Going fully remote in the age of Covid: A Software Engineer’s perspective
How engineering at Cytora is adapting to permanent remote-first
This month, Cytora made an important announcement: we are going remote-first.
This means we can work from any location — and we’re even being given a £2000 remote working travel budget to work from wherever we want in the world (Covid restrictions dependent), alongside a host of other benefits.
We believe the ‘old office’ attitude, which is defined by a material location, will never drive people to build companies and workplaces of the future. We are choosing to embrace freedom and accountability by going remote-first, and seek to solve meaningful problems in new ways.
So how did all of this come about?
It’s no surprise that Covid has something to do with it. When I joined Cytora in 2019, we had a great space in Old Street’s tech hub, which allowed for all sorts of collaboration, conversations on the fly that sparked ideas, and a great sense of community.
As with most other people, we went into working from home mode when things started getting serious.
At first, there was a slight sense of unease — how would we manage? How would we find working from home? Fortunately, we had a work-from-home Wednesday policy in place before, which gave us some idea of what to expect as most of the office already worked remotely at least one day a week.
Within time, with everyone now remote, we settled into a new (and even better) routine. In the typical Cytora way, we adapted.
But simply adapting quickly turned to thriving, as we realised we had the opportunity to create a unique and inspiring working environment that gives Cytora, its people and its customers a competitive advantage. The concept of the traditional workplace needed to change regardless of Covid; and so we made the decision to create a place with trust at its heart, where ambition and productivity can sky-rocket.
We want to accommodate different working styles and personal situations. Some of our people prefer working from a place with other people around, or don’t have the right environment to work solely at home. We’re giving people the ability to do whatever is right for them, whether that’s working in a shared office space, at home, or elsewhere.
The important thing is that we are going remote-first, not just remote friendly: everyone is in the same boat, and no one has to feel left out.
But how have our engineers adapted and made the effective transition from in-person to remote?
Our remote-first engineering evolution
Early on, we were delivered desk supplies, which included the all-important second screen, and given a budget to buy a desk chair. Cytora has since extended the budget to include other essentials, such as fans over summer and even budget for the desk itself. I feel encouraged to get creative with my home working space.
Shortly after working from home began, I joined a new team that was formed to build our latest product — Underwriting Productivity. As someone who was new to remote working, I felt empowered by our ability to organise ourselves as a team and conceptualise a product, without any need for face-to-face interaction.
Remote ceremonies
The Biz Agility team, whose mission is to ‘improve business agility through the adoption of agile and lean principles and practices’, set us up with a variety of ceremonies that were well-suited to online development.
We have a daily standup, where we talk about what we’ve been working on and take a virtual walk of the Jira board, where work is ticketed. And we often work in two week sprints, with a retrospective after each one that is led by our scrum master. I’ve been impressed at how seamlessly we moved from whiteboards to Miro boards, and enjoyed experimenting with online features, such as voting for points to talk about, as well as exploring the variety of layouts that Miro has to offer.
Going remote-first has been a very experimental time at a company level. For example we’ve tried out meeting-free Tuesday and Thursday afternoons to account for the extra meetings that have resulted from remote working . The verdict? Great idea! One of the benefits I have found with remote working is the ability to access that flow state with minimal distractions.
Personal development at a distance
As for the team, we are constantly evolving and optimising for our new, remote ways of working. We have tailored our onboarding documentation to compensate for introductory chats around the office, as we welcomed remote engineers. And we have experimented with architecture discussions, from having them in Google hangouts, to recording them in Architectural Decision Records.
Pair programming, where two developers work on a problem together, has been a really effective way of keeping the conversation going. We have also maintained our weekly coding dojo, where we tackle an algorithm problem (just for fun!) experimenting with online collaboration tools such as CoderPad. We are living in a time where it’s possible to do so many things online, and we are embracing that.
It can also be more difficult to see if someone is struggling, but Cytora keeps the social element as much as possible, always in line with current Covid-restrictions. Something I’ve really enjoyed is a weekly ‘coffee and cake’ virtual catch up on a Friday afternoon with the team, where we could talk about random, non-work related things.
We’ve also been using Lattice to submit praise, which integrates with Slack. It’s really rewarding to see praise publicly that would have otherwise been said around the office.
Going aysnc
One of the difficulties with online collaboration is the inability to read body language, which can lead to people talking over each other or someone not being heard. We’re learning a different kind of perceptiveness on these calls and are ensuring everyone has a voice on a virtual call.
In the engineering team, we’ve been making more of our processes async to counter this. For example, we now have a daily two minute retro, where we make notes in preparation for the main event. It enables people to work in a time and manner that works for them, rather than just what works for one person.
Staying social
When the ‘rule of six’ was first implemented in the UK, Cytora allocated us groups of people who lived nearby, and we were given a budget (for people who felt comfortable meeting). It was surreal to see colleagues after so many months of online conversations but in a way, it felt special.
We have had some spectacular socials in pre-Covid times, including a company trip to Morocco, and white water rafting, to name a few. I’m confident that Cytora will continue to find innovative ways for us to feel connected during these testing times.
I feel positive about this new, remote way of working. Maybe one part is because as a developer, my work is well-suited to going remote. But I also think that it is largely due to the thoughtfulness and excitement that Cytora has injected into the idea.
You can read Cytora’s remote-first manifesto in full here. And if you’re interested in joining the team, take a look at our careers page here.
#RemoteFirst #TheCytoraWay #Cytorians
