I just quit my last remote job of 6 years.
The benefits:
1. Live anywhere as long as the timezones are reasonable.
2. No commute.
3. Optional meetings actually stay optional.
4. If you are in a later timezone, you can work late relative to the home office hours; making you pretty valuable to clients for adhoc issues at the end of the day while your team is busy commuting home.
The negatives:
1. Very lonely, I ended up spending a lot of money going to cafes to fill a social need.
2. Office meetings suck. If you are the only person dialing in to a meeting and the rest of the team is local there are tons of issues. Noise, missing out on sidebar conversations, etc.
3. You are obligated to overcommunicate to your coworkers or managers to compensate for your lack of presence, but often they leave you in the dark.
4. If your technology breaks down, you are your own support.
5. If skype is signed out without you realizing it, management gets paranoid.
6. You have to work very hard to keep from getting distracted. This gets harder if you aren't interested in your workload.
7. Lack of visibility means lack of opportunities at work.
8. Its very easy to get in a rut where the "remote guy" only works on certain specific things and can't grow their career.
If I can help it, I will be 100% local from now on. In my mind, there are too many opportunities missed by not interacting with the rest of the office.
I imagine this list would be different if the team was 100% remote.
The benefits:
1. Live anywhere as long as the timezones are reasonable.
2. No commute.
3. Optional meetings actually stay optional.
4. If you are in a later timezone, you can work late relative to the home office hours; making you pretty valuable to clients for adhoc issues at the end of the day while your team is busy commuting home.
The negatives:
1. Very lonely, I ended up spending a lot of money going to cafes to fill a social need.
2. Office meetings suck. If you are the only person dialing in to a meeting and the rest of the team is local there are tons of issues. Noise, missing out on sidebar conversations, etc.
3. You are obligated to overcommunicate to your coworkers or managers to compensate for your lack of presence, but often they leave you in the dark.
4. If your technology breaks down, you are your own support.
5. If skype is signed out without you realizing it, management gets paranoid.
6. You have to work very hard to keep from getting distracted. This gets harder if you aren't interested in your workload.
7. Lack of visibility means lack of opportunities at work.
8. Its very easy to get in a rut where the "remote guy" only works on certain specific things and can't grow their career.
If I can help it, I will be 100% local from now on. In my mind, there are too many opportunities missed by not interacting with the rest of the office.
I imagine this list would be different if the team was 100% remote.