Good point: it's far, far better to be proactive, than wait for management to "recognize you".

Being a part of the early decision making processes has been a challenge for me as a remote employee. In larger companies, there are lots of meetings, discussions, and decisions that happen before anyone talks to the engineering staff is brought in. But, by basically being nice, asking questions, and really getting involved, I've been able to "weasel" my way into some of these discussions.

Once you get involved early on, there's so much more clarity around the one liner "requests" that often get farmed out.