Remote working is something I considered for a long time. No commute ? Check. Increased work focus ? Check. No openspace ? Check. Trust me, it is worth to try it out. But let’s get back to the beginning.

How it all started

I had a taste of freedom in my last job. I could work from home for one or two days a week. I wanted something more freedom, but I was not ready to ask for it. Instead, I chose to move abroad.

I switched jobs and forgot all about it for a time. But it was hidden deep in my mind and one day I asked my manager if it would be possible to work remotely at least from time to time. I was quite sure it would be possible - even if only a couple of days per week. It did not work out. Remote working is still considered as a solution to a complicated personal situation rather than a valid career option.

Some time passed and circumstances have changed due to unfortunate event in my family. I was left with two options - leave my job in Cambridge or strike a remote working arrangement. I tried to ask a second time and this time I was allowed to start working remotely. Two weeks in the office, two weeks out. Commuting every second Wednesday on late evening to be ready for work in the morning - to match our sprint schedule. Since then I started to be a regular Ryanair customer, enjoying the plenitude of cheap flights from Stansted Airport.

Is the commute worth it? Definetly. Could I just switch jobs and find something in similar salary range in Prague ? Possibly. Why don’t I? I like my job, I feel like there is still a lot to learn and a lot to give to the company.

The right tools for the job

Having central systems for documentation, issue tracking and developer colaboration is paramount for successful remote working environment. Imagine what it would take to share knowledge over-the-network without a central KMS or how hard it would be to review code before commit without a central code-review tool? Having a central developement environment is optional - there are many ways to do this nowadays (i.e. Docker containers) - but it helps when you are on the road, only have access to a low powered notebook and need to compile the huge C++ application. This is a list of systems I consider really useful to have (note: this is not an exhaustive list of tools)

List of things that make it easier:

• Central development servers (no need for powerful development hardware on my end)
• Ticket system
• Central and up-to-date knowledge solution
• Slack-like chat to keep in touch with colleagues and ad-hoc development discussions
• Code review tool
• Skype or similar for video chat

The good thing was that the company systems were well prepared for remote development. We have all the tools necessary for work from a low-powered PC via SSH. This made the switch a lot easier.

Wrap up

The Good

• No commute
• Increased work focus
• Improved offline communication
• Skype solves a lot of face2face communication
• It is not that hard to avoid distractions

The Bad

• Skype reliability (“Hey, do you hear me? And now? Or now?”)
• Need to know when to stop working
• Commuting takes energy, especially when the flight arrives at Stansted at 11:55 PM
• Spending two weeks in the office does not add any value compared to one week

The Ugly

• Not being with my wife two weeks at a time