

Ask: Why do so many developer jobs require on-site presence? - uysrc

I'm perplexed... even after 37signals NYE plea (http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3064-stop-whining-and-start-hiring-remote-workers) and never mind general access to the internet now approaching 2 decades old, and never mind a supposed lack of tech talent, nor the general trend of minimal meetings...  I don't understand why so many jobs posted on job boards require on-site presence.  No Telecommuting!  Why???
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emeraldd
I wonder if it is a "reflexive" view point on how to manage a worker. If you
don't have the "employee" in front of you, how do you know that they are
working? Of course, there are advantages to collaboration and access with a
developer on site. Then again, those kinds of needs can be met technologically
if an employer is willing . . . Which leaves me back a "That's the way it has
always been done."

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K2h
I have been at two companies now where the workforce was split between two
facilities. The overhead of connecting employees in the two efficiently and
resulting in effective collaboration is huge... And it never does work as well
as bumping into someone in the hall to chat. I see the same challenges in
connecting individuals from home.. As much as I personally want to work from
home, I just don't see the same level of teamwork you can get by standing next
to someone.

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ltcoleman
I believe telecommuting can and does work well, but I can also see the other
side of things. Many times developers on their own spend excess time on issues
that could be done quickly just with a little collaboration. I understand that
there are many project/team collaboration tools out there, but developers seem
to thrive better in a whiteboard environment.

I also work in an extremely fast paced shop so I may end up working on 3 or 4
different projects in one day while pulling in different people to discuss
business requirements.

For a stable shop with a lot of structure, I believe telecommuting can excel
but for smaller shops that are constantly fighting fires and releasing new
functionality on multiple projects on almost a weekly basis, telecommuting
becomes difficult.

The largest problem is the loss of mentor-ship. Since it is difficult to hire
experienced developers right now, we are having to hire more level one
developers and have them become men-tees. I have a hard time believing that a
telecommuting mentor-ship would be possible.

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kls
_I understand that there are many project/team collaboration tools out there,
but developers seem to thrive better in a whiteboard environment_

I used to think the same way, that the organic nature of the team could not be
fostered in a distributed environment. That was until I did several remote
projects and started finding ways to replace the whiteboard with electronic
equivalents. Once we figured out how to replace that with an electronic
alternative we saw the teams grow and bear fruit. I have many coworkers now
that I have never meet face to face that I know as well as many of my long
time coworkers from physical environments. I was skeptical at first but I have
changed my stance. It takes effort by one person on the team to foster the
community but once it starts it seems to run on autopilot.

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cafletch
Persons are challenged by the perceived need a telecommuter brings to the
table. In reality a telecommuter costs the company less overhead.

The root is corporate culture does not know how to change. Or is unwilling to.

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thejteam
It is especially strange that Tech companies making their living in the
"cloud" can't manage off site employees. If they can't even manage their own
employees remotely why should I trust them to manage my data remotely.

Unfortunately for me, all of my jobs generally have had actual technical
reasons for working onsite. If you are working with interfacing to hardware,
especially very expensive custom hardware, onsite work is generally needed.
For everything else, just let me work from home and come in as needed.

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arvcpl
I think it's just a point of view as one can be very productive working
remotely and another do nothing while being on site.

By the way in U.S. remote situation is not that bad. I am from EU myself, i
work exclusively remotely for already 7 years (what proves that it is really
possible to work remotely) but I am capable to find long lasting contracts
just in U.S. In EU it seems like it's not possible at all :(

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JoeAltmaier
Most reasons are obsolete, but managers don't know it. They've been burned
trying to cobble together conference calls, GoToMeeting and other screen-share
tools, and Skype video into something workable.

But now there are unified tools that make it easy. They're starting to gain
traction. It takes time, so until then we're stuck trying to evangelize hiring
managers one at a time.

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ajdecon
Out of curiosity, can you suggest some of those unified tools?

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JoeAltmaier
Sococo, but I work there (architected the client engine).

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Tangurena
From a managerial viewpoint, if folks had the skills to manage telecommuters,
they could manage offshoring and save far more $. I contend that most managers
have a hard time managing folks directly in front of them and don't have the
skills to manage remotely.

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kls
I don't think it is a one for one, there are a lot of cultural issues to
contend with when going off shore. Little things we take for granted as
cultural knowledge are not common in other cultures, these macro items filter
into software development and we just take it for granted. It is the same
reason that if you outsourced the other way, as US team doing development for
say India's market, it would have just as high of a risk profile.

