

Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely - KyleBrandt
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/02/why-we-still-believe-in-working-remotely/

======
simonsarris
Thanks to StackOverflow I'm relatively reputed(?) in one teeny niche of the
programming world. This leads to a few recruiter emails per week, and almost
all of them I reply to with a cheeky way of saying that I'm not going to
move[1].

 _One_ company to date has said that not-relocating my entire life is OK with
them. The rest can be summed up with the reply that ended an email exchange
with an SV angel:

> sorry to hear that, and let me know if you ever decide to head west, young
> man :-)

Alas I'm a person before I'm a programmer. And I always will be. And I have a
family and friends and a home in New Hampshire that do not fit on airplanes so
neatly.

Even apart from the tangibles, I cannot fly the feelings. I cannot fly the
sights and smell of my hometown to the Bay Area. I cannot fly the white
mountains, so isolated from the civilized world and yet they feel so familiar
to stand atop the notch and look around, as if I've been there a thousand
times, as if I've always been there.

Maybe that's dopey. I don't know. There are streets to know intimately and
sights and mountains and sunsets in other parts of the world. But I feel like
I belong here. Life is peaceful, I live slowly, I walk everywhere. I can be in
love with the world on a time-scale, a thing at least partially set by
surroundings, that works for me.

[1] <http://simonsarris.com/blog/626-why-i-love-recruiters>

~~~
hkmurakami
This morning, I turned left out of the driveway on my bike to head to work --
the same driveway that I've lived on since 1989.

It's "early spring" already in Silicon Valley, and the distinct smell of the
brisk, moist air and the sight of the fresh, yellow-green-Crayola-colored
grass that has sprouted up all over the hills following the winter rains made
me think, "ah, it's this time of year again."

I couldn't help but keep looking at the rolling hills, the bright green grass
growing naturally everywhere, and the old, tired oak trees. And it came to me:
_how can I live anywhere else? I love it here._

I've considered moving to places like NYC several times in the past, and even
recently. I know that NYC is a great city, and having gone to an East coast
school, I have many people I'd be able to call friends there. But I know that
this is _home_ for me, and a hypothetical marginally better employment
situation won't be able to overcome its gravity.

I happen to live in SV, but not because it's SV. I live here because it's home
for me, and home to the friends I've known since childhood and adolescence
seem to keep hanging around here along with me. I am lucky to have the best of
both worlds right now. But if the world changed tomorrow and all the tech jobs
moved to NYC, you'd probably still find me turning left out of my driveway
like I always have. Just like you I guess :)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Two opinionateddevelopers, just with different opinions.

Thank you to you both:-)

------
raverbashing
That's very good.

"and Fog Creek had (at the time) a strict no-remote-workers policy. This drove
me crazy. These were amazing employees, in whom the company had already
invested deeply, who were now walking out the door because they couldn’t live
in New York any more."

"Pain" is a very good teacher. It slaps you in the face and tells you're an
idiot.

"Remote working isn’t for everyone. There’s a tendency to think that working
from home is all sunshine and rainbows and working in your PJs. It’s not. You
miss out on being around people (which wears even on introverts), doing fun
stuff like playing ping-pong or having lunch together, and (sometimes hardest
of all) you lose a clear distinction between work and the rest of your life"

Yes, absolutely. That's why even if I'm hired for a remote position I'll find
a way to _not work from home_ (at least not every day).

Go to a cafe, somewhere, or just hire a shared space/shared office.

You'll still commute, but to a place near you. You don't get distracted by
house stuff. You can concentrate better. You can meet new people, depending on
the place, and even getting from your house to somewhere helps 'tune out' of
work for a little bit of time.

~~~
hellopat
"Pain" is a very good teacher. It slaps you in the face and tells you're an
idiot.

I love this sentence.

------
AaronBBrown
Here's my big secret about remote working...

I _sit at my desk_ a lot less, but _work_ a lot more. I'm one of those people
that simply cannot solve complex problems while sitting at a desk. Because I'm
not beholden to butt-in-the-chair syndrome, I am free to spend an hour or more
going for a walk, visiting a local coffee shop, or taking a bath so I can
think and problem solve before typing into a console. As a result, my work
takes less time and requires fewer revisions than when I was sitting in a
chair at an office.

The down side...I'm always at work. In order to create the separation I have
to make sure to leave the laptop upstairs in the office or else I'll just keep
working at the kitchen counter.

~~~
Shog9
Amen, brother. Heck, I use a wireless headset so that even when I'm in a
hangout I can walk around, go outside, etc.

Don't ask me to think about something and then _sit still_ while doing so;
you'll get whatever lazy answer I can come up with quickest - or no answer at
all.

