
Remote Only - omot
https://www.remoteonly.org/
======
nvarsj
My somewhat reductive conclusion about remote work is that it boils down to
the ability to be an effective writer.

If you're not good at written communication, or you work with people who are
not good at it, remote work will be miserable.

People who are not highly fluent in the company's written language or those
with some level of dyslexia will struggle. Also some people get frustrated
with the more analytic approach required by text, relying instead on spoken
rhetoric.

I think even if you're colocated, there are huge benefits to following the
remote work practices and improving your written communication. Documenting
your work in an issue manager and using chat primarily for communication means
no one will miss out, even if someone is sick, a new starter, or on a
different team. All these things can make a dev organisation much more
effective and break down silos.

~~~
AYBABTME
People say that, yet in my experience it's not actually true. We just need to
communicate enough to coordinate. I'm not a great communicator, I don't think
most people at my work are great communicators, yet we work just fine as a
remote company. I feel people exaggerate this belief.

Regular chatter in public chat channels seems sufficient. What really seems to
matter is work ethics.

~~~
collyw
I don't work remotely as such, but usually with distributed teams. Personally
I find skype chats or similar the best way. Writing emails is quite a long
winded way to get to where you want and takes me a while. Chats are more two
way so you can judge where the other person is with understanding the problem,
and has the benefit of being written down for future reference.

~~~
beat
Yeah, I find Skype or Slack or some other form of IM to be absolutely
invaluable in making remote work effective. But it's also semi-synchronous and
interruptive, relative to email.

------
hartator
> Disadvantages > Scares investors - Scares some partners - Scares some
> customers - Scares some potential employees, mostly senior non-technical
> hires - Onboarding is harder, first month feels lonely

We do a full remote policy at SerpApi.com, however I found this disadvantages
list a bit dishonest, they are more way numerous and important, the most
obvious are missing real human contacts (and it doesn't get easier with time),
and harder life and work separation.

~~~
chpmrc
This assumes that the only place a remote worker can work from is their home.
There is nothing more detrimental to a person's psyche. Cafes and coworking
spaces are the most obvious and effective solution to this problem.

I made countless friends while working remotely and a good 90% of them I met
in a coworking space (and the so called "digital nomad" community is made of
some really awesome people). Plus you have the option to change coworking
space if you don't like the people, the coffee, the wallpapers or whatever.
You can't do that with a traditional office (or it would be reaaally hard to
justify).

~~~
Thrymr
> This assumes that the only place a remote worker can work from is their
> home. There is nothing more detrimental to a person's psyche.

That is rather hyperbolic. Many remote workers do fine working from home.
Others do not. Not all people are the same. Any of us can think of things that
are "more detrimental to a person's psyche" for nearly all individuals.

~~~
ASalazarMX
For example, coworkers who use the bathroom and just rinse their hands. That
is worse for my psyche than working from home.

~~~
eanzenberg
Is there something filthy on your junk? Better get it clean than keep dirtying
your hands

~~~
mmt
But, see, the way to get it "clean" is by washing ones hands regularly with
soap and warm water (ideally before touching it [1]).

Really, though, you're making the (likely false) assumption that ones "junk"
is the only thing touched in the restroom. You're also ignoring the potential
for aeresolized bits of feces sprayed by commercial flush mechanisms.

None of this adds up to "filthy" per se, but hand washing is one of the best
disease spreading preventions we know of.

Personally, if they're not going to wash I'd rather someone not go anywhere
near the sink after using the restroom instead of _also_ touching the fixtures
and giving the bacteria on their hands a drink of water.

[1] I once worked in a building with a dentist who washed both before and
after.

~~~
inertiatic
I always do both and it feels extremely weird to see people not actually do
it. In between bathroom breaks at work I've touched my desk, keyboard,
smartphone screen, perhaps adjusted my shoes, perhaps shook someones hand. By
that time, hands already feel filthy enough to not want to touch myself
anywhere before washing.

~~~
mmt
I suspect that's where you may be crossing over into an irrational fear of
dirt and/or germs, which can lead to, at the very least, people being
dismissive of concerns.

After all, your desk, keyboard, smartphone screen, and even shoes aren't
likely to be places _other_ people have touched, so not much potential for
spreading anything.

Shaking hands, though.. filthy habit ;)

~~~
inertiatic
Your keyboard is filthy, but your fingers aren't really the best bet for germs
to infect you, unless you put them in an orifice or touch some skinless area
probably. I'll avoid further details.

But yes, I'm not suggesting that not washing your hands all the time greatly
increase your likelihood of getting infected with something. Just slightly. I
just have slight OCD and it's still weird to me how people don't feel anywhere
close to the same way I do about these things.

~~~
distances
I guess I don't see the risk? It's been close to 20 years since I last had a
stomach flu, and never got salmonella yet. I believe total avoidance of all
bacteria is just going to make my immune system more lax.

Don't worry though, I do wash my hands after a bathroom visit. I just don't
care that much if someone else doesn't.

~~~
mmt
> I guess I don't see the risk?

That's the point, though. Once you "see" it, it's way too late.

> It's been close to 20 years since

That's just anecdata, but, as you point out, you do wash your hands.

> total avoidance of all bacteria

That's not exactly possible (and essentially deadly, unless there are archea
that can take the place of all our gut bacteria.. I'm not sure).

> I just don't care that much if someone else doesn't.

I'd agree it's unreasonable to care more than just slightly, since they'd be
increasing the risk more for themselves than for you. However, increased risk
for everyone (including you) is non-zero.

