{"id":388,"date":"2020-05-13T08:54:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T05:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arc.dev\/employer-blog\/?p=388"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T04:55:10","slug":"taxjar-help-scout-engineering-ama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arc.dev\/employer-blog\/taxjar-help-scout-engineering-ama\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote Engineering Team Best Practices (AMA with TaxJar &#038; Help Scout)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>You have to have autonomy, trust, transparency\u2026 all these things that make it possible for highly functioning teams to work well together.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Another special episode this week! This is the first Outside the Valley episode not hosted by me (you\u2019re welcome). This week\u2019s episode is a replay of our recent AMA session with CTO of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxjar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TaxJar<\/a>\u00a0Matt Anderson. The AMA was hosted by our VP of Sales Mike Fossi, and a special co-host: VP of Engineering of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.helpscout.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Help Scout<\/a>\u00a0(and previous podcast guest), Megan Chinburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a conversation between engineering leaders of two awesome remote companies talking about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their teams, figuring out processes and goal setting, and how they go about hiring the right person for their teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019ve enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/outside-the-valley\/id1481937930\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iTunes<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The podcast is also available on your favorite players:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/outside-the-valley\/id1481937930?ign-mpt=uo%3D4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">iTunes<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL291dHNpZGUtdGhlLXZhbGxleQ%3D%3D&hl=en-TW\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Podcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/castro.fm\/podcast\/5a2c6978-e8e7-4f02-a47d-ca3474778329\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Castro<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/overcast.fm\/itunes1481937930\/outside-the-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Overcast<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5qzXgcHzieXIRtXglSmUE8?si=rMPobXZtQwSU0wQ3grTAxA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/podcast\/outside-the-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stitcher<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/player.fm\/series\/outside-the-valley\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Player.fm<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/podcasts\/Technology-Podcasts\/Outside-The-Valley-p1251704\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tune In<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Follow us on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/arcdotdev\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0to get updates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Looking for top talent fast? See how <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\/\">Arc<\/a><em> can help you:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u26a1\ufe0f Find developers, designers, marketers, and more<br>\u26a1\ufe0f Freelance or full-time remote + fully vetted<\/em><em><br>\u26a1\ufe0f Save up to 80% with global hires<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\"><strong>Hire top talent with Arc risk-free \u2192<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"topics-also-covered-in-this-episode%3A\">Topics also covered in this episode:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>How COVID-19 pandemic has affected Matt and Megan\u2019s working routines<\/li><li>How Matt and Megan kept the morale and culture of their engineering teams intact during this challenging time<\/li><li>How they go about figuring out meetings and setting goals for their teams<\/li><li>The hiring processes and interview questions at TaxJar and Help Scout<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"mentioned-resources%3A\">Mentioned resources:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/taxjar.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">TaxJar<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/helpscout.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Help Scout<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/matt-anderson-513b81a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Matt Anderson<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/it.linkedin.com\/in\/chinburg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Megan Chinburg<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/basecamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Basecamp<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/fellow.app\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fellow App<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.helpscout.com\/blog\/how-to-hire-remote\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Help Scout\u2019s 12-Step Remote Hiring Process<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"related-episodes%3A\">Related episodes:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\/blog\/podcast-ep1-taxjar-mark-faggiano-7r9ktngad2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mark Faggiano of TaxJar: Creating Remote Employee Culture<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\/blog\/podcast-ep11-helpscout-megan-chinburg-87b6q5wev9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Megan Chinburg of Help Scout: A Look into Help Scout\u2019s Hiring Process<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"transcript\">Transcript<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mike:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, good morning, everybody. We\u2019re gonna go ahead and just wait about one or two minutes here to get started and I\u2019ll kick off with some intros. But I just wanna give people a chance to go ahead and log in. You know, for questions and things, feel free to ask as we go along. It\u2019s designed as an AMA format. So put your questions there in the chatbox and our host will get to them as soon as we can. But yeah, we\u2019re just gonna give it one or two minutes here to kind of go ahead and let everybody jump in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, let\u2019s go ahead and get things kicked off here. I\u2019ll start off with some intros. So first of all, we have Matt Anderson. Matt is a CTO at TaxJar. He\u2019s been leading a fully remote entity for about six years now. TaxJar is 100% remote team, and they\u2019re helping e-commerce sellers to manage sales tax. So Matt\u2019s currently based in California with his wife and five children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then next we have Megan Chinburg, she\u2019s the VP of