Remote Hiring: How to Build Engineering Teams Across Time Zones
I'm going to skip the "remote work is here to stay" preamble. It's 2026. We know. The real question is: how do you actually build a distributed engineering team that ships product?
I've worked for many startups, and the ones that did remote well had specific, repeatable patterns. The ones that did it badly had meetings. So many meetings.
The 4-Hour Overlap Rule
Every pair of people who need to collaborate regularly should share at least 4 hours of working overlap. Not 1 hour. Four minimum.
You need enough time for a morning sync, at least one real-time collaboration session for blockers, enough buffer for ad-hoc Slack conversations, and same-day code review turnaround.
- US West + US East: Easy. 3-hour difference, tons of overlap.
- US East + Western Europe: Doable. Adjust slightly and it works.
- US West + Western Europe: Harder. Someone has to flex.
- US + India/Southeast Asia: Very hard. Requires a semi-autonomous team lead in-region.
Async-First Is Not Optional
Written decisions over verbal ones. Every significant technical decision gets a doc or detailed Slack thread, because half your team was asleep when you talked about it.
PRs that explain context. "fixes bug" is useless to a reviewer in a different time zone. Write the context. Every time.
Recorded demos over live ones. Ship a Loom. Save synchronous time for discussions that require real-time back-and-forth.
Explicit handoffs. At the end of your day, write what you did, where you got stuck, what the next person needs to know.
The Practical Playbook
Phase 1: Same or adjacent time zones only. Learn the remote mechanics.
Phase 2: Add one non-adjacent time zone. But do it as a cluster of 2-3 people, not solo hires scattered everywhere.
Phase 3: Follow the sun for teams needing near-24/7 coverage.
What Most Companies Get Wrong
Hiring remote but managing like co-located. Not investing in written onboarding. Ignoring compensation philosophy (location-based vs. role-based vs. global band).
The talent is out there. The hard part isn't sourcing. It's building the systems and culture that let distributed teams work well together.