Beyond the Office Blueprint for Remote Productivity and Team Cohesion with CoderPad CEO Amanda Richardson - ep. 083

Join us this week for an engaging conversation with Amanda Richardson, CEO of CoderPad as she sits down with hosts Rick and Kaleem to discuss her career journey and the nuances of remote work.

Amanda's path into product management was sparked by a challenge from her company's CTO, igniting her passion for problem-solving. With experience at companies like Snagajob and Hotel Tonight, she honed her skills in understanding user needs and crafting innovative solutions.

At the helm of CoderPad, Amanda leads a platform that serves as a technical assessment tool primarily used for interviewing and evaluating developer talent. Beyond coding assessments, it accommodates various technical roles like hardware development and data science, offering both asynchronous and live coding interview capabilities.

Amanda questions the rush to return to the office, advocating for data-driven decision-making and challenging assumptions about office productivity. Drawing on studies showing increased productivity and company growth with remote teams, she highlights the benefits of remote work.

The trio delves into the challenges faced by mid-level managers tasked with enforcing directives they may not align with, stressing the importance of equipping them with the necessary tools and training to advocate for their teams' needs effectively.

There’s some skepticism about the hybrid work model in this conversation, Amanda points out logistical hurdles and the impracticality in certain job roles. She critiques it as a half-hearted attempt to balance remote and office work without addressing fundamental issues like teamwork and culture.

Our guest also debunks the misconception that remote work always translates to cost savings, highlighting expenses related to travel and tools while acknowledging potential savings in hiring talent from diverse locations.

So, click play and dive into this enlightening interview filled with valuable insights on remote work. Amanda's perspective offers a refreshing take on navigating modern work environments. We look forward to our next chat, Amanda!

Learn more about Amanda:

• Amanda’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandahartrichardson/
• CoderPad’s Webpage: https://coderpad.io/

Transcript

Amanda: 0:35

Isn't being a grown up awesome?

Rick: 0:36

I love adulting. It's just amazing. You know, it's like, here's, here's my heart. I'm gonna put it here on the floor for life to step on. Feel free, anybody.

Amanda: 0:46

and when it squishes out all the cash, just keep collecting it. That's

Rick: 0:49

Exactly. Oh, I like the way you think. I like you already. This is amazing.

Amanda: 0:55

gonna have fun. No, this is gonna be very fun.

Kaleem: 0:56

Oh, definitely. I mean, we had a blast last time. I was like, yeah, we're definitely doing this

Rick: 1:00

I'm sorry I missed that conversation. It sounds like it was a doozy.

Amanda: 1:03

It was kind of a doozy. It was a good

Kaleem: 1:05

Yeah. I love your hair I always have I love the style wish I could go with the side like that That'd be great you

Rick: 1:11

I would love to see that. I would love to see that. You look like a game show host. Rod Roddy! Tell her what she's won! Welcome back to Remotely One. I am your co host, Rick Haney, joined by my esteemed and apparently well moisturized colleague, Colleen Clarkson. You're looking shiny, brother!

Kaleem: 1:37

I'm doing the font. Ayyy!

Rick: 1:41

Hey everybody, since you know how to find us now, do us a huge favor. Go to RateThisPodcast. com forward slash Remotely One and just leave us a review. Is it really going to take that much time out of your day? We'd be ever so thankful. Okay. Hey, since 2015, Remotely One is one of the largest communities of remote work professionals. With over 3, 000 Slack members and 5, 000 email subscribers, it's free to join. Go check it out at RemotelyOne. com. And with that out of the way, Kaleem, why don't you give us a tease or two about today's guest?

Kaleem: 2:14

Oh yeah. Yeah. Today, today, Rick. Oh my gosh. You know, I met with our guests.

Rick: 2:21

Just take a

Kaleem: 2:21

I know. I know. I know. I met with our guests before and you know, because some things happened, you know, we weren't there. So I wasn't intense in the research. So we just were having a conversation, but now, now that I've, you know, done some digging and shit. Woo. Our guest today, Rick, It did get real. Our guest today. Yeah. They were born on a farm in New Jersey, son. Yes, they got farms in Jersey

Rick: 2:48

Two things I would never equate with one another. Despite it being the Garden State, I never made that connection.

Kaleem: 2:53

real. I figured they would grow dead people at that farm. I figured they just grow dead people at that farm.

Rick: 2:58

They're gonna sleep with the fishes.