~~~
distances
> That's the point, though. Once you "see" it, it's way too late.

I see your point, but it simply falls to things I rather not care about.
Adding a mental/habitual burden on something that is either unlikely or not
that serious isn't just worth it; a life is more relaxed if it can be
disregarded.

I also acknowledge that it's not something that can be simply chosen though. I
do I know about certain things way more than some of my friends, even if I
didn't want to.

------
SigmundA
Doesn't seem to be much discussion about the environmental impact of remote
work.

Lately I have been feeling how ridiculous it is for me to drive everyday to a
office and sit at a computer then drive home. So inefficient from an energy
usage perspective.

I see so many jobs that could easily be remote if people could deal with the
issues outlined here.

Imagine the difference in traffic and office space if every job that could be
remote was. I would think the environmental impact would be huge.

In a utopian view I could see us returning to small villages as there is no
need to move to the city. You could live in smaller communities wherever you
like with others you get along with in person.

High speed internet has made this possible, but it seem like we have just
scratched the surface of how it could change society and the planet.

~~~
narag
_Imagine the difference in traffic and office space if every job that could be
remote was._

I was wondering how much work cannot be remoted and it seems a lot. Remote
work is a privilege.

~~~
SigmundA
It seems to me nearly all white collar office/desk jobs could be remote as
they basically involve sitting at a desk with a computer and phone. I believe
more than half of all jobs in the US are considered white collar.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic about what could be done remote, but modern
cities seem to be basically a bunch of tall buildings with offices that have a
desk and computer to sit at.

~~~
narag
_It seems to me nearly all white collar office /desk jobs could be remote as
they basically involve sitting at a desk with a computer and phone. I believe
more than half of all jobs in the US are considered white collar._

You are cheating! Not all white collar workers can work remotely. Everything
healthcare, legal, teachers, everybody with a public-facing work, computer
technicians, sales... Actually, could anybody make the reverse list? Better
than dismiss the discussion with another downvote.

------
jimejim
I've worked mostly remote for over 20 years, both as an engineer and a
business owner. I wouldn't give it up for the world.

However, simple fact: not all people are cut out for it. Some perfectly fine
engineers are better in an office environment with other people. Sometimes an
office environment is LESS distracting for those people, not more.

It also depends on where they are in life: A person with toddlers is going to
have a better work life if they can get away occasionally. I had my own
struggles with this and had to work through the new environment.

So, both are good and can work depending on when and where your life is at,
and neither is perfect.

~~~
danpalmer
I completely agree with this. Probably due to being much earlier in my career,
I haven't yet learnt how to separate my personal life from my work life well.
I use the office and my commute to form a boundary, which works very well so I
have a good work life balance, but as soon as I work from home I either get
much less done, or I get much more done and have no free time. I hope to
improve at this, in 10 years time (when I hope to own a house/have a
family/etc) I'd hope that I'm working from home 1-2 days a week _every week_,
but I'm not there yet.

~~~
lagadu
I've been working remotely for the past half year (same job and same place, I
just started doing it remotely) and I was a little afraid of that: mixing my
personal and professional time.

For me at least it turns out that the fear was completely unfounded, before I
always got in at roughly the same time and always left at the same time,
leaving the laptop and phone on the office. Now while technically the laptop
and phone are always accessible I've found that I've no problem in keeping my
working time within a very strict schedule, normally I start at ~8.00 and
usually at 16.00 almost exactly I'm logging out, plus the phone goes
automatically into do not disturb mode until the following morning,
effectively recreating my office working routine. Your mileage may vary of
course but I was surprised at how easy it was to completely separate my
activities and preventing them blending together.

------
warcher
Yo, you gotta tell me when you’re working. You must. You’re on a team that is
depending on you and somebody has to know where the fuck your are and when
you’re going to fix whatever is broken today.

“Where’s will?” “I don’t know, our manifesto says nobody gets to know when
he’s working.” “Well he broke the site.” “That’s his right as a sovereign
citizen.” The end.

~~~
bmelton
If Kevin broke the site, it's a process problem. Kevin didn't break the site,
he introduced code that might have broken the site, and the lack of tests to
have detected the it broke the site. Jane then peer reviewed the code that
might have broken the site and approved it. Bob then failed to notice that the
site was broken during QA. The QA environment was apparently configured
differently enough by Taylor that the site could appear working in dev and QA,
and pass unit and functional tests without exploding until it hit production.

The team broke the site.

~~~
mfonda
As true as this is, unexpected problems happen. Kevin may be the only one that
can fix it, or at least be able to fix it a lot more effectively than others.
The issue might not be Kevin's fault (i.e it's really a process problem), but
being able to talk to him immediately (or at least know his schedule) will go
a long ways in getting the issue resolved in an acceptable time frame.

Nothing against remote work, but knowing everyone's typical working hours
makes things run a lot more smoothly.

~~~
AstralStorm
If your process cannot revert a breaking change with a figurative snap of
fingers, the process is broken. It is like driving a car with no brakes.

About the only time where I've seen this fail is if it was a publicised
feature launch that was way premature.

~~~
jpatokal
And when it's the build server itself that's broken? No process can account
for every possible edge case, and you need to have flexibility to handle the
unexpected.

~~~
vonmoltke
At some point problems reach the "Call Kevin now, I don't care what time it
is" level. Your processes should enable anyone to handle problems that are not
at this level.

