Every day I read a new article about some company whining about how hard it is to hire technical staff. Invariably it turns out that they’re only looking for people within a commuters distance of their office. I refuse to feel sorry for such companies.
If we were only trying to hire in Chicago, we’d never have the world-class team we have today. 37signals has people from such distinct tech hubs as Fenwick (Canada), Phoenix, Caldwell (Idaho), Romiley (UK), Jefferson Hills (Pensylvania), Ann Arbor (Michigan), Boulder (Colorado), Tampa (Florida).
The technology to successfully run and manage remote teams has never been better. We use Basecamp to keep track of our projects, Campfire as the virtual water cooler, Skype for calls and screensharing, and iChat and email to top it off.
None of it is fancy, expensive, or hard to use. Everything we do to manage a business consisting mainly of remote employees is something anyone else could do too. There’s so much untapped tech talent that does not live near your office, but would work for you if you allowed them to.
So stop whining, spend a day to get up to speed on remote working practices, and hire outside of your commuter zone.
Tack
on 31 Dec 11So how do you feel about the advantages of colocation? Nonexistent? Marginal? Great but not a deal-breaker?
DHH
on 31 Dec 11Tack, incredibly overrated. Being in the same room occasionally is great, but I would much rather work with A players remotely than B players in the same office, if that’s the choice.
But this is speaking to people who do not have the choice. Where the A players they want to hire locally are simply not available.
Dave Goodchild
on 31 Dec 11It’s mad isn’t it? I turned down two good gigs last month because there was no capacity for remote, even though I fit the bill 100%. I would have thought that attitude would have changed by now but I run into it over and over again. A trust thing? In which case if I don’t deliver fire me, just like you would if I was in the office.
Jurgen Altziebler
on 31 Dec 11+1. We have a remote team as well and I communicate more then in a regular warm body in the chair office from 9-5. They key to a good remote team is to find people that love what they do and are self motivated.
Vinícius Teles
on 31 Dec 11For one year I’ve been traveling non-stop, living in different countries in three different continents and working remotely. I’ve been to places with great internet connection and others where I had a hard time to find any connection at all. And even living this life I managed to work remotely and take care of my business flawlessly.
I’ve always been a big fan of colocation, but eventually I had to admit that one can definitely be as much productive, or even more productive, working remotely as far as programming is concerned. So I completely agree with you, David.
Wes Morgan
on 31 Dec 11What I often run into are companies that have tried the remote working thing (in their minds) by hiring 2-4 devs from a Rails shop in another town. But often these are B (or C) level devs or they just don’t fit the company’s culture and priorities because they are first beholden to their employer, not their clients.
They do Campfire, Skype, and all the rest, but it just doesn’t work. Of course they blame the remote aspect rather than the outside shop aspect. Then they work really hard to hire one local dev and viola, it works much better because that dev works for them, and them alone.
So I think it’s important to stress that hiring devs from a consultancy to work remotely is NOT a good test of this model.
Peter
on 31 Dec 11And what do you think about hiring overseas workers? (for example from Europe)
Dave Hoover
on 31 Dec 11Has 37signals tried hiring inexperienced, high potential developers? This requires some oversight and mentoring, but can be a great investment. I’m wondering if you’ve found an effective way to do that remotely. Or does hiring for remote work require more experienced developers?
Emilis
on 31 Dec 11Peter, “Romiley (UK)” is overseas and in Europe :-)
Jonas Maturana Larsen
on 31 Dec 11How do you handle job interviews of remote people?
How does the different timezones influence how you work together? Would working with people with 6 or more hours of time difference be a problem?
Rudolf
on 31 Dec 11Thanks for writing this. I hope that devs realize this means hiring people for a living wage not the outsourcing of the last few decades where the point was to minimize costs and not maximize quality of the product.
It’s worse when you’re stuck relying on public transportation which takes over 1 hour to get somewhere. 2 hours per day wasted on travel that no one company wants to compensate for is stupid. Getting a car to get a great-paying job is a chicken/egg problem unfortunately.
It’s interesting how some devs dislike remote working because they need someone a desk away to have spontaneous conversations with or something. But then they turn around and work online with people in different countries when they’re working on free/open source software.
Kris Roadruck
on 31 Dec 11this is exactly how my company rolls. Not only does it give us access to some of the best people, it has all sorts of other benefits as well. For one we save a crapload of money by not having an office. No need for cubicles or building maintenance et cetera. Our employees enjoy the flexibility of working hours that suit them rather than being forced into a 9-5 situation which is often not peek performance time for most programmers anyhow. It cuts down on that whole “lets have a pointless meeting” thing. The only real drawback is taxes are a little more complicated but we’ve got a payroll company that handles all of that for us.
Steve R.
on 31 Dec 11Trust. That’s it.
I spent three years working for my current employer before I had banked enough goodwill to be trusted with remote, part-time-with-benefits work. Oh, and it came with a pay cut (this was 2008 and they had already fired 30% of the workforce, and didn’t want to cut more).
They trusted me. There is a perception that no matter how good your hiring process is, new hires are untrustworthy. We recruit from the best schools in our region, and we generally get bright, curious, hard-working, motivated people. Funny how after not trusting them for a few years, they all leave, or go part-time and start working on building a RoR-based product to eventually replace the full time gig. :)
David – you’ve written about this theme indirectly in two books. Maybe ‘Trust Me’ would be a good working title for a chapter in volume #3.
phil
on 31 Dec 11I (mostly) disagree. I am in Denver and work with people in Europe all the time. The time difference is a killer, I end up being blocked waiting for feedback on questions/problems all the time. Europe is bad, but Inida is a complete killer as the time difference is completely out of phase.
If you have good tools, it makes it easier. You need quality conference call systems, quality headsets, and good screen sharing apps. Get unlimited minutes on your cell phones so you can talk from anywhere. Don’t cut costs on these very important items.
Currently, I’m working with local people. We all go to the office 3 days a week. I find this balance refreshing. Sometimes there is no substitute for face time. We resolve issues and ideas much more quickly face to face – especially when more than 2 people need to be involved in a conversation.
Wayne Krug
on 31 Dec 11It seems web developers are more open to remote working arrangements than others, probably due to the nature of what they are working on. I rarely see a Java, C or C++ oriented position with one.