Kaleem: 3:01

um, she was born there, but she grew up in Virginia. They are now

Rick: 3:07

that's beautiful.

Kaleem: 3:08

a resident. Of San Francisco. All right, another guest that just excels at learnings. That excels at smarts as we would say. Our guest, Rick. Yeah, yeah. Received their MBA at just this tiny school, Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Rick: 3:29

Jesus, heard about that a time or two. Never went there, though.

Kaleem: 3:32

as a young buck, they spent their

Rick: 3:35

Like,

Kaleem: 3:37

We didn't call it this by the way. So don't be coming at us. All right, don't be trying to cancel us. They said they went to nerd camp during the summers. I don't know nerd camp. Guess what is a nerd camp

Amanda: 3:52

Voluntary summer school. So where you and your friends may have gone away camping overnight and done campfires and s'mores. I went to school, uh, lived at the various. Universities and prep schools and took classes all summer and loved it.

Kaleem: 4:08

Loved it.

Amanda: 4:09

So not only was it nerd camp, I'm like a badge carrying, enjoyed nerd camp, several month subscriber.

Rick: 4:17

Okay. Alright, well, I'm gonna take a little sidetrack here, okay? and Kaleem, you might be able to relate, because we are from the same town, right? Up

Kaleem: 4:25

are. Yes, we are. Poe dunk.

Rick: 4:27

I don't know about you, but I had never heard of someone going to summer school without being forced into going to summer school. Like, nothing was voluntary about summer school. I mean, what the hell is that all

Kaleem: 4:38

for real. I don't want to call out their names, Rick, but all of you know, you know, some of you people in Cape. I y'all went to summer school. Okay, I'm not calling you out, but she went to these camps Rick and um,

Rick: 4:51

Yeah.

Kaleem: 4:52

Still wants to be an astronaut. Um, so that's interesting.

Rick: 4:55

Well, I can see

Amanda: 4:55

The physics one, was so good. We should all be

Rick: 4:59

well, there it is. It stayed with you. That's wonderful.

Kaleem: 5:01

I'm sure it was. I'm sure you guys were burning ants with your glasses and stuff and all that stuff. I mean, it just makes sense.

Amanda: 5:08

We were literally like doing books and homework. Like it's as nerdy as you think it could be. There was homework, you know, no s'mores, lots of like study time. And, it was great. And I didn't even get school credit for it. Like it was like the inverse of summer school. Like you're not catching up. You're literally like not getting anything for it. And I think my, I mean, obviously my parents paid money for it. Like it's nerdier than it could be.

Rick: 5:31

Yes. Calculations camp.

Kaleem: 5:33

Rick, I just added that we, we found this one out because I absolutely love this app and I love the name of it too, because it's a little risque, you know what I mean? They were the chief data and strategy officer at you ready for this hotel tonight. You know, when you got to get a hotel real quick, Rick, when you need a quick hotel, real fast, you go on this app and it's called, I need a hotel room. Tonight. That's pretty

Amanda: 6:04

We should have had you do the voiceovers. That would have been great,

Rick: 6:07

There's a saxophone somewhere in the background. When you need a hotel, you need a hotel tonight.

Kaleem: 6:14

Yes, baby. That was good.

Amanda: 6:16

but also much like nerd camp, it was actually a lot of business travel. So there you go. It's, it sounds sexy, but then it is, there it is. And there's a

Rick: 6:23

it is.

Amanda: 6:23

all this,

Kaleem: 6:24

Their logo is also like just a bed brick and it's purple. So it's almost like it should be smooth. Um, They were the former analysts at Blue Ridge Capital. They served four years as the SVP of product at Snagajob. Our guest today is now the CEO at Coderpad, a comprehensive technical assessment platform. Alright? And our guest was also featured in Forbes. They write all the time in Forbes. Listeners and viewers, please give a warm welcome to AMANNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD Richardson. Let's go. Whoa. Oh, settle down. Studio audience. Quiet down Quiet down. Ooh. Ooh. Thank you for joining us.

Rick: 7:21

How was that for an intro?

Amanda: 7:22

Wow. That's a lot to live up to you.

Rick: 7:26

We have confidence in you.

Kaleem: 7:28

We do.

Amanda: 7:28

we, I believe in us. We're going to pull this one through. This is going to be the highest rated one. I'm convinced.

Rick: 7:33

Oh. Thank you so much for being a part of the show, and for tolerating us so far. It's still early.

Kaleem: 7:41

it is early. It is early.

