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Ask HN: How remote is your job? What is missing for 100%?

13 points by pengwing ↗ HN
A software developer can easily perform 100% of his tasks remote. A retail employee can perform 0% remotely.

I am interested in the 70-99% remote spectrum. What do you need to achieve 100%?

25 comments

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Spooky23
Probably better end user tools. Better software, microphones, cameras, situational awareness.

I can do everything remote, but 30% is slower because the tools get in the way. In my team, things are arguably better. Crossing team boundaries sucks.

pengwing
Is this a culturual issue or a tool issue? Mic and cam can be bought in decent quality. Shared slack (no affiliation) channels can cross team boundaries.
Spooky23
A little bit of both.

My team of 40-50 is going from a 20% occasional telecommute model to 100%. So we’re learning and adapting.

visualphoenix
Recently had the pleasure of using Amazon Chime and collaborated in meetings of size 2-20 with it. It beat the pants off Google Meet, which we use internally.
iSloth
Whiteboards - I still find that no software can beat a room of people and a shared whiteboard for talking through certain things. It’s such a simple yet effective tool for so many things.
visualphoenix
Easily solved by having every team member mount a whiteboard behind their work area. I do that and often whiteboard solutions on video chat.
iSloth
I’ve done that too, but handing the pen over to someone else is troublesome
dagw
Doesn't that require that everybody have a fairly large and dedicated room they can use as a private home office.
visualphoenix
Doesn’t need to be large or a dedicated room.

Over the years I’ve done it a variety of ways. Currently using a small 3 foot by 2 foot wall mounted ikea whiteboard. In college I bought whiteboard tiles and double sided taped them to the wall to make a whole wall a whiteboard... I’ve had tiny 2x1s... never had a room, apartment or house since high school without a whiteboard...

We’re engineers and designers... we can do hard things.

efrafa
Unpopular opinion: I think whiteboards are overrated. I have been software engineer my whole life and never needed a whiteboard to do my job.
recursive
That doesn't help. What do you use instead? For multiple people designing a system with many related components at the same time, I've never encountered something that works as well. There are probably other ways possible, but I haven't seen one as effective. I also use the to explain such systems to other people interactively.
iSloth
I don’t particularly disagree for a developer, however networking/infra engineers I don’t think would say the same
Jugurtha
I think it depends. That's similar to someone saying that cabs are overrated because they've never used them and omitting to say they live in Paris.

Could you give more context? Type of work, projects, process and workflow, team size, etc. The "making of things" interests me.

jobseeker990
A lot of times people don't understand something so someone puts it on the whiteboard. Now that person thinks everyone understands but they don't.
ShamelessC
I've found that there are certain types of engineers who take the chance to hijack a shared whiteboard situation in order to publicly display their solo thought process. Seems like maybe an ego thing or at the very least a mildly autistic inability to share the board and collaborate.

Just like pair programming, whiteboards can work really well for certain personality matches or really poorly for others.

tmaly
I was playing with Zoom, they have a shared whiteboard on the screen. Yeah its not a traditional white board, but its something.
jobseeker990
Has anyone made a VR lounge with a whiteboard? The whiteboard in Valve labs feels very natural to write on.
caseyf7
Making sure everyone has broadband and a strong WiFi signal In the room they are using for videoconferencing. One person dropping audio and glitching can dramatically reduce the quality of a meeting.
rubidium
I’m design equipment and automation for biology labs. Much of my work is done at a computer and now I’m 90% WFH. Takeaways so far: - Remote meetings are better than 10 years ago. But still room to gain. - remote design reviews of physical products are lacking engagement from the team. Being in the same room helps a ton. - running actual chemistry needs a lab of course - managing a team of software engineers, hardware engineers and scientists is ok in JIRA, but nothing beats in person discussion for a diverse team.
_spoonman
I can never be 100% remote in my current role. I’m a DoD contractor and perform some of my duties on networks I can only access from secure facilities. I can do the rest remotely.
dagw
I can easily do 100% if I want to (and I am at the moment), but doing so means working at 70-80% efficiency. The difference is not a technical thing, but purely a mindset thing. At work I have my work space with my work things and can work distraction free. At home I'm surrounded by Not Work people and Not Work things which are always competing for my attention.
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rkx1
1. I find that a good office environment combined with an easy commute is way better for my productivity and mental health than working from home.

2. Having some degree of in person communication with your team makes everyone's work better. This isn't an argument for meetings or small talk, my point is that some meetings and conversations can only be done well in person.

3. I live in a big city, rent a single room and can't afford a home office - working, relaxing, eating and sleeping in the same space isn't my ideal lifestyle.

So to be willing to work remotely all the time, I need to have an employer who is willing to pay for me to set up a productive home office environment - separate room, good desk, screens etc. Only to make me 80-90% as productive as I would be if I had a good office environment and got to meet my colleagues.

In a previous role, the office environment was great and my commute was a 20-minute walk - I never took the option to work from home even though I could have.

dbartholomae
I have never had a video call that had less friction then sitting together with someone. In my experience this mostly comes down to UX: almost everyone working is trained on how to behave in an on-site meeting, but not everyone knows how to behave in a remote meeting (e. g. muting and unmuting etiquette). In my experience there is also a bunch of jobs in the technical field that in principal could be done remotely, but suffer due to lack of technical knowledge of the person you are interacting with. An example I think everyone can relate to is tech support for your parents. In my experience that is a lot easier when standing next to them. And a lot of tech jobs are about explaining technology to people who don't have experience with that specific tech yet.