In an office, knowledge transfers through osmosis. You overhear a discussion about the auth refactor. You see who's working on what by walking past desks. You tap someone on the shoulder to ask "does this API support pagination?"
Remote work eliminated all of this. Every piece of context now requires an explicit, intentional, asynchronous request. And most of the time, the answer is "let me check and get back to you" — which means another 4 hours of latency.
What Was Lost
Ambient Awareness
In an office, you knew the auth team was dealing with a production issue because you heard them talking. Remote, you don't know until it's mentioned in standup — by which time you've already started a PR that depends on the auth service.
Informal Knowledge Transfer
"Hey, before you change that function — it looks unused but the billing webhook depends on it." This 5-second office interaction prevents a production incident. Remote, it requires the experienced engineer to notice the PR, remember the dependency, and proactively comment. Often they don't.