Great list. One thing I want to add/emphasize is to consider the remote worker's motivations.
I'm personally not driven by money (it's just a means to an end). So a shortcut to getting bites on a job posting is to understand that there are people working in your field who may very much like to work with you. But they are deterred by past experiences in the office that drove them to work remotely in the first place.
Here are a few things to consider with freelancers:
* They are often most productive outside normal work hours
* Roughly half their time is spent doing research and keeping up with the latest trends
* They probably left the workplace to bootstrap their own startup someday
* Their productivity usually goes down if they are on call or interrupted often
* Beware loose specs and feature creep or you might burn them out and lose them
* Their productivity is limited more by time and money than challenge
* Sometimes they solve problems completely differently than you imagined and that’s ok
* Their short game might stink in some areas so balance them with administrators that take care of formalities
* Self-actualization can be more important for them than recognition
* Perks and benefits probably aren’t in their vocabularies unless they have families to support
For example: I love where I live and I'm not leaving. I own the house where I was raised. My grandparents are within walking distance. My parents, some siblings, and other assorted relatives live in this city, and my wife's family is within an easy day's travel. It's got my favorite sports teams, the church of my childhood, beautiful outdoor spaces, an excellent school for my son right down the street...
So I'm not motivated by your company's "great location" in the NY, SF, or Boston area; in fact that's a deal breaker for my family [0]. I'm not motivated by a 50% higher paycheck, most of which would be eaten up by higher taxes and cost of living and flying out here several times a year to be with family. I'm not motivated by a "hip" project that helps people go clubbing or hook up or share more selfies or other things that aren't really interesting to me in my current life stage. If that's your company, target other developers -- but if that's not your company, and you market yourselves like it is, you might lose me. One of my biggest motivations is being able to stay where I am and live a nice quiet comfortable life with my family.
The best fit is a hard challenge with clear requirements that requires expertise in multiple programming languages and paradigms, graduate-level mathematics or logic skills, ongoing learning and self-development/reflection, and that would benefit from long uninterrupted stretches of focus at whatever time of day is most convenient (might be 8pm-4am sometimes.)
[0] I'm a stay-at-home dad; my wife just started a new remote position. You can think of this section of the post as written from our joint perspective.
This is a big motivation for me as well. I live in Salt Lake City and all winter long I can ski at dawn before every day of work, and all summer long I can climb 11k' mountains 20 minutes from my house - benefits I'd be hard-pressed to recreate anywhere else. Moving to NY, SF, etc would be miserable for me as well (I've lived in NY). There are plenty of reasons remote workers prefer to be remote, not just the obvious ones! (Family, grew up there, etc).
The rest of my team is scattered across Europe, so the time difference can make an impact, but once everyone trusts one another I don't notice it making a big difference.
really any "outdoorsy" city -- Denver, Salt Lake, Seattle, Juneau, Flagstaff, Jackson Hole, Bend, Asheville -- is going to be hard to replace. Even with another city from the list. Seattle's mountains aren't really the same as Salt Lake City's mountains, which aren't really the same as Denver's mountains (I have lived in or near all 3 cities.)
And of course if you're working remotely, you can live in a much smaller town that can't be replicated in any way. There's no way to replace "I live in my grandpa's hometown" (Milo, MO -- not a place I want to live, but if I did, there would be no replacing it.)
I could not have said it better myself. My motivation is actually the opposite of yours. I prefer not to stay in one place for more than 6 months or so. Of course I've stayed longer but I do like to move often.
EDIT: To clarify a bit more. It really has to do with how much a value being able to move whenever I want. If I have a job that requires me to be in the same place everyday, I feel constricted. This often leads to resentment and poor performance.
I would love to live and work remotely nearer to my family. I'm just not sure how I would manage it. My current employer, which I love, would never accept it. And I haven't got the first clue how to find opportunities to work remotely. All my current opportunities have grown out of meeting people in my city and socializing--cutting myself off from that seems like it would make finding work, remote or otherwise, very difficult.