Its not just finding talent that this attitude hurts, either. Attitudes towards remote workers will also affect the company’s attitude towards other forms of remote collaboration, whether its with customers, subcontractors, or partners. My experience is that the more a company needs to work with other organizations, or coordinate geographically dispersed offices, the more it (usually) recognizes the value in remote workers. If they recognized the benefits and put the infrastructure and practices in place before they were forced to, it would be a significant advantage.
Brian
on 31 Dec 11What I like about this idea is that it gives them the option to move rather than the option to work remote. I’m fairly productive at home: a cup of coffee, my dining table and my MBP and I’m happy. My current work requires that I come in with an occassional “work from home” when, say, Minneapolis gets two feet of snow or my [non-existent] kid is sick.
The truth is, some devs just want to work without the social aspect which makes the remote option attractive. If a person requires that social aspect at work, they can either take a job elsewhere or move. It’s better to have the option rather than a mandatory case whereby all devs are required to be within commuting distance. Bandwidth is cheap, IM is infinite but productivity is neither.
Andrew Ingram
on 31 Dec 11I appreciate and support the need to hire remote workers. However, I simply could not function if the majority of the people I work with aren’t in the same building as me.
A significant proportion of my life is spent at work, and I am simply not willing to spend that amount of time not being the social animal my personality and genetics ask of me. Chatrooms and video conferences are all well and good, but the best part of my day is usually going for lunch with the people I work with. That is more important to me than the chance of working with A-grade talent.
Paul O Mahony
on 31 Dec 11Given 37 signals penchant for creating software to solve their own problems, wondering whether creating a tool that identifies trustworthy and A player candidates is an opportunity. Also there needs to be an alternative model to cater for talented but inexperienced candidates.
Riley
on 31 Dec 11We’re just at the stage of thinking of hiring our first non-founding employee. All of the founders live in Iowa City, and there’s not a lot of relevant talent in the area, so remote working sounds like it has a lot of benefits.
BUT: our advertising budget is small, and our travel budget doesn’t exist. What tips do you have for keeping remote hiring easy and inexpensive? Our blog has 200 readers, not the many many that 37signals has, so getting our ad in front of “grade A talent” may be harder.
Thanks for the post!
AdamH
on 31 Dec 11I’m starting my first remote gig in a couple of weeks. I’ve worked with the company on-site before and they dig working with me, but it still took some convincing and lobbying by somebody on the inside. I think it will be largely up to me to educate them about the remote collaboration tools that are available. That should be easy. The hard part will be getting them to actually use them.
Joe Cascio
on 31 Dec 11It seems to me that companies not allowing remote work has more to do with management insecurity and self-justification. Old style management wants an office to run so they can assert their dominance over people and frankly so it will appear like they’re actually doing something constructive. As has been said many times by Jason Fried offices are awful places to try to get any work done. Even with the best of intentions, there are too many interruptions. It’s too easy to call meetings or just waste time bullshitting, gossiping, kvetching or flirting.
And when ill intentions pop up things really get bad. Offices are the perfect stage for drama queens, minor Napoleans, lotharios, class clowns and especially bullies and manipulators of all flavors to work their misery on people.
Good people especially creatives and techies want to be judged on the quality of their work and ideas, not on how smooth they are in a meeting or how they dress. And isn’t the quality of their work what management should be really interested in?
Jack
on 31 Dec 11How does it work with taxes? Does a startup based in Illinois that hires someone in Iowa have to then pay taxes in Iowa too? Does something like SurePayroll handle all of that automatically, or is it a hassle?
And what about health benefits…seems like most health insurance providers are state-based (BCBS of Illinois, for example).
Nick Wilkens
on 31 Dec 11This makes a lot of sense. Self-motivated grade-A talent is hard to come by, but is the key to our (and likely your) business success.
After reading this article I updated our job posting to include 100% remote work!
Alan K
on 31 Dec 11I mostly disagree with this. If communication and collaboration is important, there is no substitute for sitting in the same room. On my team, everyone is in the same room and everyone helps each other. There is no way to get this kind of teamwork when someone is remote. No way.
The post does have a point. If you absolutely can’t find people locally, you have to sacrifice team work and collaboration and hire remote employees. They won’t be as efficient as people in the office but they will be productive.
Azrael
on 31 Dec 11I’m with Andrew Ingram on this one. I’ll even take it a bit further: Body language can be lost on skype, tone of voice is lost in chat and email; remote workers are not available for face time. I guess if you want a talented worker bee, that’s fine and all. But for start ups, or for companies working on creative endeavors (Such as working with artists) the original point is lost with me. Being in a room with artists, tablets and the ability to launch instant design sessions is not something even remotely suitable for remote work.
While I see the point of this article, I have to say on some level it’s a bit disingenuous. I like being able to sit down with my developers, go over things. I save myself a lot of problems by being able to hear their tone, see their body language. It actually helps me avoid issues to no small degree.
Our people can and do work remotely. But commuting distance for meetings, and face time will always be a requirement at Double Cluepon. Why? Because human collaboration is more than being able to type into a box, or looking at a face on a computer screen. A lot of the time, greatness comes from presence. Being there, showing up…it’s half of it. Spontaneity is lost without that, I think.
Just my $0.02. =)
Az.
Nathan
on 31 Dec 11@Andrew – I’m the exact opposite. There are a few people at work I like, but the daily interaction with the rest both drains my energy and ruins my productivity.
Jenny
on 31 Dec 11David, your thoughts on helping B players or worse get better by working closely with you (remotely or otherwise)?
Your open source contribution has sparked a lot of interest not only in web development but building small sustainable businesses.
geeknik
on 31 Dec 11I am a system administrator and work remotely for OpenDNS from the Oklahoma City area and i love it! I spend a week in San Francisco every other month. Really good IT jobs are hard to find around here, so I was glad to get this job.
Chad
on 31 Dec 11I’m pretty skeptical of working remotely. No matter how many tools you have at your disposal, face-to-face communication has more bandwidth. Otherwise you have to distill facial expression, intonation, and subtle body language into text and emoticons. Even skype doesn’t convey the same level of nuance that we’ve evolved to communicate.
I’m not saying it can’t work, but it is a serious compromise that should be weighed against the benefits.
Justin Baker
on 31 Dec 11I have had to turn down 3 positions because I can’t work on site. I am a full-time college student, but I have plenty of time to code…I managed to find the time for it at my prior position as a Senior Developer(at age 16).
