
The Remote Manifesto - tosh
https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/
======
hnarn
> For example, onboarding can be more difficult when you're remote, because it
> involves more self-learning and you're not physically with your new
> coworkers and fellow new hires. This can cause the first month in a remote
> role to feel lonely, especially if you're transitioning from a traditional
> office setting.

As someone whose primary experience from going between jobs in IT is that
almost the singularly most important factor is the social life of interacting
with your colleagues, it strikes me as odd that this "Disadvantages" section
is so brief. My experience is that a horrible job is bearable when your
colleagues are great, and an extremely interesting and challenging job is
horrible when your colleagues aren't a match.

You're asking someone to sell a large part of their life to you as labor, and
there are no disadvantages beyond "a more independent onboarding"? It's almost
insulting that this is even spun as an advantage: "Onboarding may be less
stressful socially". First of all, onboarding is probably one of the most
important things about a position period, but beyond that it feels like there
are so many issues with not being accountable for your employees social well-
being that it's hard to know where to start.

I would expect that a significant portion of the money that a corporation
saves by having a "remote only" policy would go into alleviating the social
issues caused by that same policy. I'm not seeing any of that here, which
indicates to me a company that does not prioritize the well-being of their
employees.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _but beyond that it feels like there are so many issues with not being
> accountable for your employees social well-being that it 's hard to know
> where to start._

People looking for remote work - which today does require you to go out of
your way to find it - are people who quite voluntarily and explicitly _don 't
want_ the employer to provide social life for them. If colleagues and office
banter is what one seeks, one looks for jobs on-site.

EDIT: Different people have different needs at different stages of their
lives. Personally, I went from on-site to remote, but I do envision going back
to on-site in a couple of years - mainly because nothing interesting (to me,
c.f. my profile) seems to happen on remote jobs, unless you're an entrepreneur
making your own interesting thing.

~~~
ilaksh
The thing is though with audio or video chat you can visit with your
colleagues and office banter all that you (both) want even though you are
remote.

Or you can do text chat in Slack about work or whatever interests you. Or
interact in a 3D or VR office space. Or play video games if you want. Or meet
up at a real life coffee shop.

You just have to get the other people to do it deliberately rather than
everyone being automatically forced to do it by constant required physical
proximity.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The thing is though with audio or video chat you can visit with your
> colleagues and office banter all that you (both) want even though you are
> remote._

Technically yes, though in practice I haven't heard of it happening. There's
something... different about it, more distracting. It takes screen space and
the noises carry differently - including various grunts and burps that the
person over the next desk in RL would not hear, but your Skype buddy will.

The kind of unstructured, background interaction between co-workers that
naturally exists in offices is something very hard to replicate in remote
setting.

> _Or interact in a 3D or VR office space._

This I want to try _so hard_. I actually upgraded my PC recently with the
intent of getting VR gear in the future, and a big motivation here is to
explore the experience of shared VR workspaces.

------
cubano
I could never go back to a regular 8 to 4:30, with a timed lunch break and all
that inflexibility.

I actually recoil in horror at the thought. Just the time wasted in traffic
and associated costs is too much to bear.

However, hardly anyone at "the office" is looking to create a relationship
with a 50-something senior dev anyway. Without a doubt we are the invisible
workers at tech companies, if we ever even get the job in the first place, so
that's actually another plus for remote.

However, I've never been the type to mix work life with a social circle, so
I'm probably just buried in cognitive biases here.

------
neogodless
While this is all about remote, and talks mostly about remote, I found the
initial bullet list very interesting. In my opinion, only the very first
bullet point (omitted here) is tied to remote working, and the rest are
probably ideas you should take a good look at if you could stand to improve
your own processes and workflow (whether or not you are or will become
remote).

> Flexible working hours over set working hours.

> Writing down and recording knowledge over verbal explanations.

> Written down processes over on-the-job training.

> Public sharing of information over need-to-know access.

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

> Asynchronous communication over synchronous communication.

> The results of work over the hours put in.

> Formal communication channels over informal communication channels.

~~~
MartianSquirrel
>> Work clothes not required

~~~
rolandog
> Work clothes discouraged.

------
rofo1
I've been working remotely (for companies that are not all 100% remote) for
some time now and other than the occasional communication problems, there is
simply no downside to it (for me). I am much more focused, I do better work,
in a better health mentally and physically (I can exercise since I can
organize my time), I don't waste time on commute.

The people I work with are interested in results and that's what I deliver.
Other than that, they are not demanding that I organize my time in a certain
way, or that I change the hours when I work, or anything like that. Of course,
when I need to work together with my colleagues on a certain problem, I make
sure that I adapt to their timetable.

They just care about results. And I think that makes the most sense. If one
day I run a company, that's what I would care about: can this guy deliver? Yes
or no?

Of course, one should be a decent human being - that goes without saying.

The whole "friends from work" thing doesn't make sense to me. I go to work to
_work_ , not find friends there. That seems to be unpopular opinion, but
seriously, why do we mix those things up?

