I’m very thankful that Steamship is a remote-first workplace. Living in Maryland, I may never have been able to experience working for a startup oth

How we stay productive as a remote-first startup

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2022-09-29 20:30:32

I’m very thankful that Steamship is a remote-first workplace. Living in Maryland, I may never have been able to experience working for a startup otherwise. By being remote-first, we have the opportunity to hire the best talent irrespective of geography and get great people like Enias.

That said, being full time remote does have its own challenges, especially in a fast-moving environment. Here are 5 of the practical, day-to-day things we’re doing that I think really help us stay excited and productive.

Since we’re not only remote but spread across many timezones, our (video call) face time together is limited and precious. As a result, 80–90% of things that are reviewed must be reviewed asynchronously. For the person whose work is being reviewed, this means being open to feedback in written form and not being shy about others seeing your work in progress. For the reviewers, accountability is key, and reviews should happen within 24 hours. I’ve found it best for me to review anything in my queue when I first sit down in the morning before I get caught in the flow of my own work.

Productivity is not the same as either which hours or how many hours we spend at our desks. Our “core hours” are very limited due to minimal time zone overlap. We need to trust and evaluate each other based on real output and not Slack response latency. One thing that really helps me is getting out for a walk in the afternoon; I both feel better and am more productive after stretching my legs for a bit. Everyone adjusts their own notification settings to the hours they see fit, and the others don’t have to worry about whether they’re posting off-hours for someone else.

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