Engineering at Help Scout. And she\u2019s been actually managing teams in a fully remote company for over four years. So she\u2019s described herself an engineering leader who really loves building strong and successful teams while promoting collaboration, autonomy, and creativity, and personal growth. She\u2019s also a cyclist and violinist who\u2019s currently based in Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And myself here is I am Mike Fossi, VP of Sales here at Arc.dev. We are the host of the webinar. If you\u2019re interested in taking a look at Arc afterwards, more than happy to chat, I\u2019ll put up my contact information. But Arc is a remote developer and hire platform. And we\u2019re working to make it easier for companies to hire great developers who just happen to live outside your zip code. So if anyone is interested in looking at ways to kind of grow their engineering team after this, more than happy to chat. But let\u2019s go ahead and get things started with some of the first questions we have. I\u2019ll turn it over to the both of you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, thanks for the intro. So, Matt, you\u2019ve been managing remote teams for a while now, working from home though, during a pandemic, does present a new set of challenges. What\u2019s the biggest difference for you as a leader during this time, and what are you doing to keep up morale on your team?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, these have definitely been some challenging times for all of us. I think what it is, is that we\u2019re finding ourselves in a new context. So, people\u2026you may have been remote, you may have been in an office and just finding yourself remote. But you\u2019re finding that you\u2019re working next to your spouse or partner or roommate or your kids are running around the house, and you have a new responsibility of taking care of them. And that\u2019s really changed the context and I think that\u2019s where the challenge comes from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for me, Mike\u2019s shared that I do have five kids, but I\u2019ve had the privilege like since they were young to be able to\u2026with my wife to homeschool them. So I find myself where some of my daily context hasn\u2019t changed. And so that allows me as a leader, that I\u2019ve found to be able to put a little bit more time into focusing on like this new kind of care for the people around like, that\u2019s beyond the normal care and so you have to have extra empathy. And so that\u2019s kind of how I\u2019ve addressed some of this time but then how I can turn and like give that back to my employees who have no idea how to have a couple of kids at home, teach them school, which is kind of a wild thing to put on parents you know, overnight, and then expect them to keep doing their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I think that\u2019s been a big part of the leadership is looking at that being able to give time to people who need it there. And then the morale comes beyond that, right, like tonight, you gotta look for ways to make people laugh, smile throughout the day, I don\u2019t know, joke about the bad situation and do stuff like that. So we\u2019ve seen a lot of new happy hours, like social hours, game hours, like people are playing online games for like an hour at the end of the day, just playing trivia games or whatnot, just to do something other than work and other than think about\u2026you know, worrying about their family\u2019s health and the health of their, you know, neighborhood or whatever. So, yeah, so continue to do those one on ones and be flexible. Those are a lot of things we\u2019re doing at TaxJar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, absolutely. We\u2019re doing that as well, lots of happy hours and more get-togethers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, you would have thought as a remote company we would have done a lot of those, but we didn\u2019t, because like people didn\u2019t, like crave them as much as they do now where they need, like, they need a little laughter. Like we\u2019ve actually had\u2026I think we\u2019re on like, our third or fourth week with kid talent shows. So in the middle of the day, like, people just take a break, and the kids come on video and they do\u2026like they sign up for talent, you know. I think there was one boy who recited his lines from the school play because the play got canceled. And so you know, he put his costume on and did his part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Oh, that\u2019s fantastic. We also did a show and tell where people could bring their kids on and they could do show and tell of anything that they wanted to share about. And I think today we had a trivia game that was hosted. So we\u2019re trying to find new ways to create intentional social time. I love it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Are there any of the practices that you regularly employ on remote engineering teams, that you find are especially helpful right now during these challenging times?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, so, you know, we\u2019ve been fully remote at TaxJar since the beginning. That\u2019s seven years now and counting. And so I think the collaboration and communication was required that whole time. We work together. We\u2019re across time zones. We\u2019re mostly based in the U.S. But we have someone in Hawaii, so like, that\u2019s a seven-hour time zone shift that we\u2019re dealing with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so we\u2019ve kind of dealt with this, but definitely, the times are changing. People\u2019s hours are like, a little different now where people have to like, come back later because they wanna you know, take care of family during the day or something. So, you know, Zoom has been great. So we\u2019ve been on Zoom since 2016 and that\u2019s really helped. Like, we just talked about the social hours or whatever, that allows a little bit of that context, to have facial expressions, whatever they need to kind of help the communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think we just lean into those tools, right? Like, we\u2019ve been practicing that and so we have to keep leaning in on those things. We use Basecamp and so there\u2019s a lot of stuff there going on and it allows people to interact asynchronously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>You know, it allows people to set proper expectations like, hey, it\u2019s not an immediate response. It\u2019s like, \u201cHey, I just need a response soon.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Like that continue to allow people to be collaborative without having to find the exact time that they used to work together, right, like, \u201cOh, my schedule is off.