What exactly do you learn from your coworkers? It isn't like you are pair programming constantly with senior devs all the time.
I've learnt way more reading papers and documentation than being in the same physical space as more senior colleagues. People sometimes bring this point up re: onboarding but I don't quite understand what people learn that they can't do otherwise remotely.
Different people absorb knowledge in different ways. Just because you learned the most by reading articles doesn't mean that is true for everyone.
I believe there is value in newcomers/junior devs begin in close proximity with their more experienced coworkers because this greatly improves the chance to talk about important work-related topics. Many times in my live I have started a casual conversation with someone at work and this lead to discussion about current work-related software topics and I was able to share some opinions with someone.
These things happen much more rarely when they are scheduled slack calls, and people seldomly just slack to talk about random things.
> Different people absorb knowledge in different ways. Just because you learned the most by reading articles doesn't mean that is true for everyone.
...and that's precisely the reason I asked the question
> Many times in my live I have started a casual conversation with someone at work and this lead to discussion about current work-related software topics and I was able to share some opinions with someone.
This sounds like general information sharing amongst coworkers. The way you phrased the comment made it seem like there was something specific you were referring to pertaining to newcomers/junior devs.
I agree with your point that you have less airtime to share your general thoughts about interesting things in a remote setting. I do agree with your general point and have experienced that too. Just observing more certain people equivocate about a topic is inspiring and that helps to learn more.
For me, it's lunch breaks and coffee machine chit-chat. Just by talking to your colleagues daily and meeting people you'd usually never work with you get a lot of knowledge transfer - they talk about problems they need to solve, interesting challenges or just hobbies. You can also do after hour events on Zoom, but it's just not the same relaxed atmosphere as in the office and it nearly never happens randomly.
Agreed, it is great when it works. I don't miss it though, many times in the past, it has been some "senior" dev high on his own stimulant supply dominating the conversation for the entire lunch, not letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. Either that, or it is the same 3 people talking about things that interest them, completely ignoring the rest of the people while the others just eat their lunch and observe.
More chance to chat about random things or casually ask work-related questions.
> I've learnt way more reading papers and documentation than being in the same physical space as more senior colleagues. People sometimes bring this point up re: onboarding but I don't quite understand what people learn that they can't do otherwise remotely
It is much harder to gain tacit knowledge (The important stuff) when you're remote. I read a lot, and it's no match for picking a skilled person's brain for even just 30min-1hr.
I've found I generally have to explicitly ask if I want someone to explain what they're doing and why. There is very little 1:1 teaching/mentoring. In an office I think there is more informal mentoring.
> I've found I generally have to explicitly ask if I want someone to explain what they're doing and why. There is very little 1:1 teaching/mentoring. In an office I think there is more informal mentoring.
Asking people questions and engaging in 1-1 conversations is no more difficult over Slack + voice + screen share than in person. In fact it gives you more options for how to conduct the conversation and remember the results.
It's really not hard, and some people are great at it. The problem is that people sleepwalk through their remote experience and don't spend any time thinking about how to make the small changes needed to fill the needs that in-office used to fill. For some reason, it only occurs to them to seek out information if they can walk to a person in a room rather than type in a box.
I constantly observe people excitedly blabbing in person, seemingly reaching all sorts of epiphanies, but at the end of the day, the conversation lacked specificity and no one really learned anything. It's a perfect medium for feeling like you learned something without actually doing so.
Figuring out how to make remote work produces better results when the team is willing to do it. It enhances all work, including in-person work, and there are lots of resources by now for how to do it well. But if the team is unwilling to do it, no surprise that remote doesn't work for them. They chose to make in-office the only possible way to work.
It's not an inherent thing to the environments, but a choice that particular team made.
There is a massive difference between Slack and in-person. In-person there is often a casualness that doesn't exist over Slack. It's hard to have a serendipitous conversation over Slack vs in-person. This is what I meant by "I think there is more informal mentoring [in an office]".
> I constantly observe people excitedly blabbing in person, seemingly reaching all sorts of epiphanies, but at the end of the day, the conversation lacked specificity and no one really learned anything. It's a perfect medium for feeling like you learned something without actually doing so
Generally I would much prefer feeling like I've intuited something rather than coming away with specific knowledge because specific knowledge is usually easy to find elsewhere.
> It's not an inherent thing to the environments, but a choice that particular team made
I believe it is inherent to a remote environment. I also believe it can be overcome, but it's not the path of least resistance.
> It is much harder to gain tacit knowledge (The important stuff) when you're remote. I read a lot, and it's no match for picking a skilled person's brain for even just 30min-1hr.
I have the exact opposite experience. During discussions, people are less informed with facts and speak conceptually. In a book or documentation, there's both. Thus is easier to get more reliable information. It is easier to follow logical chains constructed people but the constituents of said chain could potentially be fraught with approximations, thus obfuscating the entire story.
I've discussed topics with really smart people (experts in their field) for hours with many potential ideas but no conclusion. But I only had to read documentation/code for 30min to understand exactly what the real gist of the field was about.
> It is easier to follow logical chains constructed people but the constituents of said chain could potentially be fraught with approximations, thus obfuscating the entire story.
It's not possible to logically explain everything. Intuition is very important. Hence, the value of tacit knowledge.
I would generally much rather hear an expert talk conceptually and about their intuition than them give me a lecture on logic and facts. It's impossible to glean some things through pure logic.
I've learnt way more reading papers and documentation than being in the same physical space as more senior colleagues. People sometimes bring this point up re: onboarding but I don't quite understand what people learn that they can't do otherwise remotely.