Remote work
Like Axo's company remote values.
My preferred management style is to be fully async first (written communication, well defined tasks) with scheduled focus sync ups to make sure team is going in right direction.
Combined with real time meet ups in some novel places.
That said, I did have some amazing experience working in office. Just don't think it should be mandated. I once worked with CTO that when I had a problem, I could ask him for help and he would come and draw on the table itself with marker to explain some things. The marker pen is easily wiped off from the table later but that experience of closeness and that kind of experience by your side is magic to have.
It's also important to note I think that whilst remote work is great for getting known things done. Real time collaboration and interactions is how new ideas get created.
Notes
- Remote work tip: Leave a Zoom open that anyone on the team can drop by during some predictable hours. No specific agenda.
- Running a Remote Company ≠ Working From Home. It means the freedom to set your own work hours, work from anywhere (cafes, travel, co-working) and live where you want.
- Normalize recess for adults. Walking away from my computer to explore the neighborhood at some point between 1p - 3p has done more for me than any corporate mental health app ever.
- Remote work rewards writers.
- Companies mandating company-wide time off days, where EVERYBODY at the company takes the same day off (hoping to help with burnout/pandemic breathing room) is helpful.
- Just because you work from home, doesn’t mean you have to be available 24/7 for work.
- Remote work has tons of benefits, but a dangerous disadvantage that isn't talked about enough is that the internet can start to replace your real-life social circles. Really important to combat that, or you can start taking things here way too seriously.
- Unless you are regularly meeting up in the office in person, only time zone matters. And then once you go outside the same time zone (+/- 3 hours), you need to design everything for full async.
- Firm-wide remote work causes a shift to async communication (not more meetings) and makes workers’ collaboration network more siloed.
- I don’t know if I would ever be able to readjust back to the non-remote-first office work. It just feels natural to hop to a plane (train, car) and get somewhere without skipping a beat of your work. To have it safely detached from the matters of physical presence and geography.
- The third founder with a remote team sharing the same story: An engineer they hired did great on the interviews but worked unexplainably slow day to day. When pairing: they worked fast. They stopped pairing: slowed down. Turns out, the person had a second job in all cases.
- Steve Jobs and I became close friends. We went for long walks at Castle Rock State Park, shared meals and wide-ranging conversations about life and design. We bounced ideas off each other. Sometimes he would start a conversation with "Here's a crazy idea...", and the idea would go back and forth and evolve into a serious discussion, or occasionally a workable design. Steve listened to me and challenged me. His support at Apple allowed me to made a difference in the world
- Linear does nice all team bake/cook together over zoom once a quarter
- A single in person meeting with a coworker brought me closer to them than a year of weekly zoom 1:1s. claiming there’s no difference feels delusional to me.
- Meetings create alignment. The minute after a meeting you start drifting. Drift is higher in low-trust environments. Too many (long) meetings are a sign of dysfunctional organizations. Either there is no trust, no alignment, or neither.
- If calls and meetings would work I'd do them but it's always chit chat and after call absolutely nothing practical happens. A chat message is much faster/better/async.
- The eight hour work day and two day weekend is obsolete. We should expect at most a six hour work day and at least three days off for every four days of work.
- Quickest way to increase workplace culture in remote world. 1: Quickest way to increase workplace culture in remote world. 2. Each person at some point in the day, has to send their "Highlight of the Day" as a picture. 3. Creates bonding, jokes, affinity.
- Ideal commute is a 15-30 minute walk, not rolling out of bed to the computer. This is possible to intentionally build while WFH but I don’t think most people are sufficiently intentional.
- You have no idea how depressing and fatiguing it is to live in the same house where you work.
Links
- Remote Habits
- Remote Teams
- Basecamp doesn’t employ anyone in San Francisco, but now we pay everyone as though all did
- Remote Jobs Spreadsheet
- Teleport App - Get an overview of your group's locations, timezones and working hours.