~~~
apaatsio
The whole "golf friends" thing doesn't make sense to me. I go to play golf to
play golf, not find friends there. That seems to be unpopular opinion, but
seriously, why do we mix those things up?

My point being, why do we do bother to do anything with friends? If you're
going to do something, whether it be work or play golf, isn't it better with
friends than with strangers?

~~~
malvosenior
You choose to play golf, you _have_ to work. It seems imposing to those of us
with outside social lives that our co-workers are looking to us to fulfill a
non-work role in their lives.

A lot of the conversations in this thread are also very IC centric. If you're
a manager, really being open and social with people in your company is more of
a liability than something you want to do. Your reports shouldn't be your
friends.

------
jypepin
My observation is that there are 2 schools of thought about remote salaries.
One side will pay SF-based competitive salaries no matter where you are, are
the other side will have a "cost of living" adjusted salary. Gitlab is in the
latter group.

I recently thought about it, and was wondering if this could create some bias
/ unfair preferential treatment when interviewing and competing with other
candidates. If candidate A is in SF, and another candidate, B, is in another
cheaper area, and Gitlab is trying to decide between the 2 candidates, won't
they be leaning toward hiring candidate B because of lower salary? All else
being equal. I wonder if there can be some legal things into this.

~~~
baroffoos
That bias already exists, if 2 candidates with the same skill apply and one is
asking for a lower pay then they are likely to be picked over the other. Why
pay more for the same skill? If you want to have higher chances of being
accepted then lowering your costs so you can lower your required pay is a good
strategy.

I'm fairly sure the gitlab ceo commented before that they don't want to pay
people way way over the local average because it could cause them to have
people who don't want to be working there staying because they could never
find a new job thats competitive where they are.

~~~
onion2k
_Why pay more for the same skill?_

Because people aren't stupid and _when_ they realise they're being paid less
than they're worth they'll leave, and then you'll have to go through the pain
of recruiting someone else.

~~~
mieseratte
> Because people aren't stupid and when they realise they're being paid less
> than they're worth they'll leave, and then you'll have to go through the
> pain of recruiting someone else.

I just took a 20% pay-cut to go work somewhere I thought I might like. There
is more to a position than the compensation package.

~~~
pault
Sure, in those rare cases where you can find a company that really does
interesting work (this is doubly difficult if you are limited to companies
that allow remote work). For boring company A vs boring company B you are
going to follow the money, I think (unless you actually work for The Boring
Company).

~~~
mieseratte
There are a non-trivial number of factors that go into picking a job such that
I sincerely doubt I would ever find myself going "Well, that one is offering
10K more per year." Off-hand:

\- Size of company, size of department, size of team

\- Future prospects, both in terms of company's market and my own growth

\- Type of work, e.g. maintenance vs. active development, "rescue" mission vs.
greenfield vs. boring brownfield.

\- Composition of team, leadership, etc.

\- Industry, e.g. do I find it reprehensible vs. tolerable vs. interesting

Perhaps I'm the odd man out here, but I've never been in a position where
salary was the material factor in picking one job over another.

------
codegeek
I feel like that whole Remote issue has become too binary. Either people
advocate for complete remote option OR employers mostly don't provide any
flexibility when it comes to work location or schedules.

I personally believe that human interaction is a key to our well being since
humans are not designed to stay in a remote room/office somewhere by
themselves. I am not quite on the 100% remote thing to be honest and of course
I hate employers who provide absolutely no flexibility.

Why not offer the best of both ? I don't have a job and run my own company
where we are remote (multiple locations) but I try my best to have people in
office as well and ensure that we are not going crazy sitting in some
room/hotel/beach/co-working space by ourselves without any interaction with
other team members in person. If employers start offering flexibility with
work schedules, most people won't care if the job is fully remote or not. We
just want flexibility. Most employers don't get this. It is always a binary
game. Let's go fully remote OR let's not go anywhere.Why is it like that ?

~~~
jypepin
I think the main issue is that if the company is not 100% committed to remote
work, the extra effort it takes to have everything documented and written will
probably not happen, and the remote part will not be successful. So it seems
like it's just easier to make remote successful if everyone is remote. Kind of
like quitting smoking cold turkey vs saying "I'll start by smoking less".

I've been remote on a non-remote team, and I definitely felt all the cons of
remote much more than on a full remote team, because well, that's when you
actually end up isolated. Everybody is having face to face communication,
building stronger relationship, meanwhile you kind of get forgotten because
you are not present.

If everyone is remote, then everyone is in the same situation and there is a
better balance.

