
Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth? - curiousgeek
There’s a lot of talk about remote work nowadays. But has the lack of being able to be with co-workers harmed your career over the long run? Especially if the team is a mixture of remote and co-located people? How have you tried to mitigate that?
======
remote_gal
Working remotely pretty much destroyed my career for two reasons: (1) my
networking opportunities plummeted to zero and (2) I was fired for reasons I
believe could have been avoided if I had worked in an office and had stronger
relationships with more co-workers.

My remote job was at a fully distributed company with good compensation.

I worked there for about five years, receiving only positive reviews.

Groups in the company worked in a very silo-ed manner — there was not a lot of
work overlap or cross-team communication. But I loved my team and work so it
was fine with me.

Once the company started struggling, they re-organized our group several
times, and eventually a non-technical manager with more seniority than me was
brought in.

Although I was highly effective, well-reviewed, and never had issues with
other managers, the non-technical manager and I dealt with all of the classic
issues that come up in this scenario: unrealistic deadlines and expectations,
scope creep, etc. I tried to deal with this in an ego-less, professional
manner, but he took our issues personally and lobbied HR to have me fired.

At that point, after all of the re-organizations, I was the only dev left on
my team, and my other managers who I had good relationships with had moved on.
I had no one to vouch for me. I believe that if I had worked in an office, in
a less silo-ed manner, I would have had more opportunities to network with
other developers within the company and my accomplishments would have been
more visible, which would have at least allowed me to switch teams.

Instead, I was quietly led out the back door and disappeared.

In a remote company it's a lot easier to be fired. It's a lot more difficult
to resolve interpersonal issues over IRC than face-to-face. There is a huge
amount of value to passing people randomly in the hallway, by "the
watercooler," or at a social event. These kinds of relationships are critical
and are just not replicable via remote work.

~~~
remote_gal
The last thing I'll add since edits don't seem to be working ...

My advice to you is that unless you are at the end of your career, or value
working from home over your career prospects for family or health reasons,
avoid working 100% remotely, even in fully distributed companies. The ideal is
a situation where you work in an office, but have a flexible schedule where
you can work from home 1-2 days a week, or 1-2 months a year.

~~~
SerLava
Anyone have an opinion about 4 days remote, 1 day in office?

(The whole company doing this)

~~~
wsc981
In The Netherlands this is really quite common.

~~~
pretentiousPear
+1 I know a couple of fellows from the Netherlands working 3d remote (or other
jobs) + 2d in the office. Sounds perfect to me

~~~
bproven
Nice! Can we get this going in the supposed progressive, innovative SF bay
area?? Please... (maybe I'm beating a dead horse :))

------
PerfectElement
Working remotely and having more control over my schedule (they don't always
come together) allowed me to work on my side project until it was making
enough money to cover my living expenses.

The only problem is that now, after running my own business for a few years, I
cannot phantom the idea of going back to a regular job. In that sense, my
career as an employee is over.

~~~
cyberferret
After working for myself for > 30 years, and the last 10 remote - I think I am
basically unemployable now. In the sense that, similar to yourself, I don't
think I could ever work for someone again.

All the niggly details about office work in a big organisation now horrifies
me. I had to assist a colleague with a government tender he was submitting
last month, and even after one meeting with a government committee, I had to
tell him I was out. Just spending a couple of hours in a meeting room with
people that had no idea about anything going back and forth and playing
politics and power broking almost had me running, screaming out of the room.

Its very similar to another scenario I am in. I haven't had television in our
house for nearly 10 years, and every time I go to a friend's place and they
have it on, I am astounded by the sheer volume and regularity of nonsense and
ads being blared at you. When you are immersed in the situation day to day, it
is easy to become numb to it and just accept it - but when you take an
extended break from it and then come back, you _really_ notice it.

And don't talk to me about commuting. I have friends that still regularly
commute 2 hours each way every day for work. My commute is walking downstairs
to my home office. I think of all that time people spend sitting in cars and
public transport, and wonder about all the lost creative time they could be
spending _doing_ something with.

~~~
adventured
> I have friends that still regularly commute 2 hours each way every day for
> work. ... and wonder about all the lost creative time they could be spending
> doing something with.

Or at least getting well compensated for the 1 or 2 hour commute each way.
That's _a lot_ of time-money value for a freelancer in a given month. Save on
destroying your vehicle, save on gas, save the time, save the hassle & brain
numbing commute, live slightly further out and save a lot on real-estate, etc.

It's funny, just seven to ten years ago telecommuting in most of the US was
still largely a fantasy premise. Often talked up, but the opportunities were
scarce at best for most people. It's finally starting to deliver on the
potential.

~~~
cyberferret
Yes, I am surprised that telecommuting seems to have taken so long to become
mainstream. I remember when I started doing it nearly 15 years ago, a lot of
my family and colleagues thought I was crazy.

But for me, even a 25 minute commute (at the time) was too much for me. I know
a lot of people who take public transport say they spend the time listening to
music, reading a book or taking in podcasts - and that is great.

But for me, if I walk downstairs to my office first thing in the morning and I
am not feeling it, I am glad I can reach back and pick up my guitar and play
some scales or noodle away to get my brain into focus.

------
dclaw
I'm 10.5 years in, and I think what really killed my career growth
opportunities is the cost/benefit analysis of going back into an office. Far
too many jobs still require you to be present to warm a seat. And depending on
location, my estimates are $10-15k+ in costs alone for transportation and food
(lunch), and that doesn't even take into account potential childcare and other
costs. The first credible job offer I've received in several years only wanted
to up my pay by about that amount, and my existing employer nearly matched it,
upping the bar even further.