------
dopamean
This "manifesto" really clarified for me something that I've often noticed
about people who strongly believe in remote working but had trouble putting to
words. For a lot of people remote work is less about the actual remote aspect
of it and more about the kind of relationship the employee has with their
employer. It is a relationship where I think the employee is more empowered
and freer to find a work life balance that satisfies them.

~~~
aspaceman
Precisely. And I think this is why many employers are also highly hesitant
about remote work (at times). They don't necessarily want to give their
employees that much power, but they lack the courage to say that directly. And
instead you hear the criticism that it's less productive.

~~~
speleding
An an employer who allows people to work remotely. My experience has been that
some employees cannot handle the responsibility and their output drops a lot
if they're not behind their desk. Others are fine / better. (Because I found
it hard to tell some people they're not allowed to work remotely, while others
can, I ended up replacing the ones who performed poorly when working remote.)

My point is that you cannot really argue for or against remote work without
taking into account that your employees might not all be suitable for that
work style. (But if you're building a new organisation then you can pick the
right people from the start)

~~~
yosito
If you give people more explicit feedback about their performance and hold
them accountable only for their performance regardless of where they get the
work done, the problem disappears. I get the sense that you're holding
yourself responsible for the performance of your employees, but for remote
work to be successful, you need to hold the employees responsible. If you find
that some employees aren't responsible enough to handle that, don't you want
more responsible employees anyway?

~~~
speleding
Yes, I came to the same conclusion: I need employees that don't need to be
micro-managed. Changing their behaviour (if that is even possible) seemed to
require more effort than I was prepared to put in, so I ended up replacing
them.

However, I haven't found a good way to assess whether potential hires are good
at this. Everyone claims to be an independent self-starter who is great at
remote work whilst in the hiring process...

~~~
tkxxx7
This is the kind of thing you can suss out of personal references. Of course,
many people will provide the best / most reliable (for them) references they
possibly can, but you can still get a good signal with the right question. Ex.
"Can you tell me about any times ____ pulled through without oversight", or
"delivered something both useful and unexpected", etc. Anything that isn't a
fast, resounding "yes" with details is probably a "no".

------
superfrank
Honestly, I find it a bit weird so much of this blog post focus on making all
information visible and documenting everything (which I agree with) and then
there is:

> People don't have to say when they are working.

That just seems a bit at odds with the rest of the post and I don't really
agree with it.

Sometimes there are questions that only one person (let's say Nick) can answer
or situations where Nick is more valuable than other employees. Let's say I've
got a moderately time sensitive issue and I'm pretty sure Kevin knows the
answer as he's an expert in the subject, alternatively, I could pull aside
Bob, Joe, and Linda and we could probably figure it out after a little while.

Knowing when Nick will be back online plays a big factor in what I chose to do
next. If Nick is offline for lunch and will be back in an hour, I'll wait for
Nick. If Nick started work early and is now offline for a long weekend, well
then I need to pull Bob, Joe, and Linda away from their work to help me.

Having at least a general idea of when people will be available seems like
it'd be even more important in a situation where I can't ask the people around
me, "Has anyone seen Nick today?"

~~~
varenc
If all information is visible and everything is well documented, it should be
rare to have the situation where one person is the only one that can answer
that question. This will totally still happen for remote teams, but I think it
happens more in other organizations that rely on face time and verbal
information exchange.

I still generally agree that knowing when folks are online can be helpful and
don’t see a big issue with that as long as you don’t have a culture that
starts measuring people by how many hours they put in. Rather than an upfront
“I will be working today from X to Y” something passive like a Slack recent
activity indicator could be enough.

~~~
superfrank
> If all information is visible and everything is well documented, it should
> be rare to have the situation where one person is the only one that can
> answer that question. This will totally still happen for remote teams, but I
> think it happens more in other organizations that rely on face time and
> verbal information exchange.

I worked at my last job for just over 2 1/2 years and, while we had an actual
office, for the first two years I was there, we also had a true "unlimited
vacation/remote work" policy. It wasn't unheard of that some people would take
4-6 week vacations and others would work remote for multiple months.

Documentation was great, but you can't document __everything __you know, so
there will always be gaps. I 'm a developer, so these will be dev focused, but
some scenarios I can remember where one specific person was needed are:

\- Legacy code. Bob was the only one around when this code was written and it
hasn't been touched in years, now it's breaking and no one understands why.
(In an ideal world, there wouldn't be knowledge silos like this, but there
always are)

\- Specialties. Most developers know this tool, but Bob is an expert. We need
to do something that requires an expert. We need Bob.

\- Bob left an ominous, yet vague comment on my PR. I don't want to merge
until I get clarification. (something like "This looks hacky. I guess it
works, but we should probably change this ASAP." or "Eww")

~~~
methyl
> \- Legacy code. Bob was the only one around when this code was written and
> it hasn't been touched in years, now it's breaking and no one understands
> why. (In an ideal world, there wouldn't be knowledge silos like this, but
> there always are)