Rick: 7:42

Yes. Again, Amanda Richardson. Thank you for joining us. Obviously we have a series of questions, but before we get into the nitty gritty stuff for our listeners and for our viewers, can you talk a little bit about what product management is? So we are all on the same page.

Amanda: 7:58

That is a good question. Yeah, so I guess a little bit of context before I get there. My mom was actually a software engineer. so. Very OG software engineer, and so product management often sits kind of at this bridge between the business and the customer or the customer, I guess, like what does the customer want? What does the customer need? What does the market need? The business with like, what's the business value? Why are we doing this? Like, how can we like, what? You can't just build stuff people love. Like what's the business model and then engineering around, like, what do we build and how do we decide? And so it works very closely with the engineering team on. Prioritizing what to build, what to fix. And you know, some would say kind of guides the engineering roadmap. And my mom would always say like, I don't understand why engineers need you. Why can't they figure that out themselves? They're perfectly smart. So that's what product management does. And my mom thinks it's a waste of time. So there you go. But I built a career on it.

Rick: 8:54

Yeah, so you're like the behind the scenes engineer support, so to speak. Like, you put it all together for them.

Amanda: 9:00

Um, I mean, engineers are perfectly smart, probably smarter than me people, but, you know, helps to be the bridge in terms of prioritizing, figuring out, what are we going to do? What should we build? What should we not build? Why? Who's it going to serve? How do we, you know, talking to customers, talking to users, really understanding what the needs are and what problems we should solve for them.

Rick: 9:20

You're setting it up for them, basically.

Amanda: 9:23

Yeah. Yeah. The bridge.

Rick: 9:25

Yes. Yes. So given your amazing experience with that background, was there ever like a defining moment as you were coming up through the ranks when you were awake? Ah, this is it. This is my calling. Was it like a lightbulb moment or anything that happened where you were, that you decided this is where you wanted to pursue your career?

Amanda: 9:45

it was probably actually how I ended up getting the job. So, um, out of business school. I did business development, which is this, generic term for what MBAs who really have no skills end up doing because they don't really know what to do with you, but you seem like you could be employable. And so I was doing business development, which at this company where I was, this is Eclipsus, which is since rebranded and been acquired and moved on. But, I would do business development and I would do partnerships with different products and different, you know, we needed to add more. Products to our customer, to our portfolio. And so we do these partnerships and I'd, you know, do these beautiful up into the right charts, like every MBA and then hand it off to the product and engineering team and be like, go, go forth, deliver and bring revenue and, you know, every quarter I would report to the CEO that we hadn't done anything. And so if you complain enough about that, you have to fix it. Um, and so I will never forget when the CTO of the organization came over to me. It was like, if you think you're so good at it, why don't you come over here and do it? And so that was when I became a product manager and I was like, actually, I hate this.

Rick: 10:53

Oh.

Amanda: 10:53

And I was like, this is really hard. There's actually a ton of constraints on the engineering side. We didn't think about there's a million customer requests. Like this isn't exactly the product that's right. So I left product management, fast forward, three months later, I was asked to step into a product management role on the temporary. And that was when I was making products for consumers, like mass, like lots of customers and serving millions of people. And that was the moment I realized I love product management because it was much more about. The data, the math, the numbers, the metrics, like, you know, a million people come to this page. How many of them do this and how can I get more of them to do that? And then how many of them end up here? And that was what sung to my heart about product management. It was like bringing together the users. And kind of the metrics and the business sides. That was how I knew I loved it.

Kaleem: 11:46

Oh my gosh, I missed this. The head of product at Prezi too. I mean, your resume is crazy. I mean, like, like it just makes me like, I'm just so happy to just hang out with you. Go through some of your gigs and just tell me like, what was it like at Snagajob? What was it like at Prezi? What? Well, those companies like, and of course, hotel tonight, I mean, like, what were some of the common challenges that you, uh, that you are approached with and you kind of had to fix.

Amanda: 12:18

Yeah. So, I mean, my time at snag a job was great. We were helping hourly workers, largest platform for hourly workers to find jobs, which is probably like an overlooked group of people. More people are paid by the hour than salaried in this country. And many of them count on that to like feed their kids, put diapers on their babies, you know, Manage their rent. And so, it was just really fulfilling there, um, to be able to really help people find the right fit positions. That was that challenge. At Prezi, it was about taking a software product used by a lot of education, users, students and bringing that to the enterprise. And so how do we help support, different consultants and salespeople and people who do presentations? And then at Hotel Tonight, it was heads in beds, as we like to say,

Kaleem: 13:08

Heads and beds.