This is of course on top of the social deficiencies of working from home, and
lack of networking opportunities that it presents. It gets lonely sitting at
home all day, even if there is family around. That's not the same as having
like-minded coworkers to speak to.

~~~
alkonaut
Exactly the same for me. I’m a bit stagnated but well compensated - the
problem is that the step from working at home and averaging maybe 7h/day with
no commute to being “the new guy” who is expected to be at the office 8h plus
commuting 1-2h...

It’s both a blessing and a curse. I want to switch jobs but can’t imagine
actually being away from home 10h per day again.

I’m going to look for something semi-remote, but it seems hard to find.

Edit: I should add I started the remote period when I had kids, and it means I
can drop them off at 8 and pick them up at 4 and get a full days work done
with zero time wasted in commute, and all evenings together with family. So
while my _job_ satisfaction isn’t the best, my overall satisfaction is good.
Will rethink when kids are old enough to go to/from school by themselves.

~~~
spraak
Why not just find another remote job...?

------
phil21
I've worked remote ranging from 100% to 30% most of my career. I've also built
a business with 100% remote workers, and currently work for a "some people
remote" business.

My advice to anyone considering this is if you are currently in a company that
is designed and built around face to face office communication - run, don't
walk. You will almost always be a second class citizen that is slowly
forgotten about. It's simply how humans work, and while I'm sure there are
outliers I don't find them very interesting.

If you do decide working remote is important to you, I would suggest looking
for a job where the entire team, (especially) including high level management,
works remotely at least the vast majority of the time. These situations tend
to work out rather well if you have the CEO/CTO at the top of the company
holding remote work as a core company principle.

The communication structure of a remote worker vs. office worker company is
vastly different, and companies ran remotely _must_ establish very clear
communication policies that look wildly different than normal. I've never seen
a combination office/remote organization actually do much to change these
policies when the first team goes remote - with completely predictable
results.

One of my rules when I ran my company remotely was that practically everything
was talked about in public chat channels so anyone could search/scroll up and
read 30 minutes of backscroll to see what the emergency/whatever of the day
was. I found some folks flourished in such an environment, but some folks
absolutely detested it since they couldn't deal with being "called out" for a
mistake in public. When those "mistakes" start being hidden in private chats
is where fundamental cohesion problems start within remote teams, in my
experience. Those sorts of things sort of simply permeate naturally through
on-site teams, where there is no such action for remote teams if information
remains segregated into a zillion private interactions.

I love remote work, and hope to one day build another remote-based company
since I miss it and have some further ideas I'd like to try implementing to
make it even better.

If I had to make one point it would be that remote companies need to be
fundamentally designed and organized differently than non-remote companies and
this fact is rarely recognized by most.

~~~
gulperxcx
What happened to your remote company?

~~~
phil21
Successfully sold it for a myriad of reasons, both personal and market based.
Basically we were too small for our market and had to consolidate with another
similar company.

The acquiring company was also 100% remote so it was a great fit, and the
resulting combined company has been doing quite well since which is a point of
selfish pride :)

------
rhgraysonii
I was remote for almost the entirety of the last 5 years. This is just my
experience, YMMV.

My first job had a remote team that I was promoted onto. They had a _very_
healthy culture that ensured remote people did not feel like second class
citizens. I grew a ton and never once felt like I needed an office to be with
my coworkers.

Using the soft skills I developed there, I continued to get new jobs as I grew
and each one was an upgrade and also still remote. I never felt like it
shorted me. But, without that incredibly solid base from my first gig and
knowing how to handle being remote and create a good culture around it was
key.

Now I work in-office in New York City and love it, I might go back to remote
some day, but the pay increase (cost of living considered, even) was too huge
to not go with it considering how much I love this city.

~~~
miketery
Can you share what contributed to the healthy remote culture that allowed you
to build a solid base?

~~~
indigochill
Although I hope the OP responds since I'd also be interested in details, one
thing I've read that helps create a positive environment for remote workers is
to make the entire company remote (such as Gitlab) rather than a mix of office
and remote employees. This way everyone's using the same communication
channels and it reduces the situations where certain groups are more in or out
of the loop than other groups.

~~~
tempestn
It certainly helps to have the whole company, or at least whole team, be
remote. Then it's a matter of constantly working on process and communication
to keep things working smoothly, and with as little friction due to the remote
nature as possible. We've experimented with various styles of meetings,
collaboration and code review, project tracking, etc., to find what helps
everyone on the team to work toward common goals as effectively as possible,
while all working remotely. This can mean choosing the most effective tools
for the team - chat software, project tracker, etc. - as well as laying out
clear processes for how those tools will be used, so everyone is on the same
page. (We also like to allow complete flexibility of working hours, which
brings with it other challenges that we tackle in a similar manner.)

Finally, while I don't think managing a remote team necessarily needs to be
more difficult than managing one in-office, I think the effects of a poor
manager are exacerbated by remote work. A poor manager may not know exactly
what everyone on the team is doing, or how to motivate individual members, but
s/he can at least make sure everyone is there on time and appears to be
working. Obviously this is a terrible approach, but with remote work you can't
even do that. It's really important to be aware of the team's priorities, and
how everyone is working toward them. Also, different developers will work
better with varying amounts and flavors of oversight. While this is true of
in-office teams as well, it's a bit easier to manage these differences when
you have in-person cues to work from. So basically, for the most part, being
an effective remote manager requires essentially the same skills as being a
good manager in general; they're just that much more important.

------
apohn
I've had both positive and negative experiences at different companies.

ProTip: It really helps when your manger is remote as well. It's harder to
bias themselves to preferring local employees that way.

Positive: I worked for a software company that had a solid mix of remote and
co-located (in the office 3-4 days a week) employees. People and offices were
located around the country. Since there were a solid number of remote
employees, things like picking up the phone and web meetings were never an
issue. No major issues with career or visibility. When we had a massive
restructuring, many of the people I worked with moved to other remote
positions and that helped me move on as well. Important: Traveling and meeting
people in person really helps others remember you exist.

Negative: I worked for a company were there was an obvious headquarters. All
decisions came down from there, and anybody who wanted to have a upward career
in the company eventually moved there. Being at an office location outside the
headquarters definitely stalled your career, and being remote was even worse
for your career. Even people who had the option of being remote would come
into the local office a lot for visibility reasons. Even if you were remote,
it was useful to be near an office where your manager or manager's manager was
located so you could meet them on a regular basis.