\u201d So like, the only way\u2026if the only way you can do something is to always be able to sync up on video I think that\u2019s where you start having that challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that\u2019s not just during hard times, but I think that\u2019s when you start having these time zone differences and when you have these other things, you know, given that your teammates will continue to help communication I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0For sure. I feel like all of the things that we do as remote teams and remote leaders, we now have to exceptionally double down on everything. Like that\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0I think\u2026you know, part of strategy for most business is to take advantage of like luck. And I think those who practice remote work or distributed work and were intentional about before this, are going to be like, \u201cOh, sweet, I can like lean in more on that because that\u2019s what you need more of now.\u201d And those teams that hadn\u2019t yet practiced that or hadn\u2019t really been intentional about it are finding out that, \u201cOh, if we document our decisions, and we have conversations that aren\u2019t in the hallways, right, if we have better conversations, huh, we can do more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>And I\u2019ve heard that from big companies that have in-person teams like, man, we really quickly realized we should write down the notes from our meetings. And you know, we should document the decision on paper, or you know, or wiki, or whatever it is. And like, all of a sudden, your team has this ability to kind of detach from being perfectly synchronous and timed and they\u2019re gonna be like, \u201cOh, like we could do this.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And so they\u2019re having to learn and fight. And I don\u2019t see the remote teams I think so we have a little bit of advantage there of just\u2026 But what\u2019s interesting to hear in that, right, like how to communicate more effectively, how to be collaborative in these challenging times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I\u2019m hearing it from AMAs like this with, you know, big companies like Facebook and Slack and Dropbox, is like, \u201cOh wow, we can pick up some of the stuff that all these remote people are talking about, of asynchronous and writing cultures and stuff like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0So to piggyback on that, so there are a lot of folks that are approaching remote leadership for the first time. Can you tell them what you\u2019ve learned about building a great team, or I guess, a great culture on your remote team?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. So, culture is hard. I think a lot of people are always talking about it. And I think\u2026like I don\u2019t even know what it is and I don\u2019t think a lot of people do, right. It\u2019s just that thing, it\u2019s kind of the how it feels to work somewhere, how people behave. It\u2019s what people want, right, like their desires and how that plays out itself inside the company. Like I wanna be more competitive, I wanna be more creative, I wanna create an innovative company. No, I want a company that just does things perfect or something like that. It\u2019s like very different kind of wants and desires, a little personality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At TaxJar, we\u2026Elaine Page who\u2019s our VP of People Ops, she\u2019s helping lead us on kind of assessing our culture and our dominant culture, like the one that exists now, the one that the employees want it to be. And it\u2019s an interesting\u2026it\u2019s kind of like taking a personality test in my non-scientific point of view of this kind of stuff. But I think what you want to kind of think about your culture and building it is like, you don\u2019t wanna be changing people. Like, you\u2019re not trying to change who people are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I think one of the things is you gotta do great hiring. You gotta hire people who want kind of similar outcomes or similar like styles, right. Like, \u201cI wanna be very creative,\u201d so well, you probably should find people who are amicable or agreeable to that or really desire that. Because if you find somebody who\u2019s against being creative and that you have to do it and they\u2019re not amicable with it, you don\u2019t wanna build that. Because then you\u2019ll have this kind of culture of people where it\u2019s pockets of different ideas. And I think that\u2019s true in person, it\u2019s true in remote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, let\u2019s see, what would you say. So what have I learned? So I think it\u2019s hiring, don\u2019t settle if you don\u2019t think it\u2019s, you know, the right person. It\u2019s not trying to find people like you because that\u2019s\u2026it\u2019s finding people who are better at something than you, who are additive, right. I think it\u2019s not trying to find just like you, then you don\u2019t have a culture. And so, yeah, those are a few things there\u2019s not one answer here because I think every company is gonna have their own little difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0So given that folks are, you know, potentially transitioning from non-remote to remote now in our current situation, and they\u2019re managing teams that used to work, you know, being able to pop into a room and whiteboard together, like there\u2019s a couple questions in the queue that we could probably address around this like leadership\/meeting management. So one person asks, \u201cAre you using Agile Scrum? What sort of tricks in a remote environment or how do you do that well in a remote environment?\u201d And kind of the follow up is, when teams don\u2019t have time zone overlap how do you make those teams work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0All right, yeah, good question. Yes, we try to be Agile. We\u2019ve had iterations of Scrum, to kanban boards, back the scrum style teams and really, you know, we use Jira and Trello. Early on, we used Trello and now we use Jira because it got a little more complex with dependencies and stuff like that. But we are a team of 45 kind of engineers and so we collaborate with the product team, and CSO. And so, you know, we form delivery teams of the product manager or an engineer manager subject matter expert kind of thing and then three to six engineers and they kind of work long-term but on projects with\u2026 So we try and set up like scrum. I think that\u2019s the agile answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think we run into the same challenges that I ran into in a previous company where we\u2019ve rolled out scrum, and we were very, like, strict about it. It\u2019s just hard and we were all in-person. And so you always ebb and flow with the person, like, \u201cI wanna do a lot of process,\u201d \u201cNo, I don\u2019t want process.\u201d So I think that Agile part is always\u2026it\u2019s kind of interesting. As the team gets strong at it, then you pull back. As the team gets weak on it you have to push forward on the rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you have live stand-ups or do you have weekly sync meetings? Like how do you manage the time zone overlap or lack of overlap?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Our teams are part of Agile so they\u2019ll do stand-ups, right. So we have ebb and flow between four or five days a week on a video call at some time that works for everybody. And now we\u2019re at a point where most of the teams are probably, you know, maturing together. They\u2019re like, \u201cLet\u2019s do two of those a week because we liked talking to each other,\u201d and we\u2019ll have three asynchronous check-ins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>So we\u2019ve used Basecamp to do automatic check-ins that just say, you know, \u201cWhat did you do today?