The Experiment
Three years ago, I went fully remote. Not “work from home on Fridays” remote — truly distributed, async-first, timezone-spanning remote.
Here’s what I learned.
What Actually Works
Async by default. The most productive remote teams I’ve been on treat synchronous meetings as a last resort. Write it down. Record a Loom. Post in the channel. Let people respond when they’re in flow.
Documentation as infrastructure. In an office, knowledge lives in hallway conversations. Remote, if it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist. We treat docs like code — they get reviewed, updated, and maintained.
Overlap windows, not overlap days. With a team across UTC+8 to UTC-5, we have exactly 2 hours of overlap. Those hours are sacred — used only for decisions that genuinely need real-time discussion.
What Doesn’t Work
- Trying to replicate office culture on Zoom
- “Always on” Slack expectations
- Measuring productivity by hours logged instead of output delivered
The Unexpected Benefit
Remote work forced me to become a better writer, a clearer thinker, and a more intentional communicator. When you can’t lean on body language and hallway chats, your ideas have to stand on their own.
That skill compounds. It makes you better at everything — architecture docs, code reviews, customer communication.
Would I Go Back?
No. The flexibility, the focus time, the ability to build a life around my work instead of the other way around — it’s not something I’d trade.