
Gitlab's Guide to All-Remote - allie1
https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/
======
rdsubhas
How do people whiteboard remotely?

This is a big problem for many development teams. Sometimes you just want to
open a blank whiteboard and scribble some boxes and brainstorm or troubleshoot
some things. The whiteboard is an inseparable part of nearly every meeting.

And no, remote "canvas" whiteboards don't work. They end up looking like this:
[https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNf...](https://cdn.drawception.com/images/panels/2015/3-3/jLndYAfNfR-12.png).
Is there anything good that really solves this problem?

~~~
hobofan
I actually found remote whiteboards to work quite well when used with a proper
pen tablet (like a Wacom Intous). Downside of that is of course increased
cost, as equipping everyone with one of those isn't that cheap. It also takes
some time to get used to using those, but for permanent remote situations this
is about as close as you will get to in-person whiteboards.

A less sophisticated variant that works well for a lot of cases is draw.io
(personal preference; other diagramming tools might work just as well). It
doesn't give you real-time collaboration of the same board and also no
freeform drawing, but a lot of the things you want to articulate in meetings
are diagrams anyway. Whenever you want to articulate an idea, you just open
the page, and screenshare that.

~~~
ghaff
It sometimes feels like we're very hung up on our traditional tools. Pick a
remote whiteboard tool, give everyone relevant a big tablet (personally, I
find something like an iPad is more intuitive than the Wacoms other than the
Cintiq), norm using it (along with other collaborative docs), and you're
probably in pretty good shape. Not really expensive compared to all the other
costs you have.

~~~
slantyyz
> It sometimes feels like we're very hung up on our traditional tools.

We absolutely are. I think I spent over a decade hoping for an extremely-low-
latency pen-based note taking solution to show up to replace my use of pen and
hardcover notebooks. If anything, I was romanticizing the notion of replacing
a simple, inexpensive tool with expensive technology.

We're pretty close to that now with the iPad Pros, but since I've been remote
for several years now, I've given up on that idea of a stylus based tablet
solution altogether. These days, my preference is to use a live-conversion
Markdown editor. If I was still in the Apple ecosystem, I guess I'd pay for a
Bear subscription, but I'm on Windows, so I've made do with Dropbox Paper (I
didn't expect to like it, but it's been surprisingly good for my use case).

~~~
ghaff
I sometimes use my iPad Pro with Pencil for note taking and it works well. One
advantage is that I can record and just write down key points; I can go to
that point in the recording if I want what was literally said.

That said, I usually take typed notes (and maybe shoot a few photos with my
phone). I can type faster and more legibly than I write and it's easier to
turn these notes into a report/article/etc. (Of course, I can always record
the whole thing too if I want.)

Bear looks interesting. I haven't looked at my options for a while.

------
motohagiography
Regarding the principles:

>>

3\. Writing down and recording knowledge over verbal explanations.

4\. Written down processes over on-the-job training.

5\. Public sharing of information over need-to-know access.

6\. Opening up every document for editing by anyone over top-down control of
documents.

7\. Asynchronous communication over synchronous communication.

These remote work principles have the direct, or side effect of breaking
organizations that are "moral mazes," and hyper political bureaucracies.

The reason organizations suck is because managers just talk instead of
producing data, which is basically conspiring to steal value instead of
creating it for the organization.

I see this today, where I make an email request, and the person follows up
with a phone call, then misrepresents what was agreed to on the phone to
others. At one site, I literally stopped answering my phone for anyone I
didn't directly work for, because I knew those people were just using the
verbal channel to create uncertainty about what was said and leverage the
resulting confusion.

The WIFO rule solves a lot of org problems. (write it, or f-off).

~~~
pfranz
> I see this today, where I make an email request, and the person follows up
> with a phone call, then misrepresents what was agreed to on the phone to
> others.

I know this misses your point, but both at work and outside I've gotten into
the practice of emailing immediately after a phone call with a summary of the
phone call. It's kind of a lawyerly thing to do, but it's a contemporaneous
documentation of the phone call you can point to later.

------
wpietri
I appreciate they have a whole section on disadvantages, but this stands out
to me: "All-remote companies should consider meetings as a last resort,
instead relying on asynchronous collaboration tools[...]"

To me, this implies a further disadvantage: extremely high latency when
compared with in-person collaboration. That can be fine for some things. But
there's all sorts of work where I really value live discussion.

I know that some remote-first companies tend to group related work by
timezone, so that teams can be both distributed and low latency. I take it
Gitlab isn't one of those?

~~~
minipci1321
> To me, this implies a further disadvantage: extremely high latency when
> compared with in-person collaboration.

This is not an implication by all means.

Low-skilled not very well incentivized junior team (let's call it so in
absence of better terms) needs more/most "in-person collaboration". Team of
experts to whom the goals and the overall vision have been conveyed, who knows
how to put it to practice, will give the shortest latency in async flows.