~~~
agibsonccc
We're distributed in 8 timezones and 10 countries. My cofounder and I started
in SF, but I moved to Japan partially for this reason. I force remote first
(and we've been like that since the start) the horror stories in this thread
all sound like horrible mismanagement from companies trying to "add it on"
rather than have it be a first class policy.

We spread our decision makers across 4 countries and ensure that there are
multiple points of contact, otherwise you end up with exactly what you're
describing. It's a real shame when this happens. Remote is harder and you
definitely need to account for it.

~~~
apohn
>I force remote first (and we've been like that since the start) the horror
stories in this thread all sound like horrible mismanagement from companies
trying to "add it on" rather than have it be a first class policy.

At the place where I had a positive experience, there were two major factors.

1) Since so many people were remote and some teams were spread across the
world, everybody knew information had to be explicitly distributed. There was
no assumption that something that came up in a meeting would be later
discussed at a secondary meeting, lunch, in the kitchen area, etc. The benefit
of this was that people generally knew what was going on in project relevant
to them. There was minimal hoarding of relevant information, which helped
everybody feel like they were plugged in and not working for a very
hierarchical organization.

2) Almost everybody on my team respected, trusted, and liked each other. This
meant that conversations weren't forced and people always tried to help each
other. Calling somebody wasn't an issue and wasn't seen as an intrusion. There
were none of the games you see when you have to work with people you don't
trust. From a network perspective, this was great!

I notice that you're a cofounder so I state an observation. In times of stress
for a company (e.g. a reorg) please over communicate. The company where I was
working went through a massive reorg. Everybody maintained their previous
level of communication, which was fine from a project perspective. But from a
"What is really going on" and morale perspective, leadership did very little
because they never had to do it before and didn't realize the value of it. To
them, they were communicating as they always did. In actuality, there was an
information vacuum and a failure in leadership. In a remote environment you're
always fighting the feeling of being left out. It's easier to feel isolated,
lost, and that information is being hidden from you. The leadership only
reinforced this and lost a lot of good people.

~~~
agibsonccc
I appreciate this. That's a lot of what we focus on now. We make sure that
there's redundancy in communications.

We also make sure folks understand that mistakes are allowed, not
communicating is not. It helps we hired a ton of folks from our open source
community. It takes a certain kind of hire for this to work well.

------
b0blee
I worked remote for 10 years. No promotions because all of the higher jobs
required a physical presence in the office. In the last year, they shuffled me
into a department that under-utilized me. Then they laid me off.

No real complaint, though. I was paid well, got a nice severance, and really
didn't want the stress of climbing the corporate ladder anyway. Now I'm self-
employed, part-time. All is well.

------
_sdegutis
Absolutely it has for me. For 5 years I worked on a video store website as the
sole developer, every few months having the two founders drop by to look over
my code and tell me how terrible it was. Living in a remote suburb of the
city, I didn't have the ability to go to meet-ups or build a network (outside
of LinkedIn, which doesn't really count). So now I'm out of a job for the past
9 months, and don't have a network either. No idea how to rebuild my network
at this point, just kind of out of ideas.

~~~
throwaway2016a
It sounds like most of your issue is not with the fact that you worked remote
but that you worked remote and lived in a remote area. It is certainly
possible to work remote and live close to where the action is. Example... you
may live in Boston and work remote for a company in Silicon Valley. I know
people who work remote but go to meetups at night all the time.

~~~
sam0x17
You don't need to network in person to network. I've never been to a meet-up
in my life and manage to interact with hundreds of people on GitHub through
side projects / open source work. If you put yourself out there constantly,
good things will happen. Don't fool yourself into thinking moving to a city is
a magic bullet. You can be just as isolated in the middle of a city.

~~~
rhn_mk1
This was also my experience. When the time has come to find a new jobs, I
found the new position through people I met working on an open source project.

------
shortoncash
The nice thing about remote work is that your downside interactions are
minimized also. I find it easier to vent in a room alone about some bone-
headed reason why a pull request is rejected, as opposed to an office
situation where people could feel slighted over just my blank facial
expression.

In some cases, even when I have nothing vested in a project, I feel like
people get slighted by my lack of enthusiasm. (This is true even if I am
willing to accept management's decisions. A sort of "disagree and commit", if
you will.)

I face none of these problems as a remote worker, and I think this is a net
positive.

------
courtewing
I live in a small city in the US, and remote work has provided me
opportunities for career progression and networking that would otherwise be
impossible for me unless I moved my family somewhere else.

The key for me has been to work for distributed companies rather than as one
of the few remote workers on the team. This seems to make all the difference
in the world.

~~~
ben1040
Pretty much this. I live in St. Louis. I've got 15 years' career experience,
the last 5 of which were remote; I've been able to do impactful work for major
east coast and west coast names you've definitely heard of.

It's been an amazing opportunity to level up my career and my skills. If you
told me in late 2012 that I'd be doing what I do now, where I do now, I'd have
laughed you out of the room.

