Well it's hard to compare anything objectively. Being fully remote means we can hire out of a global pool of talent. Everyone is very experienced, and experienced in the exact thing that we want. So the c++ devs are experienced in writing trading system cores. The front end guys are experienced in writing GUIs for trading systems. And the devops guys are experienced in managing them.
So you'd probably be comparing apples to oranges, since most firms have to compromise on either skill or experience, due to being in a local market. In-office teams have other advantages such as being able to monitor people, and maybe a sense of closeness for people who aren't devs (devs are ahead of the others culturally).
My own opinion is that the tradeoff falls in favour of remote. I've actually never worked with a bunch of people as competent as this, and it's all been quite pleasant too. I also briefly helped a friend run a remote team, and that was similarly pleasant and productive.
Most of my previous experience has been with traditional in-office teams. Commuting is a major context switch, and most people need to go 45 minutes each way. And then they aren't set up to do much from home, and are disinclined when the occasional work-from-home day happens.
That context switch can be quite bad if you think about it. Say you need 2 hours of deep dive concentration to write a piece of critical code, and magically assume it's pointless to try if you don't have the full time undisturbed. Well, if your working day is 8 hours, you can't do it in the two hours before lunch, or the two hours before you leave. If you have meetings there might not be any time at all that day.
By contrast you probably don't have a meeting in my remote team -just say you aren't around- and you can either wake up early or overrun your evening, or move your lunchtime.
The thing is culture is everything. We started remote, and that's always been the deal. It might be different to have an in-office team attempting to go remote.
So you'd probably be comparing apples to oranges, since most firms have to compromise on either skill or experience, due to being in a local market. In-office teams have other advantages such as being able to monitor people, and maybe a sense of closeness for people who aren't devs (devs are ahead of the others culturally).
My own opinion is that the tradeoff falls in favour of remote. I've actually never worked with a bunch of people as competent as this, and it's all been quite pleasant too. I also briefly helped a friend run a remote team, and that was similarly pleasant and productive.
Most of my previous experience has been with traditional in-office teams. Commuting is a major context switch, and most people need to go 45 minutes each way. And then they aren't set up to do much from home, and are disinclined when the occasional work-from-home day happens.
That context switch can be quite bad if you think about it. Say you need 2 hours of deep dive concentration to write a piece of critical code, and magically assume it's pointless to try if you don't have the full time undisturbed. Well, if your working day is 8 hours, you can't do it in the two hours before lunch, or the two hours before you leave. If you have meetings there might not be any time at all that day.
By contrast you probably don't have a meeting in my remote team -just say you aren't around- and you can either wake up early or overrun your evening, or move your lunchtime.
The thing is culture is everything. We started remote, and that's always been the deal. It might be different to have an in-office team attempting to go remote.