[johnstorey]

This is the key issue. If a company is built to be remote -- over documentation; excessive communication; no two people are local to each other; a culture around the online communication tools (to replicate the watercooler); and most importantly 3 - 4 overlap of all teams so you know when meetings can be scheduled. Have that, and you can work extremely well.

If you are "distributed" in the sense there is a HQ full of managers, and a bunch of other offices because that's where people could be found with the right skill set, no set overlap hours, and HQ still has the practices on of non-distributed culture (conversations about important topics happen face to face for instance). Well, then, you have to accept you will be out of the loop and work very hard to be remembered and involved.