That said I've had to work a little harder on things like conference speaking
and attendance, in order to build up a network and offset some of what I miss
from not being in the room every day with people in NYC/SF.

------
bproven
My experience - I worked from home for 10 of the 15 years (so far) of my
career. My biggest advice for anyone going this route:

\- keep active in the industry; keep making contacts; attending
meetups/conferences etc ; prioritize networking. Its easy to fall into the
work from home and never network/socialize with others in your field. This is
critical if you need (it will happen) to change jobs.

\- if the job is remote and the company has a central office where some (or
all) of your co-workers work from, make an effort to show up frequently so
everyone knows you are alive. If you are not seen you risk being forgotten or
at least considered forgotten.

\- Don't move so far away from industry hubs (or cities) that you are tempted
to stop networking. In other words living in BFE can be a _very_ bad thing
unless you have already built a good network and/or have very good discipline
to do it.

BTW I screwed up on all of the above and now I am paying the price. :( So,
don't do what I did ;)

HOWEVER - with all that said. I really wish more companies would encourage WFH
at least a few days a week. As a matter of fact it would be great if it was
incentivized to push companies to do this. This would have a _huge_ impact on
traffic, stress, employee health and still give the opportunity for in person
collaboration (which AFAIK is the main reason companies claim to hate it). I
think it is insane that this is not even on the table especially in places
like the bay area...

~~~
godzillabrennus
I’ll also recommend mentoring startups with inexperienced leaders to grow your
network. It’ll introduce you to the other advisors and help you expand your
network.

I have personally found that my network is my own personal currency. I can
control how valuable it is and how big it gets.

Being a connector of people puts you in a valuable position.

------
sudonim
It's important to look at the company you're joining and how they are
organized. Are they truly committed to building a distributed company? Where
are the centers of gravity in the team? Have other people who are remote been
promoted to management roles?

For our company of 30 people (I'm CEO), we're committed to being remote-first
(we still have 5 people colocated at the HQ). However, the HQ is not our
center of gravity. We've hired and promoted people who are not in or near HQ.
They are Directors and VPs and the lead fully distributed teams. My goal is
for us to provide more opportunity, give you more interesting work to do, and
help you advance your career relative to other opportunities you might find
where you are.

There's no way it's the same as being colocated in the bay area, but overall
we think we can provide a more fulfilling life both inside and outside of
work.

------
scarface74
I worked remotely as a contractor years ago. It didn't last long. I blame
myself completely and looking back, I lacked the maturity and emotional
intelligence to do so successfully.

The second time I worked remotely a few years later, I officially worked at a
satellite office but my team was located about two hours away. I did great
with my own team but couldn't break through the politics and old boys club -
not really old boys but they all hung out and had unofficial meetings and all
of my ideas had to go through officials channels.

This time around, I usually work remotely 2 or 3 days a week. I'm the tech
lead for my department but I also need to get some coding done. I over
communicate with higher ups just so they know what I'm working on. With the
level of autonomy I have it's easy to silo myself and bring code and ideas
from down high if I am not disciplined.

I also notice anytime I'm not there for awhile, like when I went on vacation
for a week, a bunch of contracting consultants started pushing their ideas
around and were derailing our architecture based on their "theories". I have
to be in the office to make sure I keep things on track.

In the positions I usually go for now, face time is important. It's a
balancing act between getting things done and building relationships.

------
avip
The noticeable career effect for me was (and is) severe job opportunities pool
shrinkage. I can't mentally go back to 9-5 @office - that translates to ~95%
of jobs off the table.

~~~
deckard1
Same here. I _love_ working remote, and have been doing it for nearly 5 years
now.

The idea of getting up early, getting into a car, driving an hour, and sitting
at a table with 20 other people surrounding you in one of those open offices
that are all the rage today... just kill me now.

