| I think working remotely has it's pluses and minuses. I'm a few years in and have only had one in-office programming contract. The positive is that I am entirely focused on GSD. I'm not sure about everywhere, but the place I was in-house at was fairly sparse and focused as well. I dread the thought of ever working at a place with pool tables or other distractions. Working remotely puts a lot of trust in my work. They trust that I'm doing what I say I'm doing when I track hours. I've never had an issue disputing hours, so that's not a negative. Working remotely pegs you as one of the smart ones. Apparently I earned the right to work remotely? I don't know, it's just work to me, but I also do a lot of short-term contracts, so the image is probably different. This leads to the big downside. Out of sight, out of mind, out of personally caring. This somewhat goes both ways, but it's difficult to make text friends. Humans are simply wired for face-to-face, and I don't think Skype really replaces that. This causes some problems with impedance. If I ask a question, I would need an answer right away because that's likely a blocking issue. If everyone else is on lunch, in a meeting, and so on, it leaves me hanging. A positive is seeing a whole lot of codebases. It really helps you understand where you and everyone else is in the pecking order. It also brings up a lot of issues surrounding the meaning of good -vs- bad code, experts programmers, and so on. Exposure has shown me that these concepts are murky at best. A negative is that some companies try to pay lower, selling remote work as a benefit. It isn't. I often have to split my day and work odd hours to keep myself on the same page as everyone else, nullifying whatever inconvenience I gain from not going to and from a local company. But, really, it all comes down the company that you are working with. It is obvious when they haven't worked with outside developers, so I think it's a lot more about the company than the actual ability to work remotely. Remote work is just work, and I don't think that, outside of direct human interaction and speed of communication, there is a significant difference between in-house and remote. Either way, code is written and shipped. |