I have a new startup, two cofounders and a remote full time engineer. Things are working splendidly, but the reason is in large part because of how well we communicate. Yes, of course chat, video conferences, and email are important.

But I think our wiki pages and pull requests are what make it work. We also have been making information dense screencasts for each other. I'm going to be so bold as to say a remote engineer has forced us to work in a way every engineering team should.

I'll have more to say about this soon enough :)