Ask HN: Any remote companies that don't do offsites/retreats?

2 pointsthrow3452away2y ago5 comments

I feel this will be highly unusual given that almost every company I see has something like an offsite or a retreat advertised on their careers page.

First off, I understand why companies do this. There are a couple reasons they do this.

However, I'm an introvert. I understand some of you reading may not be, so perhaps you'll have a hard time relating. Ignore that feeling while reading this and please try to provide an objective response this post if you can. I'm not posting this to start a digression about remote work or people's personalities.

Are there any companies that don't do this? Are there any companies that let you actually work remotely without these week long excursions?

As a fairly introverted person these things fill me with some amount of dread. Luckily haven't had to attend any so far, but I don't know how long that will continue.

The raise of remote work has been a blessing and a curse in this respect -- for me at least.

5 comments

smt882y ago

You broadly have two options:

A) Find a company that is 100% remote (fairly common), does no in-person meetings (rare), is a great place to work (extremely rare), pays the salary you want, and is hiring people like you. It's likely that most of the time, there are zero companies that fit these criteria.

B) Find a company that is 100% remote and does only a few in-person meetings, then work on your aversion to socializing in therapy. Anxiety and fear are very treatable, and life is full of things that you can be very afraid of if you successfully avoid them. You may never become more extroverted, but that doesn't mean you need to be stuck in the prison of being afraid to meet your coworkers once a quarter.

throw3452awayOP2y ago

Thanks for your response. However regrading your point B), I imagine you didn't fully read the description of this post. I was hoping to keep this objective and not about discussing things like therapy and people's personalities. I don't want this thread to be about those things. Strictly about any companies that happen to fit this criteria -- even if the answer is "no", then a simple "no" is sufficient.

If you provides you any comfort (if that's the right word to use here), my wording in my post was perhaps not quite right. I simply don't want to spend a week traveling, living in a hotel, doing mandatory group activity -- I'd rather spend that time with people in my life and living my life outside work hours

yaky2y ago

I have been working remotely for a US corporation (sector-specific hardware and software) for over a year. Although they have a physical office, and I also live in the US, there have been no mentions of visiting the office or any other get-togethers.

Perhaps, as other people mentioned, having many developers working from overseas, as well as key developers working remotely, disincentivizes the company/department/team from trying to bring them together in-person.

MatthiasPortzel2y ago

Look for companies that are hiring internationally. They’re less likely to want to jump through the hoops of getting visas for employees; and if some employees can’t make it, become much more acceptable for you to excuse yourself from the on-site.

muneeb12y ago

do you have a list for such companies?

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