I can’t accept positions due to bureaucratic bullshit. Fuck the system. There is a reason 37 Signals is probably the most efficient company around.
Ron Jeffries
on 31 Dec 11One of my current projects is a web-based information site. All the particpiants are roughly local, but we meet only one day a week for a couple of hours.
We get more communicating and planning done in those two hours, more decisions made, more clarity of understanding, than we are able to accomplish electronically the rest of the week.
Perhaps we’re doing something wrong …
Alex Jolovic
on 31 Dec 11I like working remotely as I have for the past several months, obviously as a Rails dev. Not that I don’t like face-to-face interaction, which can be fun…, but having my own time/space makes me work productively and less looking over my shoulder. As David said, the tools are there, you just need to plugin and roll on!
Spike
on 31 Dec 11I’ve worked for 12yrs as a sysadmin, dev and now manager and for 7 of those entirely remote on the most different TZs. Do I love remote work? you bet! Do I think colocation is overrated? I don’t. There are many reasons why companies should embrace remote work and there’s certainly a lot of unfunded fear and power struggles behind decisions to exclusively hire local, but a bunch of tools like skype and campfire and a day to ramp up won’t do it. Remote work brings as many benefits as it brings problems to deal with and regardless of skills some people are just not the kind that works well in that scenario and that has nothing to do with their skills. And can we talk about these A players for a minute? Who are there? Extremely skilled individuals? because in my experience, A players more than anybody else, are as much about tech skills as they are about leadership, mentoring skills and above all communication. A fantastic coder that nobody can work with because of his attitude is not an A player in my book. Of course they can develop socially in the circle of friends wherever they live, but healthy offices can do a lot to shape talented people in A players that just can’t be written off as overrated.
@spikelab
Alessandro Bahgat
on 31 Dec 11I share Jack’s concern about taxes. I that hiring remote workers can put a bit more strain on the accounting side of a company, at least initially. Is there any good source of information about this subject? And I guess it gets even more complicated if you deal with people from other countries.
Isn’t that a non-trivial obstacle to hiring remotely?
Josh Jordan
on 31 Dec 11I have been a remote web developer for over 2 years. There are a lot of efficiencies such as you can roll out of bed and be working within 10 minutes and you don’t have to spend much on clothes or transportation. This makes 12 hour days easy. On paper, this is the best business plan.
I recently moved my office to a coworking facility 4 miles away. Now I have to get dressed, look nice, and drive to work before I begin my day. It wastes a lot of time but overall its better to share an office with the people you work with. The main thing for a web design business is that potential clients drop by the office where we have a few salesmen in the same room as a designer and several programmers. It is a lot easier to come up with bids and to explain to clients what is doable for what cost with everyone there. There has been a huge increase in potential business because of this, we were able to bring in an inexperienced coder with high potential.
There are a lot of inexperienced coders with high potential. They might work at restaurants or at the mall for less than $10/hr and are thrilled to be given work that could amount to $20/hr or $50/hr when they get better and faster.
Thomas Burleson
on 31 Dec 11Excellent development/design resources are available for remote work… as you describe.
I think 100% remote does not work however.
- A ramp-up, whiteboard effort requires onsite for 1-2 weeks for best kickoff. - Product handoff, and engineering training (for maintenance support) is also best done onsite. - Betas do NOT require onsite.
So minimize travel and onsite costs. Focus on quality of distributed team environment. Hire great quality for great results.
Essential to using remote resources are:
- Self-motivated, self-training, disciplined team members - Team-enabling attitudes - Short, 1-week scrums - “Expected hours of availability”; 10-12 and 2-5 - Proven willingness to work nights/weekends IF needed - Focus on results not hours invested - Focus on quality - Refactoring experts - etc.
Carlo Ponti
on 31 Dec 11I’ve worked half my career remote and it has some downsides, the biggest is, you get detached from the main flow of events at the company and end up getting all the crappy work. You are not there when impromptu meetings are held and decisions get made and thus you end up shafted as far as career goes. Just a few comments made between co-workers without you being around to “defend” yourself or your code and boom, you’re sidelined.
No one is going to promote you to a leadership position because that definitely requires “presence”.
Jobs like maintenance or operations are great for remote work because people just expect things to be fixed. There is little “decision” and design work involved as it’s largely reaction driven, i.e. circumstances and requests drive your work flow.
Brent Sowers
on 31 Dec 11I partially agree with some of the points here. But in my experience people are much more open and frank if you’re in the same room as them versus a Skype call. And from a management stand point it is easier to keep tabs on people, help them if they’re struggling, etc. if you can just walk up to them and strike up a conversation directly. If you have nothing but the best of the best developers, like 37signals, this isn’t really an issue. But most companies our there just don’t have the reputation that 37signals does to attract the best devs, so we have to settle for many devs that aren’t the best. Especially if you’re in consulting and contracting, and need to staff up. Having remote devs that aren’t the best of the best is much more difficult than if these same devs are local.
My experience has also been that remote devs are much less interested in doing any sort of management work. And when they do management work they’re typically less engaging than managers in the office. They’ll do OK managing those they work with day to day but once they need to interact with people from other teams at the company, someone else in the office is usually needed to facilitate the communication.
And there is the social aspect too that others have mentioned. Several devs that worked remote at previous jobs but are in the office now at my job have said they’re much happier in their lives because they have friends in the office, they can go out to lunch and socialize, etc. This despite having to deal with commuting every day. There are some devs that socially feel better working remotely but these are in the definite minority from what I’ve seen.
There is an environmental factor here too that no one has mentioned. Many cite the environmental benefit of working from home – you’re not driving to work every day. But this is not a valid point typically. If you’re flying everyone in to the office 3 or 4 times a year, these 3 or 4 flights will usually have more of an impact on the environment than that person driving to work by themselves every day. A lot of factors can throw this calculation off (like if the person only needs to take a direct 500 mile flight to get to your office, if the person commuting has a 50 mile commute, etc.) but overall 3 or 4 flights per year will equal or surpass commuting every day as far as environmental damage. My experience has also been that remote devs are much less interested in doing any sort of management work. And when they do management work they’re typically less engaging than managers in the office. They’ll do OK managing those they work with day to day but once they need to interact with people from other teams at the company, someone else in the office is usually needed to facilitate the communication.
