Remote work, is it good or bad?
Hello. In this article I would like to share my thoughts about remote work. Yes, yes, yes, there are already hundreds of these materials, again another garbage ... , but I think that my thoughts will not take up too much space on the Habr servers, and the decision about the time spent and efforts is made voluntarily.
I worked remotely for quite a long time (4 years), and had a lot of work in offices (about 3 years), here I would like to talk about the pros and cons of remote work for a programmer.
I think that the stereotype of a remote player lying on the beach with a laptop has long been debunked, but still I would like to talk with you about why remote work is good / bad.
')
At first glance, the market plays into the hands of office work, but is it all so simple? Yes, of course, for residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Minsk, Kiev, Kharkov, and other (not all) millionaires, the choice of work is quite large. Especially programmers of the two capitals of Russia can sense an abundance of vacancies and companies. But residents of regional cities with a population of 500 thousand, no longer have to grasp the long lists of vacancies from local companies. There is already either move or work remotely, or look for something in your city. And if you look at My Circle , then on January 14 you can see the total number of vacancies in 941 pieces, and with the mark “Can be remotely” 384 , which is 40.81 % of the total number of vacancies. Pretty good, isn't it?
It would seem that for lovers of work from home 40.81% is a good indicator. But it is understood that there are several factors to consider.
For example:
There is a category of people who work more productively in an office because there is some (often imaginary) “oversight”. Those. it is just easier for a person to make himself work in an office, because he has a whip in the form of an illusion that someone is constantly looking at his monitor. Of course this is far from the case. Often, many people do not care what you do, the main thing is that the work was done efficiently and on time.
I believe that the problem of productivity working at home is a problem of an individual person and not an approach in general. After all, if it is difficult for a person to make himself work without a “stick”, then he must look for a problem. Search and work on its elimination.
It can be:
It is especially sad if a person has several obstacles of high productivity at the same time.
A lot has been written about the problem of productivity and concentration, there are books on this topic. First of all, in my opinion, if you decide to make bread from home, then in the absence of understanding among the household of what you are at work, you need to talk about it.
The best option is a separate office for work, which you can close and arrange with your family that “I am not at home”.
If the problem of productivity lies in the employee himself, then the simplest thing to say about this is “pull yourself together.” You can limit yourself access to YouTube, social networks and other entertainment, but this is sad, right? If it came to blocking interfering resources, then you should understand yourself. I do not want to seem like a guru, and try to impress the reader with the wise thought of being, but I need to touch on this topic.
I heard polar opinions about the speed of development of the technical level of a specialist remotely and in the office. There is an opinion that at home you “burrow”, your growth happens very slowly, but I also heard that “all the great things were written at home in shorts, in front of the monitor”.
In my opinion here, as elsewhere - everything is individual. Yes, companies can offer advanced training courses, lively communication with colleagues can motivate you to learn new things, even the right atmosphere already creates an impulse to strive to become better.
But if there is a goal to become a good specialist, what if not self-development and self-education will affect raising the qualifications of a specialist? At the same time, by self-development I mean classes with a teacher as well. Here I mean first of all the personal aspiration of a person to raise his level.
Therefore, in my opinion, the development of a specialist directly depends on him personally. For example, I am familiar with several senior-level developers, one of them has written 2 development books in his industry, the other has run his business, everyone has been working remotely for many years (with almost all the greater part of his career built behind a home computer).
It is difficult to talk about career growth, all companies are different.
I, like most, are not master to predict whether remote work will be a trend after 5 years, or vice versa, all developers will be forced to move into megacities, it's hard to say.
In my opinion in the next 5 years - the ratio of vacancies will be similar to the current one. How this issue will be in the field of neural networks - I do not understand. By the way, I personally would be most interested in reading your opinions and studying the predictions about the future of remote work.
There is an opinion that working remotely you gradually “run wild”. Constantly finding a home is depressing, lack of communication with colleagues on professional topics and much more is a fat minus. In general, the picture is like this.
All people are different, someone is probably really extremely important live communication with like-minded people, but I personally have not yet met a single remote, with similar
problems. Now the entire population is online, the mass of sites for communication about anything, in Slack, Telegram, Gitter, there will be a chat with the technology you use.
Regarding the change of environment, no one bothers to do walks, visit the hall and various cultural institutions.
By the way, here it is appropriate to say about attending conferences. Why not? It is also useful for career growth.
In my opinion, these are problems not of the format of work, but of an individual person taken. Someone has them, someone doesn't.
Of course, everyone will determine for himself, and the question itself is incorrect. I love remote work and I enjoy working at home sometimes. I consider my remote work experience as good and glad that I have it.
Jobs work discord, I think it is obvious that a specialist can work well in an office in one company, and work poorly at home in another, and vice versa. However, if I decided to move to the remote work entirely (for example: I would move to a small city), then I would take care of a few things:
If working from home is the only source of income and this perspective is seen in the next few years, or even the whole life. First of all, you need a comfortable workplace. Investing in a computer, a comfortable chair, and even a separate office is an excellent and right decision.
