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Working Remotely as a Junior Developer

Laura Eck • June 04, 2015 • Singapore • Talk

In the video titled "Working Remotely as a Junior Developer," speaker Laura Eck shares her personal experience and insights on how junior developers can successfully work remotely. She discusses the advantages and challenges of remote work, particularly for those who are new to the field. Laura emphasizes that while it is generally more challenging for junior developers to work remotely, it is still feasible and can lead to rewarding personal and professional experiences.

Key Points Discussed:
- The Appeal of Remote Work: Remote work offers developers the freedom to choose their work environment, which can enhance job satisfaction and productivity.
- Challenges for Junior Developers: There is a prevalent belief that remote work is primarily for more experienced developers. Laura illustrates how juniors often require more guidance and support, making remote work more difficult for them.
- Negotiating Remote Work: Laura provides a step-by-step approach for juniors interested in negotiating a remote work agreement:
- Identify Benefits for the Company: Before approaching a boss, it’s essential to highlight how remote work can also be beneficial to the employer, such as increased productivity or extending operational hours due to time zone differences.
- Address Concerns: Anticipating and preparing for potential objections from management is crucial to enhance the chances of a positive response.
- Trial Runs: Conducting trial runs allows both the employee and employer to gauge the efficacy of remote arrangements without the risk of a long-term commitment.
- Proactive Communication: Maintaining frequent communication with the team is vital to ensure that a remote employee does not feel isolated and continues to be involved in both professional and casual team interactions.
- Document Everything: Proper documentation of tasks, decisions, and updates ensures that everyone is aligned, reducing miscommunication, especially across different time zones.
- Continuous Learning: Laura underscores the importance of actively seeking feedback, participating in online pair programming, and requesting code reviews to ensure learning does not stagnate.

In conclusion, Laura Eck highlights that despite the challenges faced by junior developers in remote roles, with proper preparation, proactive communication, and a focus on learning, it is possible to successfully work remotely. The experience can not only enrich the developer’s skills but also lead to improvements in company workflows, ultimately supporting a successful remote work culture.

Working Remotely as a Junior Developer
Laura Eck • June 04, 2015 • Singapore • Talk

Working remotely is one of the legendary opportunities that being a web developer brings along. The freedom to work from wherever you want is, despite certain tradeoffs, pretty awesome and something many developers enjoy.

For many less experienced developers, however, there’s a lot of open questions: Isn’t it much harder for a junior? Will I be able to learn from my co-workers when I’m remote? How the heck do I get my company to agree to this? And even if they agree, how do I make it work?

I’m going to share from personal experience how, yes, it is harder for a junior, but it’s definitely possible and can even be a great personal and professional experience. Starting out with how to negotiate a remote work agreement with your company in the first place, this talk will then continue with important issues and strategies that will help both junior devs that want to work remotely as well as their companies to make remote work a success.

Help us caption & translate this video!