And there is the social aspect too that others have mentioned. Several devs that worked remote at previous jobs but are in the office now at my job have said they’re much happier in their lives because they have friends in the office, they can go out to lunch and socialize, etc. There are some devs that socially feel better working remotely but these are in the definite minority from what I’ve seen.
Ben
on 31 Dec 11As an experienced London-based dev, I’m surprised at the frequency with which I strike the same myopic attitude David describes (even within this thread); and it frustrates me to no end.
Capable and diligent, with great referees and an good command of C, Java, Ruby, iOS and HTML/ CSS/ JS, I know my skills are in demand. Yet I’ve been turned down for a bunch of gigs, particularly in the US, because folks don’t want to hire remote.
Meanwhile, I’m just off a short contract with a well-funded startup. 10 designers and devs spread across the East coast, West Coast, the UK and The Netherlands. Most of us had never met face-to face (recruited via word of mouth and/or Dribbble, Forrst and SO), yet armed with Github, a google doc, Skype and Droplr it was one of the most productive teams I’ve ever worked with.
So it does happen… just not anywhere near often enough.
Taylor Smith
on 31 Dec 11Here’s one, What are some practices you’ve used to hire good people?
Likewise, What are some things you’ve learned to avoid hiring not so good people?
I’m definitely interested in doing this but the how is what I’d like to see more written on.
John A
on 31 Dec 11A couple of over-sites about all this remote working is the ethical, legal and incentive loss.
Some countries will look at farming out work to foreigners as unethical.
Some countries throw up road blocks tax wise to have people work remote.
Some companies over-look their obligations to say that they have remote workers when it comes to tax-time.
All I’m saying is that a few industries can work very easily with no interest with all the labour laws in existence, yet these same companies are able to operate so freely because of the free country they are based in.
This is not an easy solution for many companies set up in different countries around the World.
JoAnn C.
on 31 Dec 11I just left a job to work contracts full-time because I needed the remote flexibility. I hope more companies catch up to the 21st century like 37Signals
tzu
on 31 Dec 11this is madness. this whole remote – all time standby thing forces the countless burnouts. you will realize this as early as u get 30+.
it is a businessape deam to believe remote workers and projectmanagement can be done with some websoftware, you will fail. dont let those buzzmakers fool you.
Justin Carmony
on 31 Dec 11I’ve been a full-time remote worker for over four years now, and a lot of people have brought up a lot of good points. A few points I’d like to make:
First off, face-to-face isn’t always unavailable. At least twice a year I fly out and meet with the other team members, and we plan on fleshing out lots of ideas and such when we’re all together.
Second, when a 100% on-site company brings in remote workers and becomes a 90% on-site, 10% remote company, the major failing usually is because the 90% continue to operate like a on-site company. For a distributed work force to work, everyone needs to be using the same communication channels. If people feel that remote workers are disconnected, its because you are disconnecting them. It is really hard to switch to the mentality of a distributed work force when you’re all in a building together with the exception of a few.
The best experiences I’ve had telecommuting have been when everyone is in the same position. So if your company wants to bring in remote workers, you should let your on-site workers also work from home, if at least part of the time. That way you get your whole team on board using the tools that your remotes will use. It turns using these “new tools” from being a hindrance for the on-site team, to a benefit of “hey, we can work from home too!”
Third, new programmers. I will 100% readily admit this is an Achilles Heel of remote workers. If a programmer has never worked a 9-5, it can be hard to have the correct discipline and work ethic expected while working remote. We hired a talented developer who did part-time hourly work for us during College. But when he switched to full-time, it was a struggle at first to make sure he got the expected time and work in. There were some growing pains, but after 3-4 months, we got through those growing pains and its working out pretty well. But this was an exceptional young developer and a good worker. I can see for a new developer programming for work for the first time struggling and failing at telecommuting.
Finally, the trust issue. Managers vision their employees playing Xbox while on conference calls, or doing nothing but goofing around because no one is there to watch them. This is a very hard thing to overcome if switching to a distributed work force at first.
Managers first need to switch their mentality from “hours working” to “work getting done.” So instead of an employee working 40 hours, they accomplish about 40 hours worth of work. This may seem subtle, but it is a crucial difference. You are measuring work, not time. Managers need the tools to monitor progress of work done by their whole team, not just the remote workers. The focus goes away from their environment and time, to the quality of work they produce. So you stop caring if they have heavy metal music blasting in their basement, or if they occasionally take a metal break with a quick video game. They are held accountable to the work they produce. If they are not producing well, you can discuss and make decisions from there. But don’t worry about their work environment unless they are not making progress like they reasonable should.
There are definitely trade-offs, but both companies I’ve telecommuted for have worked extremely well. Companies need to realize there are changes they need to make on their end to properly support a remote workforce.
Scott
on 31 Dec 11The complaints about how this is impossible because of the expected loss of body language and facial expressions reminds me of the argument that homeschooling can never work because of socialization issues, even though public socialization is the same as the socialization that took place in Lord of the Flies. Likewise what you really get from office development work is constant interruptions and distractions, but never mind that, the benefit from seeing the facial expressions of the sales guy standing next to your desk loudly doing his “O-face” impression is going to compensate for the losses.
Yeah right.
Spike
on 31 Dec 11@scott,
can you point me to which comment said remote work is impossible because of loss of body language? What I saw is people stating that communication is hindered by loss of body language and a good deal of work is dependent on good communication. There is a quite substantial body of research that I’m happy to discuss dealing with the issues of comms over electronic mediums. Likewise, it’s not that homeschooling can never work, but the socialization issues are real, not a fiction, discounting them in any sort of extremism is not gonna make up good kids. By the same token, yes, there are many situations in which an office is a con rather than a pro, but that doesn’t by itself make the full picture. Even more, there are offices and oh-ffices, I’ve had bad and good experiences myself but again one doesn’t detract value from the other.
have a good new year everybody.
ggwicz
on 31 Dec 11This is the progression of a lot of things.
Entertainment, for example, used to be limited to your local vaudeville acts or local singers and musicians. Few exceptions, like incredible composers or notable circuses, made their way around a country or continent, but it was rare.
Over time, as technology improved and the world became easier to traverse, more and more artists became globally recognized until the point where a band like the Beatles could have its records all over the world and underground rappers in London could get picked up by record labels in the US, then shared with the world.
Right now, employment seems to be between these two phases. Most companies limit themselves to their immediate geographic area, or require employees to move to them. There are a few notable exceptions (i.e. 37signals, Automattic, etc.), and the progression seems to be more and more towards remote working.