Possibly your last description of good fit, "long uninterrupted stretches of focus" is the best advantage one can look for, when hiring, as well. If I can be forgiven a few possibly unnecessary words, I got to mismanage remote working and remote employees, a food long time before something very obvious dawned on me:
Although many managers gripe about the possibility for distraction at a home position, I simply cannot believe that a good candidate, who is therefore thoughtful, methodical, consistent, analytical, competent communicator, is going to have more distractions in a environment they control, compared with a office.
Often the most important aspects of any project design, require multi discipline technique and thought, consideration of the problem at deeper levels than the implementation, and long stretches of attention.
My ability to remain concentrated, in the sense of having a problem set or exercise or contemplation loaded in my head, over long periods, is almost always far greater at home, where those around me are usually attuned to my moods, able to accommodate me when I grunt I'm not really available, and I can filter these situations well enough to not become disassociated with my family. Even kids do not really pose a major distraction, when at home, because I attune to them, and can mentally prepare, e.g. for "invasions" such as the end of school day: if you pay attention enough to your kids to know what their day will be like, you can blend in your attention to them, until they have your full preoccupation. I'd far rather have a serious deadline or a crunch problem working around my family, than in any office.
And yet, I like offices, very much. I enjoy office life, not because I no longer lead a primarily office led existence. But the utility I can get from a office, from rapid interaction, from meetings whether formal or at the water cooler are a different structure and utility which I try to appreciate as a different tool set. The office is a tool for me, and I trunk differently when there. I bring everything that requires direct interaction, survey of opinion, consensus or confrontation, of rapid action and installation of need, to the office.
Basically, if you try to apply interchangeability to both office and remote working, maybe you should not expect great results. For a very long time now, it's known to my colleague that when I'm in the office, I am fully theirs, subject usual behavioral norms, that I am there to do something specific, that they can dump things in me if they want, but I will probably work on them if I cannot resolve in the office context, until I come back, and so on. I just present a different "me" by presenting a different activity bias, and even a different language style. You won't find me in deep contemplation in the office, unless others have joined me to hit some long hours together for a specific reason.
Offices are about activity, and programming is not the mind of activity that offices have grown up with, throughout the history of modern workplaces. I dislike to such a degree the standoffishness of donning noise cancelling headsets, of bunker mentality in cubicles, of being present but erecting barriers, that rather than rail against it (even this feels too much the rant) I exclude as much of that possibility by my own actions and behavior.
I couldn't function without my family (maybe too melodramatic, but I've been through divorce once, thanks, before) and yet i'd get withdrawal symptoms from the office. Admittedly, it's "my" office, or rather I was instrumental enough to be heeded and possibly even to set cues for behavior, but I don't think seniority or anything like that alone cues better behaviors, on the contrary I think more junior or even new hires have more influence than they realize. I've sat there as I realize that I have been "losing authority" because new hires are simply leading by - effective - example, which is a feeling that sucks if you don't grasp what are the reasons, i.e. what is being done better. It's not always "just better" but this authority loss experience early on, attuned me to the idea maybe we were expecting the wrong things of people, when really bright talent would rather code on their laptop in the office kitchen, as if it were a Starbucks... only then a colleagues, then another, and the headphones on... so it was time to realize, there was a fundamental impedance mismatch: send people home, but tell them the point is to work on that home balance not to go be isolated. I've no opinions much as to working with anyone remotely exclusively, though I have done in the past, only think that if you have a office, it's possibly rather silly to mandate any way of working.
The upshot when it works, is great: when someone comes into the office, it's because a job is done, because they've got news we need to hear (including not great news, but I feather like the physical drama of the entrance which gains attentive minds) or they have (naturally my favorite) a new idea to present. This keeps the place from stinking of sweat and takeaway food, as much as it has any other benefit. Club house, not doss house.