This may sound trivial, but being able to take a dump in total privacy and
comfort any time of the day is amazing.

~~~
nerflad
Nothing like the "home base" toilet.

------
contingencies
Working remotely improved my career indirectly: through careful use of the
time-rich and low-overhead lifestyle remote work afforded, I developed a far
broader skill-set through starting my first business in a challenging foreign
environment.

------
dangoor
I've been working remotely for the past 10 years, and only the first year of
that was with a totally remote organization.

It's very important that the organization is well equipped to handle remote
workers (i.e. more than just one or two people are remote). The local people
in the company should take pains to make sure that the remote people are
included.

As a remote person, it's important to make sure that you communicate often.
Deliver well, talk to people, make yourself visible by being a part of things
that matter. Look for ways in which things could be better, because they
always exist.

Make sure your manager knows your career aspirations, and let them help you
with that.

 _Do_ spend time in the office and with your coworkers when you get a chance.
I've made 4-6 trips per year over the past 9 years. Face time _does_ matter,
so take advantage of it!

At many (most) companies, there _is_ a ceiling for remote workers. If you want
to be a VP, you'll almost certainly need to be at headquarters. I have had
engineering, management, product management, project management, and
architecture roles remotely, though, so there is a lot of possibility
available!

------
erikb
Yes strongly, in comparison. But I also live in one of the last countries on
this planet that still has good compensation offers for regular employees. The
conditions one faces in working remotely are probably more and more common.

Here's the thing: If you are in your twenties, are offered decent office jobs,
and you don't have a wealthy family to back you up, choose office over
freedom. Later when you put something aside you can try to get some freedom
without risking going broke.

Freedom is no fun without backup. Freedom also means free to get exploited.

------
eikenberry
Building your careers is 99% about making contacts. You make contacts much
easier when you are all there in person. Once you have a good network it is a
lot easier to work remotely.

To mitigate issues the best thing is to live in a city with a good community
oriented around your specialty. That way you can take part in user-groups,
small conferences, etc. That is you can network in-person, outside of work. It
also allows you to find local jobs where you can start in person and
transition to remote.

Also focus on small to medium sized companies. Companies where you can make a
visible impact and there isn't as much of the politicking as there can be at
larger corps.

The worst thing is to live somewhere remote, not near jobs or a community. You
don't want to get in a situation where you have no options if you need them.

------
waytogo
Did both for quite some time: Working remotely means getting thing done,
getting into flow, and being productive. Working on-site means building strong
relationships to people which might be key for one's further career
development. I guess latter is more important when it is about increasing the
personal market value.

Not saying that you can't build stromg work relations remotely but it's just
different.

------
chimeracoder
I'm based in New York City, and I've been working remotely for a company based
in San Francisco for two and a half years now.

Personally, I find it's been overall a net benefit to my career, though that's
not to say remote work is for everyone, or that every company is structured to
provide career opportunities for people who work remotely.

I actually wrote in more detail about my experience and the things I've
learned in the process which have helped make remote working work well for me.
[https://adityamukerjee.net/2017/10/03/remote-work-2-years-
in...](https://adityamukerjee.net/2017/10/03/remote-work-2-years-in/)

------
coppolaemilio
I certainly feel that if I were not remote I would be in a better position by
now. Being one of the few remotes of the company makes me feel like I'm
missing out on some of the office dynamics that enable your career growth.
Maybe in teams where there are more remote positions this is different, but
that's how I feel.

------
whiddershins
I’ve worked as the only remote employee for an NYC-based company for over a
decade.

In terms of within-company career, working remotely (unless everyone does)
will impose a drastic cost on possible advancement. And in my case, a hard
ceiling on my title.

Why am I ok with that? Because if you view your career in a broader context,
not necessarily specific to the company who currently pays your salary, there
are trade-offs. I have less commute, but less mentorship. Etc.

It really depends on the company, and also how you view your career.

------
StavrosK
Yes (fewer available jobs, harder to progress), but not working remote would
have harmed my life satisfaction.

I figured that I can always work on fun projects in my spare time and find
fulfillment this way, especially since living in a country where the cost of
living is terribly low allows me to have a bunch of free time. This was
preferable to living somewhere where I can have a great career but not much
else I liked, so that's the choice I made.

------
mathgeek
Not at all. Having remote work experience has helped immensely with finding
new and better companies specifically looking for remote workers.

Even if it had, I'd still take this extra time with my young kids over a
raise. Every. Single. Time.

------
iforgotmypass
Yes. Less teamwork, less knowledge sharing. I feel like I've been progressing
professionally much slower than when I had the chance to interact face-to-face
with various colleagues from various departments on a daily basis.

------
blisterpeanuts
Work-from-home varies from company to company. Corporations that have a strong
WFH culture seem to handle it better than places where a remote worker is "the
exception" and "the faceless voice on the phone" at every meeting.

Speaking personally, it's been great these past 5 years. The advantages of
remote employment are substantial. To me, it's worth about $20K a year.

I haven't experienced the harm to my career that some have mentioned, but
maybe I'm just lucky. My group is a tiny "intrapreneurial" startup within a
large corp. and we are judged more on results than on just showing up.

Advantages of working from home:

\- 10-15 hours a week of extra time to use as I wish.

\- saves thousands of dollars a year in commute expenses, wear & tear on the
car, etc.

\- extra security and convenience of someone being at home all day

\- more flexibility when raising children

\- exercise at noon, then shower (no more "Do I skip the morning shower and
hope I'm not too smelly at the office before I head to the gym?")

\- set up your workspace exactly as you like it.

\- you can shake things up once in a while, and go work in a café

\- you can travel more frequently and work from whatever location, to save
your vacation hours or avoid having to ask permission.

\- the coffee is exactly the way YOU want it

Disadvantages:

\- off-site workers are less visible, hence require strong management support
to avoid problems others have detailed here

\- too easy to gain weight

\- spouse or children are distracting

\- "work day never ends" syndrome.

\- you miss out on "five minutes in the hallway" quick check-ins and over-the-
shoulder teamwork

------
pinewurst
I've been working mostly remote for the last five years in three different
organizations. I can't say that it's harmed my career.

In the first one, all my peers were remote and we established close and
lasting relationships that remain beneficial to this day.

In the second, corporate HQ was local, but my manager wasn't, so I rarely went
to the office. It was the nature of the place not to have good relationships -
seriously dysfunctional. Remote or not was the same, and I preferred to save
the commute time and not soil my karma.

In my current gig, my hiring manager was remote but left, so I've been
visiting the office every week or so to have a better relationship with my
local new boss. I work in a large team, but everyone I deal with is remote
(sales for a very large company) so those are the important and long-term
valuable contacts.

------
dizzystar
I work remotely because it gives me the highest odds of finding work to do.
Some clients are local, but most of my clients are 1000+ miles away.

I work remote because anyone that meets me quickly figures out I'm not an
"ideal" employee, meaning my mindset is very much entrepreneurial. Remote work
is a great way to use my skills, expose me to many techs and approaches, and
focus on getting shit done.

Remote work doesn't harm my career growth because I don't really see
programming as a career. I give value for the money I'm paid and I move on to
the next thing.

When I'm done working for the day, I go eat, come back home, and do other work
to make money. When I'm not programming, I do other things.

------
ljm
Yes and no.

No, because going remote opened me up to opportunities I previously didn’t
have. It has been fantastic for my experience in terms of communication,
mentoring, and in learning new roles (e.g taking responsibility for
infrastructure).

In that sense, my career has blossomed!

On the other hand, I believe that progression would be a struggle because
remote work can create such a massive comfort zone that it takes a lot more
effort to break out and network than it does if you’re co-located. It can be
very isolating and difficult to break out of that lonely routine.

With hindsight, I wouldn’t go remote again unless I had the full network of
both professional and personal support to healthily sustain it.