Not sure if valid, if some legacy code was written a few years before,
probably even author will have no clue what's wrong.

~~~
AstralStorm
The author might have a higher chance of figuring it out. This is playing the
likelihood game though. In perfect world, the code would be tight and small
enough that you wouldn't take long to understand it, and then the complex
components (there are always a bunch of these) are well tested and documented.
Especially rationale for design decisions or implementation quirks.

Old code does not necessarily mean legacy code.

------
bendixso
LOL Disadvantage: "The need to prepare food."

Are we talking about generally existing as a human being? Yeah, until they
invent food replicators you're gonna have to prepare your own food. Get used
to it.

I'd say getting to use your own kitchen to prepare your own delicious and
nutritious meals is one of the prime advantages of remote work. It saves you
way more money over going out to eat, and it's a much more healthy alternative
to blindly trusting a restaurant or some food service company like Sysco.

Then again, I am a bit of a maverick in that I make all of my lunches at home,
even when I have an office I must travel to for work. You can do your entire
week in advance on a Sunday evening, spending less than $30. Not. A. Hardship.

We really should push back against the catered meals and supposed "perks."
That's money the company could have spent on increasing your salary or paying
a higher dividend to shareholders. Instead of doing that, they've decided
they're going to spend your money on an army of chefs to keep you at the
office 24/7.

I'll take the higher pay, greater freedom and autonomy, and my own home cooked
meals, thank you much.

~~~
OJFord
I think it's an intended joke; a dual of "home food" in the advantages.

(Unless you, or someone else contributed that after reading and before I did,
of course...)

~~~
bendixso
That's what I get for not reading the whole thing

------
subway
For the love of all that is sane, please top trying to push nonstop video
calls onto remote employees.

Embrace asynchronous communication.

~~~
BallinBige
pair programming is more effective IN PERSON

~~~
mmt
I don't think I've ever seen any objective evidence on this one way or the
other.. have you?

------
JamyDev
Didn't see anyone top level mention it, but:

Disadvantages -> Timezones

Timezones make scheduling team meetings hard, and if your organization ever
becomes big enough to warrant a physical office people far away will start
working late hours to keep up with the main office.

YMMV, but it's 3 AM here in Berlin and until 10 minutes ago I was still
actively working.

~~~
rmgraham
I've been full-time remote for just shy of 5 years and timezones is definitely
an issue. Up to 4 hour difference is sustainable indefinitely, 8 hours can be
with the right people (doing split days is great for this), but beyond 8 hours
and the amount of effort required for synchronous communication (video calls)
causes it to not happen and the team loses cohesion.

You need the synchronous communication to have non-work conversations, and you
need those non-work conversations to develop and maintain the relationships
required (trust, rapport, etc.) for remote work.

> if your organization ever becomes big enough to warrant a physical office

...then you probably don't have enough buy-in to be a fully remote company and
that is far harder to work around than timezones.

------
allday
> Save on compensation due to hiring in lower cost regions

Pay people what they're worth regardless of where they live. If you have a
developer in Nigeria or Ukraine or Vietnam that is as equally capable as a
developer in the Bay Area, they should be paid the same.

Doing otherwise, at best, perpetuates Western hegemony, and at worst is simply
racism.

~~~
sushisource
This is a bit ridiculous. It's not hegemony or racism. It's how markets work.
People in those markets have fewer opportunities for highly paid employment.
As a result, employers have more leverage in negotiations. It's as simple as
that.

~~~
jasonkester
_It 's how markets work._

Markets work by paying for value created. I’ve tested extensively, and found
that I’m equally capable of writing code on a beach in Thailand as in a felt
cube in California.

I’ll grant that there is a Cost of Living difference between those places, but
I would prefer that difference to be captured by _me_ rather than somebody
else’s company. It’s me doing the work and creating the value, so that seems
reasonable. If you want to purchase my services, you get to pay my market
rate. End of story.

Never drop your rate when working remote. That should probably be written in
the article we’re discussing.

~~~
AstralStorm
Unfortunately, you will get outpriced by people doing "the same" work for
less. Since you cannot know the global prices, you cannot even meet them, much
less compete. Lowest bidder often wins.

~~~
jasonkester
I know, right? I've lost track of all the money I've lost from clients going
with the lowest bidder over the years. I must be literally _hundreds of
dollars_ by now.

A bit of advice: Those cheap guys are not your competition, and those bargain
hunter clients are not the ones you're trying to land. Let them all race to
the bottom all they want. Maybe one of them will find a dev who doesn't know
his value yet, but the rest will get their money's worth. It doesn't concern
you.

There is only one of you, and your rate is the same whether you're onsite in
the Bay Area or working remote from anywhere else you choose to be.

That mindset has served me well over the years. I'd recommend taking it on
board.

------
Shank
My biggest problem is this: While there is a surplus of remote only positions,
this surplus always wants the same thing: very senior developers with tons of
wide experience sets.

Seems like there's a lot of talent being left on the floor by only looking for
senior developers. There's a lot of goodwill that can be earned by trusting in
potential and helping candidates grow into a position. Even an experienced
developer in one set of languages and frameworks is junior to others -- and
they can't get the foot in the door anywhere remotely.

