[lshevtsov]

I'm a remote Ruby developer. Most of our team is on-site.

My main problem is: online communication makes discussion much more complicated than face-to-face, so you don't contribute as much ideas when people brainstorm or otherwise solve creative problems. If you have a lot of ideas, that can be depressing.

I visit the office several times a year, mostly to share thoughts and socialize.

[johnnygoods]

Complete agree. I worked remotely (as dev, dev manager, and head of pm) for about 5 years for 2 different organizations.

The biggest problem was always when there were some people local to one another who would get together physically to tackle a problem. Either they wouldn't think to dial-in the remote team members at all, or they would but the discussion would be conducted in such a manner that it was impossible to fully participate (i.e., poor speaker phone, whiteboard drawings, projector w/o webex).

I think remote teams can be very effective, but it is crucial that the entire org be oriented around communication channels that give the remote team members equal footing. I almost think the ideal is all or nothing -- everyone is remote or no one is.

[ryanschmidt]

I can relate. Our team is spread across the US but the 2 co-founders work out of an office together. It's tough being the 3rd man with lots of ideas and passion about the project because communication is hard when you don't see each other every day.

If I had my wish, we'd all be in one office or at least local to each other so we could meetup and chat more often.