~~~
rhn_mk1
The feeling of complacency is real. When people don't just chat and complain,
it's more difficult to pick up whether the company is doing well.

It's also more difficult to say if you're short-changed - IRC ties are usually
not strong enough to exchange that info.

All in all, it's easier to get too comfortable and forget that you haven't
been progressing enough.

------
feistypharit
Yes, if the company isn't already really distributed. In my case, I was an on-
site developer for years, transitioned into management, then moved remote. As
time passed, my management got more and more annoying as clearly they'd have
preferred I be local. It's particularly tough for things like hiring. As a
manager, you typically want to meet the candidate, so you do the intro and
exit portions. That's hard to do remote, and somewhat less effective when
trying to hire to a local office.

Unfortunately, the old saying "out of sight, out of mind" comes into play. And
the more out of sight, the more out of mind.

------
thruflo22
Remote != home. If you lack social interaction or networking, join a co-
working space.

~~~
icc97
This does rely on there being enough people to make co-working possible. I
live in a town of 20000 in Belgium there's literally no-one doing remote work.
There's a local company that's tried to open a co-working place. I'm the only
one there. Going to the cafés in town in the mornings, again there's no-one
else. Maybe two or three people over the course of a year.

~~~
WimLeers
Very few remotes in Belgium indeed. I know of less than a dozen others.

------
icc97
I've been working remotely with UK companies from Belgium since 2010. I'd
worked with both companies in the UK before I left. Both companies are great
and treat remote workers well. But I knew the people well before I went
remote.

They pay me to keep doing what I do. I don't see it as some kind of career
path.

In the side I'm continually doing coursera courses and learning other
languages or computer science fundamentals just in case the jobs change.

It's a pretty lonely existence and really hard to work consistently, but you
get to see your kids grow up.

------
mariojv
No, it hasn't harmed my career growth. My career hasn't been that long yet,
though. Whether it harms yours depends on what you're optimizing for. It also
depends on other career prospects where you want to live.

<my experience as a remote software developer>

I've only worked for one company full-time after graduating and transferred to
100% remote after moving out of state for my spouse's work. In the span of
time that I worked remotely, I became something equivalent to a maintainer
("core reviewer") on a decent-sized open source project, got promoted to a
senior dev at a fairly large company, and helped launch an internal analytics
service. I also have a network of former coworkers and open-source
contributors that will help me find another remote job if I need one. My skill
set is well-rounded, and I enjoy my job.

In terms of what I've given up, my salary is lower than what it would have
been had I worked in a major hub like the SF Bay Area or Seattle. I probably
pair program less than I would have otherwise. My soft skills have slightly
weakened, but that may just be this profession. Outside of work, I've also had
to work really hard to maintain a social life and stay mostly healthy. An
extroverted spouse helps a lot. It's very easy to slip into not leaving the
house or not exercising, and I've seen quite a few people develop both mental
and physical health problems from the lifestyle. It's not for everyone.

However, costs of living where I am are much lower, so I feel very lucky.
About 6 weeks time off next year is great, too. I've been fortunate enough to
avoid the health problems I described earlier.

</my experience>

In any case, if you want to optimize for:

\- Salary, regardless of cost of living \- Larger professional network \-
Management track

then working in person in a tech hub is probably better.

If you prefer:

\- Lots of freedom / setting your own schedule (mostly) \- Extra time (0
commute, you can use that commute time to work more / improve your skills too)
\- Living wherever you want

then working remotely is pretty nice. Like other people mentioned, it's also
very important to find a company that does remote well.

------
mattbgates
In my time as a remote worker, long story short, working 6 AM to 2 AM for the
media. About a year and a half later, they basically told everyone: "Move and
come into the office or get laid off." They claimed it would be better for
communication, but still kept 2 offices, one in the middle of the country, and
one more of the Western part of the country.

About 100 or so people were laid off. Me and one other person moved across the
country and now work in an office. Hasn't done anything to better our
communication. However, I can't complain.

I went from being a remote work with no health benefits, no vacation time, no
401k. It certainly had its advantages: I could go out and travel to different
places, and as long as I had an Internet connection by 6 PM - 2 AM EST,
everything was great.

As for moving into the office: they paid for my relocation, added 401k, health
benefits, other benefits, paid vacation time, salary negotiation, and at least
I only live about 5 minutes from my job.

So... I was upset to no longer work from home, but on the bright side: I got
moved to a place where I could actually afford to buy a house. Got to
experience driving across the country. Can't say it harmed my career at all,
but on the other side of the bright side: I have a house that I don't get to
be in for 8-9 hours a day.

------
ioddly
I would say that living in the middle of nowhere has certainly harmed me,
which is somewhat related if the reason you want to work remotely is to say,
relocate from a tech city to a rural area.

I am slowly figuring out that the onus is on me to do things like, say, flying
out to conferences so I can make up the difference. My advice would be to have
a plan in place for dealing with geographic and self isolation before you
accept the remote job offer.

------
peelle
Has it hurt my career? Maybe. I work for a small company <50 people. Tech team
of 2 people is remote, everyone else works at a main office.

As far as learning from others, I worked in office for the first 5ish years as
a programmer. I learned a lot, but there is only so much you can learn in a
tech department of 2 people. To offset this I secured a budget from my boss to
purchase learning material, and go to conferences. In my personal time I
occasionally go to tech meetups, and work on side projects. I am introverted
so I wouldn't attend conferences and meetups if it wasn't for the fact I work
remote.