The "years of experience" drought is real, but I feel like it's an eternal
desert for remote work.

~~~
UlisesAC4
That is something bad at our industry. Managers or whoever do that decision
believes that being senior automagically makes you a genious, when it can be
the other way around, the more senior you are, the more averse to change you
are. I doubt that senior could easily change to remote lifestyle after years
of onsite.

People must learn that anyone can be remote, the thing is that everyone must
agree to communicate better instead of more.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _the more senior you are, the more averse to change you are. I doubt that
> senior could easily change to remote lifestyle after years of onsite._

Why not? Going from on-site to remote is _strictly easier_ , as the only thing
it needs is to stop leaving home every morning.

I don't get this "the more senior you are, the more averse to change you are"
\- the only thing I've seen is older people having higher expectations and
less tolerance for abuse and working for pie-in-the-sky promises of future
wealth. But maybe my bias is showing, I'm nearing 30, so pretty old by
software industry standards.

------
rwbcxrz
> Fast internet everywhere - 100Mb/s+ cable, 5GHz Wifi, 4G cellular

I used to say that. Now I live in a rural area, and the fastest speed that's
even _available_ is 5Mbps (and the uptime isn't great). My house also has zero
cell service from any provider.

It's also a bit presumptive that everyone can afford a 100Mbps connection. The
last place I lived, it was like $120/month for 100Mbps. Not everybody can
afford that.

That being said, has anyone out there come up with creative solutions for
working remotely on a crappy connection?

~~~
jnmandal
1\. A lot of places that are remote will cover or subsidize internet costs for
employees 2\. I think the the poor access to Internet in rural areas is more
of a US thing. In LDCs we have often wider availability for low cost 4g and/or
more equal distribution of telecom infrastructure in general.

~~~
jasonkester
You have misunderstood. The grandparent is not saying that fast internet is
expensive. He’s saying that there is simply no way of attaining it at his
house for any price.

That describes a lot of places in the developed world. My little farming town
in rural France, as well as the medium sized City in England where I lived
previously.

~~~
NullPrefix
>no way of attaining it at his house for any price

I bet Amazon jungle doesn't have gbit internet either. The question is whether
OP chose a location without internet knowingly or he was cut off and left
stranded.

------
jasonkester
_Selects for self starting people_

The article has the arrow causality backwards on this one, and it describes
the biggest pitfall with remote work: you absolutely need to seek out and only
hire people who will find things to do and work around problems on their own,
rather than waiting for instruction from above.

That describes a surprisingly small subset of employees. School trains you for
the age of four to take instructions from the person in charge, act, then wait
for more instructions. You can make it all the way to retirement on many
career tracks without ever deviating from that pattern.

It does not work at all in a remote organisation.

------
toddsiegel
> People don't have to say when they are working.

This is a bad idea.

People should not have to work all on the same schedule, but having some
shared understanding of when people work or take time off is certainly a good
thing.

~~~
ozten
I read this as "You don't constantly have to announce that you are working",
maybe some copy editing would make the intent clearer.

~~~
toddsiegel
If you mean announcing every time you walk the dog, or run a quick errand,
then sure, of course.

I work remotely and keep regular hours. I communicate any major deviation from
those hours.

I’ve worked with people that keep super random hours. That is fine too, but
they have to communicate some kind of expectations to the team. It’s super
frustrating when they don’t. It becomes hard to manage if you’re directly
depending on them for any reason.

------
keithnz
I'd be interested to know some long term remote workers experiences with
regards to interruptions. It's one of the things that I believe would be
better. In many places I've worked I tend to become a "go to" person which
results in many many interruptions, it doesn't make too much difference how
much you write down, it's usually always quicker to just ask someone who you
know knows the answer to whatever question you have. Remote working seems like
it would put up just enough of a barrier that written information / async
communication would be an easier go to?

~~~
jen729w
Ping! That's me.

I've long been that "go-to" guy. I'm friendly, I like to help, and I'm a bit
of a jack-of-all-trades. That's fine, it's my natural fit and I enjoy it.

I've been working remotely (from home) for about 2 months now and my
productivity is through the roof. It's astonishing. When I work 8 hours, I get
~6.5 hours productive work done. That feels like a theoretical maximum. In the
office, 8 hours "at work" – read "in the building" – often felt like 2 or 3
hours of actual work, on a good day.

You spend _so much time_ in the office chatting to people, getting coffee,
overhearing interesting conversations, waiting in a meeting room for people to
turn up, waiting at the door for people to come to lunch, getting there in the
first place, setting up, packing up. It's madness, really. (I'm in Melbourne,
Australia. I think our work ethic is different to you Americans.)

I'm lucky, my partner is also a freelancer. We wake up – often at 5am – and
make a cup of tea and a slice of toast. "First breakfast." Half an hour later
we're awake and we wander upstairs to the office. We put some ambient music
on, or not. We knuckle down and work. Two hours later, sun's up, we make a
coffee and have "second breakfast". :-)

It's transformed how I live and work. I'm lucky in that my boss is an old
friend and he trusts me absolutely. The work I'm doing is exclusively for him,
so it's not a problem that I'm not around colleagues. We just use the phone or
iMessage to communicate.

We set a weekly rhythm so I don't have to tell him when I'm working; but,
because he's a friend, if he calls and I'm not at my desk that's cool.

I am in love with this situation. I can never go back.

------
eanzenberg
Its hard to have remote junior developers in my experience. Certain things are
much easier explained in person than over conferencing software.