~~~
AaronBBrown
Recommendations for a good wireless headset that has decent range?

~~~
Shog9
I'm using this one: <http://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/8391>

The range ain't great, but it's enough. Combine it with a laptop and good
wifi, and I can go quite a ways.

------
ed209
I've worked remotely for 10+ years for various companies. I really appreciate
the trust and commitment my employers have for letting me be in this
situation.

As a result I always try to go beyond expectations and pay a lot of attention
to communication.

Some of the things I do which I think give my employers confidence in me are:

1\. Constant communication. Don't leave it to the imagination what I'm up to.
I have a weekly work diary where I say what I'll work on, then tick off what I
have worked on. I update throughout the week via IM or email.

2\. Think about problems no one is working on yet. Kind of "skating-to-where-
the-puck-will-be". In my case as a product designer I work on features/ideas
we haven't discussed yet (usually not on company time).

3\. Flexible with time. Need a presentation done over the weekend? Sure, no
problem.

I'm a huge fan of remote working. My ideal scenario is 4 weeks home, 1 week
office or something along those lines depending on projects. Although
currently I have not been to the office in about 1 year!

~~~
neebz
+1.

I've been working remotely for 3 years.

I am not a super-genius developer but communication is something I really
focus on. If they email me I try to respond as quickly as possible. Any
meetings during the weekend, I squeeze time out. Even if I am going for a
bathroom I just leave a small 'brb' campfire. Update my daily sheet, be very
vocal on what I'm upto and make sure my progress is communicated in timely
manner. These are important for good scenarios but in worst case scenarios
(client being badass, deadlines are in danger of being missed etc.) this is
vital.

Plus it's important to understand from employee perspective that the onus is
more on us to make sure we communicate better. For on-location workers,
colleagues/managers can drop by and check out progress but for remote workers
it's us who have to step up.

------
tferris
In general I agree that remote working has lot of advantages. Especially if
you are a programmer you get the peace and quietness you need to get into the
flow, no discussion here. I wrote my best code when I was alone with me and my
music.

But things are different if you want to build the next big thing with
cofounders and there I experienced three big disadvantages:

1\. All big (and finally successful) ideas and ventures were born by sitting
together, day for day. By being forced to stay together in one environment.
And we haven't born those great ideas when we had meetings about our products
or were specifying some API, no, it was always when we were jabbering around
doing silly things. You won't get breaking ideas on Skype or Google Hangout,
believe me. Maybe a group of people needs sometimes a kind of antogonist or
some constraints to get even more creative and if it's just some "we have to
share our workday together."

2\. Just working alone and from time to time a face2face meeting won't
establish a relationship which you definitely need to overcome conflict
situations. You can't build real relationships at some artificial situations
like meetings or team off-sites while usually working all the time alone. Once
you have a severe conflict and you have missed to build a relationship before
odds are small that you get things working again (or even a normal
conversation). A lot of people are the type "forever gone", leaving the non
finished code base untouched forever.

3\. You have to be positive and think that everybody will contribute in the
same manner and quantity as you but some are not able to do this because they
are heavy procrastinators when left alone or just not persons of integrity. If
you have somebody who is ambitious and is in control of his time and energy,
great! Jackpot! But the probability that you end up with a procrastinator,
somebody who never finishes something or somebody who quickly looses
motivation (or is just depressive) is not so low as you might think and you
hear crap and other excuses every update meeting like 'oh I couldn't do this
because I had to reinstall osx and xcode blabla and the gem sucks anyway' or
whatever. Some freelancers invoice the same time many times to many clients,
just remember this guy recently outsourcing his work to some people in China.
You never know who you work with and what the person is really doing if you do
not know them too well. I know that freelancer could also do this shit onsite
(you cannot watch their screen 24/7 and check if it's really your source they
are working on) but being together in one office lets the person focus more on
your work and your environment and they are not distracted by other potential
projects or ideas. And integrity/work morality increase.

So, it's hard to say if remote work is good or bad. But to sum up, I feel that
when working as freelancer for a client then try to do this remotely. As a dev
I would try this, as a client of course not. But if you want to start
something great with friends or just met new cofounders you have to be
together for some time.

~~~
df07
(Author, here) Regarding #1 and #2, I have to say that one of the most
surprising things about Google Hangouts is that they've really make it easy
to... hang out! It's pretty standard on Fridays (or during the week) to kick
back for an hour or two and just talk in the hangout. A lot of people just
keep it open sort of half-listening while they work, and if they need to do
something that requires a lot of concentration, they just drop out. In fact, I
have it open right now and all I hear is a bit of breathing and typing...

You have to think about it differently than "Oh, we go here for meetings".
It's more like a watercooler -- pop in every now and then and see what's going
on.