None of this seems to work for the finance crew as well as it does for production code, but I think it just highlights you have to think differently according to each job. Maybe we don't study ourselves as well as we should: the office is getting to be a old idea, but camping out in Starbucks is pretty tired also. If I could, I'd take a office with a courtyard of garden. In our city, that's a dream for now. But the ne thing I know would make things go better, if not more productively in KLOC or sales, would be fresh air space that's private to us. The immediate thing we're doing, is rigging a better Skype conference setup, using their broadcast edition, so we can use proper cameras - I think poor videoconferencing is awful nervous twitchy time, but a clear fast frame rate on a decent screen is almost relaxing and enjoyable. That's something I think that matters for remote work. Our plan is to buy as close to broadcast kit, hooked up through Skype, as makes sense, to give to everyone who works remotely. I'm that convinced the ease of communication and even intimacy breaks down the remote barrier. I'm convinced also, that if I was contracted and had to conference with management via Skype, I would lay for my own installation. What value is that guy, in the fuzzy stuttery window? I don't know what other practical considerations one can allow remote workers, but to me, anything which makes the relationship smoother, is something I would immediately consider. That went for nice microphones, also, and will probably extend to at least subsidizing new desks for home use. When I think of all the days I got up on the right side of bed, in a great mood, sun shining, birds singing and all that, and by the time I was through the traffic and greeted by who knows what random disgruntlement of petty politics, I cringe. Those great days transformed into a day at home feeling top, writing well, thinking all the better.. they are the real payoff. What I don't know, is how best to integrate a new hire if they are genuinely remote, as in will visit rarely. I loathe enforced office "holidays" ("training days", whatever you call them, they just are not in my experience done in a straight up fashion, there's something dishonest because of trying to mix the objectives, in my mind) but when in the past we nearly were joined by who was happily living abroad, I figured we'd go see him, regular, plain socially half the time, and anyone working with him could, for all I cared, take that as a holiday. I'm that against artificial "bonding" things I put my neck out on that one.
Anyhow, sorry if I went on far too long. There's so much work that just requires pottering about your own home or garden or even playing with the kids, to get to sit with the creative part of one's mind, that I think the mega cute offices of the Google's of this world still miss the point, almost grate even with the conflicting signals of it all. I just happen to really like a smart office like office. I think more people would agree with me, if they had provided a genuinely smart office. Even if we've hard cored all week and are unshaven, why not bust out a new tee (ahem, oxford collar, whatever! )and take a power trip into the office, to deliver I person? I think it works great too, if we have customers about, because they too often have the idea a young firm is going to be slovenly, and worse of remote employees, they genuinely can and do often enough, think we'd all be in mom's basement still, had we not been kicked out. Bottom line, a remote employee can be the best asset, if you realize everything around them and you is part of the capital investment. Theatrics like I like, are just icing on the cake. When time to time we have visitors, I clean out my (very minimal) stuff and put the project / objective lead's name plaque on my door, so it's like they come to meet Bob, to see his new feature, he's lead on, and, yeah, we treat people who write neat new features that well ... would do , if they needed a office full time ~> The salesman in me does this to mess with customer heads...
Ninja edit, will edit better after a cup of tea, lots of silly autocorrect typos, my apologies, I'm actually rather passionate about office and remote working situations...
> Sometimes they solve problems completely differently than you imagined and that’s ok
sometimes this is okay, sometimes this isn't okay.
i've seen situations where there is a clear and coherent specification (use django, make a web app, have it call these APIs) to be implemented and the remote contractor completely deviated from it without telling anyone, wasting 2 weeks of time (delivered ruby, not a web app, using different APIs). this was done under questionable-at-best circumstances, saying one thing, and doing another, shirking responsbility for things that didn't tickle the guy's fancy, etc.
as a manager you need to be able to terminate and cut sunk costs or one person can derail an entire project. toxic people who say one thing and do another rely on the inability of management to make decisions like that.