Has it hurt my networking opportunities? NO! In fact it has helped them. The
first 3 years after switching to remote, I made friends with programmers at
several other companies, through the above mentioned educational stuff. These
new friends at one time or another all promised to help me get a job at their
company if I ever needed it. After that I started traveling. I went to 7-8
countries a year, living a location independent lifestyle. In just over 2
years I have made many new friends, and contacts. Some have taught me new
things, and others have offered me contract work.

Has it hurt communication, and bonds with coworkers? Yes. With the other tech
worker nothing much changed except he complains about my time shifted schedule
when he can't reach me at noon, and praises that same schedule when I fix a
down server at 3am. :-D With the non technical workers there seems to be a
disconnect. I have done several things to offset this problem. First I show up
at the office for 1 week every year to reconnect. I try to bring everyone a
small trinket from some far off place. While at the office I initiate a
performance review with my boss. While out of the office, I do many small
things. Things like, initiate some small talk before the end of a 1 on 1,
reach out to a coworker with a call instead of an IM, etc.

------
ggariepy
I've worked remotely since late 2004 with one six month exception. It's hard
to answer questions like "did it hurt my career" because there's no control
group to test against. What I can say is that it has worked out particularly
well for me, and part of that is because I don't have any particular ambition
to rise up in management (I'm a dev.) Although I think it is possible to
advance a career into management working remotely, it is probably more
difficult to build the personal relationships necessary to do so. If, on the
other hand, you're like me: quite satisfied with coding in silence in a spare
bedroom without other people around, it's perfect. I get to do what I want, I
don't have to commute, and the office rumor mill isn't a big factor in my
life. I will continue to work remotely for as long as I can pull it off.

------
smilesnd
As I read over the comments I couldn't help but think this was a normal thing
to happen to people in office spaces. People not getting along with higher up
and being fired/held back. People not knowing how to "play" the game so they
never move up. The wrong people being chosen for positions over others even
though they didn't deserve it. I think working remotely makes it so you have
to put effort in places that would naturally happen in cubical farms. Small
talk and showing interest in people outside of work life seem to go much
farther then being a good worker. Making every experience people have with you
a pleasant one. Making people feel like they can tell you their dumbest idea
without fear you will slap them for saying something stupid. These seem to be
key to moving around in a company vs any other way I have experience.

------
citizens
I hit a ceiling working remotely at a previous company. They flat out said
they wouldn't advance me any further as the sole remote employee. I had 5
managers in 3 years in that same company—I think eventually everyone who knew
my track record left the company, so there was no one in the office to vouch
for me.

------
paulmooreparks
I've just taken a new position which is interesting in this regard. I work out
of an office in Singapore, but my team is distributed all over the Asia-
Pacific region, separated by thousands of miles. Even when I'm in the office,
I'm effectively working remotely from my team. Consequently, I'm slowly
visiting all of the local offices where they're based just to build a face-to-
face relationship and the invaluable rapport that comes with that interaction.
Even the senior executive in the office, the president of sales for the
region, works remotely and rarely comes into the office. Sometimes, it's just
the nature of the role. Still, nothing replaces face-to-face communication, so
if you have the opportunity, be sure to engage in it every chance you get.

------
shoover
It depends a lot on the project and your immediate team situation. As an
example of what’s possible, look what happens over pull requests, email, and
chat in open source projects. Shared goals, shared communication mechanisms ->
stuff gets done, networks are forged, conferences arise, people have beers,
people get jobs. Now, corporate work has much different structure and goals,
so you have to watch out.

I have had very high growth remote work periods when I was engrossed in a good
project and working with a boss who consistently engaged with me
electronically (despite being in the office himself) and pushed me.

But teams and projects change. Unless remote connection is really engrained in
the company, that is when growth does not come so easily but requires
intentional effort outside.

------
efiop
Never spent a day working at the office. Been working for ~5 years, then
switched to freelance\consulting. It is 100% true that remote positions really
impact your networking, so you have to compensate by attending conferences as
much as possible. However, it also makes you a lot more independent which
forces you to look for other opportunities such as independent consulting and
possibly creating your own business, which, in my opinion, is a good thing.

So yeah, remote work definitely harms your career growth in terms of an
employee, but also enables you to discover other opportunities, which improves
your personality.

------
littleweep
Yes.

For reasons I won't get into, I went remote after working for a company for a
couple years. What I gained in flexibility I lost in advancement
opportunities. In my view, unless you're a very rare commodity, the workers
closest to the organization are the ones most likely to be promoted.

If you value flexibility, work remotely. If you value advancement, it's
probably best to stay at HQ (if that options is available to you).

------
moltar
I’ve been doing remote for the last 10 years. I’ve worked from home a lot. But
also took the time to travel, which was awesome and I met a ton of cool
people, which is networking too.

But recently I started working from a coworking place. And that’s great too.
It’s only an 8 minute walk, which I love as it helps me to reach my daily step
count. And I get to talk to some interesting people.

------
sghiassy
I’m mid 30s and have been working remote for the last couple years.

The company has traditional offices, but I’m one of the few employees working
remote (note: that I used to work at the office)

Since relocating, I’ve been promoted several times in significant ways and
genuinely feel connected and valued at the office.

A lot depends on the company / team I guess. But for me, there’s been little
downside and tremendous upside.

YMMV

------
zachruss92
I would say it hasn't hurt me, but while I work remotely, I don't work from
home. I have found a coworking space where there are a ton of independent
workers like myself.