Amanda: 13:10

heads in beds. So we would get heads into beds, and so, you know, again, there's a lot of different problems and challenges around hotel bookings. Like, it's kind of still a crappy process. Every time I book a hotel that's not on Hotel Tonight, I get super frustrated. Um. And so I think the common challenges of all of them was, I just love working with users. I love talking to customers. I love understanding what the end user wants and needs and what's going on in their minds and what their challenges are. Yeah, it's been a, it's been a very fun, diverse journey in many ways, but also like the common thread is just certainly, you know, working with users, understanding the problems, bringing product management and the product to the front and center of the success of the organization.

Rick: 13:57

So at which stage in this Journey of yours, did you discover remote work?

Amanda: 14:04

question. my first job out of undergrad, I was in finance, and I split time between Virginia and New York City. And so, but the most of the people were in New York City, so I was in an office, but I was kind of by myself.

Kaleem: 14:18

Roughly what years are these?

Amanda: 14:19

now you're making me reveal my age. Is

Kaleem: 14:22

No, you could have been 10 years old. You're a genius.

Amanda: 14:26

I am a genius, first day of work was September 10th, 2001.

Kaleem: 14:29

Wow. Wow, right before 9 11. Intense.

Amanda: 14:36

that, was very tough. The working in finance, second day of work, you show up and 9 11 is happening. And you're like in this remote office trying to prove to your boss that you're like worthy and a good hire, right? It's day two. Like I'm ready to rock and roll. And you're like, The world seems to be collapsing in New York City, but my phone still works. What do we do right now? Do I work? Do I not work? Yeah. So, but that first job it was, you know, multiple offices, different, like kind of gave me the feel of remote work. And then since then I've kind of always had distributed teams somewhere. But the first fully remote. Company has been Coderpad and I made that decision. I started a Coderpad, in 2019 and we made that decision really a function of getting talent. I'd work with some amazing people who were no longer in the Bay area and I was excited to work with them again. And the realization that like technology is pretty good. Like there's no reason to be in the office. If you've worked in a company that has multiple offices, like you spend half your time talking to the screen anyway, so

Kaleem: 15:35

It's true.

Amanda: 15:36

I'm just going to do it in yoga pants.

Kaleem: 15:39

Which the whole world did. For a while. Yoga pants sales skyrocketed. She just She just did a pose on her balance board, bro.

Amanda: 15:55

going to see, I'm going to see if I might actually, if I heard something called 9 1 1, but let's see.

Kaleem: 16:00

it! Yes! Yes! Listeners, she just put her leg over her head.

Rick: 16:06

I love it. You're going to wish you were watching this one. Go to YouTube, check it out. Anyway, since we're on the subject before we get derailed too much, can you tell us a little bit more about CoderPad and what the challenges were that you're trying to solve with it?

Amanda: 16:18

Yeah, so CoderPad is a platform for interviewing and assessing developer talent. So, if you are looking to be an engineer at one of the Fang companies, Tesla, you know, Apple, Facebook, whatever, you will probably go through a technical interview. They use our products to assess your skills, either asynchronously or in a live interviewing experience. So you'd be surprised how many engineers get hired on like. I don't know, Rick, tell me what you know about JavaScript and you banter for 30 minutes and they're like, Rick seems to know JavaScript as opposed to like, Hey, Rick, let's actually try to build something together and work together and see if you actually. Know what you're doing or you're just full of shit. Um, and so that's what Coderpad does. And because, you know, we're a platform for interviewing and assessing that works on the internet, it actually supports a lot of remote work. And so a lot of our customers and particularly our developer demographic is really passionate about, working remotely, productivity is higher. There was a great study by Microsoft, where they put together the, Productivity of developers is linearly correlated between. Work from home versus work in the office. So depending on your axes, lowest productivity is if you're in your office, five days a week, highest productivity is if you're at home five days a week, so kind of remote work feeds into what we do and is part of our culture and enables my business to thrive.

