Thoughts on My First Year as a Remote Software Engineer at ITHAKA
By Brent Swisher
As I went to bed the night of September 18, 2022, I had a weird realization. In the morning I would be getting up at the same time, eating my usual breakfast, and then walking downstairs to my office — just like any other day. But at the same time, everything would be different: I would be starting an entirely different job at an entirely different organization with people I had never met. It would be a bit of a change considering I had spent the last 11 years working on the same team at Grand Valley State University. As I drifted off to sleep, I nervously chuckled a bit at the paradox of it, wondering what other contradictions I might find starting my new, fully remote job at ITHAKA.
Almost a year later, I’ve found that there are a lot of paradoxes to remote work as a software engineer. If you are interested in a remote job and have some of the same questions I had, I hope that hearing about my experience and some of the things I have learned since then can help you feel a little more comfortable. (Spoiler alert: It’s pretty great.)
Paradox 1: Communicating is harder, but also easier
It’s a good bet most of you reading this were abruptly slammed into full-time remote work thanks to the pandemic. I don’t think I need to spend a lot of time convincing anyone that working remotely can create communication challenges. Confusing Slack messages, flaky internet connections, Zoom fatigue — it’s all real and I think will always be a part of life when you work remotely. However, I have found that several things are much easier at an organization like ITHAKA that is set up for fully remote work.
One thing I noticed immediately was that being remote makes ITHAKA operate as an incredibly flat organization. For example, we have weekly meetings with the entire organization. After some of the terrible video meetings I’ve had in the past, the thought of meeting with 300+ people every Friday sounded absurd. I’ll admit I was wrong though — it’s actually really great. Feedback is genuinely welcome from anywhere across the organization, and being able to hear about ITHAKA’s strategy and how things are going directly from the top of the organization is really helpful.
We also have “Show and Tell” every two weeks, where teams present new or impactful projects they have been working on. It’s been a great way to learn about a ton of things from people I wouldn’t ever have been exposed to in a traditional office setting.
We have special Slack channels called “ask” channels. Just about every team has one, and since the whole organization is on Slack, everything is just a Slack message away. A question about setting up my benefits my second week? Solved in five minutes by Work Life and Culture in #ask-wlc. Trouble getting access to a development tool I need? Sixty seconds after a message to #ask-it-services, it’s settled. Have a weird programming bug? The folks in #ask-frontend-engineering have your back.
While it’s common to have a team Slack channel these days, there is a real power in everyone committing to being available to help across a whole organization. It’s also great as a new person to not have to know that “Isabelle” is the engineer to talk to about deployment pipelines. I can just find the related channel and ask away!
Paradox 2: You really can be pretty social from your basement
Listen, I’m not saying I would choose chatting with a coworker in Slack over heading out with them for a tasty beverage after work. I think it’s important to make time for face-to-face interactions with friends too. But it’s been really easy to connect with people at ITHAKA since I started. There are social channels for just about anything you are interested in — gardening, pets, food. There was a pretty lively group that followed the World Cup last fall that I really enjoyed. In other jobs, I’ve worked for years with people and never known their interests outside of work. The social channels make it easy to connect with people who share your interests, even if you might never meet in person.
We also use the Donut Slack app, which lets you sign up to be randomly matched with someone at the company once every two weeks. You chat for about a half hour over coffee or tea. There are no rules, except that you aren’t supposed to talk too much about work. I’ve chatted with over a dozen people this way — everyone from fellow engineers to the president of the organization. It’s really been fun, and in a lot of ways I find it better than the old “meeting at the watercooler” interactions people like to wax poetic about.
I’ve also found it much easier to get to know my immediate teammates than I anticipated. I think one of the reasons is that we are all big proponents of pair programming. It’s not uncommon for me to spend at least a couple hours a week pair programming with someone. The great thing about that from a social perspective is that there is always some downtime while pipelines are deploying changes or tests are running, so we get a nice natural break to chat about life outside of work.
Paradox 3: People skills matter more than ever
I have noticed things in remote work that would be unthinkable in an office. For example, consider the start of a typical meeting. I have sometimes watched as people pop in, start their camera, and wait for the meeting to start without talking at all. Now imagine that same behavior in person. No “can you believe this weather?” No chatting about the last Ted Lasso episode. Just waiting silently for the business to start. It would be so uncomfortable! However, we all have probably seen it happen in video meetings more than we care to admit.
This is where people skills can shine through and make a difference. Several of our agile coaches are really good at this, and I have been trying to get better about this by emulating them. If you have time, get to a meeting five minutes early and make a point to say hello as people come in. Try to ask some of those questions that would be totally normal in person. Flowing these conversations into the meeting is a lot easier than starting from silence.
A year in, I certainly can’t say I’m an expert on remote work. Hopefully, though, this post gives you some insight into what to expect if you are thinking about pursuing a new remote job. I know I was a bit more nervous than I would have been for another office job. There have been a few times I have missed some aspect of being in an office together, but I can confidently say that for me the advantages definitely outweigh anything that is missing.
Interested in exploring engineering careers and remote software development jobs, Ann Arbor engineering jobs or New York edtech jobs with ITHAKA? Check out our ITHAKA jobs page to learn more and speak with recruiting.
