Working Remotely

February 8th, 2009 by Scott

This has been on my mind a lot lately so I wanted to take a detour and write it up.

Ally and I decided to move to Peru to live for six months (her blog talks about who/what/when/where/why/how). I would have preferred a year but Ally’s got to go to school in the fall, so six months it is.

My boss Matt at Loose Cannon is super awesome and instead of firing my ass he decided to try to make it work. He gave me a very long term mostly research and prototyping project to create our next gen animation system. Intimidating as hell but cool. That means I don’t absolutely need to be online all the time.

Matt does want me to continue doing code reviews on our game if possible. This requires a fast turnaround to avoid blocking checkins for too long, especially as we get close to shipping. So it’s preferable if I can be online during normal work hours or at least a window of time during each weekday. Peru is 3 hours ahead of Seattle so that means I can go see pyramids in the morning and still get online and working by normal Seattle core office hours.

Anyway, I’ll be working remotely for six months. We’ve already passed through four hostels in three towns, and have finally gotten a real apartment in the comfy Yanahuara district of gorgeous Arequipa. We’ll do extended-weekend trips every couple weeks (which means working on buses to/from) and then move up to Trujillo in a few months. Lots of mobility required and it can’t interfere with my work. I really do have to keep a regular schedule.

This brings up several super important requirements, which I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and working on.

Data and hardware must both be secure. If I can’t work because my laptop was stolen or I had a hard drive crash, then I lose a lot of time.

Our personal data must also be secure. As we’re managing all of our finances online now, we can’t afford passwords and credit card info and such to get out.
I also have to figure out a way to work with Ally’s, um, let’s say “lack of interest” in security.

I need at least periodic access to the internet so I can check in at work through the VPN. This means stealing wi-fi, buying cell-based broadband, plugging in direct, or using sketchy public computers at locutorios.

For longer term, I need a comfortable work environment. It’s still 40-50 hours a week, remote or not. Can’t work hunched over every day at the carpal tunnel festival. But I’m not bringing a whole office with me, it’s got to be small and light.

I’ll probably talk about #2 and #3 at some point but next I want to talk about travelling securely. At least, what has been working well for us.

Posts in this series:

Posted in loose cannon studios, mobility, peru |