~~~
rob_b
I work with junior developers that are fully remote without any issues. We
communicate via IM, Slack, email, and Skype as needed. Not sure how to do
something, let’s have a quick screen share and we’ll work through it. Finished
with your assigned feature, submit a pull request and I’ll leave comments
accordingly or we’ll review it via a screen share. It’s not impossible to do
but may require some to change their collaboration approach.

~~~
UlisesAC4
Exactly, remote working is not about tech expertise but more about effective
communication.

------
peacetreefrog
I think the key (and very appealing thing to me and a lot of people) is:

The _results of work_ over the _hours put in_.

It also relates to the the idea of saying whether you're working or not. If
you're producing great results, it shouldn't matter when/how/how much time it
takes you to do it (provided maybe people can get ahold of you in an
emergency). But I also seems like the key to this working is being willing to
get rid of people that aren't meeting that high bar (whether weren't up to
snuff or weren't because they weren't putting in enough time).

I think most organizations are unwilling/uncomfortable holding people to this
high of standard on outputs, and so measure inputs (40 hours, at least not
looking like you're slacking off) instead.

Charlie Munger tells a story about Fedex and how they needed to move all their
packages around different planes every night in one central location. They had
a team of workers to do it, but they were having trouble getting the work
finished on time and keeping people motivated.

Eventually they decided -- instead of paying people by the hour -- to just pay
them the same thing no matter how long it took (per shift), and let everyone
go home when they were done. Lo and behold the night teams got their packages
moved around much faster and and made just as much money and Fedex was able to
deliver better and quicker everyone was happy.

~~~
maxxxxx
"Eventually they decided -- instead of paying people by the hour -- to just
pay them per shift, and let everyone go home when they were done. Lo and
behold that worked and the night teams got their packages moved around much
faster and made just as much money and everyone was happy."

The problem is that such a situation is often not stable. The next boss will
come in and think "these guys work only 5 hours so I either hire less people
or give them more work".

------
zerostar07
The usual skepticism from HN comes up whenever telecommuting is brought up.
However, it _was_ tech's promise. I think people should be asking how to fix
its problems rather than nagging that it "doesn't work for me". But maybe i'm
biased as an indie dev.

~~~
skohan
What do you work on as an indie dev?

------
Tade0
Nitpicking, but it's something I've seen in many other places: Why is the
emphasis on the word "over" instead of the alternatives, which seem to be the
focus here?

Example:

Flexible working hours _over_ set working hours.

Why not:

 _Flexible_ working hours over _set_ working hours.

------
vemv
I prefer [http://asyncmanifesto.org/](http://asyncmanifesto.org/) which is
subtler and more concise. Also doesn't feel like just some individual's POV.

I don't see myself sharing
[https://www.remoteonly.org/](https://www.remoteonly.org/) as it can easily
look scary to employers.

------
relaunched
The details notwithstanding; I work for a F50 and my wife works for Gitlab. I
was a tad bit skeptical at first (and I'm the one that encouraged her to
apply). But watching her go through it, remote only is quickly becoming much
more appealing - at least the way Gitlab does it.

------
jaaron
The "remote only" movement would do itself a huge favor if:

1) Advocates didn't dismiss the real disadvantages as merely things other
people are "scared of"

2) A recognition that optimizing personal productivity doesn't always mean
success for a team, product or business

~~~
megaman22
1) Is entirely the introvert/extrovert divide, that extrovert management and
busybodies decry

------
andreagrandi
"Save on compensation due to hiring in lower cost regions" \- just NO! Sink
it, please!

------
nikhildaga
"People don't have to say when they are working"

We are a remote only company and don't agree with this at all. People should
have flexible working hours but others must know when they are working. It
removes confusion and sets clear expectations.

------
hellofunk
> Fast internet everywhere - 100Mb/s+ cable

Now that made me laugh out loud. This author must live in a nice bubble to
think that.

~~~
a13n
I was in Seoul last week. I had 400Mb/s on my phone... It's devastating how
far behind some first-world countries are in data infrastructure.

~~~
hellofunk
Seoul is not everywhere. South Korea is quite technologically advanced.

Try doing more traveling in SE Asia, you’ll see how bad it can be.

~~~
a13n
We actually spent three months in Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines and
also had a fabulous experience with cell data.

~~~
hellofunk
You will typically find cell data to be better than cable or land connections
in nearly all the countries you mentioned.

But remote developers don't typically work off cell data; your data limit will
get hit very quickly.

Philippines in particular has terrible internet connections for homes, in
general.

In fact in many places, cell data is the _only_ data available, there are no
land connections.

------
msaltz
Most of the comments on here relate to aspects of remote work and its
limitations, but I haven’t seen anyone say what seems obvious to me - Having
an office is nice! It’s good for me to have a place that my brain associates
exclusively with work. It’s nice to interact with teammates in person. If I
need quiet time or even if the weather is nice and I don’t feel like going
into the office, I can go work from a cafe somewhere. I certainly see the
appeal of remote work, but to me, having an office with the option of working
from home is preferable.

------
purplezooey
This is good but impractical. Many workplaces are full of jackasses who don't
care about the rules, and are not going to take the extra effort of saving a
screenshot to meeting notes to help out the remote guy/people. Instead this
person will happily subtly disadvantage the remote people just because it
makes him/her look one shade better. There are lots of these types out there,
i.e. those that think middle school politics is the name of the game. So
manifestos like this are of little practical value.

~~~
mattnewport
I think this site is aimed at remote only / remote first companies where this
particular problem should be less of an issue.

------
itaysk
Observation: This almost completely conflicts with the agile manifesto.

Opinion: As an architect I feel that f2f whiteboard and brainstorming sessions
are invaluable. But for a dev working on a feature, it might be better to
seclude. This is just an example to say that we will never find a policy that
works for everyone company-wide and world-wide. The company should do it's
best to accommodate it's employees' work style, for them to be productive and
happy. As for remote, I think it should be embraced, not enforced.

~~~
megaman22
The best thing is a mix.