~~~
baroffoos
Exactly, from what I have seen gitlab seems to have this figured out very
well. From what I remember they have slack groups and video calls where
employees can have casual talk about non work things so they can get to know
each other better. I can't see this happening at my company if one person went
remote. The most I can see happening is someone doing remote once a week so
they catch up on the rest of the days and spend one day focused alone.

~~~
dsumenkovic
That's right. GitLab has Group Conversations [1] every day at the time when
West Coast and Europe overlap. The most-wanted hours in the company to
organize meetings are dedicated to talking about different areas of the
company and learning how they're performing. We also do a Company Call [2]
every day, which comprises about five minutes of announcements and 25 minutes
of people chatting.

Our Coffee Break Calls encourage team members to spend several hours a week
socializing and building a relationship that's separate from work. Since
working remotely can also lead to team members never meeting in person, we
have a visiting grant [3] to cover transportation costs, and every nine
months, the entire team gets together for the GitLab Contribute (ex Summit)
[4]. The next Contribute happens in less than a 10 days and I can't wait for
it!

[1] - [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/group-
co...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/group-
conversations/)

[2] - [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#company-
cal...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#company-call)

[3] - [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/incentives/#visiting-
grant](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/incentives/#visiting-grant)

[4] -
[https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/contribute/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/contribute/)

I am sorry for the long list of links, just wanted to share as much as
possible so people are aware of what the regular week at GitLab looks like :)

(I am working for GitLab btw)

------
tnolet
However much I like Gitlab, the “disadvantages” section is a joke. Working
alone with only video, chat and email is a huge fundamental change in how work
is done and I’m pretty sure we as a society don’t really know yet what impact
it has on social development, interpersonal skills, empathy, sympathy etc.
they should at least acknowledge that.

~~~
fyfy18
There are plenty of existing jobs where people have to spend many hours by
themselves. Think about truck drivers, they may spend weeks alone with nothing
more than a few minutes chat to a fellow trucker they see at a truck stop.

~~~
lnsru
That‘s not true. Truckers have radios (at least in Europe) and they they are
interacting with other truckers in radius of ~10 miles. I had radio in my car
and and it was even entertaining sometimes. I could ask advice, ask for fuel
when I was empty, ask for police checkpoints. On private channel one can have
virtually private conversation.

~~~
Conjoiner
We should invent something like that, 'radio', thing for computers

------
vbsteven
I wonder how some of the all remote companies handle the legal side of things
when it comes to paying salaries and contracts.

I've been working as a (partly remote depending on customer)
freelancer/contractor for 5 years with my own legal entity setup in Europe to
do invoicing and handle my finances. I'm not willing to give that up yet but
the thought of working for an all remote company for a longer period than the
typical 3 to 6 month contract sounds interesting.

Are these full remote companies flexible in regards to this? Are they open to
me keeping my own business entity and invoicing them while still being
regarded as a full member of the team?

edit: For example on the Gitlab jobs page and salary calculator they clearly
state that for my home country they expect me to be an employee of their
Gitlab BV entity which is a no-go for me.

~~~
jsty
Depending on which country you and your employing entity are in, this could
end up netting you all of the disadvantages of self-employment with none of
the benefits.

E.g. in the UK, HMRC will determine your tax status based on, amongst other
things, how much control your 'not employer' has over the work you do. So if
GitLab were to treat you as just another member of the team, you'd run a big
risk of ending up treated as an employee for tax purposes, but without any of
the rights accorded to employees.

TLDR - talk to a tax professional who understands the regulations in both your
and your "not employer's" jurisdictions.

~~~
scarecrowbob
I agree with this comment.

I'm wholly in the US, so maybe my experience is unique to me. Bit I was
freelancing for quite a while and then one of my clients ended up buying all
my time.

IMO, there weren't any benefits from remaining a contractor once I was working
full time. We ended up cutting my pay a bit to account for a shift in taxes
and that worked out better for both me and my employer.

~~~
ex_ex_nihilo
If you were individual 1099, then no there is no advantage really. And you
have to pay self-employment tax. If you were B2B 1099, there are ENORMOUS
advantages. My average effective federal tax rate on ~$250k/yr is right around
1.8-2.2% because I'm 1099 B2B and have a great tax attorney and accountant.
Obviously on paper I make like $30k a year or something stupid like that, I
don't know. My attorney adjust things monthly or quarterly as necessary,
starts new LLCs or whatever is required.

------
ecmascript
I work 100% remotely, or has been working like that for the last couple of
years until recently where I work 80% remotely.

One thing I've noticed is that going into the office that one day is
incredible enjoyable. I think I've been a bit too isolated since I don't have
that many friends either and work on side projects as well.

But, working 1-2 days in the office per week feels like the optimal
experience. You get the social part with meetings and you get the work alone
part where you may concentrate on tasks.

I really enjoy working remotely though, it has reduced my stress levels,
increased my spare time and made it available to live in a cheaper place far
away from the city centre.

Things like this I enjoy, even if you're not an remote advocate the option
should exist for people who want to work remotely like me. Unfortunately, too
few companies allows remote work to the degree I've been lucky to get. Maybe
it's time to move some repos to Gitlab!

