Telecommuting programmers

[Mark T.B. Carroll]

We're in Ohio developing some fairly innovative software. We try to hire
pretty smart engineers, and they work together on interesting projects
to develop good code that we usually hope to reuse.

One guy who used to work with us continues to be an employee out in
Maryland. Mostly he can log in remotely pretty easily, and he doesn't
really lead projects, he just does whatever smaller tasks others pass
out, and that appears to work reasonably so far.

Now we have an applicant from Europe who looks pretty good, and could be
capable of leading some development efforts. However, there aren't any
H-1B visas available now for work starting before October 2007.

My inclination is just to say 'no' - it seems like more hassle than I
have time for to try to integrate a new remote employee into teams that
has him being used to anywhere near his potential.

A colleague suggests a middle ground of seeing if we can try him out
with a bit of part-time contract work for a while, but I'm not sure we
have much of that nature that our customers will be happy with us
offshoring.

I figure I should second-guess my prejudice, though: can telecommuting
really work well for creative collaborative non-menial stuff? Sure, we
could arrange the technology for a shared code repository, instant
messaging, shared whiteboard, whatever. There's a bit of overhead in
making sure there really is work happening, but we want to
better-instrument our in-house people anyway. What is an open question
for me is how much we lose by not having routine face-to-face contact,
especially when he's not previously worked in the same office as us. I
worry that we'd lose something valuable in the problem-solving dynamic.

-- Mark

[NC]

Post by Mark T.B. Carroll
we have an applicant from Europe who looks pretty good, and
could be capable of leading some development efforts. However,
there aren't any H-1B visas available now for work starting before
October 2007.

Where did you get this information? Work can start immediately
upon approval of the H-1B petition.

In my experience, November is a GREAT time to file for an H-1B.
The fiscal year (and count towards the cap) starts October 1, the
cap is usually filled (and USCIS stops accepting petitions) in
January or February.

Post by Mark T.B. Carroll
I figure I should second-guess my prejudice, though: can
telecommuting really work well for creative collaborative
non-menial stuff?

There are simply too many variables in your problem. Take time
zone difference, for example. It can be an advantage if your man
in Europe can code and debug without supervision while your men
in America are at home asleep, but it can be a disadvantage if you
depend on face-to-face interaction and your man in Europe cannot
attend meetings remotely due to time difference...

Cheers,
NC

[Mark T.B. Carroll]

Post by NC

Post by Mark T.B. Carroll
we have an applicant from Europe who looks pretty good, and
could be capable of leading some development efforts. However,
there aren't any H-1B visas available now for work starting before
October 2007.

Where did you get this information? Work can start immediately
upon approval of the H-1B petition.

(snip)

Various sites online. Good examples are
http://www.careerjournal.com/hrcenter/briefs/20060609-bna.html and
http://www.secimmigration.com/updates_087.html

Post by NC
There are simply too many variables in your problem. Take time
zone difference, for example. It can be an advantage if your man
in Europe can code and debug without supervision while your men
in America are at home asleep, but it can be a disadvantage if you
depend on face-to-face interaction and your man in Europe cannot
attend meetings remotely due to time difference...

Right. I suppose that the main question would be if we can mark out
tasks clearly enough for remote working that easily permit remote
auditing of work.

-- Mark