Don't take it as a personal attack, but people valuing high live discussions,
are frequently those on the receiving end of it.

~~~
nhumrich
If that were true, why does every director/principal/VP/ceo spend almost the
entire week in meetings?

~~~
scruple
The cynical take is that this is a rhetorical question.

------
rickspencer3
Just my opinion, but based on running remote and semi-remote teams since 2008
... fully or mostly remote engineering teams are a competitive advantage, so,
by definition, organizations that choose not to adapt to this reality will
have a hard time competing.

Organizations can have a personal preference for co-located work, but, I think
the marketplace will select those organizations out. I think this will unfold
over single digit number of years.

From what I have observed, most of the resistance to remote work is really
driven from the top; by less adaptable leaders.

~~~
pythonaut_16
I think if things flip and remote becomes the primary, and co-location becomes
rare we'll also see some companies that are able to use co-location as a
competitive advantage.

But I agree that remote (and the practices it encourages) are currently a
competitive advantage.

~~~
lkozloff
I don't think you're wrong here. Remote itself does unlock advantages that
aren't accessible to colocated companies (e.g. hiring anywhere), but one of
the primary things that remote-practices unlock are surrounding communication.

Organizations approaching remote have a helpful speedbump that encourages them
to take an intentional look at the way they disseminate information. Being
fully remote is an accountability structure that helps ensure that everyone is
following those practices.

There's nothing that would prevent a well-run colocated company from capturing
those particular advantages, but such a company would probably slowly drift
remote as companies like Buffer (and GitLab!) have as they grow and look for
new talent.

------
znq
Our Company Handbook for Remote Work [https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook-
pdf/](https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook-pdf/)

Other HN members have pointed out previously, that it looks like a landing
page where you need to leave your e-mail address. You don't. You can download
the PDF from here directly.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Why do you have it as a PDF hidden behind a call-to-action reminiscent of a
sign-up though? Turn it into a website, that'll make it a lot more accessible
- assuming getting people to read it is the goal, of course.

~~~
znq
Simple cost/result calculation. Creating a PDF + simple web page was something
our designer can do easily. Developing a whole website around would have been
much more expensive.

------
ram_rar
I always used to hated remote work. Nothing like in person, face to face
conversations to get things done. Due to coronovirus, for the past few days
have been working remotely. Its surprising that things are going smoothly. I
feel, its mostly due to that fact that everyones remote right now. But I'm
guessing, there has to be an inflection point in the team, where this is
achievable. Not sure, what it is though.

------
adolfoabegg
From the manifesto: The results of work over the hours put in.

How do you adapt that to the scrum process which has a burndown chart based in
the time spent on tickets.

~~~
joeconway
Scrum burndowns should not be related to time spent at all. That’s not an
actual agile technique, that’s your company not trusting you and not
understanding how software works. Story points that are meant to represent
unknowns and complexity, not hours, used for estimation and burndowns are one
solution to this

------
Shivetya
One issue I heard coming up recently is bandwidth many companies have to
support remote access is not capable of dealing with a majority doing so. Then
there are those using by license VPN solutions having insufficient
simultaneous access.

I am used to the web ex approach for collaboration but again this is limited
by bandwidth issues. if anything hopefully this shows people how many meetings
are just unnecessary

------
jpincheira
I think that what's key here, especially during the current crisis, is to
support businesses as much as we can to switch to WFH in the best possible
way, with a simple process, and by helping them to stay engaged, hopefully
without the need to make them all jump into real-time video calls many times
through the day and lose focus.

At our company [1], we've been receiving an incredible amount of inbound.
People really need tools that don't get in the way —we're a video-first async
comm platform— and I'm happy our team is being able to help these companies
switching to WFH.

The team and I are happy to help anyone with setting a basic process of
communication for companies moving to WFH during these weeks. Just write to me
at jp@standups.io and we'll be happy to jump in a call and see how we can
help.

[1] [https://standups.io](https://standups.io)

------
jungong
Also, Gitlab's remote work emergency plan is a good read too >
[https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/remote-w...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/remote-work-emergency-plan/)

------
Joof
Do any companies think they will keep doing remote after COVID?

I have delayed sleep phase disorder (sleep-in late; fixed by camping /
sunlight) and live in a van in (roughly) CO, so the perfect job for me is
working remote with a team in San Francisco. I currently work in-office with a
fairly major start-up.

~~~
techbio
I see so many people making the point that they have some syndrome and so they
need x, y, z in a job. Valid, I'm sure, personally well-considered, true and
everything, but still, indicative of a person who's problems are more
important to them than the ones the company is hiring for.

~~~
Joof
So, funny thing. My problems are more important to me than the ones the
company is hiring for. Especially given that solving my problems makes me more
productive for the company.