This trend in employment fascinates me, and things like the Khan Academy and online college courses are starting to bring education down this path, as Elon Musk pointed out in an interview.
BS
on 31 Dec 11It has been my experience over the past several years that the biggest reason people shy away from remote workers is laziness of management.
I have had a couple clients the past couple years that required me to be onsite for no other reason that if your not there you must not be working. But, there was no review of my work. The did not want to be bothered with having to really dig in and look at what was done. They were quite happy with me just showing up at an office from 9 to 5.
Luckily my current clients only ask me to do work and do not care about when or where. I do the work, then they thoroughly evaluate the quality and timeliness of the work and together we are able to accomplish allot.
Scott Petersen
on 31 Dec 11Do you collect sales tax for sales to customers in Illinois, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, and Florida? Depending on the state, having an employee physically present can create a sales tax nexus and require tax collection. (See http://biztaxlaw.about.com/od/glossaryn/g/nexusdef.htm.)
Or are all your staff independent contractors, not employees?
For many small companies, the cost of compliance with laws from a variety of states (plus reduced competitiveness on price from having to add sales tax) is a high price to pay, and “stop whining” isn’t helpful advice. :-)
Jonathan
on 31 Dec 11Assuming that a company is willing to hire remotely, where would they advertise assuming they are willing to hire someone anywhere in the world?
DHH
on 31 Dec 11Scott, no sales tax because we’re selling a service not a product. But even if you are, the cost of compliance is most likely not going to be as expensive as being unable to find qualified staff, or having to settle for under-qualified staff, is going to be.
Jonathan, lots of companies have hired people for remote positions via http://jobs.37signals.com and similar job boards. We post all our stuff there as well.
Rodrigo Flores
on 31 Dec 11A question: suppose you need to do a meeting (or anything else that should be done real time, like keynote rehearsals) with everyone, how do you coordinate this based on multiple timezones ? (a guy in UK has a timezone of +00:00, and other one in California has a timezone of -08:00, so when one is finishing his working period other one is starting theirs).
Peter
on 31 Dec 11We’ve been successfully working with 100% remote developers for 3 years now and prefer it to in office operations. We have offices in Seattle that marketing and sales tend to use but not developers. It’s been a big advantage for us as a growing startup because we can offer something (work from anywhere!) that many other companies have not been willing to offer. The trick is to be very careful to identify the types of personalities that can thrive outside the constraints of an office. Not all great developers can stay consistently motivated and many don’t treat their home working environments with the same respect they would an external office. Work from anywhere, but if I find out your husband is pestering you to do chores in the middle of the day, we have a problem.
Mike
on 31 Dec 11We’re in the “can’t find local A people” situation as well, and it’s never as simple as the OP wants to paint it.
For example, our remote killers are:
- Developers need to be next to the hardware. - The hardware is large, fragile and too confidential to risk shipping or securing in a random house somewhere. - The development environment is very social; meetings and conversations are dynamic and spontaneous, and if you're not around, you'll miss them. - Things move quickly. If you're not awake and interacting PST afternoons, you effectively don't exist.IFF your expectation of a developer is a functional black box with a text/audio stream going in and out, then perhaps remote works. But if you need the full 3D experience, remote just doesn’t work.
Joe
on 31 Dec 11As for social interaction – get over it. Work is for work. If you’re spending company time to make friends and socialize, you’re ripping off your employer.
Clay Shentrup
on 31 Dec 11Not so convenient if you pair. I lose my screen sharing with my pair probably 12 times per day.
TVD
on 31 Dec 11It would be interesting to measure programmer happiness in companies that offer telecommute versus companies that do not – irrespective of whether the new hire exercises his telecommute option.
Good chance a developer is more happy in a telecommute company. Not necessarily because he can work from home, but more so the company’s owners foster an environment of empowerment and trust.
Chances are telecommute is only a single indicator in the larger aspect of company culture and philosophy.
For the folks who can’t find “A Players”, if you could only pick one word to describe your company culture, what would it be?
For the folks who can find “A Players”, what word would you choose?
Thomas Koch
on 31 Dec 11ACM paper: distributed development does not affect software quality.
http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=102351 http://www.cabird.com/papers/bird2009ddd.pdf via: http://vimeo.com/9270320
Esteban
on 31 Dec 11I have to agree with many of the concerns regarding remote here (even as a person who works remotely).
However, I feel like remote is the future and I think there is a lot more we can do to get the benefits of co-location.
The examples provided in this article are good but there is even more you can do to make teams work more efficiently together while being remote. For example, google hangouts. Keep your entire team on one, all day. People can mute their cameras if they want but in general, people should be available at all times for a “hey jeff…”.
I’m not saying that is a real example, I’m just saying there is a lot to explore and ultimately we’re all going to have to accept this future reality.
Joe
on 31 Dec 117 quick tips for being an effective remote developer:
1. Have dedicated office space. Don’t try to work from your kitchen table. Don’t answer your home phone. Don’t answer your front door. Though you only walked down the hall to your office, you are as much not home as if you drove an hour to your office.
2. When enjoying the benefit of being able to travel extensively as a remote developer, still find a dedicated workspace to which you arrive and depart daily. Working poolside is romantic, but doesn’t work.
3. Don’t let the benefit “being able to work from anywhere” become a burden of “always working”. When the work day is done, close the office door and go “home”.
4. Have backup power and internet connection, for example I have a Zerizon MiFi which I don’t use often, but that one time it’s needed it is worth the $50/month to have available.
5. Learn to use remote-enabling tools.
6. Have a social life and hobbies outside of your job. You would go crazy without physical, social contact. When working in an office, it’s too easy to get your social needs met at the office. Working remotely will force you to become a more rounded person.
7. So that you can enjoy your extra time not lost to commute, don’t work 12 hour days. Don’t trade your saved commute time for work time. Trade it for living.
Stacy
on 31 Dec 11David, being a successful pioneer with remote workers, maybe you can do a post on how to handle the biz aspects of things raised in this thread.
For example, if I hire someone in California, seems like I have to pay $800/yr as foreign corporation. Although you can hire a service to handle payroll in different states, accounting for corporate income taxes seems complicated and expensive, as well as healthcare per state.
So just by hiring ONE employee from out of state brings with it a host of business issues and expenses the way the USA is setup.
Can you speak to these kind of issues? Seems like you guys have something workable. Thanks.