\u201d And so that way, they still get that face time that sometimes they want or need to work through a complicated problem when they do that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>We have a person in Israel, and we have a person in Spain, and then we have people all across the U.S. So like, we have a few time zone problems, but we\u2019re able to where like within three or four hours, that\u2019s easy to find an overlap. But like, Megan, I know you\u2019re in Italy, like how does your team find that overlap?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0We strive to get four hours of overlap, which is not 100% possible because we do have a designer who lives in Sydney. So like on that team, in particular, we try to avoid having folks from Europe on that team. So we do a little bit of time zone I guess, optimization on the teams when we\u2019re in those extreme situations. But for the most part between\u2026most of our folks work somewhere between the west coast of North America to I think our furthest east is Kiev, Ukraine. So we can get about four hours of overlap and that works pretty well for any sort of weekly meetings. And we do stand-ups using Slack so we do asynchronous stand-ups there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we don\u2019t use Basecamp. I know you mentioned that you use that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>In terms of, like essential tools, in my experience when you have asynchronous like communication, documentation, and decision, documenting your decision seems to be the most important thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So between Slack and Jira, and face to face, Zoom, I guess face to face communication, as well as wherever we\u2019re documenting our decisions are the most important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think like some companies, we have a handful of tools that we use to document things and we try to create rules around like if it needs to be saved forever it goes in our wiki. If it\u2019s, you know, ephemeral, it can go in whatever you want. Most teams standardize around something but no other special like remote management tools that we\u2019re using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, Zoom to talk to each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Zoom, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s what we\u2019ve used, and Basecamp, we\u2019ve tried to stay in one. We\u2019re using an app called Fellow so it\u2019s like fellow.co I think, I don\u2019t know, fellow.com, fellow.com. But that\u2019s been good across the company, across TaxJar to do like, track one on one conversations or even meetings, people use it for just the regular meetings and it helps having agendas, right.<br>So coming into a remote meeting with an agenda and people can see it ahead of time or you can document it after the fact. So that\u2019s been a side tool that\u2019s kind of on the managing side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another thing that was asked in the questions that I noticed was around OKRs, or kind of performance. And so I would think that\u2019s another kind of tool you can use to manage the teams. We\u2019re working on OKRs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>We\u2019ve always done goal setting. But we\u2019re starting to try to use OKRs because it provides a language and a framework for the goals we\u2019ve already done. It allows us to communicate them better now that our team is like\u2026we\u2019re no longer 20 people, we\u2019re 165 people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So like, it\u2019s very different, right? Like you need different kinds of communication tools, and I think that allows us to communicate those goals. And now we can have conversations with the teammates about those and our progress towards them and how they\u2019re impacting them or not. And so that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do. We\u2019ve never given it a name until maybe the last nine months. We\u2019re actually like, okay, OKRs, let\u2019s give it a shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I find that especially with the remote teams, you can\u2019t\u2026it\u2019s impossible to micromanage essentially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>You have to have autonomy, trust, transparency, like all these things that make it possible for highly functioning teams to work well together. I think having very clear objectives instead of directives is like the critical ticket.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>OKRs can help with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0For sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0So we can change the conversation just a little bit and start talking about hiring. So at Help Scout, we have a pretty rote 12 step process that we follow. We have a blog post about it so anybody can read it, you know, get all of the insights they would need to kind of ace our interview process. Can you tell us a little bit about TaxJar\u2019s hiring process and what\u2019s worked well for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0So I was part of hiring every employee from the beginning, from when we were just three of us kicking around the idea. But now we\u2019ve built a team so we have a process. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s 12 steps, but it is definitely a repetitive process we do for all employees. So now it\u2019s like an entire team of people who get involved in, you know, the application and email exchange, then some interviews on video. So we do some Zoom that kind of tell you about the process, like to introduce you to the process, talk maybe a little bit about compensation and the title upfront, just to make sure that we start off on the right foot and there\u2019s no hidden, you know, expectations on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we do video interviews, right. So across the team, we do like\u2026we call them cultural interviews, but they\u2019re really just interviews from people in other departments that you would probably partner with or be co-workers with. And so we give them a chance to provide a different perspective and it\u2019s usually a panel so we can get multiple points of view from the same exact questions. I think what\u2019s worked really well for us\u2026 You know, what everybody at TaxJar would talk about because it\u2019s probably the most unique thing is we do what we call a mutual assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that is that we try and move through the video interview process. If it means a technical, we do a technical one. But like we get to that and then we say, \u201cCome work with us.