~~~
simmons
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one doing this. A colleague and I run a
hangout most of every day, and it really makes it feel a lot like being in the
same room. (I had to ask the other day -- "Is that your doorbell or my
doorbell?) We can quickly ask one-off questions, have impromptu show-and-tell
sessions, and of course engage in random brainstorming and "water cooler"
talk. It's also easy to tell if the other person is deep in the zone before
interrupting.

I blogged about it a couple of months ago:
<http://cafbit.com/entry/hanging_out_on_the_job>

~~~
hosh
Yep. Hangout makes this ridiculously easy.

------
jmspring
I currently work at home 3-4 days a week with the others being in the office,
usually for meetings and collaborating on things.

The office is an open floor plan with very poor noise reduction. When not in
meetings in that environment, it is hard to get work done even with
headphones. Visual and audio distractions persist. That said, there are times
where getting together is helpful.

When contacted by companies, I ask about telecommuting. Many play the "it is
up to you and your manager once you are established" game. Result - thanks but
no thanks.

Time spent in the car/traffic is productivity lost.

~~~
hosh
Time spent in the car/traffic is _life_ lost, something you will never get
back again.

A 1 hour commute one-way is about 20 hours a week. That's a part-time job for
some people. Commuting is simply not that interesting of an activity.

~~~
bartonfink
20 hours a week? I think your math is wrong (1 hour * 2 ways * 5 weekdays = 10
hours).

~~~
hosh
Oops, my math is wrong. It's 10 hours a week. Still a chunk of time.

~~~
fokov
Another way to put it is every four weeks you are 'working' a full week of
overtime.

------
nirvanatikku
This blog post is wonderfully written; it succinctly outlines the benefits and
the caveats from both the employer _and_ the employee's perspective.

"I’ll let you in on a secret: most of our remote developers work longer hours
than our in-office devs."

This reminds me of the 'unlimited vacation' policy, which, if I'm not mistaken
has effectively showed that employees don't end up taking as many days off as
they would if they were allotted the standard 15/20 days.

I generally feel that when you empower an employee, and give them ownership
and responsibility, provided that they're passionate and capable, you'll see
significant productivity gains. In the case of SE, this holds true because the
problem that they're solving is so close to the creators of the product.

~~~
overgryphon
I'm not sure "unlimited" vacation time is empowering. It makes who goes on
vacation more or less than whoever else something that may be silently judged.
Bob went abroad for five weeks- is that excessive? Bob has no way of knowing
what others will think, and may not go abroad at all to avoid the potential
fallout. This judgment is also very difficult to uncover- if one person
discourages his team from taking vacation, how would you tell? With allotted
vacation times, HR tracks whether a specific manager's employee's are taking
vacation.

More importantly the lack of vacation time accounting provides less protection
for the employee in terms of job loss. Unused vacation time is often added to
severance pay.

In actual practice, "unlimited vacation" seems to be a nice term for the
company to minimize potential severance pay, bookkeeping, and potentially
create a work environment that silently discourages taking vacation time while
publicizing the opposite.

~~~
jaggederest
> In actual practice, "unlimited vacation" seems to be a nice term for the
> company to minimize potential severance pay, bookkeeping, and potentially
> create a work environment that silently discourages taking vacation time
> while publicizing the opposite.

I too have been bitten by this - hearing "there is no vacation time limit",
and then seeing your paycheck shrink and being told "You took too much
vacation"... That's extremely negative for morale.

I wish that companies had a _minimum_ vacation time, but no _maximum_ besides
"your work isn't getting done".

~~~
jaimebuelta
Curiously, in Europe we have a required minimum number of days of vacation a
year (20). I had been remembered several times by HR in different companies
that I HAVE TO take those days off before the end of the year (around November
or so).

------
kintamanimatt
I wonder what the legal issues are for an American company having cross-border
employees. How do they take care of national insurance and income taxes etc
for their UK-based employee when (presumably) they have no legal presence
there? How does this work for them?

~~~
balpha
I work for Stack Exchange in Germany (where they have no presence except for
me), and I'm a regular employee with all German taxes, social security etc.
that entails. These things can be made to work.

