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Alianza
SDK Support Engineer
SFU Software Systems Co-op Student
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Position Title

Between January of 2021 to the end of August, I was given the opportunity to work as the SDK Support Engineer at Alianza. This was a unique experience because the work term was completely remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are some positives and negatives I experienced during this work-from-home term.

Positives

There are definitely obvious perks of working from home. The best part of being at home was the distance from where I live to my office, which was virtually none. In order for me to separate my personal space and my so-called “office”, I set up my work computer downstairs away from my room. This also saved time from transit and lunch breaks. Since most of my interactions were just between my manager (Software Development Manager) and me, meetings and calls felt vital and concise. I had weekly meetings with him for new and upcoming tasks but had frequent calls throughout the week to discuss any issues I faced or questions I had. 

Negatives

Since most people switched from working in-person at the office to working from home, there were a few technical issues related to remote/server connection that was not the fault of anyone. Another issue was trying to separate work from home; I was in a comfortable environment, which made me more prone to distractions around the house. Also, I would have liked to meet the people I was working with in-person, like my last co-op experience. I have only met my team through calls and messages, which made it difficult to form a connection with my co-workers.

Final Thoughts 

Do I feel like working remotely is the future? Kind of. Overall, efficiency in communication was great and time was saved on transportation. But, on the other hand, I had days where I had less motivation to work and I would get distracted easily by my surroundings. However, I feel that the trade-offs still favor working from home and that the best implementation in the future would be a combination of both, where people work from home most days, but come into the office for important meetings or social events.