Ask HN: Remote workers, tell us how you got started

Not a developer, just IT support here. I had been contract-to-hire working for a hedge fund for most of 2007. I'd been let go (not hired) based on reasons that I feel were more cultural than based on my performance. Had I been a little wiser and realized that I needed to work harder than everyone else (lack of degree) to prove myself I'd still have that job.

Anyway, I was extremely demoralized and spent the better part of 2008 unemployed. I was burnt out from working long weeks with overtime and didn't even bother to look for a job the first four months. All of my time was spent bettering myself (biking, reading) and relaxing -- I had a big pile of money I was sitting on so it was okay.

I finally started to look for a job in the second half of the year, but I'm extremely picky and didn't see any companies that I was interested in working for. I spent some of this time as a bike messenger but hated being treated like shit by everyone -- still, I think this was a necessary motivator to get serious about my job search.

By November I was going broke. I finally found a couple of things worth applying for. I got the interview call for the job I'm in now when I had $9 left to my name and no prospect of further money coming in -- no joke.

It was a bit serendipitous. Like ssafejava said in their comment "it turned out to be incredibly liberating and probably one the best things that's happened to me, professionally." At the hedge fund I had to constantly look busy even if I didn't really have anything to do. Appearances were incredibly important and being young in my career, it was something I bungled badly. I was also extremely bad at keeping my coworkers from dumping their work on me in the office. That's something much harder to do remotely.

Working remotely, all of my work is judged on its own merits. I can manage my time appropriately with minimal interference from others. I've consistently been one of the highest-performing employees here. My company was even contacted by a major newswire to do a story about remote work and they sent someone to my house to interview me. The story never ran though :(. I don't work any overtime ever. Work-life balance is ideal.

It's been a great ride, but I'd like to go back to working in an office now that I'm a bit wiser -- I would like regular interaction with people again; IRC doesn't always cut it. A mix of office/remote would be best for me I think.

There is a downside to remote work though. I know for a fact that a fair number of my bosses/coworkers are doing drugs on the job. I'm not going to make any judgments about marijuana but we do have some meth users. Management doesn't want to know anything about it, but the performance of some of these people is pretty bad. If I worked for a better company this wouldn't be an issue.

I am renting an office in a coworking space so I can have a place to "go to work" rather than working from home. It adds a routine, it gives me separation between work and home, and it's nice to have human contact over the course of the day.

I don't really have a favorite story: remote working is not that interesting. It did have a profound affect on my life, though: since I didn't need to work at a specific office, I decided that I wanted to move across the country. Rather than a job opportunity deciding where I lived, I got to spend a few months weighing the pros and cons of various places based on other factors. After 6 months, I moved 3,000 miles away and it was one of the best decisions of my life.

Of course, I probably couldn't have done that if I had any outside, major, long-term commitments (spouse, children, family I had to stay within driving distance of, a house, etc.).

If you're in a similar situation, the first bit of advice I can give is that you're going to find that "nine-to-five" eventually becomes "whenever I feel like working, as long as I get things done and stay in communication with the rest of the team". This means working nights or weekends, but it also means being able to knock off and do something fun in the middle of the day. It's easy to slip into a situation where you're working 9pm-5am or working Thursday-Tuesday one week and then a completely different schedule the next, even if you have a personal schedule (it's easy to ignore it).

If you need a routine to be productive, you need to create one for yourself, and I would suggest doing it immediately—don't wait until you're all over the place in terms of time. If you already have outside commitments (like making sure kids get to school on time or having to walk a dog) you'll have a leg up, but otherwise I'd suggest joining user groups or community sports or something that has set schedules you have to keep.

The second bit of advice I can give is to use a phone/video chat as much as possible. It's very easy to slip into emailing/texting/IMing/ticketing all the time, but so much is lost in the written word and you can find yourself implying things you didn't mean to imply or inferring the wrong things from people's messages. I've found you can diffuse most sticky situations with a simple call: when in doubt, don't keep emailing, don't stew, call the person. Even a run-of-the-mill problem that might take a half dozen emails back-and-forth can usually be resolved with a simple 5 minute phone call.

* How I got the job

I was working for a normal web shop as a developer, going to the office everyday. This company had an US customer and I was the one who built his entire system. After some misunderstanding between the customer and the company's owner, the customer wanted me to work for him directly from home, and this was discussed with the owner, my boss at the time. My boss agreed and I started working for this customer from home, and continued to work at the web shop for some time until he introduced me to another US company who wanted to hire me for a full time remote position, which I accepted and I still work for this company to this day. A couple years ago I was relocated to live close to the HQ so I could be in the office :)

* What advice I'd give to others

- Discipline/Productivity

You have to be very disciplined in order to be able to work remotely. You need to pay attention to your time and make sure you work the hours you are getting paid. You may work less hours, but in a worst case scenario, you end up working much more than you are supposed to.

- Communication

Your coworkers can't see you. You boss can't see you. Make sure you keep in touch and reply to emails in a timely manner. This is key to show that you are committed to the job.

- Working from home

If you can, avoid working from home or try not to make the same mistakes I did, below. The first two months I was working from home full time were great! Freedom! But then it almost drove me crazy. I had nobody to talk to, I'd barely leave the apartment. It was a small apartment, so I kept my workstation in my bedroom... don't do it. Ever. At some point I caught myself working 12 to 16 hours a day. When that happened I wasn't sure if I was working from home or living at work. (And I wasn't getting paid by the hour). I spoke with my boss about this issue and the company agreed to rent a small place for me to work from, since there was no public space or this concept of shared office that I could use to work from.

* My favorite story

Well, I went from a one guy working alone from home to building a team, becoming a manager, hiring more people, relocating to the US and becoming a CTO. And it all started with that first remote job :)

Sorry about the long post. I hope something here is useful for you.

Good luck!