http://amara.org/v/Ghc5/

Red Dot Ruby Conference 2015

00:00:19.439 hi so I managed to catch a pretty nasty
00:00:22.400 cold right in time for the conference so
00:00:25.960 we'll see how long my voice holds out
00:00:28.199 and I'll try to reduce is sniveling to a
00:00:30.759 minimum while I talk so bear with me
00:00:35.680 please all right remote
00:00:38.559 work working remotely is kind of this
00:00:41.480 legendary opportunity that you have as a
00:00:45.160 developer or really anyone working in
00:00:47.760 the digital trade like the freedom to
00:00:51.120 work from wherever you want to it's
00:00:54.120 pretty great
00:00:55.440 right and it really is I mean there are
00:00:58.879 a couple of tradeoffs there are a few
00:01:00.719 things that you have to work around when
00:01:02.719 you do so but all in all it's really a
00:01:04.720 great chance to like go places and still
00:01:07.400 earn money while you do
00:01:10.240 so there is this assumption however that
00:01:14.000 working remotely is something that you
00:01:16.479 do when you're kind of like a more
00:01:19.320 experienced programmer senior is someone
00:01:21.520 who has a couple of years of experience
00:01:23.600 doesn't really need co-workers to
00:01:26.119 support them that much and it's not
00:01:28.520 really something you see all a lot of
00:01:30.360 Juniors doing and most companies are
00:01:32.600 also kind of worried about you know if
00:01:34.399 they have a junior that wants to go
00:01:35.759 remotely they're more like H maybe
00:01:37.280 that's not such a good
00:01:39.799 idea so my name is Laura I work as a
00:01:43.479 junior developer I also work remotely
00:01:46.439 and um today I would like to share my
00:01:49.320 story with you how that happened um how
00:01:52.680 we made it work and I'd like to share a
00:01:54.799 couple of points with you how you as a
00:01:57.719 junior developer that might want to go
00:01:59.960 remote or as a company a manager of a
00:02:03.240 junior developer that want might want to
00:02:05.039 do the same thing how you can make it
00:02:06.680 work
00:02:13.519 too so in
00:02:16.440 2013 after graduating from
00:02:19.200 University I moved to Berlin and started
00:02:22.360 working there as a junior developer for
00:02:24.560 a local startup so this is Berlin if you
00:02:28.160 photoshop it a little bit and and this
00:02:30.959 is if you don't Photoshop
00:02:34.800 it
00:02:36.480 so let's pretend this is
00:02:39.599 Berlin and um yeah so I started working
00:02:42.400 in Berlin I moved there I really liked
00:02:44.360 my work I enjoyed um what I did there my
00:02:47.200 co-workers were great and um so yeah I
00:02:49.840 worked there for a while but after about
00:02:51.840 a year or so going to the office every
00:02:54.680 day I kind of started to get bored of my
00:02:58.760 surroundings of being being in Berlin
00:03:00.400 being in Germany which is a great place
00:03:02.440 don't get me wrong but you know I'd been
00:03:05.159 back for about four or five years after
00:03:07.040 living in Bangkok for a while and um I
00:03:11.440 was just kind of starting to feel that I
00:03:13.879 wanted to be somewhere else again so I
00:03:17.200 kind of pondered this for a while and it
00:03:18.760 really boiled down to the fact that I
00:03:21.760 love my job and I didn't really want to
00:03:23.840 quit but I didn't really want to be in
00:03:26.319 Berlin anymore
00:03:27.640 either so
00:03:30.879 after I thought about it for a while
00:03:33.519 this thought popped into my
00:03:36.280 head that was well working remotely
00:03:39.319 would be the perfect solution for that
00:03:40.920 right I wouldn't have to quit my job I
00:03:42.239 could still stay with the same company
00:03:44.560 but I can also go somewhere else in that
00:03:47.120 case it would be Tokyo which is where I
00:03:48.640 wanted to
00:03:52.159 move and um right after that there was a
00:03:55.239 second thought there was like well can I
00:03:58.159 actually do that I mean I'm a junior
00:03:59.879 developer I don't have that much
00:04:02.000 experience like is that possible can I
00:04:04.519 like can I do that will that work at all
00:04:06.599 and how the hell do I get my company to
00:04:08.159 agree to