17:46

We'll be right back after these words. 2020 was no joke. It changed the game for everyone. Workplace flexibility is no longer a perk, but an expectation. In fact, a recent study showed that a flexible schedule is more important than salary. Yeah, you heard that right? Employees want choices over cash. If you're a startup or a small business that doesn't have a remote work strategy, stop what you're doing right now and complete our free tree assessment at blendmeinc. com. Since 2013, BlendMe Inc. Has been helping small businesses improve the remote employee experience. Let's stay local, but compete global. Visit us at blendmeinc. com. That's blendmeinc. com. Ever wonder how certain ads catch your attention or get stuck in your head? It's because the person voicing it knows how to tell the story. Maybe they're telling you to stumble over to Sullivan St. Patrick's day for green beers, Irish car bombs, and con beef all freaking day. Don't miss the deal of a lifetime this President's Day at Callahan Ford. Savings like these should be unconstitutional. Or maybe Come wash away your troubles here at Cooters Car Wash. We ain't no soap opry, but you'll be singing high praises. Hoo wee, Cooters! Or, here at Brooks Brothers Mortuary, we put the fun in funeral. Everyone is just dying to join us. Alright, well that's a bit much, but for you, I'll do it. I'm Rick Haney, and if you're a business owner looking for a creative voice in your marketing, look no further. I'll tell your story the way you want it told. Follow along at RemotelyWeAreOne or visit my website at rickhaney. me for more information. And now, back to the show.

Kaleem: 19:54

You know, in the development space, this is key. Like being able to test is so important, you know, especially with all these different frameworks now, you know, it's really important, but did you say that there are some other roles or is it just for developers?

Amanda: 20:09

Uh, we work primarily anybody who's uses like a coding technology. So primarily an obvious ones are software developers, but you know, a number of companies use us for hardware development. A number of companies use us around data science. Anybody who's, you know, using SQL, which sometimes are finance roles, you know, some of these big companies have serious modeling teams and stuff and they can live in marketing finance, but yeah, anything where it's like a technical.

Kaleem: 20:36

Right.

Amanda: 20:36

based

Kaleem: 20:37

You're kind of testing their ability to to do that. That's interesting. So, how I

Amanda: 20:41

We like to frame it not as testing. We frame it as like figuring out your skills,

Kaleem: 20:47

Not testing,

Amanda: 20:48

yes.

Kaleem: 20:49

assessing. evaluating. Um, yeah, not testing. So how I found you is I was just, you know, sniffing the web like I do, you know, I like to sniff around. And yeah, I came across this article in Forbes. And interestingly enough, this article was titled the very closely to our very first episode title. Like I didn't even notice that until recently, well Rick did, Rick noticed it. So just out of curiosity, so the article was, was titled you, you want your employees to return to the office, but why? What motivated you to just write that article? And what was the main message? You know, of course, go check out the article and read it for yourself. But, yeah, what motivated you to write that?

Amanda: 21:37

mean, I, it's been interesting to me to see a group, you know, of business leaders who are very competent people make a bunch of decisions without data. And so I am actively seeking the data that shows being in office is, um, like, I, I'm, I'm curious what the benefits are, right? I'm not saying there are none, like there are certainly benefits. And there are times where like standing together around a whiteboard or whatever is helpful. We meet up as a team, we get together as groups. Like that's not to say you never leave your. Your desk, but, I've been surprised by how many people think return to office is going to solve so many of their problems. And what's interesting to me is also, if you look at a number of pieces of research, like BCG had a study they put out yesterday that was covered in Bloomberg around, just growth rates of companies and how it correlates to remote work, faster growth. If you have more remote workers, you just have a bigger access to a talent pool. So what inspires me is like, I'm just, I just want to see what the data is. Like, I want to understand what problems people are solving and what data shows that the solution is putting people back in the office as someone who. You know, I've worked, I worked in an office a lot. I don't necessarily look back at that and think, God, those were the days. It was super helpful to be interrupted all the time. It was really amazing to like get nothing done. Cause I was waiting at the coffee machine. I really appreciated the 40 minute commute each way and missing meetings because, you know, the train would get stuck. Like that was like always helpful. And. Great. Yeah. Those are my favorite parts of going into the office. And the other thing is, like, my reality is, look, you know, we're all very busy people. I'm, consider myself kind of busy. Like, my day starts early. I start my day, I do some morning work, and then I start my day at 8. I can't start my day at 8 if I have to go back to the office. So I just, I'm just curious about, like, for the people who are pushing back to office, like, what are they gaining? And what problem are they solving? So, I get fired up about it.

Rick: 23:41

Well, you know, you raise a good point. It kind of seems to me that, at least in my opinion anyway, that a lot of these managers don't have that data to back up their argument of forcing people back into the office, and I'm just wondering Do you think that's the case? Like, they don't have the data to back up their arguments and, or if they do, they're not sharing it? I mean, what do you think's going on there?

