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by pricees 1833 days ago
Not OP but will give my uninvited experience. I have also been remote a majority of the last 10+ years of my work life.

Politics is tricky. I have/had to do a lot more public relations. Starting/running book/video clubs, making time for 1:1s with coworkers, I even did a 2+ year stint of starting off the morning slack chats with a dad joke, that was very appreciated. There are many ways to be productive, but I had to find ways to stay noticed, likable, relevant, and appreciated outside the pull requests. As my former manager said, if no one remembers who you are, you will become just a line item on the payroll.
2 comments
thehoff 1833 days ago
Remote for the last 6 years for me. Pre-pandemic was also the only member of team that was remote.

I do something pretty similar. Friday's I will somewhat regularly send a dad joke or meme. These of course stay non-political and very SFW.

On a somewhat serious side. I try to regularly send "tips". If I learn something that I think is beyond cool I'll send an email teaching that new cool thing. If it can't be done in an email I'll setup small sessions to teach that over Zoom. I prefer Zoom because it's more impactful as far as being "seen" and not just another email.

Relaying what I've learned (even basic things) works really well, at least my regular 1:1's and reviews support this view.

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SPascareli13 1833 days ago
Your experience is certainly invited :)

I think your experience is really interesting, because as a dev our work can be hard to measure, unless you're working on something huge and very visible, so this interpersonal part of the work becomes very important, kinda like your manager said, you have to be remembered for something more than just "that guy we pay to make code".

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