When you're figuring out if an idea will even work, you need time to dick
around with it and try things to see if it is even possible.

Once you know the possibilities, talking it over in person and drawing
pictures helps disseminate knowledge and iron out rough spots.

Then you go finish the work.

One of those needs and benefits from collaboration, the others, it actively
hinders

------
tw1010
I like this kind of manifesto much more than the ones we've seen before in
this industry. This one feels much much more honest.

------
a13n
> Working long hours or weekends is not encouraged nor celebrated.

What does this have to do with building a remote-only company?

Different companies have different cultures, and that's okay. Would Uber be
nearly as successful if they were fully remote? Maybe. Would Uber be nearly as
successful without a long hours culture? I'm highly skeptical.

------
teachrdan
The list of disadvantages is missing perhaps the biggest one from a founder's
perspective: The conventional wisdom is that remote companies don't get
acquired.

If a founder is even considering a big exit due to acquisition then a remote-
only workforce is a non-starter. Same goes for investors with the same
ambitions.

------
desireco42
This is not just 'remote only' but has other good practices as writing down
requirements and processes. This is exceptionally healthy approach, even if
you have local employees. It prevents silos and people undermining other
people's work.

Great manifesto.

------
ptero
IMO first and foremost remote teams require good management (it helps all
teams, but in remote teams it is critical): someone who will enable remote
work, weed out people who spend most of their time non-productively and
translate his management demands into requests that fit the workflow and
schedule of his remote team.

This is a rare (and often underappreciated) skill. But until more people have
it, remote work will be limited (statistically) to non-critical components and
small parts of teams. My 2c.

------
laurex
I work for a remote team and we have a huge advantage in that what we build is
a video communication app, much like video texting. So while we do spend some
time in Slack, we also can easily communicate with video, which conveys nuance
and allows us to feel more connected, plus see things like bugs very easily.
It's not really designed for business use, but it's definitely handy for any
remote team.

------
kilroy123
Not sure if it's just my perception, but it seems the pendulum has swung back
around and remote work is looked at unfavorably.

I've worked remotely the last 3+ years and I'm currently looking for a new
gig. Seems like there aren't a lot of companies who are ok with full-time
remote.

For the few that are, there is really stiff competition for those few jobs.

~~~
namibj
Check out German software-related companies. Small ones are usually flexible
to be persuaded to hire you, if you can get through to them, that is. A good
application should work, and as usual, don't give up too soon. They don't even
know they can handle it. Maybe do some research as to how they'd have to do
payroll, to reduce the scariness of someone overseas.

~~~
solarkraft
Where can I specifically find German tech companies?

~~~
namibj
Look at the HRB and GnR "Type of Register" on the advanced search of [0], and
add keywords such as "IT", "net _" , "_net" and similar. I'm not that well-
versed in these matters, so while I think there is some source you could find
a list of these names and just run a regex on, I don't know where to get that
list. Also consider mining the CN fields of server certificates on German IP
ranges/all IPv4 addresses (it's just 2^32), and check their Impressum. There
you can look for a string ending in " GmbH" and " AG" in a footer, to get the
company name to use your regex on. The benefit there is that it should yield
all companies that have a German website with HTTPS, and I'd take a lack of
HTTPS for the company website or a website not reachable via a second level
domain under the .de TLD as a red flag. Assume to require a small German
introduction telling the recipient to forward the English part to an English
speaking colleague, preferably in the IT department, because the risk of
hitting someone who can't understand your English application is quite large.

[0]: [https://www.handelsregister.de/](https://www.handelsregister.de/)

------
binora
what do you look for in a candidate when hiring for a remote position ? I am 3
years experienced dev and cant even get my resume filtered for first round. I
do have 3 months of remote Gsoc experience if that counts. But i am curious,
is there some particular factor that gives an edge over other candidates ?

~~~
rmgraham
One of the benefits listed in the manifesto (and often touted elsewhere) is
that you are not limited to a specific region when hiring.

Unfortunately, what this means for candidates is they may have to compete with
a LOT more people.

Another challenge you're likely facing is that a lot of companies are only
willing to hire senior developers to work remotely because hesitant upper
management thinks they will be more trustworthy (completely ignoring the level
of trust inherent in having someone write code for them when they themselves
can't even verify it).

That negativity aside, here's some advice: As much as there is some backlash
around the idea of a GitHub profile being mandatory, one VERY practical use of
an open source portfolio of some kind is that almost all open source project
work is done remotely using the very same skills required for successful
remote employment. This applies even more so to non-programming contributions,
in my opinion, which means you don't even need to contribute code to
demonstrate these skills.

------
m0sa
some thoughts about remote work at Stack Overflow [0]

[0]: [https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/09/29/making-remote-work-
beh...](https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/09/29/making-remote-work-behind-
scenes/)

------
mey
From a legal/hr/pay role perspective, how do you hire full time around the
world?

~~~
Barbie_GitLab
It is pretty complex, but we have some information in our handbook.
[https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/)

~~~
otoburb
Gitlab, thank you for posting your handbook that can be reviewed transparently
ahead of time by prospective hires.

The complexity of hiring in various countries and jurisdictions is often
completely under appreciated by anybody who hasn't had to set up or wind down
an entity. GitLab's page[1] gives a flavour of the machinations required to
for a legal entity that represents your company to process payroll and adhere
to local and regional labour, tax and medical insurance regulations and
practices.