\u201d We\u2019re like here\u2019s contract to hire, it\u2019s kind of an old term, but like, give us some amount of time, where over the course of\u2026as much as 30 days, you know. If you need 30 days to break this time up, but<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u2026We wanna see you do a real project with your teammates, right, like of all skill levels. And we get to see them at work. We get to see that they can show up on time. Like if they told us they were gonna show up, we want them to show up on time and do the work that they said. We wanna see how they interact with people who did the interview, right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a test that you can do remote, but it\u2019s also just what\u2019s worked really well. It\u2019s just to get to work with somebody because you can really tell this is gonna be long-term and we want long term fits, we don\u2019t want quick. So we wanna invest that time upfront and we invest our time into it. We\u2019ll compensate for that portion of the interview on an hourly contract rate. And we wanna see the candidate is kind of ready to invest in kind of a long-term partnership. So that\u2019s probably been the most striking piece for overall texture in hiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mike:<\/strong>\u00a0I wanted to jump in. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on the 12 step process that you guys use? And if there\u2019s anything that you think really helps kind of change the process that was unique to you guys, or something that\u2019s really helped to identify better talent in that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s anything really, like, expressly unique about the process. It\u2019s very similar to what Matt said. We start with\u2026we have a team, everyone agrees on the interview questions ahead of time. We have specific interviews that are looking for specific things. So the very first call is all about value-add. I guess some teams might call this a cultural interview, but what we\u2019re looking for is you know, are they gonna bring value to this team in a way that you know, not only supports our company mission and values but also they\u2019ve got something special to bring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then we move on to a technical interview, which has a couple of different parts and it varies by team. But we started handing out a snippet of code before they go into that interview. And so the candidate will read through it, prepare, and then they\u2019ll walk through it with the engineer doing the interview. And so they can kind of see how they might critically review a snippet of code, which is pretty enlightening. And then we always go through a logistics call, just like, you know, talking about salary expectations, you know, benefits, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then we have a project. So rather than a contract-to-hire, we have a project that we have scoped down to about six to eight hours. And we did have one of our engineers do the project himself so we could test our theory of whether that was actually a six to eight-hour project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, we graded. We had two of the folks who usually grade the projects, grade his project. They didn\u2019t know it was his project, although one of the engineers did say like, \u201cThis looks very familiar,\u201d because they\u2019ve worked together for a lot of years. So pretty brave on that engineer\u2019s part to go through that. But we wanted to check ourselves and make sure that we are asking for something reasonable. And so then, following the project, which is completely\u2026you know, we\u2019ve removed anything that could tell\u2026you know, could trigger a bias. We\u2019ve removed the name, the people who are doing the review of the project, have no idea who\u2019s in the queue, who they could potentially be looking at. And then following that, there\u2019s also two people doing the reviews and they don\u2019t get to see each other\u2019s scores until the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>So we do a lot of intentional bias removal in the process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And then at the end, usually the candidate will talk to myself or maybe the CTO or in some cases, both of us, and then we move to the hire process or the onboarding process. And maybe what\u2019s unique about us, I\u2019m not really sure, but I haven\u2019t seen this at other places I\u2019ve worked, for at least the first week, we highly emphasize just getting to know Help Scout, getting to know our customers, getting to know our voice, our values. We have people work in our customer support queue so they get to talk to our customers and learn how we like to talk to people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And typically, developers are not going to be committing code until you know, the second or third week because we really like to give them that space and time to digest everything. Because it\u2019s really the only time when you start at a company that you don\u2019t have a bunch of people asking you for work, and asking you to do something. So we really like to give that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess the other unique thing that we do is we always have a\u2026we call it the work BFF. So we pair someone up with another person sometimes on their team, but sometimes from a completely different team just so they have someone to bounce ideas off of. Ask like, \u201cWhere do I find this?\u201d You know, give them a little bit of support as they onboard. Specific interview questions to see if an engineer is a good fit, that\u2019s one of the questions that came in. Matt, do you have any?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I ask from a lot of people about the last time they broke production. It\u2019s not about remote work but I think it shows some characteristics. Like I like to learn because I like to know what they broke and what they\u2019ve learned from it, right? I expect to hear some experience there. But did they take charge of the situation? Were they honest? Like, did they hide from it? Did they step up for it?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Because I think in remote, you wanna know people are gonna take ownership. You wanna know people are gonna step up and say something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I think it\u2019s both a technical question, right? Like it\u2019s kind of figuring out like, what history do you have to, you know, help your decision making in the future? I think a lot of that helps with remote. It\u2019s probably one of my veiled questions that gets at remote because I think we all ask, like, how many team members\u2026 Well, what is a remote situation? So we do wanna hear that too, right, like we wanna hear about their prior situations. But I think you can see it in how they do their coding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0And in terms of specific technical questions, I wouldn\u2019t say we have any specific technical questions that unveil whether the engineer is gonna be a good engineer because that is hard to ask for. And the project is what really helps. Like we actually get to see them code. So most of our questions around like, would you be a good fit are more around like, asking questions that dig at humility, ownership, empathy, mentorship, thoughtfulness, things that we really value in anyone at Help Scout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess we do have a couple of questions at the beginning of the technical interview that I would say are pretty easy. You know, they\u2019re more like, you know, kind of like level 100, level 200 computer science questions. And they actually uncover quite a bit about the person based on how they answer because if they scoff at you, and you\u2019re like, \u201cWhy are you asking me that question?