Tips from Google: Working Remotely
The Women Who Code Portland’s Networking Night Series is a speaker series that highlights the work of women at a different tech company each month, organized around a selected theme.
Tech-savvy millennials have brought a shift in the work culture. Remote, distributed teams are now a reality, and this reality will only be reinforced by Gen Z, digital natives who sprung to life in an Internet-centric world, as they seek work. Research indicates that remote work will rival, if not overtake, traditional work in corporate environments by the year 2025.
The term ‘remote’ can mean different things to different people — from geographically distributed teams and offices, to working from home and other off-site locations — but unquestionably, this trend in remote work is steadily increasing.
This trend is not new to us in the tech industry — and seemed an ideal topic for our next Networking Night of the year, hosted by Google at their remote office in Portland, with the theme, The Ups and Downs of Working in a Remote Office.
The evening started with a warm welcome from Alex Altieri, Networking Nights Lead, and Courtney Adams, Networking Nights Coordinator, from Women Who Code (WWCode) Portland.
They explained the group’s mission to help women excel in technology careers in communities around the world, while the local organization focuses on helping those at the mid-level of their careers remain and advance in the tech industry. The local group, comprised of a leadership and volunteer team of over 30 women and 30,000 members, hosts more than 300 events in Portland, including workshops, study nights and annual IoT hackathons, as well as being active in Slack, Twitter and Instagram and publishing a newsletter.
Ann Wallace, Global Security Practice Lead for Google Cloud PSO, then introduced a wonderful panel of women from various teams across Google who work in the tech giant’s Portland office:
· Huaiyu (Katie) Liu, Senior Software Engineer, is currently working on the Google Station project, which provides users with access to a free, good-quality Internet experience through public WiFi.
· Kenzie Schmoll, Software Engineer on the Flutter Developer Experience team that just celebrated a 1.0 launch; she just recently transferred to the Portland office after working on Google Maps in Seattle for the last year.
· Reina Mei, Software Engineer on the Google Station project, has worked at Google for 2.5 years and previously worked on Google Cloud Search.
· Marea Hall, Software Engineer on the Google Nest team, works on Google Home products.
To get us started, Ann led off with this question for the panelists:
What are your favorite things about working in a remote office? At the heart of the women’s responses lay a sense of community. Kenzie described the closer-knit community of a smaller office, like Portland, as opposed to a bigger office, like Seattle. Others talked about the opportunity to meet and share information among members of different teams every day. With this open environment, they can then understand different aspects, different processes, various roles, learn about each other and go directly to the right folks for the things they need. Ann, who travels frequently, talked about the welcoming, smaller community feeling of the Portland office, and the exposure to doing things you may not otherwise do due to the environment’s “scrappy” nature.
Ann then led the group into the next question:
What are some of the challenges you experience in a remote office? She talked about the need to exert more effort to meet people, make connections and put yourself out there to make sure you’re being heard. Katie chimed in by talking about the need to be proactive in reaching out (there are no hallway conversations when you work remotely!), and pointed out that video conferences are a great tool in helping you get to know people, rather than simply a voice on the other end of a phone. Others reinforced these suggestions, pointing that you must know who owns which decisions, or projects, and proactively communicate with them to ensure that you’re not overlooked.
Does being in a smaller office limit your opportunities? The women’s answers seemed to vary, based on their experiences, but overwhelmingly reflected positively based on their individual aspirations. Ann revealed that, once you’ve established a positive reputation for yourself, Google Cloud allows for location flexibility. Others explained that, although Google is open to individuals switching teams about every two years, their remote location in Portland may limit their ability to move between positions as frequently. However, they happily accept this reality — they have the affordability and quality of life that comes with calling Portland home!
How does the Portland office maintain Google’s culture? Although the panelists talked about the close-knit environment of the Portland office, they also acknowledged that being in a remote office can sometimes make you feel forgotten, and pointed out that Google’s culture helps address this a bit. Google fosters a culture in which questions are great, and encourages individuals to ask as many questions as needed to keep folks moving along quickly and productively. Google also cultivates a peer-review culture — code reviews and peer programming are expectations. The panelists also revealed that the company’s ramp process is about six months — the company provides you with ample time before you’re expected to have a real impact. There is also the reality that the landscape is constantly growing and changing, with new tools emerging and others falling away — you’ll be an expert in something that was just deprecated!
What strategies do you use to stay connected when you work from home? The panelists revealed some insightful, interesting and great ways to keep in touch with their managers and colleagues distributed around the globe — from asking managers to attend 2–3 things that you’re doing, to hosting remote lunches enabled through video — underscored by over-communicating. Another way to stay connected is to reach out to your local community through meetups, volunteer activities and other events.
For teams that are distributed, how do you collaborate remotely and ensure productivity? The panelists revealed that face time — such as quarterly offsites — increases productivity and helps with remote work, which can also depend on the stage in your project. Several tools are available to assist with remote collaboration, such Google suite products (not surprisingly!), like Google Docs, Meet (formerly Hangouts), Calendar. Ann explained that she likes to maintain a shared Google Doc where she lists the things she is currently working on.
What strategies can you use to advocate for yourself, or be heard, when much of your team is somewhere else? A common theme underscored the responses among the panelists — be proactive, purposeful and over-communicate. Volunteer to get the ball rolling, take the lead, put yourself out there, make yourself responsible, get involved in the project or process, and follow up. Set up meetings yourself, don’t wait. Network within your own team. Communication goes both ways: write highlights of what you’ve done in weekly digests, and make sure to read your coworkers’ posts about what they’ve done.
What is the gender makeup of the team in the Portland office? The panelists revealed that, of those in Google’s Portland office, 10% are women. They acknowledged that allies can be a strong way to improve the situation, and that there are ways to be more inclusive every day, and to show commitment to fixing the issue. They also recognized that gender balance is going to take a while to correct, but that it’s improving overall.
The panel discussion was followed by great networking and a fun raffle before the evening festivities concluded. A big thank you to Google for its support of Women Who Code (WWCode) Portland, for sponsoring this evening and for helping nurture a diverse tech community in Portland!
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Join us for these upcoming events:
Thur, Mar 7, 5:30 pm • International Women’s Day at Nike
https://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-Portland/events/258628799/
Wed, Mar 13, 5:30 pm • JavaScript Study Night https://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-Portland/events/trjvpqyzfbrb/
Sun, Mar 17, 8:00 am • Women Who Run: Shamrock Run 2019
https://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-Portland/events/258286868/
Fri, Apr 5, 12:00 pm• Lunch ’n’ Learn at Work & Co
https://www.meetup.com/Women-Who-Code-Portland/events/258277745/
For more information and to join our group:
Check out our Meetup page or follow us on Twitter (@wwcodeportland) and Instagram (@wwcodeportland)