I'm very appreciate of companies committed to remote work, especially more so
when they are receptive to hiring international staff due to the extra non-
trivial administrative overhead required.

[1] [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-
operations/global-c...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-
operations/global-compensation/)

------
JTbane
Question for remote workers: how do you deal with the innate need for managers
to know that you are busy?: i.e. that you're not just more or less slacking
off for a salary.

~~~
IOT_Apprentice
Managers should just be concerned that the tasks and goals assigned to their
staff are being worked on, that they will be delivered on time based on a
mutually agreed upon schedule. Communication (verbal, written, predictive
based on data analysis) is key. Being "busy" should never be the point,
getting things done should be.

------
dennisgorelik
> Asynchronous communication over synchronous communication.

I think it is a mistake to try to bundle "remote" work with "asynchronous"
work.

These are orthogonal things.

------
pimmen
As far as I understand it, Lightbend (the maintainers of Scala and Akka) is
also a remote only workplace with developers working around the world.

------
randiantech
Anorher fantastic remote only company is Moon Studios, the creators of Ori And
The Blind Forest.

------
perlpimp
you need to be in physical proximity to your co-worker only if you need to
smell them.

------
xadhix
Just curious. Why does the site's title have HTML in it? Bug or feature? :)

------
elbrujohalcon
The title of this html page is it's own html source. Is that intentional?

------
Barbie_GitLab
When joining any company, I recommend understanding the values, culture, and
work environment. It is not one size fits all. You should ensure that you
would enjoy working with the people, values, and environment you are joining.
Remote work may not be for everyone, and doesn't need to be, however it can be
wonderful! It has been life-changing for me and my family. My son's math
scores have gone up 30% since joining GitLab, because I now have time in the
afternoon to dedicate to helping with his homework, before he's exhausted
after his latest sports game/practice. That is just one example of how it has
impacted my life, but there are many more. I'm home for dinner. I have more
time for my friends, but I also have more time for work (I had a 3 hour
commute before GitLab). My health has improved. I am happier. At GitLab, we
take steps to make remote work successful. In addition to our daily "social"
call together, we also enable our team members to rent space at a co-working
facility (we work, for example), or work from anywhere with an internet
connection if that is preferable for them. It is not unusual for my teammates
to see me taking Video conferencing calls from the beach. It has been proven
that humans do their best thinking surrounded by nature, and I try to take
advantage of that. I love the freedom that remote work gives me and my fellow
team members. But I agree that we must always be thinking about how to
maximize the benefits of this arrangement and decrease the downsides. If you
are willing to put in the effort, which includes changing the way you work and
communicate, as asynchronous communication is required to make remote work
successful, it can be very rewarding. I don't feel that I have less human
contact, I feel that I have more but different contact. I definitely get more
direct time with my friends and family, but I also get to know more people at
work. In an office building, I tended to only spend time with those who sat
near me or interacted regularly with me. Occasionally it ventured out passed
that if I joined the SCUBA group, or something similar. At GitLab, our team
calls, our meetings, and our summits allow me to get to know people from
around the world that I would have never had the opportunity to learn from
before. We have different experiences and perspectives and it is fascinating!
If you know that remote work isn't for you, that you love decisions being made
in hallways vs. organized communication, for example, then it is great that
you know that. The wonderful thing is that there are many companies conducting
their business in different ways, that we should all be able to find the one
that matches our needs and values. I'm thrilled to have found a company that
matches my needs, to balance wellness, work, family, and friends, while making
an impact in our industry. If you are at a remote company and feel that things
could be done better, I hope that they are willing to hear your
recommendations. I wouldn't give up on the model without trying to make it
work. If you work at GitLab and have recommendations, I'm happy to hear them!

~~~
eckza
I just started working remotely, after a year plus of a three-hour commute.

My quality-of-life improvements have been very similar to yours. I cannot
believe how much happier I am now, on a daily basis.

I have written some of the best code of my life while sitting on a picnic
table in a park. I see my friends more. I see my family more. I have more
energy to put into my work, which results in better work satisfaction.

I pinch myself every day.

------
soupdiver
The page you're looking for could not be found.

------
HarmlessHacker
Does anyone know of any open source/free + preferably self-hosted applications
for remote technical support on residential networks. (Users not on LAN)

Thanks in advance!

------
icedchai
anyone every try to juggle more than one remote job simultaneously? seems
feasible...

------
randiantech
Another fantastic remote only company is Moon Studios, the creators of Ori And
The Blind Forest.

------
megaman22
I've loved it, in the past when circumstances dictated it; I would love to
make it the normal mode. I get so much more done.

I think the optimal distribution in one day in office, allocated to
organizational work and planning and meetings, and four off-site to actually
do the work.

Being "in the office" is mostly a waste of time for deep work that actually
produces results.

The only thing being in the office I've found is better is feather-smoothing,
and honestly, that actually works better async, if you have people that can
work async.

------
cup-of-tea
Wow it really seems like I should be doing remote work. This is the exactly
how I'd like work to be, in particular the emphasis on written communication.
I've been trying to make the company I work at more like this but it's proving
a losing battle. It turns out that what I really want is simply a remote job.

------
coldGreySky
Sounds very naive to be really honest.. working random hours without any info
for your peers when you are avilable to consult is counter productive, I've
witnessed project holdups too many times because someone decided to come late
or really early. I also see no real way for manager/sup to know when someone
is slacking off and maintain discipline. Cant really see any compamy thriving
on such model.

