I'm a little surprised at the number of "no remote" in this thread. I've done some great work remotely, and with the right tools I think a team can "gel" and really work well together. Any comments?
"I'm a little surprised at the number of "no remote" in this thread. I've done some great work remotely, and with the right tools I think a team can "gel" and really work well together. Any comments?"
In my experience, remote work is offered to specific individuals who are already known to the people making the offer - through a shared work history, impressive open source contributions, a recommendation by a trusted person, unique knowledge/skillsets etc. You don't generally see ads for these.
People who put out generic ads looking for fairly generic skill sets etc, have plenty of choice locally and/or don't know anyone, remote or otherwise, who could fill that position. They are, in a sense just throwing an ad out there (or a post on HN), hoping to find someone who'll come into the office and work locally. Why go through the hassle of wading through the thousands of resumes you'll get from all over the world (and you will!), 99.99% of which are crap ?
I get approached for remote work all the time. Partly this is because I have a somewhat uncommon skill set and partly because I know/have worked with a lot of ultra sharp people and they remember me when they need someone. Most of the time I have to turn them down because I am already on a project and so not free - which is a common situation. As with "normal" jobs, the people you want often have great jobs/projects already and have no intention of "moving".
Fwiw, I know half a dozen or so people here in Bangalore who are working remotely for companies in the USA. In every case remote work was offered to them (no one ever sent in a CV) because they were known to be very good at what they do and had no intention of moving to San Fransisco (or wherever).
Remote work can be a win-win but a distributed team has a very different feel than a collocated one and not many people want the hassle - and it is a hassle if you aren't willing to change your working style.
Things seem to be changing though. A really strong dev can get (great) remote work with some effort these days. The very best, say Lars Bak, have never had any problems working from wherever they choose to. As with many things, demand and supply determines everything.
Fwiw, my advice to folks seeking remote work is Be very good, and be known to be very good (iow focus on what you know and who you know) and you will never lack for work, remote or otherwise.
Successfully working remotely, with a team, is more effort. The barrier to communication is higher; there is more inertia to overcome. When collocated, you can just shout out to the room, "Hey, does someone know about X?". When remote, it's often a chat room of some form instead. There's a little more effort required.
In my book, one requirement of a remote (team) worker is that he be at least a bit extroverted. My experience has been that less extroverted developers find themselves quickly out of the loop. I believe this is because they don't seek out interaction with other team members and so fall out of sync with the team.
The lack of physical presence can put a strain on relationships. Sight unseen, it is so easy to project unintended meaning onto the text, or speech of colleagues (granted, we do this in-person as well but to a lesser degree).
Body language provides real cues that are missing from remote communication. I try to resolve this by meeting colleagues/clients early in the process to help build that relationship.
When you put the communication part aside, there is the question of motivation. I've also found that some people, when working remotely, tend to backslide and become less productive. I believe this to be due to the lack of implicit peer pressure of seeing your colleagues working. Or, to put it bluntly, a lack of solid work ethic.
When remote working, there is less (micro-)management. No one is looking over your shoulder. For some people, remote pairing can help here.
Ultimately, there is no substitute for a deeply engrained need to ship. Either you've got it or you don't. If you don't, you're probably not going to be a good remote worker.
There should be a separate post for remote/freelance jobs. All the jobs posted here are in the US, and I'm sure there's plenty of talented foreigners lurking on HN.