Seems rational unless I'm actually trying to do the 'selling myself /
interview' part.

~~~
techbio
Fancy name, dude, but a lot of people would rather sleep in.

------
danielvlopes2
We've received a ton of questions on how to manage teams remotely this week as
well. We decided to make our eBook on "Managing Remote Teams" free, to help
ease the transition for teams moving to WFH.

This 60+ pages book is the result of months of research and interviews with
successful remote companies (it’s usually a part of our paid product). We
collected tips on pretty much everything, from onboarding to communication
best-practices, to tools you should consider.

[https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams](https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams)

------
esseti
Is there a way to generate an ebook for kindle? I would love to read it all

~~~
philshem
I use the "push to kindle" browser extension for online content, which seems
to work fine for this page:
[https://pushtokindle.fivefilters.org/send.php?url=https%3A%2...](https://pushtokindle.fivefilters.org/send.php?url=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.gitlab.com%2Fcompany%2Fculture%2Fall-
remote%2Fguide%2F)

The content is sent to the Kindle via the email service:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email](https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle/email)

Depending on your Kindle settings, you may have to set the FROM address in the
push-to-kindle page.

~~~
ukyrgf
If you just go up one category you'd see you don't need a third party tool:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle](https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle)

~~~
philshem
I had searched the Firefox Add-on catalog and the official tool has never
shown up:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/search/?platform=wi...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/search/?platform=windows&q=send%20to%20kindle)

Interestingly, the link from Amazon, clicked through your link, is dead

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/sendtokindle/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/sendtokindle/)

~~~
philshem
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171010081410/https://addons.mo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171010081410/https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/sendtokindle/)

seems poorly rated when it was available 3 years ago

------
globular-toast
Gitlab's remote manifesto speaks to me in so many ways. I'd also love to work
for Gitlab anyway. But, alas, I don't know Ruby on Rails and I think it's too
late for me to gain the proficiency that I'd require for my expected salary
from Gitlab. Are there any fully remote companies doing Python?

~~~
whoisjuan
If you know Python you can easily learn Ruby. Not hard to do that transition.
Although not similar they share the same idiomatic programming principles
drawn from languages like Perl. Also, Ruby was inspired by Python:

"I was talking with my colleague about the possibility of an object-oriented
scripting language. I knew Perl (Perl4, not Perl5), but I didn't like it
really, because it had the smell of a toy language (it still has). The object-
oriented language seemed very promising. I knew Python then. But I didn't like
it, because I didn't think it was a true object-oriented language – OO
features appeared to be add-on to the language. As a language maniac and OO
fan for 15 years, I really wanted a genuine object-oriented, easy-to-use
scripting language. I looked for but couldn't find one. So I decided to make
it." \- Matasamoto.

------
devreps
Based on data we collected from 297 remote managers and employees, here are 11
free chapters of best practices on how to manage a remote team.
[https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams](https://knowyourteam.com/m/managing_remote_teams)

------
abinaya_codes
Appreciate the guide coming from Gitlab. Gitlab is one of my inspiration to
start my remote company[1] which also helps remote job seekers.

[1] - [https://remoteleaf.com](https://remoteleaf.com)

------
sschueller
I find it interesting how they achieve this and it also gives people in remote
places the ability to work for such a company.

What I don't agree with is the pay scale they use based on your location. If
you have the same skills, you should be paid the same.

~~~
earnubs
The regional coefficients they use to set salary are a real turn off.
[https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json](https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json)

~~~
Thorentis
Ouch, even within Australia they have large discrepancies between capital
cities. One of the reasons why remote work appealed to me, was that I was
hoping to escape the unfair wage difference between cities. The fact GitLab
maintains it despite not having to pay for real estate in the city you work
from is totally unreasonable. Same work, same pay. I'll never apply for them.

~~~
sweeneyrod
Is it unreasonable for a random Indian company not to pay the same wages as
one in SF (assuming the work is the same)? What about if both companies are
consultancies doing projects for Gitlab? If differences in those cases are
fine, why is there a sudden change if the employees of the above companies
start working for Gitlab directly rather than through a proxy?

~~~
Thorentis
I'm not sure what comparison you're making sorry.

But I think that if GitLab is able to pay somebody in the US one wage for
work, and they hire somebody equally qualified in Australia that will be
producing the same work, they should be paid the same. Well, it's up to GitLab
to decide what they're paid, they shouldn't be forced to pay them the same,
but I wouldn't work for a company that didn't.

I'm also surprised GitLab are away to get away with it with all the fuss made
recently about discrimination. Is this a form of geographical discrimination
in terms of unequal pay?

------
cranekam
Any Gitlabbers here? I'm looking for SRE work and Gitlab looks great, aside
from never having any job openings..

~~~
AngeloAnolin
Not a Gitlabber, but they post their openings here [0]

[0]
[https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/apply/](https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/apply/)

------
aantix
10\. Pay the engineer substantially less for the "privilege" of working
remotely.

------
beyondcompute
Don’t forget firing some people based on their nationality. Gitlab’s good at
that!

~~~
rossmohax
Not only that. Director of compliance resigns because she needs to explain why
she advices to walk off from non compliant contracts. Yeah, and in the spirit
of true openness her coment about that is deleted.