~~~
kintamanimatt
How do they do this? I seem to be having a mental block as to the logistics of
this. (On a side note, the pragmatics of having cross border employees when
you have no presence in that country would be a very, very interesting blog
post, and one I'd read with interest.)

From another comment I understand they also have a UK presence. Are you a
true-blue employee or a contractor who takes care of their own taxes and
affairs, and just issues monthly invoices? If you are an actual employee (in
the legal sense), are you employed by the UK or US company, or something else?
Do they have to have an address there, or a foreign subsidiary? Presumably
there's no German legal entity, so how have they registered there to pay tax?

This is something I'm prospectively interested in doing for my own business,
but I'm not sure how I'd make it work from a tax point of view.

~~~
balpha
I'm a regular employee (of the UK presence; it's all EU, so I assume that
makes things a bit easier). There's a German tax office that does the wage
accounting to make sure that it follows all the rules.

The only difference to a standard German employee is this: While in Germany
legally the _employee_ owes the wage taxes, they're usually collected by the
_employer_ and passed on to the authorities. But the German tax authorities
don't like to do that with foreign companies (basically because they can't
hunt after them when they don't pay). So from a legal perspective, I pay the
wage taxes myself (but the tax office takes care of that as well).

~~~
kintamanimatt
I never knew that was possible! I'd have imagined it could have been possible
as a contractor, but not with this arrangement. Is there any particular
benefit to being an employee in this case as opposed to a contractor?

~~~
46Bit
I expect some aspects of EU working law apply, which gives you a lot more
protection than a simple contracting relationship.

------
busterarm
I've been working remotely at my current company for just over 4 years now.
I've never met anyone that I work with. I actually work less overtime (none)
with this job than any time I worked in an office (usually 60-80 hour weeks).
I just get my work done without interruption.

Working remotely has allowed me to move out of New York and have money to
pursue other goals. It has been difficult to stay social -- it a 45 minute
drive to the nearest small city. The tradeoffs are worth it though.

I'm likely to return to working somewhere on site soon, but working remotely
has significantly improved my focus and my work ethic.

------
chris_mahan
Likewise if someone is a Japanese citizen, with official residency in Japan,
and is in the US as a tourist or a student, and works remotely for a German
company, a Canadian company, and a Guatemalan company, and gets paid by wire
transfer to his bank account in Japan from his three clients... is he breaking
the law in one or more countries? Perhaps there will be a telecommute country,
with laws designed to let telecommuters live easily. Like incorporating in
Delaware for companies.

~~~
socialist_coder
The laws and boundaries around citizenship and taxation really need updating
in these high-tech times.

~~~
eriksank
Not really. I like them the way they are. You end up paying the lowest common
denominator, which is usually zero dollars.

------
dominostars
> #2: When done right, it makes people extremely productive.

Do you have any tips as to how to make this "done right"?

I, and a few of my remote friends, have hard a really hard time being nearly
as productive while remote. I find myself really proud of being able to
accomplish 4 hours of dev work when at a coffee shop or at home, but in an
office I can work 8-10 hours without putting much thought into it.

~~~
hosh
There are some things you can do for the environment. The main thing is
creating boundaries so that your home life separates from your work life. So
for example:

(1) Spatial boundaries. If you can, dedicate an entire work for just working
from home. In some places I can't do that, what I do is set up the laptop at
the kitchen table and take it down again at the end of the work day. This
includes cords. It might seem like a pain in the ass to put the laptop
together every morning, but it is no different than if you had gone to a
coffee shop. If you have a family with kids, you'll want to set up space that
has a door. In return, when the computer is shut down (and you always shut it
down or put it to sleep) or the laptop lid is closed, it's now family time.

(2) Temporal boundaries. You want some accountable way of starting the clock,
so to speak. Standup is a good method for this. There needs to be something to
end it, so you know when to stop and put things away. You will want to
announce when you go on lunch or bio breaks. You can also type a quick end-of-
day standup on what you accomplished that day. This provides temporal cues on
when things are beginning and ending. This way, not only does work not bleed
into your home life, your home life does not bleed into your work life.

(3) Social cues. I don't like pair programming much, but in a remote
situation, you need to pair more often even if you don't normally pair.
"Pairing" can be sharing a Hangout conversation to consult on something or
tmux-shared-screen. This way, you don't go off shaving a yak. If you are in a
group of peers (for example, some founders), then it is helpful to have
everyone check in on each other occasionally. "What can I do to help?"