~~~
fyfy18
I've been working remotely on and off for the past 6 years, and I agree that
having a peer group where you can casually chat about "tech stuff" is one
thing you definitely miss out on by isolating yourself at home.

A couple of my remote-peers work from co-working spaces which seems like a
good way to avoid home distractions (my first-born is on the way shortly) and
still have this connection to like minded people, so I plan to start doing
that too.

------
jl-gitlab
These are personal anecdotes, but here at GitLab we recently started recording
our personal stories about how remote working changed our lives. If you're
interested in remote work you may also find this interesting:
[https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-
remote/stories/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/stories/)

------
mnm1
Working remotely has been the greatest thing for me. I'm more productive, less
stressed, and generally happier. I can't see going back to an office even for
way more money. It's just not worth it. I agree with all these points although
I don't think video is necessary or should be used unless there's something to
see other than people's faces.

I do wonder how they manage payroll and taxes in fifty countries though. Also
how they set salaries. Is there a link to that I may have missed?

~~~
baroffoos
>Also how they set salaries.

At the bottom of each job type on the handbook they have a formula and a
calculator so you can see how much you would be paid and how they calculate
it. Its a combination of the job title, your skill level, and your location.

------
lame88
> Remote is not a challenge to overcome. It's a clear business advantage.

It's an advantage if and only if you overcome the inherent challenges, and
despite this tagline they list disadvantages in the article. However, you
structure the whole organization and its operations around dispersed, remote
workers (as they seem to), especially emphasizing asynchronous communication,
then I can see how this can avoid the traditional pitfalls of remote workers
in a synchronized, co-located environment.

Speaking of async communication, it is ironic that many traditional
organizations with standard work hours and co-located offices also rely so
much on email, an asynchronous communication method that is incredibly painful
in an office environment, yet it seems like such a clear benefit in a remote
setting. That is, it's like the two long-existing constructs - email and the
combination of colocating and synchronizing work hours - are in direct
conflict.

------
chicob
_" Opening up every document for editing by anyone over top-down control of
documents."_

Does anyone want to comment on this? I don't feel qualified to judge, but
isn't this throwing the baby out with the water? Can't privileged access be
managed remotely by some network authority, i.e. access granted, revoked and
logged?

~~~
millisecond
Depends on your area of business certainly, but for us (all remote social)
it’s a huge time saver. There’s version control and a culture of editing in
“suggestion mode” to save us if something goes wrong. But having to wait x
hours for someone to get into the office because they’re in another time zone
so you can edit what you need can be a real time waster.

At the least you often lose the train of thought or edit is never made, which
can be even worse than losing the time.

HR and other sensitive docs excluded of course.

------
sixhobbits
Interesting, I know the variation of this from
[https://www.remoteonly.org](https://www.remoteonly.org) and didn't realise it
was associated with gitlab

~~~
shampto3
I started working for GitLab back in October 2018, and was inspired to start
looking into remote work because of
[https://www.remoteonly.org](https://www.remoteonly.org). It wasn't until your
comment that I learned that GitLab maintains that project [1]. Thanks for
pointing that out!

[1] [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-remoteonly-
org](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-remoteonly-org)

------
manbearpiggy
The advantages are discussed more, while the disadvantages are just a
paragraph. I think with this article it's a case of 'reason is slave to the
passions'.

I genuinely want to know the arguments against.

------
ngrilly
The manifesto mentions:

> Evolution of speech-to-text conversion software - more accurate and faster
> than typing

Last time I tried I wasn't convinced. Anyone here is really using that to
program, write emails or write Markdown?

~~~
scruple
I only use it for quick slack or instant messages with my team when I am
otherwise occupied. Maybe I'll make a run at it later today when I have to do
some documentation.

My experience has been that they're not great and every sentence requires
manual editing. Though, on Android, at least, it has improved noticeably over
the last couple of updates.

~~~
ngrilly
This matches my own experience. Never thought of using speech-to-text for
chat. Will try it :-)

------
seqizz
> Despite all of its advantages, all-remote work isn't for everyone.

Yup. I remember the horrors of applying some "remote-friendly" positions. Such
organizations are somehow even lacking basic organization skills to arrange an
interview.

