Like most Silicon Valley engineers, I know what it’s like to put in long hours working passionately on a technical project that you genuinely believe will change the world. However, unlike most software engineers, I decided (very) early in my career to trade the massive company campuses and busy commutes (and outrageous housing costs) of the Bay Area for the wide-open plains of Dallas, where I am over a thousand miles away from my nearest teammate in Orlando, the second remote member of our three-person team. While our situation has presented its fair share of challenges, they have been far from inhibitive: Late last year, we open sourced Panoptes, the world’s best* self-configuring, extensible, and horizontally-scalable network telemetry and monitoring platform, capable of monitoring tens of millions of time series with sub-minute resolution across hundreds of network sites. In this talk, I cover the ups, downs, and in-betweens of remote technical work as a 26-year-old type one diabetic, and will touch on the tips, tricks, and strategies my team has used (and avoided) to maximize our success in bringing a truly remarkable technology to light. Whether you can count the number of conferences you have attended on one hand (like me), or you have lost count somewhere through the years, I hope to provide an example of what it looks like being a valued and valuable member of a high-impact, remote dev team in 2019.

1. Panoptes: My story as a
remote junior engineer

3. I needed a job.

8. I needed a job.

9. Moving to Texas
Pros
● Chance to broaden experience
● Family nearby

10. Moving to Texas
Cons
● Will working remotely stunt my
career growth?
● More limited career
opportunities?
Pros
● Chance to broaden experience
● Family nearby

11. Moving to Texas
Median Price of Home
Frisco, TX
Sunnyvale, CA
$396,800 $1,627,700
source: https://www.zillow.com/home-values/
Cons
● Will working remotely stunt my
career growth?
● More limited career
opportunities?
Pros
● Chance to broaden experience
● Family nearby
● Texas cost of living 😁

12. Moving to Texas
Cons
● Will working remotely stunt my
career growth?
● More limited career
opportunities?
● Texas weather 😫
Pros
● Chance to broaden experience
● Family nearby
● Texas cost of living 😁

16. Keeping a (Junior) Remote Team Member Happy
● Daily Morning Check-ins
● Take advantage of actual face time.
● Mentorship
● Add more responsibility

17. Will working remotely stunt my career growth?
● Yes, if you let it.
● Get a mentor.

18. Will I have more limited career opportunities?
● Not so far.
● I’ve been extremely privileged, and lucky.
● Also:

20. Images:
https://officesnapshots.com/2014/01/29/inside-cisco-merakis-new-san-francisco-headquarters/
https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Inside-the-secret-world-at-Cisco-headquarters-6557481.php