00:04:11.239 that so after thinking about it for a
00:04:13.840 little bit I finally decided to talk to
00:04:16.560 my boss about it because I mean the
00:04:18.199 worst thing he could say was no
00:04:20.720 right and um if you decide to do the
00:04:24.960 same thing I have two points that I did
00:04:28.560 before talking to my boss and I really
00:04:30.360 recommend that you do those too because
00:04:32.600 I think that were really something that
00:04:35.280 things that helped me to get to yes
00:04:36.800 after all or at least on the right way
00:04:38.720 to a
00:04:41.759 yes number
00:04:43.759 one find benefits for the
00:04:46.720 company if you just walk up to your BS
00:04:50.320 and go like well you know I want to go
00:04:52.560 remote because I really want to that
00:04:55.440 might be true but it's not a very good
00:04:57.080 argument like you know they might say
00:04:59.280 like well but what's what like what's in
00:05:00.840 that for us like why why why we should
00:05:02.759 we allow that so actually think about
00:05:06.160 something that like in you being remote
00:05:09.080 would actually benefit the company as
00:05:10.600 well there could be anything from for
00:05:13.039 example like I'm more productive when
00:05:14.800 I'm not in the office with a lot of
00:05:16.160 people around me that bother me all the
00:05:17.800 time or you won't have to actually find
00:05:22.000 hire and train a new
00:05:23.479 developer if you decide that you're
00:05:25.479 actually going to leave the company if
00:05:26.639 they don't allow you to work remotely
00:05:28.840 but don't just make some something up
00:05:30.360 like make it something that is actually
00:05:32.639 true um and in my case one of the things
00:05:35.080 that I used was if I actually go to live
00:05:37.000 in Tokyo due to the time difference we
00:05:39.560 will have a longer time frame where
00:05:41.639 people are actually awakened online so
00:05:44.000 that we can immediately fix stuff as it
00:05:46.039 comes
00:05:48.440 up and that way you you show right away
00:05:52.160 that you a thought about it and you'll
00:05:54.199 be not only interested in your own
00:05:55.639 benefits but actually also think about
00:05:57.319 what's good for the company as well
00:06:04.160 second prepare to address their concerns
00:06:06.960 before you show up and talk to your boss
00:06:09.479 about it actually you know there's a
00:06:12.160 really high probability that that they
00:06:13.880 will have some concerns or they they
00:06:15.639 will come up with some objections they
00:06:17.639 will worry about something about you
00:06:19.680 going remote so before you actually talk
00:06:21.639 to them go and research common
00:06:24.319 objections common concerns about you
00:06:26.199 know that come up in remote work
00:06:28.560 negotiations and find answers to
00:06:31.599 that so when they come up like in the
00:06:34.280 negotiation itself or when you talk to
00:06:36.479 them and this question comes up you can
00:06:38.800 actually answer in a way that's a
00:06:40.919 reassuring and B shows them you thought
00:06:43.120 about it and like you know you have a
00:06:45.560 solution to that issue if it comes up or
00:06:47.759 you have like a way to avoid that issue
00:06:50.960 like actually showing up and a couple of
00:06:53.639 the points that I'm going to make in a
00:06:55.720 bit might help you to answer those
00:06:57.919 questions as well so stay tuned for
00:07:02.000 those so after preparing that way I
00:07:06.360 finally walked up to my boss you know I
00:07:08.319 was a bit nervous so I walked up and I
00:07:10.039 kind of tried to catch him in a moment
00:07:11.680 when he was not super stressed and not
00:07:13.840 super busy that's actually important to
00:07:15.840 you wouldn't believe how many people
00:07:17.199 actually come up to you and you know
00:07:18.720 when you're like in work until here and
00:07:20.479 you look super stressed and they go like
00:07:21.960 hey can I talk to you like I want
00:07:23.199 something and I was like yeah that's not
00:07:24.360 a good idea catch them when they when
00:07:26.240 they're like relaxed and in a good
00:07:28.520 mood so I asked him for half an hour of
00:07:31.199 his time and I you know was like okay um