- Ask HN: What are the biggest challenges preventing startups from hiring remote? - Mitchell Hashimoto's comment was great
- Thoughts on Remote Communication
- How to travel and work as a remote software developer (2019)
- How remote work may impact our brains and what to do about it (2019)
- Ask HN: Sources of remote dev work with minimal human interaction? (2019)
- HN: WeWork Files for IPO (2019)
- Why aren’t more companies remote-first? (HN)
- Why Everyone Loves Remote Work (2019) (HN)
- Ask HN: Cons of Being on a Remote/Distributed Team? (2019)
- Sid Sijbrandij: “People don’t want to commute; they just don’t want to miss out” (2019) (HN)
- Asynchronous Communication: The Real Reason Remote Workers Are More Productive (2019) (HN)
- Lobsters: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work (2019)
- NoHQ - Learn how to build a great remote team.
- RemoteHub - Remote Jobs and Companies.
- Remote only manifesto
- Breather - Modern workspace, all to yourself - for hours, days or months.
- My experience as a remote worker (2019)
- The remote worker’s guide to self-care (2019)
- Remote - Take care of global payroll, benefits, compliance and taxes, so you can focus on your people.
- Firstbase - All-in-one provisioning for companies to set up their remote workers at home.
- Open Offices Inhibit Remote Work (2020) (Lobsters)
- Why fully distributed is by far the best way to run a software team (2020)
- GitLab's Guide to All-Remote
- Ask HN: Recommendations for Working from Home? (2020)
- Work in the Time of Corona (2020)
- Guide to Managing Remote Teams
- NoOffice - Definitive guide to working remotely. (Code)
- Remote work starter guide for employees: how to adjust to work-from-home
- Holloway Guide to Remote Work - Comprehensive Guide to building, managing, and adapting to working with distributed teams.
- Remote work wiki
- Awesome Remote Work
- Homenauts – Resources for explorers who stay at home during Covid-19 (HN)
- Our list of free software for remote work (HN)
- Awesome Remote Job
- Remote Work - a guide to ensuring quality video conferencing (2020)
- Established remote companies
- Pangian - Find the best curated & verified remote jobs at reputable companies.
- HN: Half of American workers would rather work from home forever (2020)
- Nomad Tips - Mailing list for sharing tips and resources for digital nomads. (Code)
- Andreas Klinger on How To Go Remote (2020)
- REMOTE Livestream Q&A with Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (2020)
- HN: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever (2020)
- What you think is bad about remote work, can, well, actually be good (2020)
- There - Talk within your remote team. Hold a key and talk to a teammate anytime, while respecting their focus.
- Ask HN: If you could work remote where would you live? (2020)
- Software will eat software in a remote-first world (2020) (HN)
- Beyond Remote (2020) (HN)
- [Techniques for setting boundaries around your remote job (2019)]https://capnfabs.net/posts/techniques-for-setting-boundaries-around-your-remote-job/)
- 27 Tips For Running Successful Remote Meetings (2020)
- Written communication is remote work super power (2020) (HN)
- Remote First at Quora (2020) (HN)
- 10 stages of working remotely (2020)
- Remote Year - Work and Travel Abroad Programs for Professionals.
- Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home? (2020)
- Ask HN: Should a remote employee’s salary be tied to their physical location? (2020)
- Remote Workers - Hire from a global talent pool of remote workers.
- Ask HN: Newly Remote Workers – Where Are You Moving? (2020)
- Remote work predictions (2020)
- Ask HN: How do you switch off from work, particularly when WFH? (2020)
- Remoteleaf - Receive hand-picked remote jobs delivered straight to your inbox.
- Why do so many people want us back in the office? (2020) (HN)
- Remotive - Remote Jobs in Programming, Support, Design and more. (Becoming Remotive.com)
- Remote Technology Jobs by Standard Resume
- Getting noticed as a remote engineer (2020) (HN)
- Slite Remote Coaching - Schedule a 30 min chat to untangle remote work.
- We Work Remotely - Remote jobs in design, programming, marketing and more.
