Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Cesar Abeid and Karen Arnold of Automattic talk about the benefits of building a distributed/remote team and how to get started.
Distributed Work
Automattic is the tech company behind WordPress.com, and one of the top contributors to the WordPress.org project, the open-source code that powers over 1/3 of all websites in the world.
Automattic is also where I’ve been working since 2016. Besides WordPress and all other products Automattic creates, we are known for our distributed work culture: we have no central headquarters, and our 900+ employees all work from home, or from wherever they want.
With the increased popularity of remote work, I’ve seen a lot of project managers looking to build project teams in a distributed way, but not knowing where to start.
To talk about that, I invited my coworker and friend Karen Arnold.
Karen Arnold
Karen Arnold leads the Tech Support Hiring team at Automattic, the team responsible for hiring support staff for Automattic’s products. She has worked remotely for Automattic since 2012.
Karen has spoken at a number of events including SupConfNY 2016, SDExpo Europe 2019, WordCamps in the United States, Nicaragua, Argentina, Colombia, and Peru, and various WordPress meetup events. Prior to Automattic, Karen ran a business creating WordPress sites for small businesses.
She lives in Albuquerque, NM with her husband and four children.
In this episode we talk about
- What’s the difference between remote and distributed work?
- What are the benefits of working with a distributed or remote team?
- How to build a remote or distributed team?
- What are some tools remote/distributed teams can use?
- Automattic.com
- Happiness Engineer blog
- Karen Arnold’s Twitter
Click the “play” button above to listen, and leave a comment below if you’d like to join in the conversation.