Remote Development is the Future of Tech

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Black Tortoise, Mar 2, 2019.

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  1. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    Yeah they seem pretty happy about it *shrugs*.
    We will see how it will work out.
     
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  2. Lesni

    Lesni Avatar

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    LOL
    Nothing to worry about...
    How many of you play SOTA from the office?
    (I'm excluded because I do.)
    Almost all of you play at home or remotely.
     
  3. Earl Atogrim von Draken

    Earl Atogrim von Draken Avatar

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    And your point is?
    Because i didn't say nothing to worry about.
     
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  4. Winfield

    Winfield Legend of the Hearth

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    I solely play SotA at home. Never at the office.

    I think the Devs are in a good place with their remote-working plan. Reducing costs with such creativity enables use of funds for more productive things, even advertising! Lower costs - more funds for advertising - more people find out about SotA - more people play the game - more income to the game - more development/advertising - more people find out - more people play ... rinse/repeat.

    Huzzah!
     
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  5. Greyfox

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    Results will speak for themselves in a few months. Spin how you want but this could very well be the final nail. A damn shame too after all the promises.
     
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  6. golruul

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    In theory this is great, but what I've found is, with huge corporations at least, once they figure out you don't need to be in the office to do your job, they also soon figure out that it's much cheaper to hire someone in another country to do that job.

    Yeah, quality usually tanks, but they don't really care about that. All they see is that it's cheaper.

    They'll still keep Leads to coordinate everything stateside and to communicate with stakeholders.
     
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  7. Floors

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    Once you've worked at home long enough, you start wanting to go into the office for some social interation and just to get out of your house. Cabin Fever.
     
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  8. Retlaw

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    Anyone who thinks this is a bad idea or is the "final nail" is crazy.

    My wife works at a company for 5 years of their 12 year existence that has always used this model. I don't disagree it will take some time to figure out what will work best for the team, but here is what she does to give some of you an idea of what "work at home" could actually look like.

    First they do have a city where the company HQ is registered for taxes. PO box for mailing. Company needs to be registered in other states that have remote employees. I don't know all the details but it is much more complicated than "ok, everyone go work from home now".

    Every Monday at 10am she has a one hour long company wide voice meeting to talk about what is going on with everyone, get marching orders, clear up inter department issues, etc. Given you might not care what others are doing but it keeps everyone in the loop.

    10am to 3pm is what they call "core hours". Everyone will log into the watercooler, basically a self hosted chat system. They all know between these hours you can collaborate with each other with either a direct message, voice chat, or video chat (which supports screen share). Plan accordingly.

    The other 3 hours is flex time, so you can do a 9-5 day or 7-3 or whatever. Need some extra time on Friday for your kids party, put in a 11 hour Thursday. You get the idea.

    Every Friday they have a half hour long video chat meeting by department, team, group at 2pm to see where everyone is in their work. This gives leads or management an idea of how things are going and then the opportunity to address stuff at the next Monday voice meeting.

    Once a year they have a retreat where everyone meets up in person for a couple days at somewhere fun.

    It's not run like a slacker consultant job where you bill for double the actual work time because the company is loaded and doesn't know better. All positions are salary and you are expected to perform as needed. Its not for everyone, and I'll be the first to admit the lower tier positions do get a lot of turnover. But overall works well and I think if Port invests some time figuring this out the old brick and mortar office could permanently be a thing of the past.
     
  9. Black Tortoise

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    Id like to understand your concerns. Why is it not good at all? What are your big concerns?


    It is the nature of the maker to need large blocks of uninterrupted time to maintain an acceptable level of productivity. Makers tend to collaborate for a few minutes each morning. There are excellent tools for pair programming remotely these days, though I would assume this team does the occasional digital meeting, daily standups, and then just works in the zone all day.

    They do! :)


    In the last telethon, they announced a fully nomadic / remote development team.

    I am praising them for this progressive change, as its badass, and part of the wave of the future I want to live in.

    There is a lot of resistance to remote work still in the corporate culture of the west, however, as someone with lots of experience in both worlds, I know that most of that resistance is simply due to lack of familiarity with remote work. In other words, anyone unfamiliar with this work style, that happens to be very concerned, need not be - its modern, the tools for remote collaboration are matured and consumer tested, as is the developer collaboration culture. Its a cunning move by Port, and will result in happier, more productive devs, and lots of focus on advertising (new players!!!).

    Lets get ready to show the new players how great Novia is!


    If, assuming, this results in happier, more productive developers, better releases - more bug fixes and more content and system updates, and more economic bandwidth for Port, would there really be any downside to this?