Of course, not everyone can easily get out of his pocket $ 3000 to buy a super-powerful PC, multiple monitors and an expensive headset. But striving for the most comfortable working conditions is necessary. This will contribute to high performance and enjoyment of work.
Of course, stable, high-speed Internet is very important. It would seem that I’m talking about elementary things, but there are stories when it’s systematically difficult to conduct online meetings with an employee, because of the constant communication breaks at the other end. In ensuring a reliable connection, an employee should be primarily interested.
There is no possibility to communicate with a remote employee without computers, gadgets, etc. Your silence can annoy your colleagues or even worse, lead to problems due to the lack of a timely response. Sometimes, a prolonged lack of feedback can cause a similar reaction.
Nobody says that the absence of an employee behind the workplace for a short period of time is a crime. Everyone may need to retire for various reasons. It happens that you need to leave for half an hour or more, this is normal. But why not put on your smartphone applications that communicate with colleagues? Even if you are unable to fulfill the requirements or requests of colleagues, the feedback that you are notified potentially reduces the team’s stress.
You can add a lot, I tried to highlight in my opinion the most general recommendations that I would give myself first of all. No need to take the article as urgent advice, the wisdom of the guru carved on the tablets. I deliberately did not address the issues of managing remote employees, or why the employer wants or does not want to hire specialists from a distance. I did not touch on these topics, because I am not a manager, and I don’t want to write nonsense in which I don’t understand anything.
It may seem that the materials were written by a person blindly in love with remote work. I'm not saying that work at home is perfect, and going to the office is hard labor. As I said, the work of work is different. In a good office, it can be worked more comfortably and more productively than at home.
Minus this article if you consider it to be a frank nonsense, but it will be much more interesting to read the comments, why and what exactly? Thank you for your attention, good code and inspiration!
I worked remotely for quite a long time (4 years), and had a lot of work in offices (about 3 years), here I would like to talk about the pros and cons of remote work for a programmer.
I think that the stereotype of a remote player lying on the beach with a laptop has long been debunked, but still I would like to talk with you about why remote work is good / bad.
')
The first topic I would like to talk about (probably one of the most important) is the market.
At first glance, the market plays into the hands of office work, but is it all so simple? Yes, of course, for residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Minsk, Kiev, Kharkov, and other (not all) millionaires, the choice of work is quite large. Especially programmers of the two capitals of Russia can sense an abundance of vacancies and companies. But residents of regional cities with a population of 500 thousand, no longer have to grasp the long lists of vacancies from local companies. There is already either move or work remotely, or look for something in your city. And if you look at My Circle , then on January 14 you can see the total number of vacancies in 941 pieces, and with the mark “Can be remotely” 384 , which is 40.81 % of the total number of vacancies. Pretty good, isn't it?
It would seem that for lovers of work from home 40.81% is a good indicator. But it is understood that there are several factors to consider.
For example:
- It is logical to assume that the competition for jobs with a remote potentially higher.
- Most of the programmers working in the office are ready to consider the option of remote work.
- Due to the lack of attachment to the location, the number of candidates is increasing.
- It is believed that the lead is difficult to find a remote job. I did not come across this, but as for Senior, for such a level of developers, I constantly observe vacancies.
- Companies "Giants" can afford to choose the best personnel and transport them to him. Accordingly, if you want to work in Google, then most likely, the remote is not for you.
Although in one podcast (I don’t remember where exactly), I heard about a Go-developer working remotely at Yandex. So maybe not so simple. - On the remote is less salary. There is such an opinion. I will not argue or try to refute it. Difficult question on which, everyone has their own opinion.
Productivity
There is a category of people who work more productively in an office because there is some (often imaginary) “oversight”. Those. it is just easier for a person to make himself work in an office, because he has a whip in the form of an illusion that someone is constantly looking at his monitor. Of course this is far from the case. Often, many people do not care what you do, the main thing is that the work was done efficiently and on time.
I believe that the problem of productivity working at home is a problem of an individual person and not an approach in general. After all, if it is difficult for a person to make himself work without a “stick”, then he must look for a problem. Search and work on its elimination.
It can be:
- lack of willpower
- distractions
- the thought that you are “at home” with you, or with your family members, and therefore constant distractions from work
- bad internet, computer, lack of components for work (this also occurs)
- much more (if you have something to add, write comments)
It is especially sad if a person has several obstacles of high productivity at the same time.
A lot has been written about the problem of productivity and concentration, there are books on this topic. First of all, in my opinion, if you decide to make bread from home, then in the absence of understanding among the household of what you are at work, you need to talk about it.
The best option is a separate office for work, which you can close and arrange with your family that “I am not at home”.
