Mostly for more junior people, be very careful with this. Even if companies make sure promotions happen equally for on-site and remote, you'll learn everything slower. This could be new technology, a new language, or things about the company's infrastrucutre, but it will all be slower, and don't be surprised when people who are on-site seem better at their jobs.
Depends on how you learn. Personally I've alway been ultra self taught. Even in university would only show up for lectures if I didnt understand the material in the text book. Else I basically just followed the syllabus and got reasonably good grades.
Some are more hands on though and prefer social learning ("show me how to do it..."). To each their own, but I personally learn faster when left alone than when someone tries to put me through their "course".
It also depends on what you are learning. I'm sure a junior engineer would get by just fine if all they had to do was learn a language, but if you have to look at a 10-year-old system where only senior co-workers know the context for, I wouldn't blame them for needing some hand-holding.
yeah, in that case the Senior co-worker literally is the text book.
That being said, just reading the source code is under untilized these days. Engineers sometimes ask me how the system works, I send them to the repo. It's all right there, just have to learn to read the story it tells.
One risk is that often times the co-worker knows the business logic in "how it ought to be" not the reality of the underlying code. I've had engineers say "It works like X" and I have to say "well, only sometimes. The code says this..."
Please don't spread FUD. I was onsite and still learned slower. It all depends on your team and documentation. I mentor people remotely and they have been successful