DHH
on 31 Dec 11Stacy, we have Paychex and an external accountant handle all the per-state issues. It really hasn’t been an issue, neither in time nor expenses. And certainly nothing compared to the cost of a) not hiring someone when you absolutely need to or b) lowering your standards.
I’ll write up some more tips and tricks for people who want to start hiring remote workers soon. We’ve been doing this for a decade, so we’re more than happy to share our experiences.
J Lane
on 31 Dec 11@dhh How does 37s handle things internationally? Do you have a 37signals Canada for your Canadian employee(s)? Or are they contractors? I’m not an expert on labour laws, but it seems pretty complicated having somebody in another country work for a US company.
Brian Doll
on 31 Dec 11I worked remotely for 3+ years and really really enjoyed it. One thing that helped though, was that much of my work was on solo projects.
It’s great to see the set of tools you guys use to work remotely (Basecamp, Campfire, Skype, iChat), but I’d love to see an example from a feature point of view. When working on a new feature that involves design, copy and development, what is the typical workflow? How frequently do you use voice chat? Do you schedule time to collaborate ahead of time, or are you interrupt-driven?
Mattbuei
on 31 Dec 11So, the company should pay for any “electric energy”,” internet connection” expenses in my house too?
Justin French
on 31 Dec 11I don’t think remote working is a technology problem. It’s an organizational problem which requires a different type of management and environment. The companies you’re describing have a DNA problem.
Greg Milner
on 31 Dec 11Friends don’t let friend use Basecamp. Sorry, but it’s just crappy software.
Rubert P Suckerman
on 31 Dec 11Lack of trust is the main obstacle, and this invariably points to an insecure/incompetent manager. I worked for a company that promised remote work as an option, but revoked that policy soon after people joined. The manager, who was an especially unpleasant bully, would always find some fault in work product, although he was not a developer himself, and knew close to nothing about technology.
The company subsequently lost its position to other competitors who could recruit and retain engineering talent, and is now a zombie corporation. My tenure there was extremely unpleasant, but mercifully brief.
If a company has an issue with off-site developers/designers, it is a big fat red flag that you don’t want to be working for them, on site or off.
Ben Johnson
on 31 Dec 11I’ve been a remote developer for 11 years, managing both projects and people. Trust is critical.
My challenge is that the initial bet is a 2-way event. Obviously, the company has to bet on me, so how do I prove that I’m what they’re looking for? AND the company has to prove that they’re worth betting my own family’s livelihood on.
It’s not that I’m just in another city such that if an opportunity doesn’t pan out, I can go with a local firm. I’m not just looking for remote gigs, I’m looking for a remote career, and the job openings for the latter are not as obvious.
So much hiring these days is done via networking (e.g. “I know a guy that would be perfect for that job”), how do you establish a network of references for remote work for the jobs that never get posted publicly?
Diego Algorta (oboxodo)
on 31 Dec 11Remote work works. Specially if you do face to face meetups from time to time.
TL;DR
I did freelancing working from home for years. I got sick of being alone so I join forces with other freelancers and we setup the first coworking space in Montevideo, Uruguay. So you CAN work remotely but still have the good parts of meeting with other geeks on a day to day basis.
Nowadays, I run a consultancy business (www.cuboxsa.com) and all our clients are un the US. We run our business from the coworking space and that’s awesome because we keep sharing and learning with other devs. We do techlunches weekly, standups, and try to do as much in person team building activities as we can.
We invite the clients to our office or try to send a pair of devs to our client’s for one or two weeks so everybody gets engaged. There’s no replacement for face to face. That’s a fact. But projects are run 95% remotely.
Our team members also work from home whenever they want.
BTW… I’ve seen a comment here complaining about timezones when hiring from europe or asia. Hey! you won’t have that problem hiring from South America! =D
Wayne
on 31 Dec 11David,
What a timely article. I am hiring remote workers, and I am trying to sell them into the US market.
While abroad, I jokingly said, “I should teach you my old job, and you could do it remotely over the internet.”
The answer was, “Would you do that?” And I realized that I could do that. I had already outsourced my sales the last time I ran my business …..
I look forward to collaborating with you in the future.
My first interview resulted in hiring a great tech lead. He will hire and fire there.
I expect that some of my jobs will be to fill for third party companies like yours.
What percentage mix of consultants and third party positions do you think would be a good mix? Or does that not matter?
Wayne
SomeGuy Name Foo
on 31 Dec 11David,
Thank you so much for the post. I have been working for the same company (remote) for over 5 years. As I am the primary Developer of Operations, I feel I would only be more distracted if I had to work in the office. In fact, I don’t think I will ever choose to do so again.
As for the guy above who seems to think B local talent is better then A remote talent, I feel sorry for his team and wonder how long his company will last.
Where I am, it seems there’s just not enough devs to fill all the open positions. Yet my company doesn’t seem to be considering remote workers, even though at one point we had more than half our team remote. It worked great before, there weren’t any issues at all. Sure bosses prefer to see your face for whatever reason, but really it’s sad that this way of thinking hasn’t been put to rest.
So for our company, it’s either struggle to find help or hire remote. Yet it seems they are choosing to struggle. I just don’t get it.
EC
on 01 Jan 12@geeknik Representing the 405. Come out west to the flat(ter) part.
I’ve been remote since ‘99. The things that @joe has are dead-on. Don’t trade the commute for longer working days. Trade it for a life. Get a dedicated space and keep your family out of it. When the day is done, shut the door and turn off the lights. You have to be your own IT guy and you need to have good systems in place, but you can also write a lot of it off (in the US at least) if you have a smart accountant. It also helps to be willing to travel when your office counterparts refuse to. That willingness has worked for me for over 12 years out on the silicon prairie.
The thing about working remote is trust. You have to cultivate it with your superiors and that takes time. Since they can’t see you working, they need to know you are without having to look at IM statuses or calling. If the work gets done, they’re happy and they won’t care if you blow off a nice Wednesday to go golfing or to fly a kite. But if you’re always the guy who’s behind, you probably need to be at a desk with Mr. Pointy Hair watching over you.
Good article. Good comments, too.
Julian Waters
on 01 Jan 12So technology bridges the ‘remote’ gap so you can get A-players wherever they are. Do you think this applies equally to cost-saving hires? Does this mean the resources of Bangalore could drive down the amount developers are paid internationally?
gord
on 01 Jan 12I work remotely as a software developer & architect, working with startups to implement their vision – from idea thru prototype stage & MVP.
