The Art of Remote Pairing: Avdi Grimm on Ruby Tapas, Wide Teams, and Community
The Art of Remote Pairing: Avdi Grimm on Ruby Tapas, Wide Teams, and Community
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
The Guest
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
The Conversation
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Hi, it's Mike here with UGtastic. I'm sitting down with Avdi Grimm, who runs Ruby Tapas, is a panelist on Ruby Rogues, and runs the Wide Teams blog and podcast. He also does this very interesting thing where he'll remote pair with people on open-source projects and some paid projects. Avdi, thank you for taking the time to sit down. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got started doing these remote pairs and how that's been working out for you?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
Well, thanks for having me. The remote pairing seemed like a natural progression, honestly. I had been working remotely for a long time; it's been one of my long-term intentions to work from home because I like being around my family and choosing where I live based on things other than being in a tech hub. I'm out in suburban Pennsylvania. I've been working remotely for various companies and I'm a fan of pair programming because I've seen how effective it can be for spreading practices through a group and keeping the bus number down.
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
I'd been pairing within companies remotely for a long time. At one point this summer, I found myself with the opportunity of taking another traditional consulting gig, but I was feeling the pressure on my time. I felt like I wasn't able to move forward on projects I wanted to get going, like Ruby Tapas. I wanted something more flexible, where I didn't feel like getting the product shipped was dependent on me working overtime. I wanted to draw those boundaries.
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
I had already been taking some ad-hoc pair programming appointments—people I knew from other things just said, 'Hey, could we set up a thing where I pay you and we just do remote pairing from time to time?' Usually, these were people who didn't have other Ruby programmers in their company, or were sole consultants. They wanted to work with someone else to hone their skills. They seemed to be getting a lot out of it, so I thought, what if I just did more of that instead of traditional consulting? I put my shingle out there and I've been flooded with requests ever since.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Do you mostly get open-source projects or do you get a lot of paid work through this as well?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
I get more submissions for paid work than open source. I run a backlog for open-source work because I do those for free and I can only do one a week because it doesn't pay the bills.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
I'm curious—Gary Bernhard has talked about how, with Destroy All Software, people send him requests with an expectation that he can do everything. Do you get that with pair programming? Do people ever get upset if you don't have time for their project?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
No, it's been extremely genial. Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows I tweet the same line over and over: 'I get the nicest emails.' The Ruby community is fantastic. I get a lot of requests for advice—more career advice than 'fix this code'—and I try to get back to everyone, even if it's just to say I don't have time to dig in. I don't get many people being demanding.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
I wondered about the signal-to-noise ratio. Do you get 'guru' requests, like 'can you do my homework for me'?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
Occasionally I'll get someone asking for tutoring on a specific test for an open-source session. I have to explain that open-source sessions are for putting code back into the community—it's for projects you own or want to submit to. It's not about me teaching from scratch.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
So it's not Code 101; you have to have some basic experience and just need that final bit of guidance.
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
Yeah. I do a lot of tutoring and training, but that's in the context of paid sessions. It takes a lot out of you. I look to the open-source sessions to be more relaxing and fun.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Moving to your public work—Ruby Rogues is a very popular podcast. You guys have this great banter. How did that group come together?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
I'm actually a latecomer to that podcast. It's Chuck's [Charles Max Wood] podcast initially. I believe it started with Chuck and James [Edward Gray]. For a while, Aaron Patterson was a regular. I came on for an episode, then another, and eventually, Aaron decided he didn't have time to devote to it every week, so I basically took his slot. Those are big shoes to fill.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
And you also have Wide Teams, focused on remote collaboration. What have you learned through that project?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
The inspiration is that I work remotely and probably always will. If I'm going to make a career out of it, it behooves me to become good at it. I figured the best way to do that was to talk to other people doing it and pick their brains. When I started, there weren't many resources where dispersed teams were talking to each other. Wide Teams was about building a community around that practice.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Have you seen patterns emerge in how people approach remote work?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
A lot of people are in similar situations. You have startups where everyone worked together previously but then moved to different parts of the world. Then you have established companies realizing they don't have enough local talent to fill their slots, so they hire from wherever the talent is.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
I'm curious about your setup. What kind of equipment do you use for recording and remote work?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
For recording, I use a Blue Snowball—one of the most recommended budget USB mics because you don't have to worry about analog interference. For remote pairing, I try to have video going. I use my tablet as my primary comms device (Skype, Google Talk) mounted to my right. I have the person's face on the tablet and the screen share in front of me on my computer. It's more natural than staring at each other on the same laptop screen and it takes the hardware load off my PC.
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
I also use a VXI BlueParrott B250-XT+ headset. It's designed for truckers, so it has a 20-hour battery life and aggressive noise control. Most Bluetooth headsets are for occasional calls, not someone sitting for eight hours working with someone else.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Finally, do you still get out to user groups, or does remote work disconnect you from that local banter?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
Oh, yeah. My home group is Baltimore 'Be More on Rails'—I've been going there since the first meeting. There's also a group in Harrisburg. I love user groups. When people ask for career advice, getting involved in a local group is one of the first things I stress.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Do you have a filter for your voice, or is that your natural 'radio voice'?
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
It's just the mic! Maybe this basement happens to have good acoustics, I don't know.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, community organizer at UGtastic
Well, thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with me.
Avdi Grimm
Author of Ruby Tapas, Ruby Rogues panelist, and Remote Pairing Consultant
Sure. Thanks.
Critical Insights
durable
"Consulting pair programming (ad-hoc sessions) provides a flexible alternative to traditional long-term consulting contracts, allowing for better personal time boundaries."
time bound
"The Ruby community in the early 2010s was characterized by a high degree of geniality and mutual support, as evidenced by the 'I get the nicest emails' phenomenon."
durable
"Remote work success is built on intentionality, including choosing specialized hardware (like trucker-grade headsets) and multi-device setups to reduce cognitive and hardware load."
durable
"User groups remain the primary recommendation for career growth for young programmers, even for those deeply embedded in remote or global technical circles."
time bound
"The 'Wide Teams' concept identified a critical need in 2013 for a community of practice specifically for dispersed and distributed engineering teams."