Working with Remote Developers: 14 Essential Tips

Intro

Hiring and working alongside remote developers can be a great move, especially for small to medium sized businesses. Remote developers afford employers a budget-friendly alternative to hiring entire teams of developers or in-house professionals, which can be costly.

But, you may wonder, what are the downsides? How can I get the best out of my remote developers? How effective is working remotely in the modern age? What technical, logistical, linguistic and cultural hurdles will I need to overcome? In this article, we’re going to address these concerns and explain how you can most effectively work alongside remote developers.

Different Types of Remote Development

There are two main types of remote software development, and it’s helpful to understand the distinction, especially if you’re thinking of embarking on a project with remote developers.

Both require an amount of trust; after all, the developers carrying out the bulk of the work won’t be in direct contact with you. The right option for your company will depend on the project you’re undertaking and the nature of your business, as well as the capabilities of your staff team.

End-to-End

An end-to-end supplier is one which takes care of everything, essentially building your solution from scratch. Generally, you’ll only need to provide them with the concept, explain what you need from the product, and give them some feedback along the way.

End-to-end suppliers will generally assign their own project manager to the project, with whom you’ll be able to liaise regarding delivery dates, project timelines, project features and anything else you might need. It will be their responsibility to keep you informed every step of the way, and to ensure that everything runs smoothly from start to finish.

Team Augmentation

Alternatively to end-to-end services, it’s possible to take a team augmentation approach. This involves closer collaboration with the remote developers, and you may even appoint a project manager from your own in-house team. This hybrid approach enables the main coordination to take place in-house, with specific tasks being subbed out to specialist developers.

Essential Tips for Working With Remote Developers

1. Put Communication First

No remote development project can succeed if the communicative channels are flawed. It’s vital that you establish and maintain contact between the remote developers, the project manager (whether they are in-house or part of the remote team) and your own company.

Communications should be transparent, clear, and frequent. The tone should be friendly and light, but productive and efficient. Ensure that you create a suitable framework for this to flourish, and you’ll soon find everyone on both sides of the divide working to the best of their abilities.

There are many available tools that can make communications between team members easier, and we’ll be exploring some of these below.

2. Create Schedules that Work for Everyone

It may be the case that your remote workers are located in another part of the world, which could involve significant time zone differences, but this is all part of working with remote professionals.

A smaller time difference is generally preferable, but if you’re employing an end-to-end supplier rather than team augmentation, you may find that this sort of discrepancy is tolerable. If you’re going to be in contact with your remote developers, as is often the case when using team augmentation, then a smaller time difference will be necessary to keep things running smoothly and with minimal delays.

Remote workers frequently work in their own time, as with a freelance employee, so be sure to allow for this. Set firm deadlines, but be aware that your correspondences might not always receive a same-day reply. Also ensure that all elements of the team know when you’re available, so that meetings can be effectively coordinated. Team management software can assist with this.

3. Keep Communications Regular

This applies to the frequency with which team members exchange messages, but it’s also important to hold regular meetings too. Interpersonal communications are a good way to keep the project moving forwards, but team meetings are essential to keeping everyone on the same page and up to speed.

Certain work communications programs can be helpful with this. Some popular examples include Monday, Slack, ClickUp and Discord. These allow you to allocate tasks and track the progress of each individual element of a project. They also facilitate quick and easy communications, making cumbersome email strings a thing of the past.

It may be necessary to train your team how to use these platforms, but this effort will typically prove itself to be worthwhile in the long run. It’s also worth noting that platforms like this are not always a suitable replacement for face-to-face communication, which facilitates a great deal more nuance. Oftentimes, a video conference is a good in-between.

4. Use More than One Channel

In the case of a system failure, server outage or other technological hiccup, you don’t want all of the communications between your team members to grind to a halt. For this reason, it’s best to establish multiple communication channels. Accidents happen, but you don’t want them to stall your entire project, so consider introducing your teams to two or more of the following examples:

• Zoom
• Skype
• Discord
• Slack

5. Boost Efficiency with Project Management Tools

We’ve mentioned a couple of these above in the context of communication, but they also offer insight into the bigger picture. The importance of having a broader overview of a project’s progress is something that cannot be overstated.

Tools such as Monday, Trello, Asana, Jira, Basecamp and many more are great ways to keep everybody on task and focused. They enable you, or the project manager, to allocate, distribute and delegate different tasks to different individuals, keeping everyone working towards one common goal, and ensuring that the workflow remains effective.