\u201d Like, depending on how they answer that that will tell you a lot about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think you get more information by digging in on a project that they\u2019re really excited about, like, how deep can they go on it? How do they explain it? Especially for me when I\u2019m interviewing because I\u2019m very distant from being a developer at this point in my career and so I look for how do they explain something highly technical to me because communication is huge in remote culture. So that\u2019s another thing that we look for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m very curious about this Matt because at Help Scout we have not yet crossed over that, I don\u2019t know, that threshold of being able to hire junior folks to our team. Right now most of the people that we bring in have somewhere between 5 and 20 years of experience in the industry. And I\u2019m just curious if you\u2019ve been able to hire junior engineers, and if so how have you approached that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0I guess it depends on what you mean by a junior engineer. But we\u2019ve definitely had to be cautious there, I think as any small growing team would be because you know, your teammates only have time to invest in building the product, and like, they\u2019re being asked for that much time at the early stage when you\u2019re building the company that\u2019s your focus. So you don\u2019t have the ability to be the mentor. So you have to be cautious, right? Like you wanna hire them but you don\u2019t have time for the senior, like more experienced teammates to give them that full attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so what we have as the teams grow we have found success. And what I would kind of call a junior engineer, they have some experience, right? Like, they\u2019ve gone to school. They\u2019ve, you know, done something on the side for a while where they\u2019ve seen it. The people we\u2019ve hired that are really early in their career, like really recent graduates of like Codecademy or Code School, or AP University, but they have some production experience, like they\u2019ve been around a team that have customers and they\u2019ve deployed code to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, the level of contribution there is different, but that\u2019s kind of been the bar where we said, \u201cHey, you\u2019ve at least\u2026we need you to have at least experienced Jira, or you know, agile planning with a group of people in-person or remote. And you had to see your code\u2026like a demand for your code and you got it out.\u201d Because I think that\u2026on a small team, that\u2019s growing when you\u2019re being asked to meet new demands to find customers just to you know, make money you\u2019re not in a position like an IBM or a large group is. They have teams that have had years, decades to build capacity to train, mentor, you know, people earlier in their career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you know, like where I started, I started with a big company because they had more roles for people with\u2026you know, like, there\u2019s not as many roles on a team. You know, I think, like our sizes at Help Scout and TaxJar, they\u2019re not hundreds of engineers. So that\u2019s been kind of the conversation I\u2019ve had with myself, and now with my VP of engineering and staff is like, how do you balance teams out too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Right, exactly. And can you talk a little bit about your onboarding process and maybe specifically, like if you do anything different for folks who are less experienced in their career, but just in general, what are the practices that you use for onboarding?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, we\u2019ve really grown here as a company in the last two years, like we\u2026it was about two years ago, we really got intentional because we were getting\u2026you know, we had 30, 40 employees. It was like, oh, man, we\u2019re gonna hire more? We better get\u2026like, show them around now there\u2019s a lot to see at TaxJar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we have templated projects that get spun up for new employees or actually employees during the mutual assessment process get one. And then if they do become a full-time employee, we have a whole another one which, you know, gives them a checklist of things to do, gives them people to talk to or videos to watch about the company documentation. So we do all that for the engineers. You know, they get assigned to a team. They get to meet their teammates. We\u2019ve built a project that kind of does\u2026 We have one available for their laptop, right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because actually, you know, we use MacBook Pros, for the most part. Some people wanted to go off of that. But we have, you know, a laptop script, I think kind of\u2026I think thoughtbot has one out there that\u2019s published, that starts your machine, right. I think it\u2019s everything installed like the tools that you would need. By default, we have one that actually pulls down the repositories for one of our primary apps and seeds a database and builds out all just out of a shell script. So like that helps too, right? And it could be better because as the system gets more complex and we do more container stuff we can improve help but that\u2019s growing pains that we\u2026like, \u201cOh, we outgrew the tool we used to use, and we have to rebuild this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you continually kind of\u2026I do that which helps onboard and helps like me get a new laptop and get back into coding, right. So now I can actually reset my environment if a laptop breaks or something like that. You know, every engineer, I think this should be stated for those of you\u2026 Like, regardless of if you\u2019re remote like when you join a team, it\u2019s gonna take some time to get familiar with code, get your local environment working the way it needs to work to test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think we try. Like I want our organization to get people to that aha moment or whatever, faster, right? It should be a day, but sometimes it\u2019s a week, because like, they forgot an environment. We forgot to update the documentation about a new variable or something like that and like for the whole week, or\u2026you know, like, it just doesn\u2019t work for them. They can\u2019t do something locally. They have to like push it up onto the cloud. And so I think that\u2019s how you measure or how you should measure how people are doing onboarding too for engineers, just can you get to the coding? Can you get to doing your job? Do you have a setup script or are you doing containers like Docker to get people running on code fast?