Developing Remotely with Brian

One of my friends, and favorite developers, that I've had the pleasure of collaborating with - is a chap named Brian.

Brian followed his dreams, and moved to the west coast. We worked together locally in Chicago for a year. When he decided it was time to move to San Francisco, I was happy that he wanted to continue working with us remotely. We then set forth organically figuring out how to best accomplish that without feeling disconnected.

Having an open channel on instant messenger was key. As well as, having set hours of shared availability. We had a good rapport over instant messenger, and we didn't always chat tech. I tired to give him straight answers on project issues, and encouraged his opinion. I felt this helped us build a level of trust. He had the freedom to make mistakes, learn from them and increasingly operate independently.

We frequently didn't verbally speak for weeks, but we were constantly connected online. I never felt out of touch, and I don't think he did either. Brian and I would occasionally check in on the phone, or I'd put him on speaker so he could contribute to critical conversations.

We don't always goof around, but when we do - Brian is a snorkeling pirate.We'd screen share over Skype, or Google Video Chat, when it made sense to have visuals over words. If either of us was stuck on a bug, or if we needed an extra set of eyes - the screen share was invaluable. We rarely missed a beat, I think it was about a year later that our (remote) client even noticed he had moved to the west coast.

During particularly intense project sprints, we would screen share and leave the video channel open all day. This allowed us to pair program, which was also re-assuring during particularly challenging sprints. It felt like we were sitting next to each other. We didn't do this every day, surely a recipe to drive each over crazy. But when used sparingly - it was very effective.

Working remotely with Brian was possible because he is an amazing developer, a focused and productive individual, a diligent communicator, and we built upon trust early on. It takes a certain individual and special chemistry to make remote work successful.