Ah, there it is, the bountiful blind arrogance I have come to expect from threads like this on HN. It's like you didn't even read my post, just looked for the hook to drop in and proclaim your superiority.
Instances like this are where the following guideline comes in handy – if you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, we'd appreciate it:
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
The strongest plausible interpretation is obviously that the GP was making their own point about remote work based on their own experiences and not proclaiming personal superiority over you.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31894409.
Seemed to me it was just a counter-point to your post. If you don't have anything productive to add, that's fine, but resorting to personal attacks doesn't really make your argument/viewpoint look better.
From my own personal experience, I'd mirror what the previous poster said. Most of the top performers in a remote setting (at least with software engineering) are usually also a top performer in an office setting. Does that mean there are not outliers? No.
Your follow-up seems to have disregarded their entire response, resorting to ad hominems rather than providing any justification of why you disagree. From my perspective, your response is an example of the exact opposite of what was written, that being "bountiful blind arrogance".
For what it's worth, I largely agreed with their assessment that a top performer in a remote setting is highly-likely to be a top-performer in-office as well.
The set containing top-performing engineers that are effective in-office is a subset of top-performing engineers that are effective remotely. While there are certainly exceptions to this, the article seems to support this assessment when it enumerates the list of things that new-hires would need to learn for both in-office and remote scenarios:
> As you can see, junior remote employees are doing almost 2x the upskilling they're doing in the office. It's not their fault they are struggling to get up to speed as quickly.
I think it’s arrogant to dismiss others experiences, particularly someone who’s managed / lived this experience for a decade (and helped setup multiple remote offices and teams). I never claimed superiority, I did point out a skill that’s often lacking in those with poor remote performance.
There are a variety of possible reasons why a person can thrive more in an office environment compared to a remote environment (and vice versa) such as maybe they have a poor remote environment due to a lack of funds. Some people might have comfy homes and a good support system at home while others may have cramped apartments and a poor home environment.
Also, the blanket statement can also be used inversely such as "generally people who do poorly in an office setting lack discipline" when maybe the person doesn't just do well in an open office or lives far away from the office with a difficult commute.
I think it's simpler to state the some people thrive in an office environment and other people thrive in remote environment for a variety of factors such as their personality and personal environment rather than to condemn those who don't thrive in either set-ups as "lacking discipline".
>I think there's in general a "personality type" that does really well with remote in a certain kind of job and thrives with fairly asynchronous disconnected tasks
and they say that in general those people are already the top performers.
When you think about it, that shouldn't be surprising. People who know how to succeed in one environment also know how to adapt and succeed in another. That's to be expected.
1. Defined goals
2. Available help over Slack and chat (which we have group and private channels)
3. Weekly or bi-weekly standups to get more of a sense of where everyone stands and have a lay of the land and understand your team.
4. The lead needs to do the leg work with the managers to let them know their team is doing the work and get the recognition they deserve.
It is harder in someways, but easier in a lot of ways and WAY more efficient where it counts in many ways. It is a shift and requires effort.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
I don't think a personal attack is most generous interpretation of their post.
I would add some nuance. I've increasingly come to the conclusion that initiative is one of the best qualities in an employee. It's natural to see how having initiative will lend itself well to both in-person and remote work, but I suspect the effect is even more prominent in asynchronous work where there's less oversight and less opportunities for someone to spell things out.
Relating to the article, junior employees are often at a disadvantage regarding taking initiative because they simply lack the tacit organizational knowledge to run with a task. They may not know who to contact or the full context of problem areas. This makes them more reliant on mentorship, which can be more difficult in remote work.
I can frame just about any comment as an attack in one way or another, but it's not a great idea. For one, it goes against HN guidelines but, more importantly, it just doesn't seem like a very healthy mindset.
I didn't read it that way at all. The commenter was simply relating their observation of how remote works well for some co-workers, but not for others -- as they see it.
That's all. It seems you're reading way too much into that observation.