This allows me to have the flexibility of a remote job, but the social
benefits of an office ( and without the drama in my case). I have also found
it invaluable for networking.

~~~
rev_bird
I've considered doing this, but I can't figure out if the networking upside
would be outweighed by the "annoying people making lots of noise" downside.
Not to mention I really like my setup at home, which I value more than I
realized. Now that I'm working from home, I'm finding it hard to pry myself
out.

~~~
zachruss92
My coworking space has "Quiet Zones" where I work and know I won't be
disturbed. I also bought noise cancelling headphones.

------
pjmlp
I have been working remotely doing the last 10 years, but only partially.

We do projects with distributed teams, including the customer teams, so it is
impossible to get everyone on the same physical location.

Never do 100% remote, at most 50% max, always keep a sane mixture of on-site
and remote work, soft-skills and networking are quite important.

------
chrissnell
Not for me, it hasn't. I've been working remotely for ten years and making
over twice what I was making when I started. I've been promoted several times
and in the two job searches I have undertaken over this time period, both
resulted in quick offers.

------
ChemicalWarfare
depends on your definition of "career". there's nothing preventing you from
getting to a senior architect/staff engineer/senior consultant etc type level
working from home.

if your goal is to be an actual manager (not to be confused with a PM) then
yea wfh can impact that prospect. most companies I've dealt with (not all
though) explicitly required anyone who had direct reports under them to either
be in the office every day or at least be located within a reasonable distance
from the office and come in couple of days a week.

------
ahallock
I really miss the social aspect sometimes. Hangouts and Slack just don't
substitute for real human interaction.

------
jongalloway2
Absolutely. And I'd do it all over again.

------
gedrap
I've been working remotely from home for the past 7 months, I live in Vilnius,
Lithuania (so the local job market is way more limited than in SF, London,
etc).

I think that it largely depends on the company. Because remote work doesn't
Just Work -- it requires plenty of regular effort to make that happen. Some
companies excel at that, and others, well, suck at it. So if you consider
doing, ask a lot. Ask a lot about processes, how decisions are made, why the
company decided to go remote, etc. There, you can't really generalize
everything under 'remote work is good for you' or similar. Just like working
from an office doesn't automatically mean that it's good for your career.

If the company went the remote path in order to access untapped talent from
around the globe, communication is heavily written and async, that's great.
Ask for specific examples, as pretty much everyone says 'yeah, we are all
about written communication!'. If the company provides money to setup your own
private home office for maximum comfort and productivity -- even better. That
shows that they really care. After talking to a few companies and comparing
them, it's easy to tell where a company falls on the 'good for remote'
spectrum.

Is it sustainable long term (7+ years) is a whole different matter and I don't
have an answer to it. Probably completely depends on the person.

To answer your questions

> Especially if the team is a mixture of remote and co-located people?

I work in such environment and I'm very happy. But I understand how in some
cases it can end up really badly. So just do your research.

> How have you tried to mitigate that?

Just do your best to pick the right company. Because if you join one which
isn't great for remote work, then it's unlikely that you'll be able to change
how it works.

This is my personal experience so far:

Pros: * More available jobs, especially for something which is not full-stack
web-dev (SRE side of big data/analytics is my niche). Which is great for
developing my technical skills and adding some lovely things to my CV; * I
feel overall more positive about work and life in general, which is a result
of good time flexibility, not having to commute anywhere, setting up a solid
home office, etc. While not directly related to career, this huge! It reduces
chances of burning out and similar negatives as well.

The main and very obvious con is non-existing serendipitous networking with
people. But that's largely due to my own choices - I could go to a co-working
space, etc but I chose not to. Living with my gf helps with having decent
social life. That works for me.

So all things considered, that's a solid net positive.

And, I guess, obligatory plug, we're hiring :)
[https://heapanalytics.com/jobs](https://heapanalytics.com/jobs)

------
draw_down
Yes, but I mean, how much money does a person need? Why do I need to advance
up the ladder? I just don’t see the point. I like living my life how I want.
If I could do that without a job at all, I would.

Don’t get me wrong, it has its downsides other than the career advancement
thing. But commuting and sitting in an open office with no privacy does too.
On balance I prefer it. If you’re lonely, get a dog.

~~~
ozim
If you plan to live up to 80 and take account of all health issues you might
have by then I would say there is no upper limit on amount of money you need.

So it is about the choice, life circumstances and some people like to advance,
you don't have to.

~~~
WimLeers
There are countries where health care is guaranteed.

~~~
adventured
It's a pretty safe bet that it will be in the US in the next 15-20 years as
well (I know that's a sad time frame; the US has to reshape a ~$4 trillion
entrenched market, which will take time). I say that based on the trends in
the healthcare market. Insurers are being squeezed out of the bottom 2/3 of
the market. It ultimately leaves only government coverage as the viable option
for most people. About half of all people in the US currently receive some
variation of government health coverage. Government-based coverage will
continue to gradually walk its way up the income ladder by necessity due to
costs.

Republicans were entirely unable to end the ACA, despite majorities & the
Presidency. Its latest enrollment period saw a massive sign-up. The likely
scenario coming up near-term, is Democrats take the Senate & possibly the
Presidency (not the House). Healthcare will see gradual stapled on
improvements that basically guarantees everyone coverage. Each time the
Democrats acquire majorities, they'll put more pieces into place. It's most
likely to start out as guaranteed catastrophic coverage for the middle & lower
middle class (poor people already have free healthcare), that's the next
logical step from the components the ACA put into place. It'll be a messy
process, that will ultimately end in guaranteed coverage (most of the top 1/4
will keep variations of employer coverage that provide various perks). As each
of these pieces get put into place, Republicans will find it nearly impossible
to take them back away from people (as we just witnessed, it was wildly
unpopular when Republicans tried to get rid of denial of coverage protections
for pre-existing conditions).

