Building and Running a Geographically Distributed Engineering Team
medium.com
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That's an interesting argument. I guess it's just an example and I shouldn't read too much into it, but to me the opposite is true: at home I am completely in sync with my surroundings, have no distractions and have certain "rituals" that make me more productive. It's the constant interruptions and distractions at the office that would make me terribly unproductive if someone would fly me in to assess my abilities on-site.
Meanwhile, working remote, I can lay on the couch or in bed and hack meaningfully for 12 hours and do it again the day after. Actually, this is what I do for side projects while I'm on vacation, and it's how I truly de-stress and relax. It strikes me as completely strange that I have to explain this to pretty much every single (non-recruiter) person that emails me about a job about why I am only interested in remote positions. How can the tech industry be so old and this idea still so foreign?
IKEA now has them for like $8. Pop in a $1-2 LED bulb, and Bob's your uncle.
Of course, my encounter with facilities involved convincing them I'd not brought in a halogen lamp (remember those, in torchiere lamps?) that was going to burn the place to the ground. (Back then, it was a compact fluorescent. A technology I've come to despise for various reasons.)
For something more compact and portable, I might look for a lightweight sconce that I could hang on one of those 3M removable hooks. Or, if they don't bother you, a very compact/portable desk lamp.
P.S. That place, I might have been better off if it HAD burned to the ground.
Hear hear; I work remotely and check-in physically maybe twice a month when delegates come down to our satellite office. I find artificial lighting absolutely grating. Working from home it's a rarity for me to turn on a light until as late as dusk.
Anyway, there were a few corner offices I eventually set up a little system with: if that office owner didn't want their bulbs replaced, to put a sticky note covering the light switch. I'd come through, check for a sticky "okay, no new bulbs for this manager" and move along. Was a pretty good system until our facilities manager politely asked me to stop and change the bulbs anyway.
But IME it's a solvable problem: Train others in the house that just because you're "home" doesn't really mean you're "home", during the workday. Improve soundproofing as needed. Adjust work-habits in some cases, etc.
If companies would put as much money and attention into getting remote workers properly setup as that otherwise would have put into facilities management, office-space rental, etc., I bet the gap would close pretty quickly.
Another of life's little Catch-22s I suppose.
Problem, the industry I work in (defense) doesn't do remote, for obvious reasons.
I've been surprised by how hard it is to find cheap, effective alternatives. Cost is a particular concern when each person works from his/her own location.
(1) At the high end, you have dedicated large-screen devices with dedicated software, like Google Jamboard. Gorgeous, awesome, very expensive. $5k+ USD.
(2) Next step down in terms of price and glitz: the combination of a real whiteboard + a projector + special hardware for monitoring pens and/or hands. About $1k USD if you have to buy the whiteboard, and already have the computer.
(3) Next step down in terms of size, but about the same price: tether a touch-/pen- sensitive display to your computer. E.g., iPad Pro, or Wacom Cintiq or a cheap knockoff. ~$400-$1200 USD, depending on device and size. Pros: Portable. Cons: Much smaller area to draw.
(4) Status quo: Each person sits at his/her desk, using a mouse or (if they don't mind smudges and/or gorilla arms) a touch-sensitive laptop screen. Pros: Ubiquitous. Cons: Not fluid way to draw / annotate for most people.
* Note: The breakdown above focuses on HW. I'm assuming that the SW side is at least somewhat solved by online, shared docs such as Google Draw, Realtimeboard, etc.
* Note 2: A lot of the online collaboration sites are a hard sell in corporate environments if sensitive information is to be shared.
I realized in that moment what an asshole I was being for assuming somebody would be able to dedicate free time over a week to solving some problem just to prove to me they could, just for the potential of getting hired, and no other benefit.
Now, the way some people articulated (or yelled) their objections lead me to believe they wouldn't be a good culture fit. Others though opted for a lighter touch, "lets just talk through how we'd solve this" and I came away understanding how they think through problems. It was an attempt at saving the interviews. This stuff is hard, on both sides. That was a long time ago, I've since read way more horror (and success stories).
Please don't give people take home projects. I sure as fuck won't do them. I'm busy with hard problems I actually find rewarding.
I balk at doing screening tests like hackerrank. I don't get how you can expect someone to spend a probationary week, with no real guarantee of work. they stop the job hunt, tell other employers no thanks, and bang 50/50 pass rate perhaps?
I don't get it. Hiring remote is hard but this seems too much.
If you attract the wrong kind of attention, there are companies that basically provide phoney resumes for candidates who often don’t exist. Typically you interview remotely, encounter technical issues or even talk to a totally different person, and a different guy shows up for the final interview.
For some skill sets, like SAP or Oracle stuff, candidates go to a boot camp, buy a BS resume with fake references, and have a few months of access to a help desk for somebody to walk them through basic tasks.
I thought when you said fraud you meant somebody who says they know Javascript, but it turns out they only know jQuery, or puts SQL on a resume, but doesn't know what an index is.
What it sounds like you are saying is that there is an industry built around getting unqualified people hired in engineering roles??
The one time I took one that was 4 hours it was (luckily for me) a disaster
Apparently it was better than other presentations (even though I didn't get the job) I suspect that I seem to have become to good at my specialisation
Hackerranking is not a good proxy, unless the job is solving online quizzes. Nevertheless, most can't turn their back on a job opportunity at the very first red flag.
You just get cheap and desperate people with good memory who are unlikely to do the research required and produce a solution when they come up against a solution they haven't rote learned.
But maybe the "take home test" strategy is about identifying candidates that will sacrifice their free time for your company.
No matter how you look at it, it doesn't look good.
Just relying on code on Github is okay -- until you realize some people don't like to work on non-proprietary code in their free time, preferring to spend it with family.
Just relying on deep questioning is okay -- until you realize some people are excellent at learning and communicating complex topics but haven't actually implemented it yet.
Just relying on live coding is okay -- until you realize some people have bad anxiety and can't perform in that sort of environment.
Just relying on take home tests is okay -- until you realize people don't like working for free on the off chance you'll hire them.
While I don't like some processes more than others, I've also never been truly satisfied with any hiring process I've put together (and we've tried all types) -- perhaps because hiring is a fundamentally flawed process. Perhaps the best advice is: don't work for a company that interviews in a way you don't like, and don't hire people who don't like the way you interview. The best we can do at that point is be transparent up front.
I guess if you hire really remote folks from other countries (that might not have internet connection or be on the right time zone), but still.