Our take on remote work

Remote work has been discussed quite a lot lately. After the end of the COVID pandemic a couple of years ago, many companies that had adopted remote working have returned to the office and rejected this way of working. Others, like MarsBased, continue to embrace remote working as we were born with this philosophy and have never stopped believing in it. As a matter of fact, not everyone knows we were born as a completely officeless company.

Many companies are changing their minds with regards to remote work. Lots of companies revoked their work-from-home policies or reduced the number of days you can do home office per week, going back to hybrid or full back-to-office. Others, think that this is beyond the remote vs no-remote debate, like, Amir Salihefendic, the CEO of Doist, the company behind probably the world's most famous task management application (Todoist), who shared a tweet explaining that Doist will no longer promote remote work and asynchronous work, preferring to focus on other core values. Doist has been a reference in remote work throughout the years.

We have decided to stay put in this decision: we are remote and will always be.

What is clear is that remote work offers many advantages, but also comes with some important challenges: An in-person conversation is always better and more rewarding than a video call, and a video call is always better than a message on Slack or an email. Additionally, the relationships that can be established between colleagues are not the same behind a screen as they are in person.

At MarsBased, we have been working remotely for 10 years. This is what we do and what has always worked for us, in a nutshell:

• Slack is the MarsBased office. We're not passionate about it, because Slack is chaotic, there is noise, too many notifications, but it's the reality. The development team lives between Slack, Linear, Github, and development tools like Visual Studio Code. Everything that doesn't need to be saved for posterity, or discussed calmly, happens here. Developers post daily status updates and we have some alerts and notifications so we don't forget important stuff.
• The information we want to keep is saved on Google Drive, in text documents or spreadsheets.
• Linear is where we manage projects and we also have a space that we use as a message board for the company. Announcements and longer discussions are posted here.
• We frequently do video calls, on demand, when necessary. We use Google Meet for scheduled meetings on calendar events and occasionally Slack Huddles. In projects, we usually have a weekly sync meeting.
• Finally, the company get-togethers. We have a coffee video call on Fridays and another one on Thursdays, where someone explains something they have been working on or have learned (we call it Martian Tapas). We also see each other 3 to 4 times a year on our company get-togethers, the Martian Days.
• Additionally, we have an annual company retreeat (this year in Andorra!).

Regarding async, we don't believe in it very much. In IT jobs, it's important to have time for focused work. However, it's also crucial to engage and collaborate with others. Real-time interactions are generally more effective than written messages or recorded video calls.

Not every company is suited for remote work, and that's okay. Working in an office has its own benefits, just like remote work.

However, at MarsBased, we will continue to advocate for remote work because it allows us to hire talented individuals from different places and helps achieve a better work-life balance.