Hacker News Reader

Comment by josephd79 | Hacker News Reader

You can't "manage" people who work remotely the same way you manage people in the office. That's the issue.

Also, you shouldn't have to watch newer employees like a hawk if you've given them clear tasks / projects and expectations. No need to micromanage people.

View on HN

It's not about managing. It's about the friction to reaching out for help and lost productivity from having to schedule meetings combined with inexperience making it hard to decide which problems are worth the friction of reaching out and which ones aren't. There's also the sense of isolation that being remote gives, because asking for help over a private message makes it look like you're the only one that needs help. All of this is still a problem regardless of clarity of expectations and tasks.

My preferences are likely going to change once I get more experience under my belt but I absolutely feel there are some facets of remote work that benefit senior engineers at the expense of junior engineers.

There can be friction scheduling and holding meetings, absolutely. Starting a meeting friction can be overcome through tools like Slack huddles which basically require one click to join if people are around fairly predictably, but scheduling friction can be reduced with some techniques.

Our remote-first company has a daily standup everyday which shifts everyone’s brain into talking/collaboration mode for that bit. If someone - especially newer or junior engineers - have a question, that is a great opportunity to either have an impromptu discussion, or to have scheduled a discussion about it the previous afternoon jf it wasn’t particularly urgent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com