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Not 100% across the organization. I wish we did but we\u2019re making progress towards it. Like of course that\u2019s kind of the end goal is that we can say here\u2019s your laptop, like, you know, go run this, and like poof, you\u2019ve got your local development environment and you can quickly get coding. It kind of depends on which team you\u2019re on and which services you\u2019re gonna work on because some of them are easier to get to that containerized deployment state than others. But that\u2019s the goal for sure. So there\u2019s another question that came in asking is there anything different when it comes to onboarding a remote developer versus a co-located one? Do you wanna take this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0I mean not because they\u2019re a developer. I think\u2026 Yeah, so there\u2019s different stuff you do because they\u2019re a remote employee. We don\u2019t fly anybody anywhere to meet them but we do try to have two retreats, company-wide retreats each year and that\u2019s where they get to meet. So if you\u2019re hired just before one, like you\u2019re off to the races because you meet everybody. Some people have to wait six months for that experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I think everybody, whether you\u2019re gonna be sitting with them or whatever, you\u2019re gonna have to onboard them at some point. Now, I don\u2019t think\u2026 So maybe documentation like, rather than a conversation, you wanna use documentation, right. So I think that might be it where if you\u2019re co-located, you\u2019re gonna look over the wall and say, \u201cHow do I set this up? What does this part of the code mean?\u201d or, \u201cHow do you guys do this process?\u201d You\u2019re probably gonna ask somebody for a verbal co-location, but yeah, remote you\u2019re gonna have it written down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I think that\u2019s probably the biggest difference. But you do that for the whole remote employee, you have to write everything down, or record it or something. Just because you don\u2019t know if you\u2019re ever gonna do it\u2026you\u2019re gonna do parts of it live but you don\u2019t know how much overlap you\u2019re gonna have. So, it\u2019s what I would say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, documentation becomes like your own internal product that has to be kept up to date, and I feel more way more so than when you\u2019re co-located. Sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah. I could say\u2026so it goes back to some of the earlier questions and I didn\u2019t say this then but it goes to documentation. And I think this is something you practice in a way at Help Scout, Megan is documenting your decisions. So I think that\u2019s been really important. And we\u2019ve changed, we\u2019ve recently changed how we do this. Like we\u2019ve always had message for posts or Google Docs of decisions along the way, like we\u2019ve had those artefacts more written down but we\u2019ve changed how we do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was introduced to this tool, it\u2019s called the Spade toolkit whereby it was brought to us from\u2026a new employee brought it to my attention but it\u2019s from somebody else. And we\u2019ve kind of made it our own a little bit, or we\u2019re just kind of making it our own, where there\u2019s more of a framework to the decision. And we use\u2026since we use Basecamp\u2026I mean, you could use Google Docs too, or whatever tool you\u2019re using.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>You have to like, @mention people, and specific roles in the decision process to battle consensus, or, like, people are waiting for more information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So the idea of this page does is it allows anybody on the team to be responsible for the decision and they put their name on it. They need an approver. It could be a teammate, it could be a manager, it could be a subject matter expert for the system you know, whatever. They have to figure that out and get agreement. And then they like, @mention a whole bunch of people they think have an opinion, right? Like I think these people have an opinion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what that does\u2026before we weren\u2019t @mentioning people, and we would just start the thread, and then somehow it would end. What we\u2019re finding now the thread is a big team, more complex problems, the threads would never end. People would, \u201cOh, no,\u201d they would keep refining the idea. And now we\u2019re like taking it back to the original person and say, you don\u2019t have to wait for that to finish. You have this documented. Now you can make your decision and move along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think that\u2019s been a huge part of the written communication. I\u2019m seeing it help because we were starting to write too much. We were starting to wait, \u201cOh, I gotta give another eight hours for somebody else to respond, because I gotta wait for some time zones to pass.\u201d And it\u2019s like, no, they each had their\u2026like you gave more than 24 hours. You gave\u2026 Everybody had a chance. And I think that\u2019s helped us because that is a part of remote decision making, or when you come to a problem in remote, it\u2019s like, you can\u2019t just ask somebody next to you and move on. You have to like go to the documentation, but then you start waiting for more time or you don\u2019t know who\u2019s making the decision. I found that to be really powerful recently to help be asynchronous, stay asynchronous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mike:<\/strong>\u00a0Cool. I just wanna jump in here as we\u2019re approaching time. So if anybody has any final questions for our hosts here, feel free to post those in the channel now because we\u2019re gonna start wrapping up here shortly. So anybody else, now is a good time to ask any additional questions. All right, well, looks like you have too much going on. Debbie has one here that the teams for\u2026the teams pair program that you both kinda talked about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0But in the truest sense, but we do\u2026the team will kind of\u2026at times different people will fire up their Zoom and spend an hour working through the code. So like they\u2019ll do what you see in an office where two people sit in a cube just to solve a problem and then they go back to their desk but we don\u2019t do the long-term pairing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Same approach at Help Scout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0That\u2019s a great question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0The question was after going remote for the first time what surprised you the most? What kind of misconceptions do you think people have about remote work? I have a hard time answering this because I\u2019ve actually been working remotely since I graduated from college just a long time ago. So I don\u2019t know what the misconceptions are. I think maybe what surprised me more about working from Help Scout is just how successful it can be, especially when you have, you know, very clear objectives about what the company is trying to do so that the teams can form their objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>And then you have a lot of trust between leadership and the teams, a lot of transparency between leadership and the teams, and a lot of autonomy, which also comes with a lot of responsibility.