

Ask HN: Anyone have a list of distributed companies (remote engineers)? - buf

It would be interesting to compare and contrast work culture and benefits of distributed teams vs fully in-house teams.<p>I've found a couple big players so far:
Automattic: http://toni.org/2010/03/08/5-reasons-why-your-company-should-be-distributed/
Mozilla: http://jasondanielsmith.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/work-culture-differences-xerox-mozilla-and-distributed-teams/<p>Anyone have any they would like to contribute to this list?
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michael_fine
I feel that distributed teams definetly have many postives, it is just much
faster to work in the same building as a person. My startup works via chat
room, except for one day a week when we meet in person, and we just get so
much more done.

The reason face to face is so much better for us is because so much more
information is communicated via talking versus typing. Firstly, the speed one
talks usually is faster than their typing speed. Second of all, information is
contained in things such as tone, expressions, and gestures, none of which
have a digital substitute. Furthermore, it seems that face to face contact
facilitates far-reaching conversation about strategy and general topics,
rather than just the code at hand. Finally, it is much easier to show someone
your error message on your screen, or point to the block of code, than to copy
and paste or say line numbers. That final qualm is getting better with the
advent of screen sharing though.

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aespinoza
We at Structum are all distributed. I can tell you that while building iKnode,
it has been difficult. Even though we have a very async flow, there is still
times where we have trouble integrating.

Google Hangouts has been great, but still, new feature planning seems to work
better in-house.

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buf
Are you planning on keeping Structum distributed, or do you want to bring the
team together?

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aespinoza
Distributed works for us most of the time, so we plan to stick with it. But we
are looking for ways to improve the feature planning meetings, which is our
major pain point. We usually use the white board a lot, and using virtual
whiteboards is not as easy.

So we have thought about three possible ways so far:

1) Making Planning meetings only for major versions only and meet face to face
for it in a central location. (This involves traveling).

2) Remove planning meetings all together. Focus on small features and no
planning. (Not likely. Being remote requires us to at least sit down and talk
about the future.)

3) Invest in better teleconference technologies to improve the interaction
between us.(Very expensive, but maybe worth it.)

To be honest, I am looking to #3. I still don't know if it is going to improve
the flow though. We are also looking for ways to change the way we work to
make those feature planning meetings a lot more interactive using technology
only.

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Mz
I am wondering why you would need expensive equipment to teleconference
effectively. Aren't there all kinds of web based options you could explore?

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benologist
I'm pretty sure DeviantArt is.

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ig1
Yes it is.

