Effective Communication Guide [Part 6] - Communicating In A Remote World

- What is lost in a remote work environment when it comes to communication?
  - **Volume:** A lot of ad-hoc communication ("water cooler chats") can't happen anymore.
  - **Depth of presence:** When you're on a video call, it's mainly just your face that's visible. In an in-person meeting, especially 1 on 1 meetings, your entire body is visible, which lets you express a lot more via your body language.
- **If you're comfortable, have video on during calls** - Use your facial expressions to really show that you're listening and truly hearing what the other person or people have to say.
- **Book 1 on 1s very aggressively** - 1 on 1 meetings are the core building block behind strong relationships. In an in-person environment, you will build relationships naturally through other means like team lunch, but since those are lost in a remote environment, you need to lean on 1 on 1s far more.
- **Get really good at technical writing** - In a remote world, especially with teams distributed across multiple time zones, a lot more communication has to happen asynchronously.
  - Project updates are very important in particular. It's much harder to stay aligned when everyone is apart.
  - If you aren't already, try to write a project update for your work every 2 weeks or more.

What is lost in a remote work environment when it comes to communication?
  Volume: A lot of ad-hoc communication ("wate

Alex worked at PayPal and then as a tech lead across Course Hero, Meta, and Robinhood. He's now building Taro, empowering software engineers to be happier and more effective.

At the end of the day, working in tech, or anywhere really, is all about working with other human beings. Communication is the core skill necessary to make this collaboration effective.

There's more to working in tech than just shipping software. It's vital for your career to build deep professional relationships and make real friends at work, especially if you're looking to grow to senior levels.