I did not hire a remote developer, but I worked as a remote developer. Following are the issues which I faced, and probably my hirer would have experienced.
- If the spec is given orally, then there will be lot of confusion. So, you need to give mock-ups and/or detailed stories.
- In case of any doubts, the time to fix the confusion is drastically more in a remote developer.
- Personally, I believe that all people should be committed as much as the founders and share the same values as that of the company. This will be less with a remote developer.