- RemoteOK - Remote Jobs in Programming, Design, Sales and more. (Open Startup) (HN)
- FreshRemote.work - Fresh Remote Jobs Anywhere.
- Remote Work Jobs - Simple remote work jobs board.
- Remotely People - Worldwide Remote jobs in design, marketing, programming.
- Workaline.com - Remote job board.
- Remote team bonding ideas (2020)
- onsite.fun - Online activities for remote teams.
- Remote Clan - Connect with remote workers to shape the future of work. (News Feed)
- Building Team Culture, Gitlab-Style (2020)
- To find great remote employees, prioritize candidates with strong writing skills (2020) (HN)
- The guide on 1-on-1 meetings for remote teams (2020)
- Teamflow - Feel like a team again. Virtual office for your team to hang out in.
- Ask HN: Anyone else burnt out due to extended lockdown and work-from-home? (2021)
- Why Working from Home Will Stick (HN)
- Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH? (2021)
- Ask HN: How to stay focused and motivated working from home? (2021)
- Working from Home at Monzo - One Year Later (2021)
- A look into the work from home experience (2021)
- The Future of Remote Work is the Opposite of Lonely (2021)
- I hope work from home continues (2021) (HN)
- Best Practices for Remote Software Engineering (2021) (HN)
- 2021 GitLab Remote Work Report
- Arc - Easiest way to find remote developer jobs.
- Predictions on remote work (2021)
- Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely? (2021)
- Remotebear - Best remote jobs at leading tech companies. (Code) (Article)
- What if remote work didn’t mean working from home? (2021) (HN)
- Remotists.com - Top Remote jobs every week.
- Top 100 Remote Jobs
- Employees are quitting instead of giving up working from home (2021) (HN)
- Ask HN: What hardware/furniture/hack greatly improved your WFH setup? (2021)
- The work-from-home future is destroying bosses' brains (2021) (HN)
- The future of the office is the clubhouse (2021)
- I went to the office for the first time. I hated it (2021) (HN)
- I built a business that lets me live on the beach full time (2021) (HN)
- Effective remote meetings (2021)
- Ways of Working (2020)
- 8 ideas we use for building a great culture in a distributed team (2021)
- Living on a ranch (2021)
- Ask HN: Why a 4-day workweek don't get traction or a major movement? (2021)
- Remote Job Benefit Ideas
- State of Digital Nomads (HN)
- Polar Signals Remote Work Benefits
- HN: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely (2021)
- WorkAdventure - Collaborative web application (virtual office) presented as a 16-bit RPG video game. (Code)
- Volley - Async video messaging built for remote work.
- Best way to structure income when switching tax residency often (2021)
- Remote-first work is taking over the rich world – research hints at why (2021) (HN)
- Productive tools for remote teams
- High Fidelity Remote Communication (2021)
- The Future of Work at Cloudflare (2021)
- Remote work will break the US monopoly on global talent (2021) (HN) (Tweet)
- The Cities Best Facilitating Remote Work: A Global Index (2021) (HN)
- The Rise of the Decentralized Startup (2021) (HN)
- Ask HN: Has remote work made you move to a new location or consider it? (2021)
- Company retreat/offsite location startups
- Ask HN: Good books on managing a hybrid/remote team? (2022)
- Ask HN: Has remote work made you procrastinate more? (2022)
- How to spot great remote jobs (HN)
- Ask HN: Is Hybrid Working a Ruse? (2022)
- Airbnb’s design to live and work anywhere (2022) (HN)
- Starlink for RVs (HN)
- Ask HN: How is the remote vs in-person trend looking? (2022)
- 10 ideas for building great culture in a distributed team
- Nice tools for better remote work
- Ask HN: How do remote first businesses maintain cultural cohesion? (2022)
- Meetings vs async is root cause for burnout
- Where can I live on $300 a week? (2022)
- How to do async communication well
- Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow? (2022)
- Making remote company culture more lively
- Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative? (2022)
- What I learned at GitLab that I don't want to forget (2022) (HN)
- Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? (2023)