- being capable to communicate efficiently asynchronously, with time and space constrains on limiting medium;
- accepting less social time;
- juggling private and pro time/space. Which includes your friends and family. My GF still hasn't get used to the fact that when I'm home working, she should consider I'm not home. It makes things harder.
Honestly, you should never, on hiring, accept remote work right away. First, assess the person on site on all those points for a few months, then make a short test of remote, then decide. And don't be afraid to say no.
I know more devs that are not fit for remote that devs that are, despite most of them stating the contrary. Particularly, a lot of my colleagues can quickly work on a non priority topic if left unchecked, just because they don't have the client as a priority, but the tech. You can loose a lot of time to this.
But I believe the real cause is not some personal defficiency but the shitty corporte/factory type of work where politics is a huge part of day to day job, where nobody really wants others to do meaningful, deep work, nobody wants to commit and give clear answers and offer personal responsibility.
That's why devs need to communicate(read interrupt) so much in person with each others; add in "agile" which in 99% of the cases means nobody really knows or is imaginative enough to know how things should progress, what the requirements are, what resources should be available before the project starts.
I wish most work were interesting, meaningful and full feeling. That we could be proud of it. That it was well done. Or even useful.
But the reality is it's not.
We have a lot of shitty things to do, and bosses are part of the machine to make you do those things. Remote bosses have less grip on you.
And I'm lucky enough to like my job. I feel like I have 10x more interesting things to do in my day to day activity that the average Joe. But a lot - a lot of a lot - of people don't.
I worked from home for 4 years. It worked for me, only quit the job because I wasn't progressing, they had me pretty pidgeonholed (was consistently billing out half a million a year for them so I guess it made sense). Was going to end up an old man with zero skill progression. I'd definitely work from home again, but it's not worth stunting yourself over IMO. Some people are possibly less ambitious.
You're both dead on with your points. Going remote removed a large part of the nonsense from the job. Also agree that it's best for both employer and employee to always start in the office. I like that personal connection, even if I'm socially awkward.
If I worked remotely I would never work from home. I’d work remotely from a separate one-room office and hopefully have my employer pay for that office.
But it's not for everybody.
It involves:
- being able to motivate yourself;
- being disciplined;
- being autonomous;
- being capable to communicate efficiently asynchronously, with time and space constrains on limiting medium;
- accepting less social time;
- juggling private and pro time/space. Which includes your friends and family. My GF still hasn't get used to the fact that when I'm home working, she should consider I'm not home. It makes things harder.
Honestly, you should never, on hiring, accept remote work right away. First, assess the person on site on all those points for a few months, then make a short test of remote, then decide. And don't be afraid to say no.
I know more devs that are not fit for remote that devs that are, despite most of them stating the contrary. Particularly, a lot of my colleagues can quickly work on a non priority topic if left unchecked, just because they don't have the client as a priority, but the tech. You can loose a lot of time to this.