Amanda: 24:08

I don't know. I think honestly, like we have three years of people, two years of people being at home. We have a lot of newly promoted managers who don't, haven't been trained. And so I think we just, we probably have a lot of mismanagement. I just don't know that the solution is like me having this laptop, you know, two and a half miles downtown, as opposed to in my living room is if that's going to solve the problem. I'd love for people to redirect and think about how do we do better manager training? How do we Reduce the number of meetings in an organization. Like how do we give people more heads down time? Like, I think there are ways to do in person and remote work better, but it's all somehow kind of like hand wavy attributed to whether or not you're in the office. And I just don't think we're thinking critically as a, leader in the business community. I don't think we're thinking critically enough about this problem. And I worry we're just gonna throw everybody back to the office and be like, voila, we fixed it. but I think it's on us as managers to do the five whys, really think through What the problem is and see if we're fixing it. I don't think we're investing enough in our people.

Kaleem: 25:15

Right.

Rick: 25:16

no, you, and that's another great point that we, that rears its ugly head on this show so often. It's like, often the mid managers are being forced into an uncomfortable position because the guys above them are just telling them I want asses in chairs. I don't care what you got to do. We got to make this happen. And then the mid level managers are like, just doing what they're told. They might not agree with forcing everybody back into work, but they have to because it's their job to enforce that. So now you've got a whole generation of, you know, mid level managers that have grown apathetic because they're just kind of going through the motions. So I think those are the, where, A lot of the focus needs to be played in addition to, um, training that older mindset.

Amanda: 26:05

Yeah. And like give those mid managers tools, right? Like how do we run effective one on ones like. All of this seems obvious and maybe the secret to being in the office is that I learned this because I was in the office, you know, 15 years ago in my first job as a leader and like, I osmosis, you know, how to run one on ones and things like that. I don't know that I really believe that, but on the chance that's the answer, like, we don't have that opportunity for manager state and we haven't over the past couple of years as we've all been in varying phases of lockdown remote, like. So let's spend the time teaching people how to be managers. Let's equip that mid level manager. Who's getting the directive from like on high of like butts need to be in seats, but not my butt. Cause the senior people never come in and then, you know, the mid level person. Let's just, call that one. Then the mid manager's like, okay, well, I'll be in like, let's give that person like tools to help. Let's give them a reason to come in beyond free lunch. Right? Like, I don't know, there are better ways to structure this and think about work.

Kaleem: 27:05

Yeah.

Rick: 27:06

Do as I say, not as I do.

Amanda: 27:08

Yeah. Right. Like that's like the worst kind of leadership.

Kaleem: 27:11

Amanda, out of curiosity, so Codapad was remote first from day one. You worked in other organizations where you had offices and you were kind of satellite. What's your whole thought on the whole hybrid, you know, rage right now? Like a lot of organizations are talking about hybrid, hybrid, and then dictating how many days a week, like. In your opinion, what's your, your feelings about this hybrid model right now? Cause it feels like everybody's saying, Ooh, hybrids, the future hybrids, the future. What are your thoughts?

Amanda: 27:42

don't know how you make, I mean, so I look at it from a couple of different angles and I probably am most skeptical on hybrid, like I'm long remote only. And then I can be in like with in office full time. But like the hybrid is the one where I'm like, what are we doing again? Because. I mean, I just think from a tactical perspective of like packing up your desk, you know, this is not to say like it's 1980 and I've got like 17 bound notebooks that I need to bring to the office. But like, I got sticky notes, I got things like, I don't want to pack that. And then you forget the thing or you forget the headset. Like there's something nice about having a place where you go to work, right? And that's your place for work and you got your stuff. So I think that, but I think when that's changing all the time and my, we should call it a workplace, that's a great term.