By setting up boundaries, you keep these things from bleeding into each other
and help you concentrate while at work ... and enjoy your home life when
you're not working.

With coffee shops: the best approach I have found is to establish a co-working
group. You don't need a formal co-working facility if you convince some of
your locally-based remote friends (or acquaintances you have met at the local
User's Group for your technology niche) to co-work at a coffee shop. Small,
family-owned coffee shops, pizza places, even bars, tend to be very friendly
for this sort of a thing. You're treated as a regular and you tend to start
camping out at a particular corner during the non-rush hours. Once a week can
be enough.

------
tunesmith
I love working remotely. My current arrangement has a gotomeeting standup
every day, jira for tickets, hipchat for persistent chat (I had to recommend
persistent chat to them but now they love it), and frequent code pairing
through screen sharing. They all go home at five so I can stop then, too. I
wonder sometimes if there are other similar arrangements out there - java,
spring, etc - but it seems like a pretty high bar to clear.

~~~
aantix
What do you use for screen sharing? Most of the products I have utilized feel
laggy..

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its tough. Screen sharing can have tremendous bandwidth limitations. I've been
using Sococo Teamspace, but I work there too.

The best advice is to upgrade your remote-office (i.e. home) IP provider to
5Mb or better UPLINK.

------
winter_blue
> #1a: You don’t lose people to silly things like their significant other
> going to medical school.

I really don't like the attitude here. Your significant other moving, is _not
a silly thing_.

> I’ll let you in on a secret: most of our remote developers work longer hours
> than our in-office devs.

Yet another reason not to work remotely -- to maintain your work-life balance.
Home is a place you spend with family and/or significant other, and doing non-
work related stuff.

> it forces me to look at what they’ve done

This is something you should always look at. Measuring someone's performance
by the number of hours they've spent in the office is _never_ a good idea;
some people are just productive than others.

I stopped reading at this point. The author is quite selfish/insensitive to
employee needs (since your significant other moving is "silly"), and he
objectifies employees and doesn't treat them humanely (anyone who is happy
with their employees working like 14 hours a day truly doesn't care about the
employees' holistic well-being.)

~~~
nthj
> I really don't like the attitude here. Your significant other moving, is
> _not a silly thing_.

I don't want to speak for the OP, but I took this sentence as, "Losing a good
developer because his significant other is headed to medical school is a
really silly thing for a company to do", which I would completely agree with.

------
hakaaaaak
I love working remotely, and I want to believe the following, but I'm not sure
that it is true:

"...most of our remote developers work longer hours than our in-office devs.
It’s not required, and probably won’t always be the case, but when going to
work is as simple as walking upstairs (pants optional, but recommended) people
just tend to put in more hours and work more productively."

From personal experience, what happens is that the remote worker went
downstairs to play with the kids and pets or watch something on T.V. that
someone else was watching while they had a snack. Then they work 30 min more
later to make up for it. It isn't working more- it is spreading out the work.

Also the post mentions that a self motivated, proactive worker is more likely
to do well remotely. But, that depends. Micromanagement of remote workers is
really bad, but so is just saying that they have to figure out what to do on
their own if that is not their personality/work type. I personally work better
when it is clear enough what needs to be done, and maybe if it is something
I'm unfamiliar with, then a lot more information about the internals and
business requirements and logic is provided, but I'm not told how to implement
it. That is true whether I'm remote or not. But each person has their own way
of doing things, and usually those aren't evident or may be misunderstood in
an interview, so I don't think you can just say "they need to be proactive and
self-motivated" and somehow some mystical force draws the right people to work
on your team.

------
ishbits
I also love working remotely.

I work for an office with an office culture where 99% of the people go to the
office. I find more and more of my time is spent on smaller, time critical
projects that can't afford to get held up by the politics of an office! Makes
sense. Given a 2 year period I likely won't make as a complete project as a
team in the office. But given 3 weeks to 2 months to come out with something
minimal, I have a much higher success rate doing it remotely than if its
handed off to members of the team in the office. Not sure if that says
something about me, the people in the office or a company as a whole.

I can also relate to this drifting though. If I'm not kept busy I do find
myself drifting and not being productive for periods of time - until things
pickup again. Not sure if being in the office would help there, or if I'd just
clock more hours playing ping pong!

------
spatten
The hint about a persistent Google Hangout is very interesting. It sounds like
you just create a Google+ event, attach a hangout to it and the URL is
persistent forever[1].

Is it really that easy?

