Ask HN: Remote work in a different timezone, or local? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Remote work in a different timezone, or local?

I have an offer from a company in a timezone that's 8 hours behind - so to work for them I'd have to do 11:00-19:00 or later to have enough overlap.

On the other hand, I have a couple offers from companies that are local to me.

All of them have similar salaries & equity (and arguably similar chances of growth), but the product of the remote one is something I like better (it helps everyday people be healthier).

So, for people that have to work late because of remote work, what has your experience been like? Finishing at 7pm means that I won't be able to do much in the afternoons with my family for example.

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Does "enough overlap" have to mean a full workday, or is there an option for you to be a couple of hours offset?

I work remotely with most people being in other time zones. My "core hours" are still in my time zone. Nobody expects me to shift my entire day. But in practice, this does result in having to take late meetings a few times per week. The company does try to minimize these things, but it's unavoidable and usually most people are making some sort of compromise on time zones as the team is so spread out. It's not actually bad, because I can in theory just get up later the next day, or take a longer lunch, or leave for the evening and then hop back in for a meeting. But in practice I often just work through the gap because of some personal inability to step away.

Aside from meetings, I just noticed more of a pull to work late because a lot of the communication happens during my evening and night time. This is despite the fact that everyone tries to be considerate, going so far as scheduling messages in each other's time zone sometimes instead of pinging them directly. Sometimes I'll get feedback on a PR toward the end of "my" day, and then feel the urge to address the feedback right away, resulting in quite a few late nights. It's something I'm trying to work on.

Overall though, I really like being half a day away and prefer it to being in the same time zone as everyone else. My mornings are very quiet, letting me focus and not feel the compulsion to be checking if I'm missing something relevant on Slack or some other communication channel all the time. I feel like I'm actually less stressed and getting more done overall (with the caveat that I need to get the overtime under control a bit).

It would be like what you say, with my core hours being in my TZ - but I can imagine some late meetings will be unavoidable, specially given I’m joining as founder engineer so I’ll have to be present in many I’d imagine

How did you cope with social life though, plans after work, sports - that sort of thing?

There hasn't been much of a social life in general. I've been largely self isolating since 2020. I was just starting to get back out into the world as I began this remote role, then omicron hit and I decided to stay home and wait for a booster.

In about a week, I plan to start going to the gym again and sign up for a dance class, so we'll see what the social life looks like then. The three main meetings I have in the week are pre-scheduled, so it should be possible to schedule these things around them. Sometimes surprise meetings pop up, but 99% of the time they're closer to the evening. I believe it should be possible to take a longer lunch to meet a friend or go to the gym, considering I'll end up making up the hours (likely many times over) anyway. The only thing stopping me would be purely my own workaholism and inability to switch off.

Scheduling-wise, the time zone discrepancy might give us _more_ flexibility since we'd know there won't be a surprise meeting for several hours in the day. Some convenient scenarios I've considered:

* Visit the gym during off-peak hours and have the equipment to ourselves.

* Take a long weekend in another city and work from the train there/back instead of having to book time off. You could schedule the trip in the beginning of the day where you know you won't have to hop into a meeting mid-transit.

* If meeting a friend in the city, could work from a coffee shop before/after (same as above, might be especially convenient if you know you have a chunk of the day where you won't be taking a meeting in the coffee shop).

I could even easily work on the way to a social engagement on the bus/subway and not worry about missing "work time", although after two years of no public transport I've been getting very carsick (I'm betting that'll pass).

So I _suspect_ that once one gets into the swing of things, this kind of arrangement could actually make it better in terms of social activities.

For a time I worked a Pacific TMZ job while based in Central. At first it was requested my local team be available from 10 AM Central to 7 PM Central to align to the rest of the business. It wasn’t the worst thing ever but with young kids who went to bed at 7 PM, it wasn’t ideal.

After a few months my boss said we didn’t have to work the shifted schedule and we went to a more normal 8-5 schedule and all was well—from that perspective—however, when you’re putting in 18 hour days, what’s the difference if your schedule is 8-5, 10-7 or whatever?

Take the job you feel is best for you; you may find out the hours may not need to align.

Yeah they’re ok with just some overlap - but it’s hard to know if this will be maintained in the future…

I’m not too worried about long days (I would start later if needed) but late meetings for instance.

I also do stuff with my wife like dance classes or climbing after work which would be quite challenging, how did you cope with social life with that schedule?

I had a 2 year old and a newborn. I was working 80-90 hrs a week. I was in grad school part time.

What social life?

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