I recently went through a big round of interviewing and job searching for SW Engineer roles. I wasn’t fully prepared, and don’t think I could ever be fully prepared. Interviewing is hard and strenuous and nerve wracking and I honestly hate it. But the preparation I did helped. So this post is to collect some of those preparation points, and I hope to do some other separate posts about particulars.
Continue readingCategory Archives: remote work
Links: More remote working
A couple more links to share related to remote work that came up today.
First up, a youtube video from a friend and coworker – Mightly Mini Monday As I work with him, I can attest he does wear that hoodie a lot. 🙂
Next, a different coworker posted a link to this Gitlab Unfiltered video. It’s a pretty good discussion, as long as you keep it in context that not every company, even in tech, can go full remote. The point that culture should be a first concern over tools is an important one.
Update: I’ll keep adding more related links to this post.
Dos and Dont’s from entrepreneur.com
Remote Work Report from Gitlab (I only skimmed this, but linking so I can go back and read the rest) conducted Jan and Feb 2020 (before COVID-19 changed everything).
Zoom Fatigue article from BBC (Two thoughts: The problems they cited were ones we overcame with HP Halo telepresence. And I don’t think I agree with the idea of not using your camera. Some people will interpret that as an excuse to never use their camera and loose out on all those benefits. In a larger meeting I do usually leave my camera off but that is so I can multitask. Smaller meetings I try to be more connected and participating, and an active camera is part of that.)
Trello has been blogging lots of remote work things. This one about 6 communication mistakes seems accurate enough to post.
(Update July 2020) Post from Slashdot led me to https://hbr.org/2020/07/microsoft-analyzed-data-on-its-newly-remote-workforce
Mini rant – Do not use the mic on your laptop!
With Coronavirus forcing isolation, we are seeing a huge uptick in the number of remote interviews and broadcasts from home on TV. But please, people, do not use the cheap mic on your laptop and expect to have a good interview! I’ve seen many of these interviews where the boomy echo of the room is picked up by a mic attached to a laptop with an acoustically reflective screen and a built in fan. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. The latest I saw (not to get political) was from a Trump campaign social media expert criticizing the Biden campaign for taking so long to do online broadcasts, but Biden at least had enough setup to use real mics instead of a laptop mic as that guy was doing. 🙁
I need to do a longer post about acoustic and video setups at home and why some things are just never going to give a good experience.
More links for the family of Remote Workers
We have had a few discussions at work about what to do when your family is at home while you need to work remotely. I wanted to capture a few links and ideas that have come up related to keeping the family engaged when they are out of school. This is a follow up post to https://www.ispeaksoftware.com/remote-work-with-family-members-who-arent-at-work/
Remote Work with Family Members who Aren’t at Work
I have kids. I love them all, but they can be distracting at times. Normal work days 2/3rds to 5/6ths of them are in school and the house is pretty quiet, with a few bumps from the preschoolers. But during summer, or holiday breaks, or global pandemics, there are times when my house is full of family members who aren’t at work like I am. So how do I handle it?
My first set of points about this:
1. Set some expectations that your are “at work” and can’t respond to every little request all day.
1a. Having a door on your office or room you work helps with that. I know that is a challenge for those working from home only temporarily, but look for other ways to formalize some distance. It helps with the “I’m at work” state to have a physical indication.
2. Take breaks to interact with the family, like at lunch or afternoon walks.
3. Some music or controlled noise helps drown out background distractions.
4. Keep a list (at least mentally) of the things you wish you could do with them during the day so you can find other times to help with art projects or math problems.
It takes a bit of reinforcement and some consistency, so don’t give up if the first day has a lot of interruptions.
Also, everyone should agree that ‘working from home’ is not a substitute for good child care. You won’t be doing your job honestly if you claim to be working but spend all your day doing stuff for the family. Flexibility to watch your kids for a bit while your spouse runs to the store or an appointment is great, but don’t abuse it and expect to be successful.
I’m sure we will see lots of posts about this in the next few weeks, and here is a good one to keep from going crazy.
Link refresh: remote vs co-located
A while ago I linked to this article – http://martinfowler.com/articles/remote-or-co-located.html – about remote vs co-located teams and which are more effective. I think it still holds up as a good article for guiding thoughts about how to make your team more useful whether co-located or remote or some blend of the two.
Most of the teams I’ve worked with in the last 10+ years have been a mix, with some chunk of the team located at one or two sites and a few more scattered around the world. In those cases, it has helped to get the office-located teams to think about “remote first” modes of communication. Sometimes that becomes “lowest common denominator” communication, where if any one person is on the phone then everyone does the meeting from the phone at their desk. That does help level the field, but when possible it is better to bring everyone up to a higher level with video conferencing or collaborative document editing.
It also helps for the Scrum Master or manager or leads to coach the team about how to communicate with everyone in a way that each team member is not left out or marginalized. That is a great topic of discussion in retrospective meetings.
Remote Work and being Open
This is the first breakdown of the list of remote worker tips I started in this post. I work in Open Source Software, so being Open is part of the culture. But openness becomes especially important when you work remote from the rest of the team.
Continue readingNew Category: Remote Work
I’ve been working from home for over 4 years, since around the time that the Fortune 100 company I worked for split itself in two. I’ve been mentored in the move to a home office, and want to share some of the great tips I’ve received over the years. This should be a series of posts, but this will be a first post with some overview.
Continue readingTeleworking can be a good thing
I have had a couple conversations where the topic of my work arrangement has come up. I still keep in mind this article. http://martinfowler.com/articles/remote-or-co-located.html
Effectively, I think having a good manager who knows the team and how well they are working is key. Having team members who have integrity and want to get the job right helps, and pair that up with good remote-worker skills and tools and you can be successful anywhere.
Of course there are some jobs where you need to be with the equipment, but if you are writing software that often isn’t the case.