Kaleem: 28:31

Yeah. Your workplace. It's

Amanda: 28:33

And so my husband's in hardware. I also looked at the lens through his, you can't be like hybrid with hardware, like, what's he going to do? Like carry his 3d printer back and forth to the office. Like that doesn't even make sense. So like, there's just like realities of jobs where hybrid doesn't make sense. And then hybrid. Also feels like this like half assed real estate play where they're like, we want everybody in the office, but we're not going to buy everybody a desk or we can't afford. It's not the desk. That's expensive. It's the square footage. That's expensive. I've seen those bills, you know, we're going to like, so like, let's just do half the teams. And so everybody's going to work more together, but we're never going to have sales and marketing come in on the same day, which yeah. Absolutely means the place is going to fall apart, right? Like you can't hybrid, but not have teams working together. Like, what are we doing? So, I don't know. I'm most skeptical on hybrid, but I can appreciate like, as someone, you know, who works closely with employers and hiring managers, it is very hard to get talent back into the office. People have become comfortable and bullish on remote work. And when you look at applications, you post a remote job, you will get flooded with resumes. It's very hard to compel people to come back to the office. So you've got to come up with something like hybrid to say like, Oh no, do remote work, but except for the three days when you have to come in.

Kaleem: 29:51

Yeah.

Amanda: 29:52

when none of your coworkers are there because

Kaleem: 29:54

Right.

Amanda: 29:55

going to pay for their

Rick: 29:57

Right.

Kaleem: 29:59

and if we call you in on those other days, you still have to come in by the way. Like, you know, we still need people that are willing to go the extra mile.

Rick: 30:08

Yes. Yes.

Amanda: 30:10

the extra mile thing is also funny to me. Like, I think one of these unintended consequences, like if we're all going to be watching the hours and like, we're all going to say, like, you have to be in the office nine to five, like, that's cool. But remember, the flip to that coin is like, you are not in the office and working 5 PM to 9 AM and I don't know, as a remote worker, that's not really my world. I do a lot of early morning calls. I start a lot of days at 5 AM. Don't even think twice about it. Cause you know, who cares? Like I just got to go down and open the laptop and brush my teeth. I do brush my teeth. Um, but you know, I think if I had to be in the office at 5 AM, forget it. I'm

Kaleem: 30:46

Ooh, you're cursing, the whole drive, cursing the whole drive.

Rick: 30:51

Wow. Yes. So true. That's so true. One of the, one of the terms, has always been floated around. It's because it's a common issue is isolation. People working from home. You have teams of people that, that never see each other. So, what are your views about remote first companies and strategies To bring their employees together, either in office or out of office? like What are your thoughts on people getting together?

Amanda: 31:17

I mean, I think, Oh, in person only, or how do we facilitate that remotely? Cause we do a lot remotely to bring teams together. We do a lot of, yeah. Yeah. I think that's what matters, right? You got to establish the rapport and like build the relationships because no one's going to send the slack. That's like, Hey, that. That sales deck was a fucking mess. Like, I don't even know you, so you've got to like build the relationships. So we do a lot of that remotely. We do team meetups our, you know, virtual meetups. I do a lot of coffee chats, skip levels, a lot of Q and a type sessions. So we definitely do those. You know, if I could magic wand, I would have all my teams functionally ish. Meet up every quarter, but to be honest with you, it's really logistically hard. It's logistically hard. And it's expensive. I have a global team, right? And so we're flying people from. I don't know, California to France or France to Ireland or whatever it is. And so, anyway, our plan is that we meet up with teams once or twice a year. I meet with my leadership team three times a year in person. Yeah.

Kaleem: 32:21

Okay. So, that's three times. I mean, that's almost once a quarter, almost once a quarter. I mean, that's pretty good. It is expensive, especially when you start spending some of that savings on more staff and more people you're like, Oh snap. Like it's hard to reinvest those savings without, yeah, it's just hard. It's not easy. Right.

Amanda: 32:40

Yeah. I don't think remote work is always cheaper. I mean, I'm just spending money on, you know, airline tickets and hotel rooms sometimes instead of CBRE rental real estate.

Kaleem: 32:53

that's a really good point. Because people think that it's a huge savings. It is. I mean, it's a savings, but then you have to invest if you want culture, if you want connection. Yeah, you can have some savings on certain things, I mean, depending on where you're hiring engineers, right? Well, it depends

Amanda: 33:09

that I think is the biggest savings. I think the biggest savings is, you know, hiring in various geographies, like as someone who lives in San Francisco and has one of the highest whatever price per employee. Areas like there is a, the cost savings comes in hiring great talent outside of the Bay Area. The cost savings doesn't necessarily come from like not paying for an office lease and that kind of gets shifted to somewhere between like travel and tools. Well,

Rick: 33:41

Very true. Amanda, can you tell us about a comical or inspiring moment you had while working remotely?

Kaleem: 33:47

Yes! Yes! Please!