00:07:34.560 so I really enjoy working in this
00:07:36.759 company and I would like to continue
00:07:39.560 doing so but I also would really like to
00:07:42.000 move to
00:07:43.560 Tokyo and he was a bit surprised like he
00:07:46.240 wasn't super thrilled in the beginning
00:07:48.280 probably also due to the fact that I
00:07:51.120 would have been the first person in the
00:07:52.919 whole startup that went remote like we
00:07:54.720 didn't have any other person working
00:07:56.120 remotely at that time and meia Junior on
00:07:58.720 top of that
00:08:00.680 but he listened to what I had to say and
00:08:02.840 because I had answers to most of his
00:08:04.639 questions he was willing to think about
00:08:07.039 it and he just asked me for like a week
00:08:09.840 or two of you know time to consider and
00:08:12.240 he would come back to me after
00:08:16.199 that so after a while he did come back
00:08:18.919 to me and was like Laura you know let's
00:08:21.319 talk about this remote thing again I
00:08:22.720 wouldn't talk about that and I was a bit
00:08:24.479 you know like okay what's he going to
00:08:25.639 say now is he going to say yes is he
00:08:27.000 going to say no is he going to fire me I
00:08:28.680 had no idea
00:08:30.479 but it turns out that he wasn't
00:08:32.959 generally opposed to the idea of me
00:08:35.279 going remote but he was worried about
00:08:37.560 the
00:08:38.399 risk that we would only find out
00:08:42.200 afterwards like after I had moved to
00:08:44.640 Tokyo that this whole remote thing
00:08:46.920 wouldn't work out after all that would
00:08:48.959 have been a problem so we sat down
00:08:50.920 together and tried to figure out a way
00:08:53.480 how to minimize that risk which is my
00:08:56.680 next point
00:09:00.200 do a trial
00:09:01.800 run this is something that makes sense
00:09:04.079 for you as a junior who wants to go
00:09:05.800 remote if you haven't done it before and
00:09:08.200 for the
00:09:09.120 company because it will lower your risk
00:09:11.839 so what you do is a trial run where you
00:09:14.399 try out the whole remote working thing
00:09:16.360 without the person actually moving to
00:09:18.360 another
00:09:19.800 country so in my case we did it in two
00:09:22.920 steps in the first step I worked from
00:09:26.519 home from home office for one week at
00:09:28.320 regular German office hour so we were
00:09:30.440 working at the same time so we could
00:09:32.519 focus exclusively on the issues that
00:09:34.480 would come
00:09:35.519 up um because I wouldn't be physically
00:09:39.200 there and then in the second step we
00:09:42.279 faked me being in the Japanese time zone
00:09:44.640 that means for two weeks I worked from
00:09:46.120 home as well but every day from 4:00
00:09:47.760 a.m. in the morning until 12:00
00:09:50.800 noon that took a bit to get used to but
00:09:54.040 it was actually very good because that
00:09:56.000 way we could figure out how to you know
00:09:58.680 get around the issues that would come up
00:10:01.399 due to this time
00:10:04.560 difference
00:10:07.320 so the important thing about this trial
00:10:10.720 run is this this is the time when you
00:10:12.680 want problems to appear you expect them
00:10:15.800 to show up and you you iterate like you
00:10:18.360 you find a problem you try to solve it
00:10:19.959 you try to make it better then you
00:10:22.399 iterate so in the end you can actually
00:10:24.480 like make your work flow smoother and
00:10:27.360 not just blow the whole thing off
00:10:28.720 because it's like oh there's a problem
00:10:30.040 obviously the whole remote thing doesn't
00:10:33.399 work so after doing this trial run for
00:10:36.480 three weeks we had a meeting like we all
00:10:37.920 met up and it turns out that it all went
00:10:40.079 a lot smoother than we really had
00:10:43.040 expected and my co-workers were didn't
00:10:47.120 have a problem with me going remote at
00:10:48.639 that point because they had seen that we
00:10:50.240 could make it work my boss didn't have
00:10:52.680 any objections anymore
00:10:54.680 either and there I have my yes
00:11:03.399 so a couple of months later actually
00:11:05.480 last year in
00:11:07.279 October I moved to
