Working Remote

I just finished the new book by DHH and Jason Fried, Remote. It’s definitely worth the time to read if you are thinking about hiring remote, working remote or being part of a remote team .

In short, this is a book I’ve been writing in my head for the last 7-8 years, they just wrote it down and executed it very well. I’ve been doing remote work for nearly 12 years in one form another. Over and over I found myself nodding in agreement with the book – chapter after chapter. In a nutshell – remote working works. It works well, VERY WELL – if done correctly. From the company mindset to the possible stints of cabin fever – remedies for all are covered. Some of the biggest take aways you can gain from this book are the following points:

• Have at least 4 hours of overlap per work day
  • What this means is that If I live in NYC and my company is in SF, then we have 4 hours overlap already. I may start earlier but by 9am most of the team will be in the office and when I get off at 5pm ET then I will have had 4 hours of work overlap with them. However, I were in London I might have to change my work schedule to work from 11am-7pm so I can get more work done.
• Create a work Mindset & Separate Work and Fun
  • As a remote worker you must have a dedicated place to work to separate work and fun. Have a dedicated time you start work. Get yourself in the work mindset. For me that means waking up at about the same time every day and getting dressed especially for work. I have a collared shirt on with pants and my hair is done so I look presentable during video conferences. Doing this puts me in work mode. I also have a dedicated room in my house that allows for me to work out of (home office). If you don’t have that. Find a co-working space, rent a desk from a company who has extra space or simply a coffee shop/library/etc. Doing this will help you separate what and when work time is happening compared to when fun time is.
• The company must embrace a remote work environment
  • If you don’t it will fail. Its like saying “I cant finish a marathon, I’m not cut out for it” right before starting a marathon. You’re setting your up for failure. All tools, system access and communications must be set up to allow for remote work. Not sure how to do that? Read this book. It will tell you how. It works. I know. I’ve done it.
  • For the teams I’m part of, here’s our stack:
    • Email: Google Apps for Domains
    • Video conferences: Google Hangout or Skype.
    • IM: GTalk/Hangouts
    • Source Control: GitHub or BitBucket
    • Continuous Integration: Jenkins or TeamCity on AWS or TravisCI if open source work
    • Project Management:  Confluence and/or Trello
    • File Sharing (Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, etc): Google Drive & Dropbox and/or Copy
    • Pair Programming: Google Hangouts or Team Viewer (we’re always trying something new)
  • When your boss or management says: “We dont allow remote work.” Here’s a trick: Ask them if they have in-house lawyers and accountants. Most likely these are “remote”. Sure, they may be a different company but they trust them enough to work remotely and do their job, why cant they trust you?
• Get together as a team at least 2 times a year
  • I’d have to say this is a minimum at least every 6 months. But more often is better, but no more than 4 times a year. Having good face time allows you to connect as humans and grow a bond that cannot be done virtually. Plus it really makes these in person times count because they’re rare. Take full advantage of them. Team outings, fun things, hackathons, etc.

Pioneering the Remote Work Culture

I’ve been developing software and delivering solutions for 15+ years and 12 of those have been remote in one capacity or another. In doing so I’ve had clients all over the world that have been very happy with the results they’ve received. However, this didn’t come easily.  Nearly 5 years ago I decided to help pioneer the idea of remote working by declining any job offer that did not allow remote work. At first this was scary as hell. Few companies allowed remote work. However, I stuck to my guns convinced that if I said no enough times to on site work companies would realize working remote is a viable option. Thankfully that belief has paid off, and to this day I still have more work than I know what to do with. Remote work has not always been easy to find though. For each remote position or contract I’ve taken I’ve declined 10-15 (or more) on site positions or contracts. A lot of companies don’t feel comfortable hiring remotely until they have no choice. At that point, when they’re desperate, they will hire remote. This is when they see the light of remote work and usually adapt to adopt it.

One net benefit (of many) is – when companies hire remote they can have the pick of the litter of employees. You can have the best of the best, regardless of where they are. You’re not limited to picking from the pool of local talent. Lets face it, sometimes that talent pool is empty. It happens a lot in tech. I started consulting for Groupon (pre-IPO days) while living in Minnesota. At the time the engineering side of Groupon was in Palo Alto, CA (Silicon Valley) and finding anyone who could do Android and mobile work in general was difficult – nearly impossible in the Silicon Valley. Everyone was taken. My direct lead was located in Boston at the time. He realized that he needed to hire remote and it worked out great for him, myself and the company. I helped Groupon go from pre-IPO to post IPO and I’ve seen it grow since then. Since then I’ve worked for 6+ other companies, all remotely.  I feel that more companies will catch onto the idea and will adopt the remote working in the near future. Those that adopt it sooner than later have probably read Remote or have tried remote working before and have realized the benefits. Not sure about it yet? Read the book, it will probably change your mind for the better.

Bonus: 37 Signals has set up a site for people looking for remote work or companies looking to hire remote workers. Its at: https://weworkremotely.com/