These companies have a goal to create a new web or mobile product, and they need people with deep software experience to create that new thing. They probably aren’t going to find many prospects within commuting distance. If there are a few they will be ultra expensive due to supply-and-demand. So its natural to look into a global talent pool.
In some ways manufacturing and freight have evolved more quickly than the software development sector. Its now more efficient to outsource your new product to an existing specialist manufacturer and courier the end product direct to customers from there.
Given that dev talent is spread sparsely around the globe, I think companies will continue to adapt to that reality, via Darwinian natural selection.
Companies shouldn’t feel bad that they are ‘forced’ to hire remotely, its a rational decision. Feel good about it – you get good people at a competitive cost. Less daily commutes reduces smog in the city you live in, and less exhaust emissions are good for the planet, right?
So I think the tools exist for remote working, and its been proven that it can be done time and again. Whether your team is local or remote is much less important than how competent and focussed they are.
Drew
on 01 Jan 12I work for a company that is 100% remote, and we find it to be extremely productive. Yes, it’s true you need to hire people who are self-motivated and “trust-worthy”, but I find those are things that a good manager not only spots, but engenders. Most people are trust-worth, and most will be productive with minimal management and supervision.
That being said, there are definite benefits to working together in an office. Being able to get the team together for a meeting and hash out issues is much easier to do in an office environment. Working remotely almost always means employees are in multiple timezones, which can be difficult to work around.
Tom
on 01 Jan 12We have a new remote worker out of Israel. This guy is so smart and requires so little direction and hand-holding that if I had to I’d gladly trade two of our in-house people for him.
Randall "texrat" Arnold
on 01 Jan 12Just amazes me how far behind the times and technology so many companies still are. My last employer was really in the dark ages on telecommuting and remote collaboration. And the employer before that took the remote worker category out of their hiring system. Insane.
Adrien Lamothe
on 01 Jan 12My most productive projects have been done remotely. The only downside is when team members are half way around the world and you have to deal with the timezones.
One over looked benefit of hiring remotely is when the employee lives in an area where the cost of living is low, then the employer can pay a little less and both parties benefit.
Walt
on 01 Jan 12Sorry, I must have just returned from a rupture in my own personal space/time continum.
How many recent job postings for 37signals, posted right here, say:
“Must live in the Chicago area … ”?
Can’t be, I must be wrong, you guys are never full of shit.
Eric S.
on 01 Jan 12Out of my almost 20 years in the field, almost half have been remote. I’ve seen myself and others have great success in some remote roles and also some pretty miserable times.
What made it work? Great communicators on both ends of the pipe and enough face-to-face time to build a trusting relationship. I consider a few days every few months to be a minimum. Going out for beers once or twice after work really helps to grease the skids when you have to ask a co-worker for a favor or a design change.
P.S. My current position requires me to be on-site a couple of days a week and then I telecommute other days, and I love that arrangement.
Andrew
on 01 Jan 12Hi David – it would be great if you could provide a bit more info on the tax side of things (boring as it is). We’re based in the UK and I can only imagine that it adds lots of complication to pay someone in another country. I hope I’m wrong.
Peter
on 01 Jan 12@Emilis whoops… must have missed it :)
btw. I’m in Europe, sometimes working for Australians, and I’s sort of nice when they wake up and see a task completed :)
Paolo
on 01 Jan 12A lot of the attitude of the company comes from how it was created. If the processes and expectations weren’t designed around remote workers then it will be exterem
Paolo
on 01 Jan 12it will be extremely difficult for them to adopt a remote worker policy. I started a company where everyone was remote to start (mainly because we couldn’t afford office space) and because of that all the tool we chose (37 signals products included) were carefully vetted to ensure they worked properly for a remote worker. We now have an office – which is mainly used as a gathering place – but in reality it doesn’t matter if someone comes in or doesn’t everything works the same. I’ve seen other companies that try and fit “remote” into their existing infrastructure – that usually means cumbersome VPNs – lots of “windows only” products, klunky apps that don’t work well over a WAN, etc.
@Walt
on 01 Jan 12Don’t think any of the 37s posts for jobs have said “Must live in the Chicago area … ” save for maybe the office assistant and film maker positions. They have sometimes said “Chicago preferred”.
Harrison
on 01 Jan 12Agree! With the advantage of the internet, why even bother having to restrict to a certain location, when writers can be found and work virtually anywhere. I’ve recently hired my first remote writer, and looking forward to seeing how that pans out.
Joe Moore
on 01 Jan 12Our consulting company specializes in many of the XP principles; relevant to this remote developer conversation are pair programming and having on-site clients. Our default is to hire on-site developers and work side by side with clients. I feel that having near zero-lag communication between fellow developers and between developers and clients is essential.
That said, I agree that companies should not pass up skilled developers simply because they will not relocate. I’m a huge proponent of remote pair programming (I blog about it here) and feel that with a combination of remote pair programming and a simple remote presence audio/video setup the team can maintain the pair programming advantage and also make both developers and clients “virtually” on-site regardless of where they are.
The key for us is availability—it doesn’t matter if developers are on-site or remote as long as whomever you need is available. For this reason I’m not a fan of the nomad-developer philosophy of working whenever you want, at least for our development model. Our developers and clients (on-site and remote) work the same schedule to keep availability at a maximum.
Peter
on 01 Jan 12Why companies think working remotly is bad?
1. company has not 100% trust/controll 2. no 100% availability or complicated communication or fear of disruption the remote worker 3. lack of good tools for working remotely together
Point 2 is interesting as availability can have disadvantages too: disruption, noisy environment, time loss when going to work, ...
Point 3 is still a point I need to solve for me. Especially when coding together or explaining the system or simply painting a sketch…
Mariusz
on 01 Jan 12@Andrew: it’s pretty good in EU if the telecommuter is a VAT payer, which is getting pretty common in some EU countries, like Poland.