00:11:09.720 Tokyo and after taking some time to you
00:11:12.920 know Orient myself and like finding a
00:11:15.160 place and
00:11:16.399 everything I started working from there
00:11:20.040 remotely I like you know sometimes from
00:11:22.360 home sometimes coffee shops or in
00:11:23.880 co-working spaces and I really enjoyed
00:11:25.720 being in Tokyo I liked um you know to
00:11:28.480 free them that working remotely gave me
00:11:30.800 even though like sometimes I missed my
00:11:32.200 co-workers but it was still really
00:11:35.360 nice and um we did have a couple of
00:11:38.600 small issues coming up but the two major
00:11:41.480 things that we figured out during the
00:11:43.320 trial run really helped immensely to
00:11:45.760 make stuff go Fairly smoothly right from
00:11:48.160 the beginning and that's why I'd like to
00:11:50.480 share those two things with you as
00:11:54.959 well communicate proactively this pretty
00:11:57.480 much sounds like a no-brainer but if you
00:11:59.680 think about it I mean it's not only that
00:12:01.200 you're not especially when you're in a
00:12:02.600 different time zone it's not only that
00:12:04.560 you're not always part of all the work
00:12:06.720 related conversations or meetings it's
00:12:09.760 also that you're not like a part of all
00:12:11.800 the Casual conversations like you know
00:12:13.560 when people work together in an office
00:12:15.199 they meet in front of the coffee machine
00:12:17.160 they go for lunch together you're not
00:12:20.079 there so you really have to make sure
00:12:22.399 proactively have to make sure that you
00:12:24.639 don't disappear from your team's Horizon
00:12:26.800 that you you know fall over the edge and
00:12:28.480 people and think about
00:12:30.199 anymore so if you have daily standups
00:12:33.959 like my team does that kind of covers it
00:12:37.560 like so you have actually you have
00:12:39.160 contact with them every day anyway if
00:12:41.920 you
00:12:42.880 don't really do make sure that you have
00:12:46.600 a a way to touch base like on a regular
00:12:49.800 basis and not only like not only
00:12:52.240 professional stuff like doesn't hurt if
00:12:53.760 you just like chat with people once in a
00:12:55.480 while or like Skype call and just like
00:12:57.079 figure out oh how's it going and stuff
00:12:59.720 just the same way you would do if you
00:13:01.120 were to meet them in the
00:13:05.440 office and this is really like don't
00:13:08.199 you're the person that's remote so don't
00:13:10.120 wait for them to reach out to you you
00:13:11.920 want to be really proactive about that
00:13:13.800 and try to touch bases often as
00:13:22.440 possible documentation writing things
00:13:25.240 down this kind of goes hand inand with
00:13:27.880 what I said before and but it's
00:13:29.440 especially important if you're not in
00:13:30.760 the same time zone so Japan is currently
00:13:33.639 7 hours ahead of
00:13:35.399 Germany that means it's pretty okay for
00:13:37.920 my team in Berlin because their morning
00:13:40.880 is my late afternoon thereabouts that
00:13:44.600 means when we do a stand up in their
00:13:46.160 morning the first thing they get is an
00:13:48.360 update from what I did during the day
00:13:50.160 and they can just hand off stuff to them
00:13:52.160 but after I sign off if they decide
00:13:54.880 something and they don't write it down I
00:13:57.519 don't see it the next morning I will
00:13:58.800 only hear about it when I talk to them
00:14:00.519 again in my evening and we actually had
00:14:03.560 that happening once where they in the
00:14:05.680 beginning they kind of decided you know
00:14:07.759 to change an approach how to build a
00:14:09.800 feature and did they forgot to write it
00:14:12.600 down I didn't know about it and I kind
00:14:14.759 of ended up working on something for a
00:14:16.360 whole day that we had to throw away
00:14:17.759 afterwards just because I didn't you
00:14:19.480 know there was no way how I could have
00:14:21.639 known in
00:14:23.320 advance and it's something you can
00:14:25.959 really avoid doing and in fact it
00:14:27.920 actually it actually ended up improving
00:14:31.079 my company's development workflows
00:14:33.120 because like that we suddenly had to be
