I get a lot of companies approaching me in crisis as their lack of Ruby Developers are a having a serious impact on business. I've got a stable of decent vetted remote developers so I usually have a conversation about remote workers. While often early stage companies are receptive to it, often larger companies cite the following objections :
- it goes against their established culture, they don't feel a remote team will be able to bounce ideas of each other as they would in a collaborative workspace. -they worry that current onsite employees will start demanding to work from home -they don't trust remote developers and associate remote work with the 'my offshore team in Asia' type mass emails (not that there is anything wrong with asain teams, it's just hard to tell who's legitimately good). Also I've heard of clients getting scammed on odesk. -they worry that remote workers will slack off. However, my experience is that if done right: -by hiring people that thrive working remotely and have communication skills down (as well as the tech lead/cto being very good at ensuring there are no communication black spots) you can have very good synergy (I hate that word) from proper use of skype/irc/google hangout. -some people work better from home, having the cat about and their other half bring them cups of tea, being able to pick up the kids from school and not commuting 3 hours a day. Good remote workers will be working out how to solver your business solutions while their in the shower. -any developer who slacks off is no good for business, onsite or remote. You shouldn't have to have people onsite to keep them focused. The vast majority of remote developers I've worked with have been very professional and the proof is in their output. I realise that clients do worry about this so I've given extended rebate periods so they can make sure that it's properly working before they commit to it. I've never had to enact a rebate so far for a remote developer (touches wood) -there are a lot of chancers who will claim to be better then they are so I guess it takes an experienced Ruby recruiter with a large network built up over years to separate the wheat from the chaff ;) Best, Louis Sent from my Nokia 3310. 07449324851 Skype/Gtalk: [email protected] Original Message From: Ian Moss Sent: Sunday, 13 April 2014 19:56 To: [email protected] Reply To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NWRUG] The Skinny (Music/Culture Magazine) looking for RoR Developer Well, it's basically that if they want two (or more) developers to join their team of x people - probably 6 or more. And are happy already to take remote developers already, why not take 2 experienced remote developers. Who are co-located, and quite possibly already used to working together in a team. Thus, reducing the risk of having a solo developer, who maybe could struggle solo, or just need to pair for some time, and therefore getting more from return on the investment you pay for a developer. (DHH's Remote is on the list to read one day, and could help you / others see the advantage of working in such a manner) Myself, as a developer who'se worked on many start-ups for clients (with references) and has an entrepreneurial and problem solving attitude, can build teams, and project manage them. Is a friendly, approachable chap, and actually competitively priced with your locally sourced team in London / SF / NYC. I'd be working with other Manchester developers who like working in teams, that I've already worked with, over the last 15+ years, or new developers. I've very recently worked with another experienced developer in a pairing capacity, who I'd not worked with before, and found it to both be very productive and a good experience for both of us. (Reference available) I'm currently looking for others who are friendly, and have recent experience of working in teams ie. good communication with other team-members, to work together closely in some capacity. Strongly prefer those with full life-cycle, team experience i.e. maybe you've worked in a consultancy and not only developed, but helped with winning work. No, not read that book. Sorry. There's rarely enough time in recent years. Please do expand over what you felt was good & perhaps summarise what you learnt, with examples of how you applied it. Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend, and hope to see a few people on Thursday for Slaw's talk. -- Ian Moss - http://196Destinations.com live your travel dreams - http://twitter.com/oceanician - http://startupdigest.com/manchester - http://www.linkedin.com/in/alteris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NWRUG" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NWRUG" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