As a freelancer I agree with all of this. A few things I'd add:
> * Roughly half their time is spent doing research and keeping up with the latest trends
Depends a lot on current workload. Generally speaking I think freelancers spend more time learning than in-house people do. BUT maybe that's just a top-performer vs. normal-performer trait and top-performers correlate well with freelancers for various reasons (the challenges usually come quicker and are more varied than at a company).
> * They probably left the workplace to bootstrap their own startup someday
Or just because they have the drive, discipline, and motivation to actually make it on their own. The freedom is pretty great.
> * Their productivity usually goes down if they are on call or interrupted often
This is true for everyone on the maker schedule. Even employees.
> * Beware loose specs and feature creep or you might burn them out and lose them
Depends on savviness of freelancer. Feature creep ain't bad at all if you're on retainer for X days/week. But sucks tremendously on fixed rate projects.
> * Sometimes they solve problems completely differently than you imagined and that’s ok
Everyone sometimes does this.
> * Perks and benefits probably aren’t in their vocabularies unless they have families to support
As a 27 year old cynical bastard I don't really need perks and benefits. Just pay me more, I can handle my own "free" lunch and stuff. Promise.
>> * Perks and benefits probably aren’t in their vocabularies unless they have families to support
> As a 27 year old cynical bastard I don't really need perks and benefits. Just pay me more, I can handle my own "free" lunch and stuff. Promise.
Even as a 35 year older freelancing bastard, I agree completely with this. I have a family to support and I don't care about potato chips and sweet macbooks. It's simple - SHOW ME THE MONEY! That's why I like consulting for startups.
I'm sure your mileage does vary, but in every company I've worked for 90% of revenue was already going to employee salary. At that point, raises are not an option because the employees are not bringing in enough money to pay themselves more. So, the challenge becomes how to raise general workplace happiness with a small amount of revenue set aside from salary, bills, taxes, ect... Thus, potato chips. Even (the occasional) sweet macbook is cheap compared to a full month of paychecks.
The only thing that amazes me is that more workplaces don't do this (refresh the macbook of all staff with an updated high end model every time a new one is out).
> Their short game might stink in some areas so balance them with administrators that take care of formalities
That's true of just about anybody. There used to be people that did this full-time (secretaries/admins). I'm not sure why you wouldn't want a dedicated one per dev team over a certain size (12?).
How do you deal with the isolation/loneliness of working remotely? After doing it for over 10 years I'm finding this the killer: sitting at home, me and my cat, talking to nobody.
Sqwiggle helps (seeing the rest of the team's faces) but it's a hard sell to convince others to use it.
Assuming of course you live in a somewhat business-hopping city. If you do, the monthly cost is a no-brainer for the productivity gain of having other people around, having a physical workspace, and a reason to leave the house.
Have a look and see if there are any Regus office buildings in your town/city. They have an inexpensive membership card that lets you make use of their business lounges. The Regus building I tried wasn't amazing but I would imagine they're all different so may be worth looking at?
Maybe: they might not be the most socially sophisticated people, or they might not put as much effort into presenting themselves in a polished manner, or they might not be so good at day-to-day organization of their emails and such. I think it means that the person is good for results, but not necessarily the best candidate for corporate management position. Rough around the edges, perhaps.
I'm personally not driven by money (it's just a means to an end). So a shortcut to getting bites on a job posting is to understand that there are people working in your field who may very much like to work with you. But they are deterred by past experiences in the office that drove them to work remotely in the first place.
Here are a few things to consider with freelancers:
* They are often most productive outside normal work hours
* Roughly half their time is spent doing research and keeping up with the latest trends
* They probably left the workplace to bootstrap their own startup someday
* Their productivity usually goes down if they are on call or interrupted often
* Beware loose specs and feature creep or you might burn them out and lose them
* Their productivity is limited more by time and money than challenge
* Sometimes they solve problems completely differently than you imagined and that’s ok
* Their short game might stink in some areas so balance them with administrators that take care of formalities
* Self-actualization can be more important for them than recognition
* Perks and benefits probably aren’t in their vocabularies unless they have families to support
By them I mean me, so YMMV..