00:14:35.199 a lot stricter about stuff right like we
00:14:37.079 had to actually properly assign tickets
00:14:40.240 or like you know GitHub issues like
00:14:42.120 write proper commit messages because you
00:14:43.959 can't just show up and ask like what
00:14:45.399 what the hell is that right and actually
00:14:49.000 like if you make decisions write them
00:14:50.440 down so people can everybody is informed
00:14:52.560 people can revisit
00:14:54.240 them so that was a actually a very nice
00:14:57.279 side effect
00:15:01.639 and there is one more thing that as a
00:15:04.800 junior who works remotely you probably
00:15:07.519 ask yourself or at least I did and that
00:15:11.720 is like how do you actually keep
00:15:15.000 learning and improving when you're not
00:15:17.360 around your co-workers all the time who
00:15:19.680 might like you know this is a very real
00:15:21.600 issue as a junior developer because
00:15:23.120 you're at a part in your career where
00:15:25.320 you're maybe not a complete beginner
00:15:28.639 anymore
00:15:30.240 but you still need you know guidance or
00:15:32.639 like you know support from your
00:15:34.120 co-workers and like on a fairly regular
00:15:36.480 basis and you still need to learn a lot
00:15:38.279 about the technologies that you're
00:15:40.440 working
00:15:41.480 with and um you really want to do that
00:15:45.319 because like this is not only you who
00:15:46.839 has a stake in that you don't it's not
00:15:48.600 only you who has a stake in becoming
00:15:50.279 better as fast as possible or at least
00:15:53.079 you should have but your company does
00:15:56.920 too so
00:16:00.839 do take a very very active approach to
00:16:04.079 make sure your improvement gets at least
00:16:08.000 as much attention as it would if you
00:16:09.680 were physically in the
00:16:11.560 office like do ask your pro your
00:16:14.120 co-workers for um pair programming I
00:16:17.759 mean like online pair programming is not
00:16:19.639 quite as convenient as um you know
00:16:22.440 physical pair program where you actually
00:16:24.199 sit next to each other but there are a
00:16:26.399 lot of tools out there for that so it's
00:16:28.120 definitely possible
00:16:29.440 it's very important you can learn a lot
00:16:31.160 so try it out and see if you can make it
00:16:34.480 work ask for code reviews and really
00:16:38.079 really make sure you get them because
00:16:39.480 that's also a very good way to learn
00:16:40.800 when people actually tell you okay this
00:16:42.360 is a part of your code that you could
00:16:44.440 write better in this and that
00:16:46.959 way and
00:16:49.480 um you can really do it in whatever way
00:16:52.480 you want but like something I've made
00:16:54.399 good experiences with or like me and my
00:16:57.240 team have is like the pretty regular
00:17:00.199 thing like the reviewer actually
00:17:01.720 commenting on your polar requests on
00:17:03.319 GitHub and then at s time or after that
00:17:06.319 um doing a Skype call where they
00:17:09.039 actually explain okay this is what I
00:17:10.880 meant and then you go through it
00:17:12.199 together and they will you know tell you
00:17:13.839 okay this is how you can do it
00:17:16.760 better and yeah pretty much like you
00:17:20.480 would um if you were in the office but
00:17:23.520 with the internet in
00:17:25.360 between also ask for General feedback
00:17:28.319 General feed back in the sense of like
00:17:31.160 your work performance since you are
00:17:33.720 since you kind of change to remote or
00:17:36.960 stuff that you could do better and do
00:17:38.600 the same for them like let them know if
00:17:40.160 there's something they can
00:17:43.039 do excuse me if there's something they
00:17:45.960 can do to make things more smoothly for
00:17:49.240 you and for
00:17:57.120 them so let's recap those points that um
00:18:00.440 will actually help you to successfully
00:18:02.720 negotiate a remote working agreement and
00:18:05.559 then after your remote to make it run
00:18:07.360 more
00:18:09.120 smoothly benefits come up with benefits
00:18:11.640 for the company that are like connected
00:18:14.559 to you being remote before you actually
00:18:17.280 talk to your