<https://plus.google.com/+CheeChew/posts/RmPerogdhrB>

~~~
df07
Yes, that is exactly what we do. Create an event far in the future and attach
a hangout to it. We then use a URL shortener to give it an easier URL.

~~~
spatten
Cool, thanks! I'm going to set that up for us at Leanpub.

------
supervillain
I cannot express how happy am I working remotely, I am more productive, I can
be with my dogs, I can think much more clearly.

But unfortunately, I get terminated for working remotely in the past 3 jobs I
have as a programmer.

I live and work in the Philippines, and I always opted for an office job that
takes care of my government securities and taxes, which I cannot get from
working remotely on a virtual staff company or freelance website.

So I always end up working on a traditional office, but every once in a while
I take up my vacation leave or sick leave and do excuses just to be at my
house and _continue_ working, because I love programming and I always love to
do it at home.

But it always turned out badly for me, and always get terminated for being
'AWOL' or work abandonment, just because I'm not at the office.

------
ww520
Remote working is all great. One downside I notice is the blurring of work and
home life, especially the working hours. I've drifted slowly to work later and
later into the night. At one point I've shift working until 6am in the
morning. That's time I decided to reset the clock and do regular hours again.

------
nilkn
Are cost of living adjustments made to the compensation packages for remote
workers, or does a developer in rural Iowa get the same six figure salary that
seems like nothing in Silicon Valley?

~~~
eriksank
Remote workers tend to be freelancers/self-employed. There may be no
compensation package at all ;-)

~~~
nilkn
Well, I was specifically referring to the situation in the link, where
StackExchange hires remote workers to be full-time developers. Unless I've
somehow misunderstood and those appointments are not full-time but rather
contract-based.

I understand that if you're freelancing things are very different.

------
togasystems
Does anyone have experience with remote sales teams? Do they work?

~~~
hakaaaaak
Sales is probably the longest running remote working occupation in the world,
so yes, it works. I know a number of people in sales that are remote almost
all of the time.

Sales is much easier than tech/web development to do remotely because you can
use commission and/or sales targets to quantify how well the remote
salespeople are doing. Don't use a single salesperson as a "test" though;
abilities vary so much, you'd have to have a larger sample to determines how
well remote will work for your company specifically. Also, internet
connections can go down at home, so if you have limited sales staff and depend
on them to be selling everyday constantly, you might invest in a secondary
method to connect to the internet or make sure they have a backup plan like
working from a cafe.

------
chris_mahan
And if someone is in the US on a 6 month tourist visa working for a Japanese
company (no US presence, paid by invoice) remotely, is their legal status in
the US in jeopardy?

~~~
hippich
IANAL, but as long as they are paying your company for your work - you should
be safe. I.e. you two should not have employer-employee relationship.

------
JoeAltmaier
Google hangouts is good - but I think Sococo Teamspace is better. But remote-
working tools have been debated elsewhere, so I'll just say that some tool is
very much better than phone calls, emails etc. It really helps to remove the
friction to communication, shortening conversations that could take days by
email, to minutes 'in person' via tools.

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dschiptsov
Because of Linux kernel, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and countless of successful high-
quality open source projects done remotely?

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eriksank
Exactly. There is not one interesting piece of software nowadays that is not
done remotely. Everything else is going bankrupt because they simply cannot
compete. Just for cost/quality reasons, remote will have to become the norm.

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EricDeb
Just an anecdote - I work on a team of about 12 developers and we have 2
remote guys that get far more done than anyone in office. Granted they are the
most active on Skype (what we use for inter-office chatter).

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marco-fiset
Not related, but why does StackExchange have a sales department?

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mjibson
To sell ads and job listings on Careers so we can employ ourselves to continue
to make the internet better.

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mylittlepony
I wish I knew how to get hired remotely. I'm an experienced programmer, but I
happen to also be a security paranoid, so not only I have not bothered
building an online persona, I have also removed every trace of myself on the
internet. I can prove my experience, but not to an HR guy. I also think I have
good written English, and yet I haven't even had a response to any emails I've
sent for remote work in other countries (I don't want to work for my country,
for several reasons). Any thoughts?

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fatbird
You have your own answer: Someone who's invisible on the Internet, with
unproven skills to the first tier of hiring, applying for remote work. No one
in their right mind would hire you because you're impossible to vet. Any
manager seeing your email would likely think you're an outsourcing firm in
Bangalore trying to present as a lone wolf.

You want to get hired for remote dev? Build a strong online profile by working
visibly with a prominent project, and network through there to get someone
who's worked with you to vouch for you.