Amanda: 33:51

I feel like this is everybody's experience, but then I've never actually had anyone else. It happened to anyone else's house. So maybe it's

Kaleem: 33:57

okay. okay. Alright, so we need details, like, set up the story really well, we need, yeah, we need details, we need, like, where you at, you know what I mean, what's the sun

Amanda: 34:08

All right. All right. All right. Well,

Kaleem: 34:10

like in the moment?

Amanda: 34:11

so I do a lot of morning phone calls, so it's, you know, it's probably like a five 30 meeting that wraps up by six 30. And, my kids usually, I have a five year old and a seven year old, a girl and a boy. And, um, you can see where this one's going. And my kids wake up about six 30. So regularly my five year old boy gets up and like, Takes off his pull up, we can have a separate podcast about whether five year olds should still be wearing pull ups, but I'm not mom of the year. We're moving on. it's all good. He won't go to college in them, it's fine. So, he takes off his pull up,

Kaleem: 34:44

we'll see.

Amanda: 34:44

and comes downstairs, and what you can't tell is that I'm in my living room, and so right behind me, over my right shoulder, is our couch. And normally, like, with a bigger screen, I'm sitting down, he comes down, Once a week, will lay down on the couch, pants off, full junk on display, frontal, and just, and he also likes to like sit with his leg up, so he kind of has his like leg up on the couch he's like watching TV.

Kaleem: 35:17

Watching TV, does he have a beer in his hand too?

Amanda: 35:20

I know. Exactly. Exactly. Like, I'm so sorry to his future partner. Who's going to be like, you trained him this way. And of course I'm in a meeting. So I'm like, whatever it takes, like just shush, shush, shush. I'm busy. Like you just, whatever it takes. And he's just like fully hanging out there. You know, for the whole world to see, hopefully they don't start doing imaging because it's definitely like some form of like random, like weird child porn situation, like we should, we got to figure that out. We got to figure that out. But, yeah, I think everybody on my leadership team has definitely seen my son's penis. So there you go. And I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to stop it.

Kaleem: 35:56

I don't know how to stop. It keeps, I can see you in a meeting and all of a sudden you're just like, Oh, no. Oh,

Rick: 36:04

Here he

Amanda: 36:05

Here he comes. no. And I'll be like, we're definitely going to work on that. We're looking at a spreadsheet. We're studying and like, this is important strategy message. And I can hear him coming down the stairs and like coming into the room and I'm like, no, one's going to take me seriously when my half naked son shows up in this picture in 15 seconds. Um,

Kaleem: 36:22

work so much. I love it so much. This is what we're here for, Rick. Rick.

Amanda: 36:27

is it. Like we're all messy. Life is messy. Like, you

Rick: 36:31

This is real, folks.

Amanda: 36:33

raised. is what it is.

Kaleem: 36:35

The stories of remote work. That's what we're telling Rick. That's what we're telling.

Rick: 36:40

Oh. Well, and that one takes the cake. That's gotta be one of the best ones I've

Amanda: 36:45

Oh no.

Kaleem: 36:46

Definitely.

Rick: 36:47

no. it's

Amanda: 36:47

He's going to discover this 20 years from now and be like, mom, I can't believe you told people that.

Rick: 36:53

Wait till he sees the video footage. That'll mess him up.

Amanda: 36:56

Yeah. What I, what he doesn't know is that every time my team just hits record and like saves it for future,

Rick: 37:03

Heh. Wow. Oh,

Amanda: 37:07

wedding and they're like, and there's William naked again.

Kaleem: 37:09

Have you in

Rick: 37:09

man. That is so classic. man. Amanda, where can our listeners and viewers find you?

Amanda: 37:16

Oh, well in San Francisco, but you can also find me on LinkedIn.

Kaleem: 37:21

Okay.

Rick: 37:22

Perfect.

Amanda: 37:22

I'm no longer doing the Twitters. I'm over that. Yeah.

Kaleem: 37:26

on that threads now. I made the move.

Amanda: 37:28

Did you? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I did threads for a little bit like everybody else. We'll see. Maybe I'll come back.

Rick: 37:33

Yeah.

Kaleem: 37:34

That's awesome

Rick: 37:35

you so much

Amanda: 37:36

It was awesome to see you guys. This was very fun. Check out Coderpad. It helps with remote work. It turns out. There you go.

Rick: 37:41

Absolutely. Thank you so much again, and we look forward to talking to you again soon, I hope.

Amanda: 37:46

I hope so too.

Kaleem: 37:47

Thank you. Peace.