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>And so there\u2019s this circle of trust and transparency that I think if you didn\u2019t have that it would be very difficult to be a successful team. I think you could do it, it\u2019s just it would always feel like you\u2019re fighting something. I guess the misconception could be that companies could actually be incredibly transparent and extend a huge amount of trust and autonomy to folks outside of leadership and still be very successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, for sure. We operate very much the same way, very open. I think people are surprised by that, who are new to our company, at least about remote. And I\u2019ve seen that across a lot of remote companies I think it\u2019s kind of a requirement just because of the distance between people. And you know, I think misconceptions\u2026I think the people who\u2026it\u2019s you\u2019re not working and this is very much work. Like I work just as hard because I\u2019m at home and so does all my team, right? It\u2019s not an easier job because you\u2019re working from home. It\u2019s still work. So I think some people think it\u2019s people goofing off sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the people who are trying to get remote work don\u2019t think that. I think that\u2019s the misconception from a lot of people who were forced to it. They were like, \u201cOh, man, I thought this was gonna be easier and it\u2019s actually harder because of the separation of family and work. So that could be one. I see a question about biggest challenges. So that would be something you know, just separating that or turning it off. How about for you Megan?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Separating work from\u2026I\u2019d say the biggest challenges that I see at the team are making very large decisions that have wide impact across multiple teams. So we have every six months remote retreat as well\u2026sorry, we have a retreat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>This last retreat was remote, but we do retreat every six months and we find that\u2026like, we\u2019ll save these really big, meaty problems and then we\u2019ll solve them in like 45 minutes with everybody in the same room. And like it could be something we\u2019ve been talking about for the last two months. So those sorts of problems are always easier to solve when everyone is in the same room. So we haven\u2019t quite cracked that one. I\u2019m gonna say it\u2019s a big challenge.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Question about favorite tools for staying on track. Whatever one works for the team because there are so many, Jira, and Pivotal Tracker, I don\u2019t know, there\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kdanmobile.com\/blog\/excel-alternative\">spreadsheets<\/a>, I think Trello you know they all will help you. It depends on my team because everybody\u2019s gonna have their own preference for the tool they pick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, I mean\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you have time for that question about the remote retreat because I haven\u2019t done one. I think we might all be thinking about having them. I guess we\u2019re having them this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, exactly. So we just went through one in March, and it was as successful as it could have been. And our Head of People Ops wrote a blog post about it so I just dropped it in the chat and you can read all about it. It was really fun. We just scheduled a lot of like, fun activities. We said no work you know, all play. We had happy hours. We had fun games. It ended up being really great, despite the fact that we didn\u2019t all get to go to Dublin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, they do help. And so I think that is a challenge in remote is trying to figure those things out. We figured out how to solve other problems so I know companies like ours can do those kinds of things, like we\u2019d work through together and we figure it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0There was one other question. Braandon asked about any favorite tools for staying on track with longer-term projects. Again, like no extra special tools that you wouldn\u2019t use, I think in a co-located company. I would just say don\u2019t underestimate the power of sync of meetings. Like, I know that people tend to hate on meetings, but like 15 minutes can align a bunch of people way faster than trying to work it out through a tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0I agree with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mike:<\/strong>\u00a0You know, any final questions? Put them in now otherwise you know, we\u2019ll hear any closing thoughts from either of you and I\u2019ll go ahead and wrap this up. Looks like no more questions. So yeah, anything you guys wanna kind of, say, finalize for covering today\u2019s topics or\u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Matt:<\/strong>\u00a0No. Thanks for joining us. And Megan, good to have you here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Megan:<\/strong>\u00a0Yeah, it\u2019s great. I enjoyed it. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mike:<\/strong>\u00a0Excellent. Well, thank you both so much for taking the time to do this. I think there are a lot of great takeaways here and it\u2019s a very interactive conversation. So we really appreciate both of you taking the time. For everybody out there I\u2019ll be following up with you know their Twitter handles, if you guys want to follow them there, and then contact information for myself as well as recording for the webinar today. But feel free to reach back out if you wanna get in touch otherwise, we\u2019ll go ahead and end. And thank you, everybody. Stay safe and continue to follow Arc for more sessions like this. All right, thank you. I\u2019ll talk to y\u2019all later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>You can also try <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\/\">Arc<\/a><em>, your<\/em><em> shortcut to the world\u2019s best remote talent:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u26a1\ufe0f Access 450,000 top developers, designers, and marketers <br>\u26a1\ufe0f <em>Vetted and ready to interview<\/em><br>\u26a1\ufe0f Freelance or full-time<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/arc.dev\"><strong>Try Arc and hire top talent now \u2192<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Engineering leaders at TaxJar &#038; Help Scout share their remote engineering team hiring and managing best practices in this AMA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":389,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thought-leadership"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Remote Engineering Team Best Practices (AMA with TaxJar &amp; 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