00:18:18.520 boss and prepare to address the concerns
00:18:21.520 that they might
00:18:25.720 have suggest a trial run and actually do
00:18:29.559 it before going remote this is a very
00:18:31.919 good way to find out about problems or
00:18:34.880 possible issues and fix them in a very
00:18:37.360 cheap and low-risk way it's also a good
00:18:40.039 a good thing if your your boss is a bit
00:18:42.200 reluctant like would this really work I
00:18:44.080 don't think it works and you can say
00:18:45.520 okay let's do this for two weeks or
00:18:47.120 three weeks and see if it works because
00:18:48.840 there's nothing lost if I work from my
00:18:51.039 home for for three
00:18:55.280 weeks communicate I don't think I need
00:18:57.679 to get the deeper into that it's pretty
00:19:01.320 self-explanatory document things write
00:19:03.760 things down so everybody knows what's
00:19:05.520 going on and can check back at all
00:19:10.200 times and definitely ask for feedback
00:19:12.799 feedback in form of code reviews learn
00:19:16.039 um learning like code reviews pair
00:19:19.919 programming is also kind of like very
00:19:21.760 direct feedback but like get as much of
00:19:24.000 as you
00:19:26.960 can so after after all of this let me
00:19:30.280 say one thing I do still think it's
00:19:33.159 harder for a junior to work remotely
00:19:35.520 simply because of the difference in
00:19:37.960 experience that you would have as a more
00:19:40.440 senior programmer as a junior you're
00:19:42.200 just simply more like more inexperienced
00:19:44.960 and that is a thing that is more
00:19:47.960 difficult but it's definitely possible
00:19:51.240 and it can even be a very good um
00:19:53.280 personal and professional
00:19:55.080 experience so I learned a lot while
00:19:57.240 doing it we even improved my company's
00:19:59.440 um workflow and a development workflow
00:20:02.600 while doing it and
00:20:06.679 um don't just jump into it like take
00:20:09.720 your time to prepare for it and if you
00:20:12.960 do that I'm convinced that you can
00:20:14.760 absolutely make it work for you and your
00:20:16.600 company to in a very successful
00:20:23.520 way I'm happy to answer any questions
00:20:26.480 you might have uh now or later thank
00:20:37.360 you uh what kind of tool communication
00:20:39.960 tools do you use for making sure you're
00:20:42.320 in touch with your team and stuff like
00:20:45.360 um pretty much regular I mean obviously
00:20:47.480 GitHub like comments and stuff we do
00:20:49.320 Skype calls for the standups we have
00:20:52.039 slack to write stuff down like we have
00:20:54.640 different Channel we have a channel like
00:20:56.000 for decisions that were made and like
00:20:57.679 you know what whatever comes up this is
00:21:00.440 pretty much it we do some emailing but
00:21:02.240 mostly it's Skype slack and
00:21:04.080 GitHub cool thank does that answer the
00:21:06.240 question yeah yeah thank you hi um how
00:21:09.400 long have you been doing it
00:21:10.720 now I'm sorry how long have you been
00:21:12.840 doing remote I've been remote since
00:21:16.080 October last year so it's been about six
00:21:18.840 months has anyone else in your company
00:21:20.760 started doing have asked to do the same
00:21:23.480 thing um since I started going remote a
00:21:26.840 couple of the other developers started
00:21:28.640 going remote not completely but
00:21:30.120 occasionally so for example um one of my
00:21:32.960 co-workers has family in Poland so once
00:21:34.720 in a while he'll just go over and work
00:21:36.840 there for two weeks or something like
00:21:38.840 that because now we already have the
00:21:40.320 processes established so it became a lot
00:21:43.640 easier and in fact we hired a a a
00:21:46.480 contractor for a while who was sitting
00:21:48.039 in the states which we never did before
00:21:50.480 because we just didn't know how to deal
00:21:52.240 with people who were
00:21:54.559 remote so it's actually made it easier
00:21:56.559 for your company to employ people
00:22:01.000 yes great thank you so much Laura if you
00:22:03.520 guys have any more questions for her you
00:22:04.840 can catch her during the break
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