Remote developers VS developers in the office?

Question

Remote access

It seems that programming is such a thing that you can do from home. But despite this, almost all large companies, and even startups that have received investments, put all (or most) developers in the office. The advantages of this approach are clear - programmers become a team, they are easier to control and easier to manage. At the same time, the disadvantages are also obvious - people have to go to work every day, spend a lot of time on it, despite the fact that they can actually do almost all their work from home.
In this regard, I would like to hear the opinions of those who have come across this or that approach. It would be interesting to hear about your experience. Does it make sense to put developers in the office? Is it possible to build a truly effective team of remote developers? How to control the work of an employee if he is sitting remotely? Etc.
PS Now I am gathering a team of developers for mobile platforms. We mainly make applications to order, but also our own projects. I noticed that many programmers are simply not ready to go to the office and spend their time on it.
PPS Surely this topic has been discussed more than once, but I did not find it. If you share links, I will be grateful.

Answer 1

For the last 6 years I have been leading remote teams. my IMHO - everything depends on the motivation of people. If people are motivated for the result, they will overcome all the problems of remote work. They will chat on Skype, write on the wiki, take screenshots. If the only expected result from the work of the RFP, then remote work worsens everything - you are tormented by kicking and controlling. Everything is as usual - the main thing is people.
Therefore, purely quietly, it is quite possible to work effectively, but only if people want to work.
On the other hand, the office is also useful - live communication is still more productive. So the ideal option is to meet at the office 1.2 times a week for “synchronization”, and the rest of the time is quite possible remotely.

Answer 2

Advantages of the office:
- The opportunity to discuss in a heated debate, the further development of the department / company / architecture / technology / tea room (underline as necessary)
- The opportunity to touch expensive equipment with handles (more than or comparable to an annual salary) and see how it works you did.
- The ability to personally see the reproduction of the error written by the tester in Arabic in Russian letters. (Programmers and testers often communicate in different dialects)
- Everyone works at about the same time + - 3 hours and it's easier to synchronize collaboration.
- And last but not least, a real team is formed not only by the company's charter and joint work, but also by outside working cultural events. (The main thing is that such events, God forbid, were not obligatory)
Cons of the office:
- An emergency in the business center stops the work of the entire company.
- The eternal problem of stuffiness or permafrost in the premises.
Large rooms can be noisy and hard to concentrate.
- The choice of employees is limited not only by qualifications, but also by the availability of the business center. (a radical move usually causes a serious loss of employees)
Advantages of remote work:
- The developer works at a time when it is more convenient for him and most likely the efficiency will be a little higher. (due to this, it may be difficult to synchronize joint work)
- As a rule, a well-equipped workplace at home is cozier and more comfortable than an office.
- Less fuss with all sorts of SanEpidem norms, office rent and workplace equipment.
Disadvantages of remote work:
- The employee will solve any problems of the home computer himself and the speed of their solution is determined by the qualification of the employee as a system administrator.
- It is more difficult to control that the developer is absent at all, for unknown reasons. (Although in the office it happens that only after a week they notice an empty place)
- Working with expensive equipment (indicated in the pluses of the office approach)
- It is more difficult to organize a good team, because people don't know each other well. (Although it's not easy in the office either)
- The use of different software or different versions of the same software for employees can sometimes result in problems that are difficult to explain.
Cons (problems) of both approaches:
- You can control the work / quality of developers only with the help of code review and no sitting at the computer for 8 hours a day in the office or comical lines of code from a remote location will give a 100% guarantee.
— With any approach, CVS authorization servers, build stands and test stands with copies (or analogues) of combat bases (DB) are required.
PS
This is certainly not a complete list, but I tried to write out the main ones.

Answer 3

I work in the office, although in principle I can work through TeamViewer. Very often you need to ask / explain something, but remotely it turns out badly, so I go to the office.

Answer 4

Personally, I work much more productively in the office, everything depends on motivation and atmosphere.

Answer 5

There are very good specialists, but at the same time they are not at all self-organized, if they are not kicked, then their efficiency is very low. In large offices, there are even special managers for these purposes (highly paid, by the way) who only do what motivate the rest to work.

Answer 6

The problem is the organization of the group. If there are ideally organized remote developers, then everything is ok. But in most cases, the office gives advantages:
1) It is known when the employee will be at the workplace (when certain issues will be resolved)
2) Come and see what doesn’t work for me (in principle, it is solved through a remote desktop, but in the office you can immediately see can a person help, or is he talking with the boss right now)
3) pair programming (in remote work, the charm of shoulder-to-shoulder work is lost)
4) corporate spirit and all that (it’s really more pleasant to deal with real people, not nicknames on Skype. Yes, and it’s not boring to go to lunch) + joint celebrations of something there
5) Protected from “a childhood friend suddenly came to the programmer, and they left to drink”
6) demonstrations and presentations

Answer 7

The higher the degree of uncertainty in a project, the more critical effective communication is. The farther away from face-to-face communication, the worse communication is in all respects.

Answer 8

It really depends on the wealth and qualifications of the employees.
Surveillance are worthy characters and work remotely without causing problems or inconvenience. True, they have to pay accordingly.
But if you are looking for "mega-specialists" for hundreds of bucks, definitely go to the office. Because it is necessary to graze the herd so that they do not disperse, do not create problems for themselves and others.
Fails occur because they want to significantly save wages, and they hire not only remote workers, but cheap “specialists”. Hence all the trouble. Good specialists are responsible and self-organized enough to be comfortable working with them remotely, but they cost significantly more money.
The vast majority of "freelance customers" simply do not perceive this moment. Usually - because they themselves earn less. Or simply culture does not allow to accept this fact. Therefore, public opinion lives - if you are a freelancer, then you work for a penny. And, as a result, there are dampers in distributed/remote teams. Most of them are losers. The project rots accordingly, problems appear - this is how the public opinion appeared that remote workers are less reliable than office ones. This opinion is wrong, why and how - in fact, he explained.
There is another phenomenon when the reward seems to be worthy, but brutal methods are used to control the work of remote workers. Such as programs for remote monitoring of the desktop, requirements to "be online on schedule" and so on. For some reason, no one pays attention to the fact that such circumstances do not occur in such a tough form in office work. Go to extremes. Of course, most candidates do not need this bondage at all.
There are two consequences:
1. The circle of candidates is significantly reduced
2. The project is waiting for fails, due to a decrease in employee loyalty in the process of work, as well as a banal staff drain - which is most common

Answer 9

Project management tools certainly help, but in terms of remote specifics, they have little effect on the quality of work. A system works only as well as the quality of its components. You can endlessly “improve the principles”, but if the gears are rusty, there will be fails.
And vice versa - high-quality "gears", loyal and highly qualified specialists will allow a smaller team to achieve great results. Even when working remotely.
Small sabotage groups can determine the outcome of the war - it all depends on the fighters, and only then - on the organization. Good fighters will win with only shovels. And bad - no technique will help.