Bridget Kromhout
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Long Distance DevOps

devopsdays New York
New York, New York
2015-04-30 - 2015-05-01


Collaboration. Empathy. Trust. We know how important these interactions are in a DevOps practice, but what if your team has remote members? My company’s in Manhattan, and I’m over a thousand miles away. Moving from a small startup with everyone around the same table to being a remote operations engineer is a dramatic shift and requires a new approach.



I’ll share the story of being one of those little squares at the bottom of every video call, and what’s worked well (and not so well) over the better part of the last year. I’ll detail practices that help us and how we’ve approached obstacles we’ve encountered. Great tools are necessary but not sufficient for remote work; the way we use them is just as important.



Attendees will leave with specific changes they can implement to make their organizations more inclusive no matter where a team member is located or how they best communicate, including tool and culture ideas. Building understanding across teams works a bit differently with remotes in the mix… perhaps even better!






Hey #devopsdays, @bridgetkromhout is up next, and I'm really sad I'm missing it. Please send her my love. Her talk is amazing (like her).

— Paddy (@paddycarver) May 1, 2015

#devopsdays @bridgetkromhout ... and @beerops ... not a conspiracy of the pink hair thought leaders...

— botchagalupe (@botchagalupe) May 1, 2015

#devopsdays @bridgetkromhout Long Distance Devops

— botchagalupe (@botchagalupe) May 1, 2015

"GitHub is where we record decisions and notes from meetings or #Slack." @BridgetKromhout #DevOpsDaysNYC #ProTip

— Trusted Software (@TSWAlliance) May 1, 2015

How to make remote working work: have a single source of truth for decisions, e.g. github @bridgetkromhout #devopsdays

— Lisa van Gelder (@lisa_van_gelder) May 1, 2015

.@bridgetkromhout stressing the importance of a single-source-of-truth of recording discussion outcomes.#devopsdaysnyc #devopsdays

— Bearded Beauty (@gwaldo) May 1, 2015

"There are no unicorns, just sparkly horses." --@bridgetkromhout

— David Ashby (@alazyreader) May 1, 2015

Be cognizant that not everyone will recognize when you're being tongue-in-cheek.
--@bridgetkromhout #devopsdaysnyc #devopsdays

— Bearded Beauty (@gwaldo) May 1, 2015

#devopsdays @bridgetkromhout Software is made of feelings...

— botchagalupe (@botchagalupe) May 1, 2015

"Working out of the office is not letting your co-workers down"
- @bridgetkromhout #devopsdays pic.twitter.com/IRBT1o3guG

— Jason Hand (@jasonhand) May 1, 2015

#devopsdays "single source of truth" via tools like Github + collaborative culture helps remote team from @bridgetkromhout

— Bianca Jiang (@BiancaJiang) May 1, 2015

@bridgetkromhout: there are no unicorns, only sparkly horses. #DevOpsDays @devopsdaysNYC pic.twitter.com/C4AmPHVBFv

— Chris Corriere (@cacorriere) May 1, 2015

Overcommunicate: software is made of feels. Misunderstandings are easy. @bridgetkromhout #devopsdays #devopsdaysnyc

— Lisa van Gelder (@lisa_van_gelder) May 1, 2015

Once again, "blameless post-mortem" has reared its head at #DevOpsDaysNYC #ProTip

— Trusted Software (@TSWAlliance) May 1, 2015

"Pull-Request Fairy"

--@bridgetkromhout #devopsdaysnyc #devopsdays

— Bearded Beauty (@gwaldo) May 1, 2015

#devopsdays @bridgetkromhout He's a pull request fairy... working remote in Korea ...

— botchagalupe (@botchagalupe) May 1, 2015

.@bridgetkromhout giving me some nice nuggets of personal perspective for future #ChatOps talks #devopsdays pic.twitter.com/RLmODTbgr8

— Jason Hand (@jasonhand) May 1, 2015

Empathy is defined by connecting and caring, not by distance. -- @bridgetkromhout #remoteops #devopsdaysnyc #devopsdays

— Nick Shemonsky (@nshemonsky) May 1, 2015

"Empathy is defined by connecting and caring, not by distance." @bridgetkromhout #devopsdaysNYC #remotework pic.twitter.com/ZDek2Lewkv

— Todd Waits (@toddwaits) May 1, 2015

@bridgetkromhout Sweet talk on working remote full transparency visibility fantasy football #chatops #devopsdaysnyc #cookieops

— steve timko (@GBTimko) May 1, 2015

My slides for #devopsdays NYC: http://t.co/OkqYpgwUhx; thank you to @beerops @mrembetsy @mindweather @petercnorton & everyone who was there!

— Bridget Kromhout (@bridgetkromhout) May 2, 2015

© 2020 Bridget Kromhout