If the problem of productivity lies in the employee himself, then the simplest thing to say about this is “pull yourself together.” You can limit yourself access to YouTube, social networks and other entertainment, but this is sad, right? If it came to blocking interfering resources, then you should understand yourself. I do not want to seem like a guru, and try to impress the reader with the wise thought of being, but I need to touch on this topic.
Development
I heard polar opinions about the speed of development of the technical level of a specialist remotely and in the office. There is an opinion that at home you “burrow”, your growth happens very slowly, but I also heard that “all the great things were written at home in shorts, in front of the monitor”.
In my opinion here, as elsewhere - everything is individual. Yes, companies can offer advanced training courses, lively communication with colleagues can motivate you to learn new things, even the right atmosphere already creates an impulse to strive to become better.
But if there is a goal to become a good specialist, what if not self-development and self-education will affect raising the qualifications of a specialist? At the same time, by self-development I mean classes with a teacher as well. Here I mean first of all the personal aspiration of a person to raise his level.
Therefore, in my opinion, the development of a specialist directly depends on him personally. For example, I am familiar with several senior-level developers, one of them has written 2 development books in his industry, the other has run his business, everyone has been working remotely for many years (with almost all the greater part of his career built behind a home computer).
It is difficult to talk about career growth, all companies are different.
Perspectives
I, like most, are not master to predict whether remote work will be a trend after 5 years, or vice versa, all developers will be forced to move into megacities, it's hard to say.
In my opinion in the next 5 years - the ratio of vacancies will be similar to the current one. How this issue will be in the field of neural networks - I do not understand. By the way, I personally would be most interested in reading your opinions and studying the predictions about the future of remote work.
Loneliness
There is an opinion that working remotely you gradually “run wild”. Constantly finding a home is depressing, lack of communication with colleagues on professional topics and much more is a fat minus. In general, the picture is like this.
All people are different, someone is probably really extremely important live communication with like-minded people, but I personally have not yet met a single remote, with similar
problems. Now the entire population is online, the mass of sites for communication about anything, in Slack, Telegram, Gitter, there will be a chat with the technology you use.
Regarding the change of environment, no one bothers to do walks, visit the hall and various cultural institutions.
By the way, here it is appropriate to say about attending conferences. Why not? It is also useful for career growth.
In my opinion, these are problems not of the format of work, but of an individual person taken. Someone has them, someone doesn't.
Is remote work good or bad?
Of course, everyone will determine for himself, and the question itself is incorrect. I love remote work and I enjoy working at home sometimes. I consider my remote work experience as good and glad that I have it.
Jobs work discord, I think it is obvious that a specialist can work well in an office in one company, and work poorly at home in another, and vice versa. However, if I decided to move to the remote work entirely (for example: I would move to a small city), then I would take care of a few things:
Need to take care of your workplace
If working from home is the only source of income and this perspective is seen in the next few years, or even the whole life. First of all, you need a comfortable workplace. Investing in a computer, a comfortable chair, and even a separate office is an excellent and right decision.
Of course, not everyone can easily get out of his pocket $ 3000 to buy a super-powerful PC, multiple monitors and an expensive headset. But striving for the most comfortable working conditions is necessary. This will contribute to high performance and enjoyment of work.
Reliable connection with the world
Of course, stable, high-speed Internet is very important. It would seem that I’m talking about elementary things, but there are stories when it’s systematically difficult to conduct online meetings with an employee, because of the constant communication breaks at the other end. In ensuring a reliable connection, an employee should be primarily interested.
Fast reaction
There is no possibility to communicate with a remote employee without computers, gadgets, etc. Your silence can annoy your colleagues or even worse, lead to problems due to the lack of a timely response. Sometimes, a prolonged lack of feedback can cause a similar reaction.
Nobody says that the absence of an employee behind the workplace for a short period of time is a crime. Everyone may need to retire for various reasons. It happens that you need to leave for half an hour or more, this is normal. But why not put on your smartphone applications that communicate with colleagues? Even if you are unable to fulfill the requirements or requests of colleagues, the feedback that you are notified potentially reduces the team’s stress.
Finally
You can add a lot, I tried to highlight in my opinion the most general recommendations that I would give myself first of all. No need to take the article as urgent advice, the wisdom of the guru carved on the tablets. I deliberately did not address the issues of managing remote employees, or why the employer wants or does not want to hire specialists from a distance. I did not touch on these topics, because I am not a manager, and I don’t want to write nonsense in which I don’t understand anything.
It may seem that the materials were written by a person blindly in love with remote work. I'm not saying that work at home is perfect, and going to the office is hard labor. As I said, the work of work is different. In a good office, it can be worked more comfortably and more productively than at home.
Minus this article if you consider it to be a frank nonsense, but it will be much more interesting to read the comments, why and what exactly? Thank you for your attention, good code and inspiration!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/346588/
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