It’s obviously going to depend on the person, and how deaf they are, but I’ve seen things like Google Meet’s new automatic subtitling making it easier to participate in meetings for someone who’s hard of hearing than it would be in person.

Deafness is a spectrum. If you've got sufficient hearing - and pick the right phone - it can work out. I usually have a second party on the call who can explain anything I mishear via instant messaging.

I've experimented with a wide variety of techincal solutions over the years, and I've learnt that the often-compressed bandwidth of cell phones is bad -- I avoid calls using cell phones like the plague these days.

Since I work remotely, in a private office, I can get away with using a really high quality speaker phone. With hearing aids as they are today, including digital processing and noise discrimination, it works OK.

P.

IME, audio calls are relied on less in a remote environment than in person meetings in an office. They do feature heavily though.

However, it probably makes instant messaging, or web based tools a more natural way if interacting rather than grabbing a meeting room for everything.

I've never worked with a deaf developer but I'd imagine it easier to accommodate in a fully remote environment.