Many modern companies have already adopted technologies such as these to keep their day to day running as efficient as it can be, and it’s not difficult to see why - project management tools can raise efficiency by a significant degree.

6. Define Goals Clearly

It’s impossible to measure your progress if you don’t know what your goals are. When you’re overseeing remote developers and project managers, keep everyone on the same page by clearly communicating what each team member is expected to accomplish within a given timeframe.

Keeping goals clearly defined helps everybody to understand where they fit into the overall development process, whilst avoiding confusion, conflicts, and inefficient expendages of time. No matter what the solution is, who the client is, or what sort of employment model you’re using, allow the team’s goals to be informed by the intentions of the end solution.

7. Build Trust

No team can function at its fullest capacity without trust, and it’s up to all team members and managers to help nurture it. This is especially true in the case of a remote team, where developers may not be around each other physically.

Fostering a remote environment that is supportive, transparent and empathetic is central to building trust, but it’s crucial that managers also give developers enough space to work. Developers need to know that they can come to their managers with any issues or mistakes, so being approachable is important.

8. Get Your Priorities Right

If you don’t actively steer a ship, it can begin to drift, and you’ll quickly find yourself off course! You need to have a hands-on approach when it comes to directing your developers towards their next goals. If you fail to keep them focused on one priority, and if you don’t replace this priority once it’s been achieved, your project may drift.

9. Resist the Urge to Micromanage

Trying to control each and every element of a project, no matter how small, is an understandable urge. However, it’s imperative that you delegate and allow the chain of command to do its job.

The main reason for this - although there are several - is that it’s proven to be a highly inefficient method of management. Interfering in the work of others often only holds them back and stalls their progress, causing motivational issues.

When working with remote developers, it’s easier to keep a distance, but you need to be comfortable with just stepping back and letting people do their jobs. This might be tough at first, but within a trusting environment, you’ll find it gets easier with time.

10. Make Space for Cultural Differences

Working with individuals spread across different time zones makes it likely that you’ll be employing developers from a variety of different cultures. This variety can be a huge benefit to your business and projects, but you should always be mindful of it.

In some countries, work weeks begin on different days, and in others it’ll be necessary for people to take holidays for certain religious events and festivals. It’ll be helpful to inform yourself on what these may be, and try to be lenient if someone needs specific periods of time away from their work. That said, there’s nothing wrong with asking in advance what these dates may be, so that you can effectively plan ahead. This is all just part of the remote working process.

11. Be a Flexible Manager

Whether you’re overseeing project managers or overseeing developers directly, it pays to remain flexible in your management approach. Extending some flexibility and adaptability to your remote developers will help them to successfully complete tasks in a timely fashion.

Flexibility and leniency are important, but that doesn’t mean that deadlines can be ignored. Your targets and time frames should be firm and adhered to. At the same time, if a developer explains that they need something in order to complete their assigned task, it’s best to take a positive approach to solving the solution.

12. Listen to Your Developers

If something’s not right, the first sign of this is likely to be a developer speaking to you. When feedback reaches you, treat it seriously, whether it’s something that’s not working on the project, or if there’s something in your management abilities that needs work. Listening to your team is an important sign of respect, so be sure not to ignore them.

This goes both ways, so you should also feel free to share feedback with your team. Making them feel valued and like an important part of the process is crucial to the smooth advancement of the development process.

13. Treat NDAs and Security Clearance Seriously

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) are a standard agreement between parties that state neither will share any confidential or sensitive information. These are used by companies of all sizes, and they can be extremely valuable when working with certain types of data. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask remote developers to sign NDAs before you begin working with them. This will help you to protect yourselves in the case of any legal issues.

14. Remember That Everyone Has Goals

Last but not least, remember that your developers have goals of their own. The best working relationship is a harmonious, mutually-beneficial one, which advances both parties towards their personal goals. Take on board all suggestions about things like technical debt and changes to architecture, and don’t be too reluctant to congratulate your developers on a job well done. A simple ‘thank you’ or ‘great job on this task’ goes a really long way towards keeping your workforce happy and motivated.

Conclusion

There are many things that you’ll want to keep in mind when working with remote developers, but we’ve covered some of the main bases here. Working remotely doesn’t suit all project managers or all businesses, but it is the perfect solution for others. When deciding whether it fits the bill for your project, consider the tips we’ve explored above.