Poll Everywhere started as a remote working company. Brad worked from Berkeley, California and Jeff from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since then, most of Poll Everywhere has consolidated into the San Francisco office, but we still have a substantial portion of people working remote from around the world.
Working remote is a big responsibility, and it requires extra thoughtfulness to get things right.
It’s expected that you join the daily stand ups and weekly meetings if you’re working remotely with us from a timezone in the western hemisphere.
What if you’re joining us from a far flung timezone and stand-up is at 3a on a Saturday? How do you attend stand-up at 10a every day and know what’s going on? The quick answer is you talk to your epic team to see if they can have their stand up at a time that’s more advantageous to your timezone. Perhaps the team you’re working on could move their stand ups to 4p PT, or 10a your time.
Pick somebody to represent you at stand up - Find somebody in the San Francisco office and ask them to represent you during stand ups. Anybody should be able to ask this person, “Hey, what is so and so up to?,” and they should be able to answer with daily resolution. This person voices your blockers at the company-wide stand up and they keep you up to date on new stuff they learn.
Let the team know when you plan on working - We’re not trying to be bean counters, but we do need to know when we can expect to see you on Slack so we can collaborate with you. You should post this time on your company calendar and communicate it to the people you work with in San Francisco.
Your workday should overlap with the San Francisco workday - Try making your working time overlap with San Francisco working hours so more people on the team have a chance to collaborate and hang out with you.
Plan on attending weekly planning meetings - Working async doesn’t completely get you off the hook for crazy hours. You still need to attend the weekly planning meetings so you know what’s going on with Poll Everywhere and get all of the announcements, but at least it’s only one day of the week.
Or of course, you could move to San Francisco and work with us in the office. We’d love to have you!
As a company we’re very committed to the quality of working remote. During our weekly Townhall we designate a San Francisco local to be a “remote advocate” and call in to the meeting. They make sure the audio quality is great and that nobody out of the office is missing anything.