. I actually saw a megacorp quoting some study that said
millenials "...don't care about money and are looking for fulfillment". While
I'm sure that's true for some percentage of any population, I'd be surprised
if they raised their wages and their hiring troubles persisted.

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edmundhuber
Companies employing the strategy of "everyone has to take the test" are
missing out on great candidates. The best employees respect their own time
enough to not spend time on an exam/busywork. The best employees often also
have copious Github repos that you could read up on, or quiz them about.

But maybe the "take home test" strategy is about identifying candidates that
will sacrifice their free time for your company.

No matter how you look at it, it doesn't look good.

~~~
bryanh
Like everything in life, encoded into those decisions are tradeoffs.

Just relying on code on Github is okay -- until you realize some people don't
like to work on non-proprietary code in their free time, preferring to spend
it with family.

Just relying on deep questioning is okay -- until you realize some people are
excellent at learning and communicating complex topics but haven't actually
implemented it yet.

Just relying on live coding is okay -- until you realize some people have bad
anxiety and can't perform in that sort of environment.

Just relying on take home tests is okay -- until you realize people don't like
working for free on the off chance you'll hire them.

While I don't like some processes more than others, I've also never been truly
satisfied with any hiring process I've put together (and we've tried all
types) -- perhaps because hiring is a fundamentally flawed process. Perhaps
the best advice is: don't work for a company that interviews in a way you
don't like, and don't hire people who don't like the way you interview. The
best we can do at that point is be transparent up front.

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sheeshkebab
It all sounded reasonable until a conditional offer with a week of trial...
I’m a consultant and certainly used to that but WTF for an employee that’s
going on a fraction of my rate.

I guess if you hire really remote folks from other countries (that might not
have internet connection or be on the right time zone), but still.

