Leading distributed SRE teams isn’t just about having the right video conferencing software. After a year of managing 40+ engineers across multiple time zones from my home office in Bandera, Texas, I’ve built a comprehensive toolkit of systems that make remote leadership not just possible, but powerful. Here’s the practical playbook I wish I’d had when I started.
The biggest mistake I see remote managers make is trying to recreate office dynamics online. Instead, I built an async-first communication system with clear escalation paths.
🚨 Emergency (PagerDuty/Phone): Production down, security incidents
📱 Urgent (Slack DM): Needs response within 2-4 hours
💬 Normal (Team Slack): 24-hour response expected
📧 FYI (Email/Docs): No response needed
Implementation tip: We use Slack workflows to automatically categorize messages. Team members prefix messages with [URGENT], [FYI], or [DECISION-NEEDED] to set clear expectations.
At Apple, informal conversations happened naturally. Remotely, I had to engineer them.
When you can’t see your team, you need systems that create visibility without surveillance.
# Posts at 9 AM in each team member's local timezone
questions = [
"What did you accomplish yesterday?",
"What are you working on today?",
"Any blockers?",
"How are you feeling? (🟢🟡🔴)"
]
The emoji check-in has been surprisingly effective for catching early signs of burnout.
Remote teams can get stuck in endless Slack threads. I implemented RAPID decision-making with a twist:
Proposal posted in dedicated Slack channel with:
Discussion happens async in threads
Decision recorded in our decision log with:
## Decision: Migration to Kubernetes
**Recommend**: Platform Team
**Approve**: Engineering Director
**Perform**: SRE Team
**Input**: Security, Network Teams
**Decide**: VP of Engineering
**Deadline**: Friday, 5 PM CT
Traditional performance management assumes you can observe people working. My system focuses on outcomes and growth.
Week 1: Career development focus
Week 2: Project/tactical focus
Week 3: Skip-level with my manager
Week 4: Team dynamics and culture
Documentation is the lifeblood of distributed teams. We treat it like code.
title: Service Name Runbook
owners: [team-name]
last-reviewed: 2025-07-15
slo: 99.9%
sections:
- architecture
- common-issues
- escalation
- monitoring-links
Culture doesn’t happen by accident in remote teams. It needs systems.
Remote incident management requires different muscle memory than huddling in a war room.
Current State: [System status]
What We Know: [Root cause hypothesis]
What We've Tried: [Actions taken]
Next Steps: [Planned actions]
Who's On Point: [Name + contact]
New team members can’t learn by osmosis. They need structure.
Each new hire gets:
After testing dozens of tools, here’s what stuck:
How do you know if your remote systems are working?
The tools are just the beginning. Leading remote teams requires fundamental mindset shifts:
Working from rural Texas has taught me that constraints breed creativity. Limited internet bandwidth forced us to optimize our tools. The 2-hour time difference from the West Coast made us better at async communication. Even the occasional tractor driving by during calls reminds everyone that great engineering can happen anywhere.
Remote work isn’t a temporary solution—it’s the future of engineering teams. The systems I’ve built aren’t perfect, but they’ve transformed a traditionally on-site organization into a high-performing distributed engineering culture.
The key is to be intentional. Every process, every tool, every meeting needs to justify its existence in a remote context. If it doesn’t make distributed teams more effective, it doesn’t belong in your toolkit.
As I continue to refine these systems from my home office, watching the Texas sun set over the hills, I’m reminded that the best engineering happens when we remove barriers, not when we add them. Geography is just another barrier we’ve learned to overcome.
What systems have you built for remote engineering leadership? What’s worked and what hasn’t? Share your toolkit in the comments—we’re all learning together.
Reflections on transitioning from managing teams at Apple's campus to leading distributed SRE teams at GEICO, and transforming traditional IT organizations into engineering-focused cultures.
