[raverbashing]

> No, this is a chance to pick up talent the big boys don't need

Considering how bad they are at hiring, there should be very competent people there.

> As a telecommuter, your application will need to be particularly strong to make up for what the company risks and loses by not having you in the office -

Which is, almost nothing, unless they are not set up for remote work, which every minimal competent company today is/should be.

> if it isn't, a big company won't take the risk on you.

Tell that to Red Hat. A big majority of their development positions (if not all) are remote.

[badgar]

> Considering how bad they are at hiring, there should be very competent people there.

The company under discussion at Google. They're great at hiring, at least by their metrics: they have thousands of the world's best engineers.

> Which is, almost nothing, unless they are not set up for remote work, which every minimal competent company today is/should be.

You're ignoring context again. Patrick Pichette, CFO of Google, said regarding the number of telecommuters: "as few as possible." In my response, I was addressing that comment by pointing out it implies the company is equipped to work with telecommuters but sees telecommuting as a disadvantage.

> Tell that to Red Hat. A big majority of their development positions (if not all) are remote.

Red Hat is a great example of a company whose unique business model lets them rely heavily on remote developers. It's unsurprising given the work they do: they take existing open-source software and package it, maintain it, and support it. This is work that can be largely done independently. They don't write OSes like the biggest software giants do - they keep the lights running for Linux, the FOSS community's shared OS.

Red Hat is an open-source utility company, and their margins (~10% - one of the lowest in software) reflect that. Few think there's room for many such large companies, given that Red Hat has only just hit $1b in revenue last year (woohoo!).

[raverbashing]

>The company under discussion at Google. They're great at hiring, at least by their metrics

Yes, I know about the context. "At least by their metrics" which can be good, but certainly not great. To be fair they have a never ending flood of candidates and have to deal with that.

But the main issue is that it only gets candidates with a very narrow set of skills.

"it implies the company is equipped to work with telecommuters but sees telecommuting as a disadvantage"

Not necessarily, it can be a one-off setup for the few telecommuters.

"It's unsurprising given the work they do: they take existing open-source software and package it, maintain it, and support it. This is work that can be largely done independently. They don't write OSes like the biggest software giants do - they keep the lights running for Linux, the FOSS community's shared OS."

You are underestimating heavily what Red Hat does. Especially the amount of development that goes there.