    I would agree, it would be a terrible thing if a few months from now, SoTA were not around.

    Why do you think this change in their work patterns relates to that?


    Luckily, this pretty much never works out well in the world of software, and the industry has a collective consciousness that is well aware of this now. I used to make a living consulting for companies that had legacy software they depended on that was made by an outsourced overseas company. Now there are fewer and fewer of that specific niche, as fewer companies would take the risk of outsourcing software to any such lower quality market (the contrary, people are savagely obsessed with only working with their industry's best of the best).

    I cant imagine Portalarium outsourcing the development of SotA to some hazily defined squad in an opposite timezone earning ~$20 /hr. I doubt youd experience monthly iterations after that :)

    This has absolutely nothing to do with any world culture's talent, this has everything to do with the fact that cheaply sourced software development = exponential costs at some unpredictable point in the relatively near future. It happens in the USA all the time too, big companies will hire contracts at ~$30 USD and pay no benefits and ignore my advice to hire good talent, then end up with crippling performance in 9 months while they pay someone ~$275 /hr with "perks" to figure out wtf is wrong with this rube golberg machine and how to make it scale so money starts flying out the other end again?!

    so yeah, just dont outsource technology development on the cheap, ever. outsource overseas to some of the world's top talent, that you interview yourself personally, by all means :)



    This is probably a surprise to most, but one of the things I loved the most about remote work was I had tons of energy for business networking events. I went to meetups focused on my industry every week, and I had a blast drinking free beer and having munchies with random people from my industry (or working in its peripherals). The best part is I had plenty of authentic energy cuz I have a no stress work environment at home, and no one drains my social energy ever. Instead of even trying to network, I can just have the energy to hang around and it happens on its own, cuz when you work solo, chatting with random people at tech meetups is really refreshing.

    When I worked corporate / full time, the very thought of networking was exhausting. I couldnt bear talking to people. I was furious with anyone that had some super fake / pretentious approach to interacting with me (its the business world after all). I rarely went to them, pretty much only when someone famous was around then Id go to make my company happy. Id basically never have the energy to be social at a networking event if I work full time in an office.
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2019
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  10. Kain Darkmoor

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    Working home is fine. Working from home because you can't afford an office is a totally different ballgame.
     
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  11. kaeshiva

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    I work from home and if anything I find my day is -more- structured than it was when I worked in the office previously. Not only do I save commuting time but there are fewer distractions and a lot more freedom to decide when I want to eat, when I want to take a break, etc. It becomes more about 'results' and less about 'clock-watching' - and this I find works better overall.

    In the office, I have to hear about so-and-so's new boyfriend, and what so-and-so did over the weekend, I have people walking in and out needing stuff, asking for stuff, I have designated "break times" and "lunch times" regardless of if I'm at a stopping point or not, and a lot of cross-chatter that while work related is often not relevant to me or what I'm trying to accomplish.

    At home, I occasionally have a cat that demands a few minutes of petting before it will remove itself from in front of my monitor, but other than that, I'm good to go.

    I basically agree with everything you said, Winfield, except for the "put on some clothes" part. Working in Pijamas is the #1 perk.
     
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  12. kaeshiva

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    True, but there's also a difference between "not being able to afford" something, and something being a waste of money.
    Rent isn't cheap, and if they aren't getting a significant benefit from being sat in the same room, then its not a good use of backer funds.
     
  13. Asari

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    So, will Lord British have a Beam Robot in every devs home now?
     
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  14. Xee

    Xee Bug Hunter

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    Being that I work 3 days in an office and the rest remote as well for my other business 100% remote I can tell you if I was paying $10k a month for an office that is not required Id be dropping it from my expense. Its probably one of the smartest moves they could make to save on overhead costs.
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2019
  15. Feeyo

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    We will see what the future brings.
     
  16. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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  17. Chris

    Chris Tech Lord Moderator Ambassador SOTA Developer

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    Also, this right here! Was saving $8-10k a month an important factor? YES! Could we have afforded it if we thought it was needed YES! Instead, we now have an extra $8-10k to spend on advertising and people get to save 2 hours a day in traffic.
     
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  18. Bayard

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    And sometimes people only hear half the story.

    If your landlord jacked up your rent and wanted a long-term lease, you might tell them to, "Suck it.", and go remote too!

    Good for you, Port.

    Edit: I see Chris wrote the details in his daily blog. Welcome back, Chris, we missed you!
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2019
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  19. Brass Knuckles

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    Cool looking forward to seeing advertisement
     
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  20. Barugon

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    You know that there are those who will find negative in anything.
     
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