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Ask HN: Why are so many companies against remote engineers?

11 points by Blackthorn ↗ HN
A bit over a year ago, I moved to the Bay Area to take a job at one of the big-name companies here. Over the past year I've discovered that life in the Bay Area just isn't for me and my company is extremely unsupportive of remote work. No problem, I figured: I'd just find a job with a company that allowed for remote engineers. This has unexpectedly become a world of trouble.

I see all the time blog posts, comments, etc., from hiring representatives about how it's so difficult to find good talent. There's plenty of great talent out there though: it's scattered throughout the rest of the country, and unwilling to move to the Bay Area! One would think that companies hiring for positions that can be performed remotely, like software engineering, would start hiring remote to obtain the talent they desire, but I've encountered immense resistance to this. I've even had one company bring me in for an interview with the promise that the job would be remote, only to tell me at the end of the day that they were extending me an offer but only for onsite in San Francisco! So, what gives? Why the continued resistance to remote engineers?

10 comments

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blueatlas
Because a manager or team members don't know if a new employee is disciplined enough to work on their own. Without face time, there's no indication if the remote employee isn't getting it, because they won't say so, but their body language tells the story. And any decent company cares about culture, the people behind the work, and not just output. How do you create that culture without a co-located team?

You may have a better chance at starting out co-located, then requesting remote work to some degree.

scalesolved
I think you have a valid point with body language allowing you to know if someone understands or objects to something but now with free and reliable video conferencing I think this can be somewhat negated.

I've worked both in house and remotely and in some companies I may as well have been remote with everyone chatting via skype/hipchat anyway even though we were in the same office.

I think remotely it is easier to gauge team-mates output and progress via git commits and communication that is clear and direct. Sometimes in an office environment louder or more popular team members appear to have a higher output due to bias/likeability from managers/team-mates.

informatimago
Either git commits are what engineers have to be judged on, or their body language.

The fact it it's their body language that matters, shows that this is run by apes.

Beached
A lot of times, the people complaining about no talent are NOT the people who have the authority to allow remote workers. Big companies are burdened with red tape, middle managers and HR that don't understand what they manage or are hiring for. Remote workers are harder to watch, harder to verify they are working all the hours they are getting paid for, and therefore you must extend a certain level of trust that big companies and bureaucracies are designed to function without.
Blackthorn
> Remote workers are harder to watch, harder to verify they are working all the hours they are getting paid for

Remote doesn't mean unavailable, though. There are easy videoconferencing systems now like Google Hangouts, where if you need someone you can just immediately connect with them. I'd certainly expect to be available by means like that. If hours are the real concern, that at least should be easy to verify.

retroafroman
In my opinion, and without going into too much detail, I feel like the reluctance of hiring remote workers comes down to not wanting to put in the effort to keep up communication. I.E. the managers don't want to have to bother emailing and calling versus just walking up and talking. A lot of this comes from poor project management.

I agree that a lot of the 'lack of engineers' is somewhat of a farce. If a company wanted to hire 20 people so bad they'd open a midwest office and hire 10 experienced people and 10 new grads from smaller universities and have the whole thing done in a couple months. Have people fly back and forth a couple times a year, get a couple good conference rooms with video conferencing and you're 90% as good as being there, just with a fraction of the cost.

For what it's worth, I suspect there are better opportunities to work remote outside of the start up world, and outside of the technology focused business world in general. I work for a smaller consulting company and about 1/3-1/2 of the 100 or so people (and the bulk of the consultants and PMs) are remote. Other companies in our industry seem similar.

JoeAltmaier
Remote workers are not much harder than local ones. But you have to have the tools. Most folks cobble something together out of Skype, GoToMeeting etc and end up in a world of pain. {Shameless plug} an integrated workgroup product like Sococo can make managing teams seamless. Its actually easier to conference online than to have mixed meetings of local workers and remote ones. Where I work we insist meetings go online so everybody can see who's talking and everybody can hear. Add in presentation sharing and even company meetings are simple.
Mz
This discussion might interest you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8811019

tldr: one issue might be that some of the movers and shakers in SF are anti-remote work. That seems to help make it part of the culture.

But read it anyway, because maybe it will help you make progress on finding remote work.

Best of luck.

auganov
Hybrid is hard. Remote works best if the whole culture is built around it. I'd avoid companies that are not remote-only. Or at least remote-first (say 70% employees remote). If they're like "remote is okay too" - avoid. You'll just end up being a second class citizen. And I'm assuming a small/mid size startup. I'd ask at/before the interview what the remote environment is like. A good talk by Floyd (CEO@InfoQ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c39SWfrGaiA .