Invisible Foot
on 02 Jan 12Remote working works well when the problem space is well understood. Then you can hire A-coders (and drive down your costs, the PHB’s dream scenario)
Not so sure it works when you’re trying to do something new, unless that new something can be created by a single lone wolf type individual and then scaled up using the remote co-workers.
no
on 02 Jan 12I’ve been telecommuting my entire working life (fifteen years) and I have been happier, more loyal, and more productive than any of my on-site colleagues. Telecommuting is so important to my lifestyle and my enjoyment of the work I do that if it isn’t a likely option at a company that is looking to woo me away, I tell them not to even bother. Whenever I get a headhunter or a colleague networking with me looking to me to fill a spot, one of the first few questions I ask up front is “what are the telecommuting options?”. If there aren’t any or it isn’t full time, I pass.
As a result, I enjoy the work I do. I put more time in on it. I don’t have the stress or waste the time of traveling. I don’t have the expense or hassle of owning a car. I don’t have the hassle or stress of being to work on time. I don’t have to deal with office politics. I don’t have the hassle of office distractions. No meetings that draw on too long (on the phone, I can go mute and get work done). I can still work when I’m sick, except for the most dire of circumstances (I have only felt too sick to work once in fifteen years). I don’t have colleagues bothering me all day long when I need to be getting work done.
And, if it came down to it, I’d be cheaper to keep. Not just because I use far less resources and pay for most of my own needs, but because telecommuting is such a value to me that I would take a pay cut.
Companies need to learn that location is irrelevant. The guy across the hall from you can be just as big a slack ass as someone on the other side of the globe. Proximity to your busy-body ass should be the very last concern when hiring.
Thomas Skora
on 02 Jan 12I Thing too point out Security issues!.
Watch a video
on 02 Jan 12I am a Java guy and I started working on my site http://watchavideo.net a month back. While I could go to rentacoder or freelancer, I decided to go through whatever PHP scripts I needed to modify on my own and see if they worked. So far its been ok but I do know that one of these days I’m going to hit something complicated and I’ll need to look for someone who knows their way around PHP better than I do.
Jinesh Parekh
on 02 Jan 12Cannot agree more on remote hiring. We recently hired some one in a different country. Our tools consist of campfire(client provided), skype & Pivotal tracker.
JB
on 02 Jan 12Ah, yes… that beacon of the UK tech industry… Romiley?
Ralph
on 03 Jan 12I agree, because last month I had the experience to work on a project of mine remotely with two excellent programmers which I hired through oDesk. One was from Pakistan and the other from the Philippines. We had our weekly meeting over Skype and we’ve used Trello as our project managment tool. Really… for me this is the way of working from now on… it saves me a lot of coding headaches, I can finish projects much faster then before and therefore I can handle more work.
Daryl
on 03 Jan 12I agree but with the additional observation that I find a reasonably large number of companies complaining about hiring technical talent are looking for those “A” players but are only willing to pay “C” grade salaries (and probably have terrible work environments too…)
RJ
on 04 Jan 12No one else wants to fess up, so I will…
I did this twice in the past decade – worked on site for a corp, was a star on site, decided to move cross country, and convinced my boss to let me work remote.
Both times, I soon took advantage of the situation – running errands, taking naps, and playing games while loosely monitoring my email and phone, attending meetings, and half assing my work at the last minute. My employers never seemed to know or notice. I terminated both relationships out of boredom.
Am I lazy? Sure. Am I more lazy than most people? Not in my experience. I fully believe that many/most people would do the same.
Now, as a boss, I do not allow remote working. I’m not buying this “we’re a new smarter generation” or “devs are special” bullshit either. You want to sit at home and play WoW on my dime.
You know it, and I definitely know it, too.
Steve
on 04 Jan 12Wow…..
I really appreciate this post. I’ve been looking all over for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing. You’ve made my day! Thanks again! “One never goes so far as when one doesn’t know where one is going.” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe….
Lisa Tweedie
on 04 Jan 12Thanks for writing this. I have been working as a remote UX designer for 5 years. I live in the Uk but have to get most of my jobs from the US because UK companies don’t hire remotely. Find it very old fashioned… one of my silicon valley based designs is about to go live. Love working this way.
I have had a discussion group about remote UX work for over a year now on linked in. There are about 250 of us… do come and join us if you are a UX type. http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostRecent=&gid=3666500&trk=myg_ugrp_dis
Tomek Dzido
on 04 Jan 12The fact that remote work requires properly developed character seems to not get enough importance here. Sure, trust is important, but let’s say the candidate seems to be trustworthy, yet he still lacks discipline to get things done on time. So I’m curious how you guys check against that? Also, and this is to the guys at 37signals – how do you manage people to keep them effective? I know your philosophy is to cut down on meetings – how often do you interact with your remote employees?
Years ago, I hired a remote team lead who was a very sharp, skilled, open minded tech guy. At first, everything worked very well. Unfortunately, his social life was impaired (even though he lived in a big city) and in the long term, he started under-performing (I haven’t thought about asking how many friends the person had during an interview). We got to the bottom of the problem eventually and he started visiting the once ofc every couple of weeks, but that wasn’t enough. He now works for a diff company, comes to the office every day is much happier & more motivated. This example clearly shows, that for some people, remote work just won’t cut, at least not on their current level of personal development.
Also, I’m wondering whether you take the “cultural” factor into account when hiring people from different countries… The respect for discipline & the work itself in my experience differs by the place where that person was growing up. I’m Eastern European, and I was hiring both Americans and folks from Baltic countries. The latter are really great developers, but it’s harder to keep them motivated (by average). People in Europe often don’t learn the proper respect for work, as they often don’t start working until after studies. Their characters seem to be therefore weaker in my opinion (by average – I don’t want to generalize here).
Anonymous Coward
on 06 Jan 12-1’
Anonymous Coward
on 06 Jan 121
Dan Holt
on 06 Jan 12I’m so glad that 37Signals is Chicago based as I am as well and 37Signals has been a great inspiration to me in moving in the direction I’ve been wanting to go as a freelance creative. I’m a Senior Motion Designer for Iventus Agency and I work remotely! The entire agency is made up of people who work from there homes or mobily wherever they choose. Modern technology allows us to communicate and be productive in our roles just as well if not even better than the traditional work model.
I’m so glad 37Signals has been a leader in a non-traditional way regarding the Workshifting movement. I’m a big advocate and believer and hope many more companies start realizing the benefits of it just as 37Signals and Iventus do.
Eric Bieller
on 06 Jan 12Very good points but there’s something to be said about having a physical office you can go to and communicate/interact with your coworkers on the fly. I don’t think remote setups can really replace this, though that’s not to say that remote setups can’t work very well in some situations.
This discussion is closed.