Distributed engineering teams do not fail dramatically. They fail slowly: decisions get slower, priorities drift apart, engineers in different locations develop different understandings of the codebase, and by the time the problem is visible it has been building for six months.
Async-first means the default for any communication that does not require immediate back-and-forth is written, documented, and findable later. The practical test: could an engineer who joined the team today understand why the last three significant decisions were made, without asking anyone?
With Mexico-based engineers working with US teams: Central Time teams have near-full overlap with East Coast. West Coast teams have five to six hours of overlap — sufficient for standups, pairing, and architecture discussions.
One channel per project or service. Explicit norms for Slack message vs. ticket vs. meeting. Video for complex discussions. Record key meetings for asynchronous access.
Two situations justify in-person: project kickoffs and team relationship issues. For teams with Mexico-based engineers: two in-person sessions per year is the minimum worth targeting.
Proximity bias: treating engineers in the same office as more capable than remote engineers. Over-meeting: scheduling extra synchronous meetings to compensate for lack of informal conversation. Silent distributed engineers: remote voices get less time in mixed meetings.
Axented's engineering engagements include management support for clients running distributed teams for the first time. → axented.com/team-augmentation
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