1+ Years Working Remotely
I became a full-time employee at a globally distributed company in July 2018.
I had just completed my MS in Computer Science, was living in Connecticut, and was teaching part-time. Time to get back into coding full-time! I looked for web development jobs around Hartford, but there were very few using the modern web frameworks that I know. And frankly, the idea of having to drive on I-91 or I-84 at commuting time everyday made me apply for jobs in New York City again.
One of the reasons I had wanted to become a programmer in the first place was the potential to work from home. Realistically, there aren’t that many companies that support remote workers (yet) and the applicant pool for those jobs is *huge*. I didn’t have high hopes for finding a job where I would be able to work remotely. Regardless of the odds of it working out, it was worth a chance, so I searched for remote companies on several job boards, and applied to around 15 positions.
And then I got incredibly lucky. I applied for a recent graduate position at Plex, a completely distributed company, and I heard back from them! After a few interviews, I had an offer for a new graduate software engineering job! Getting to work on some really cool systems! On interesting hardware platforms! With awesome people! It felt like a dream come true on my first day, and it still does more than a year later.
I knew that I am the type of person who would do well working from home. I did a lot of projects in college on decentralized teams, and didn’t have a problem getting work done or communicating with people overseas. Video calls were already my jam. And admittedly, while I am a very social person, I knew that working in an office was not always the best thing for me. My dog is also thrilled to have me home all day for extra belly rubs.
After working from home for the past year and two months, I am sure that I want to continue to work remotely. For the most part, it’s been a great experience — I’ve been able to travel more, keep teaching every now and again in New York, give my dog the love and attention that he deserves, and stay close to my family. I moved into my own house on a lake, so I’d be close to some of my favorite outdoor activities, and have a nice view while I’m working. It’s likely the best office view I’ll ever have.
There are a few downsides that I had suspected before jumping in, but they’re definitely surmountable. Could I get lonely? Sure. I have my two best girl friends around here though, so I get out to spend time with them. I also joined a couple of organizations and started volunteering where I could. I found a couple of online communities where I always have a friend to talk to; many of them are remote technology folks too!
Could I get distracted? Totally. And I do. My focus is shot mid-afternoon. So sometimes I’ll work in the morning with a coffee, take meetings in the early afternoon, then take a break for lunch, take a walk, and then come back for round two. I know my habits pretty well; I know what fights are worth having with myself, and which are worth just letting play out. If I find myself distracted, I’ll let myself be distracted and come back to my work when I can do it well. When I’ve had a couple of non-productive days, I go over to the Starbucks and work from there — a combination of excessive caffeine and feeling like people are watching me will kick me back into gear.
Working with people all around the world, it might be hard to feel like I know my co-workers. I think that would be true, and it would make my job more difficult, if the whole company didn’t get together in person once a year. It was really important for me to meet people that I blindly send messages to face-to-face, get to know their personalities, and be less afraid to ask them for help. Once a year the whole company gets together, and another time 6 months later, the teams will get together separately. The first time I met any of my co-workers in person was at a conference, and I was so nervous. I’d been working with them all for 3 months already, and didn’t know anything about them! But so far everyone I’ve met as been awesome, and I feel really lucky to work with them!
The biggest issue I’ve faced working remotely is that it is more difficult to get in contact with people when I need help. I’m still a fairly new programmer, and there are a lot of codebases of varying ages using different languages and frameworks. Plex itself is a quite complicated system, integrating a lot of different hardware and services. The people that get the most out of the software are already extremely digitally savvy. I need help a lot, and I don’t worry about reaching out to my co-workers for help — they’ve always been kind and helpful — but I know that we’re all busy, and in different time zones. Sometimes when I need substantial help on an issue, it’s difficult to get some time to sit down and work it out. I also love pair-programming, and it’s been difficult to do that as much as I’d like. I think that if I were in an office with other developers, I’d be learning more quickly. I’ve had to be very conscious of asking for help, asking the right questions, and being a little pushy since there’s no one watching me struggle.
An important skill that I’ve honed while working remotely is written communication. Like I said, I may not have met some of the people with whom I’m exchanging messages. I need to make my intention very clear, because neither of us have all of the context on what the other person could mean. We use Slack for all of our internal communications, and have a highly customized workspace, with bots and tons of custom emojis. We have some channels where we’re able to discuss non-work-related things, like our pets, so we can get to know each other a bit better. Still, after working in small startup offices, it’s kind of wild to me that I have so many co-workers whose personal lives I know barely anything about. I’ve learned to love emojis, because they help express tone, and some of our custom emojis make it possible to understand that there’s a dialogue that’s specific to Plex. I’ve become very intentional in my writing, and don’t take for granted that people will interpret things differently.
And to answer the inevitable questions: No, I don’t shower every day unless I’ve been working out. Nope, don’t wear a bra either. Sweatpants, absolutely.
