Working Remotely from Pakistan: A 2022 Retrospective
A personal retrospective
I originally published this note in 2022, early in my remote-engineering career. It reflects what I was learning at the time: how much deliberate communication, thoughtful feedback, and exposure to colleagues in other places could improve my work.
The experience was personal, not a universal comparison between remote and office work, countries, or employers. Financial, tax, legal, and employment conditions also change over time, so this article is not current advice on any of those topics.
Learning from distributed teams
Remote work put me in contact with colleagues from different backgrounds and made deliberate communication essential. Code reviews, written design discussions, pairing, and regular one-to-ones gave me useful feedback. Those practices can work in many environments; remote work simply made their value more visible to me.
Growth
When I was considering remote work, I heard concerns that it could limit learning or make relationships harder to build. My experience was different: the quality of feedback, the clarity of collaboration, and the room to take ownership mattered more than where people sat.
The most important part of growth for me was feedback. It can come from anywhere, and it works best when it is specific, respectful, and followed by time to improve.
My first mentor in the company was Yann Buydens , then a co-founder and CTO. Thorough reviews and practical advice on meetings, problem solving, and writing helped me become more composed in how I approached work.
My second mentor was Etienne Bömcke, the team’s tech lead. Regular one-to-ones created a useful space to review what was working, what needed attention, and how I felt about the work.
For me, this was evidence that growth does not depend solely on sharing an office. It does depend on healthy working agreements, access to context, and people who make time for feedback.
- I became more comfortable asking for clarification and requesting reviews.
- I learned to break a difficult problem into smaller questions, write down options, and review them with others.
- Small experiments helped me turn documentation into practical understanding.
- Pairing sessions made an unfamiliar stack less intimidating and showed me where to find context.
- Architecture exercises helped me practice trade-offs rather than looking for a single perfect answer.
- Leading discussions gradually made me more comfortable communicating with a team.
What I would tell my 2022 self
I still think learning how to learn, ask good questions, and communicate trade-offs lasts longer than familiarity with any individual technology.
Evaluate a role on the quality of the work, the people, the support available, the expectations, and whether the collaboration model is sustainable for you. Remote work can be a great fit, but it is not automatically better than every alternative.