I am on the fence about whether companies with 100% remote workers have an engineering advantage.
First, you have more layers of (mis)communication with remote since non-developer/engineering stakeholders won't be able to know whether their points and concepts are properly being understood by developers. Body language and tonality (voice inflection) are lost online. There are ways to minimize miscommunication through agile and lean processes but that needs to be in place before working with people remotely.
Second, tech companies might be known for having lavish office spaces so their employees want to be there. If their employees want to be there then it is easier to attract and retain them. On the other hand, bad egos can easily zap that synergy if not properly kept in check.
Attracting and keeping human capital is a very difficult problem not just in tech.
> First, you have more layers of (mis)communication with remote since non-developer/engineering stakeholders won't be able to know whether their points and concepts are properly being understood by developers. Body language and tonality (voice inflection) are lost online
We do Slack Audio/Video and Zoom when we need to get in touch and talk things through. That being said, the loggability and searchability of text conversations also resolves a lot of miscommunications.
First, you have more layers of (mis)communication with remote since non-developer/engineering stakeholders won't be able to know whether their points and concepts are properly being understood by developers. Body language and tonality (voice inflection) are lost online. There are ways to minimize miscommunication through agile and lean processes but that needs to be in place before working with people remotely.
Second, tech companies might be known for having lavish office spaces so their employees want to be there. If their employees want to be there then it is easier to attract and retain them. On the other hand, bad egos can easily zap that synergy if not properly kept in check.
Attracting and keeping human capital is a very difficult problem not just in tech.