Lots of great advice already given. If you want a 1:1 advisor, I recommend Jordan Carroll: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanscarroll/
How much does it cost?
Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
141–150 of 212 posts
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#142If I might give a potentially upsetting, but honest, opinion: you aren’t ready for work if the content in Eloquent JavaScript is beyond your current scope of knowledge.
I am in the process of applying to entry-level jobs and I can assure you that I have not encountered a single technical interview that did not require knowledge beyond what FCC covers.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#143Please listen to me. I was in a similar position to you. I chose wrong. I chose my family. Let me tell you why: by choosing my family, I reduced my ability to become stronger. You need to spend the next 10 years becoming the strongest person you can. Then the next 60 years of your life as well as your sister will be great. Yes, your family's life will suck in the meantime. DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THE GOAL. The goal is to…
This really is unsolicited advice. You really cannot assume your situation and circumstance is identical to OPs. He may well love his family dearly and already feel resolute its right for him to care for them. To walk away from family (unless you have another valid reason, such as its a dysfunctional situation) can haunt for the rest of one's life.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#144Here’s my advice which is worth hopefully at least twice what it costs you. Focus on achieving some initial level of “proof” that you can perform in an entry-level software (or help desk) role. If you can’t ever visit the office, you’re competing against a worldwide set of candidates, but you can still bring something that distinguishes you. That you work in US time zone and make it easy for someone to employ you are…
> If you want to break into programming, go after that rather than help desk or sanding body panels. If your next best alternative is moving far away, renting a place there, and doing auto body work for minimum wage, you can probably come out after-everything even by staying put and doing a mix of online learning and even terribly paying gigs on fiverr/ upwork/ etc.
Since a sibling comment already covered the other thing I was going to say, I'm going to focus on this part, as it's 100% correct.
Moving away to take a minimum wage job is most likely a trap. You will not be making enough money to both support yourself and do anything meaningful for your family, and you're going to be physically tired after working 8+ hours a day. It's definitely not a good long term solution, and it seems pretty terrible in the short term, too. Even taking a minimum wage job locally seems like a better solution to me, if at all possible (I did see you mentioned you live in the "poorest region of the United States.")
I think I would start by focusing on what the minimum amount of money you need to make to support your family, then seeing how you can make that much remotely. That can be whatever, because it's just a stepping stone allowing you to move on to finding a remote job that not only lets you take care of your family, but also lets you get ahead.
You've got a hard road ahead of you, OP, but it's one I've been down myself. For the longest time, I never had more than a few hundred bucks to my name. My net worth was deeply negative due to student loans until very recently. Even though I'm in a much better place than that now, it's still been 3 steps forward, 2 steps back for me. At the minimum, you will need a lot of perseverance, a little luck, a dash of chutzpah, and a willingness to keep improving yourself.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#145Genuinely curious, I don't mean to be insulting, and a hiring manager will be asking the same question: you've been playing with tech for a long time and sound like you're interested enough to be competent. How is it that your work experience is generic, unskilled jobs? I realize it's a poor region, but it's still the US (no visa issues), remote wasn't unheard of pre-covid, and even poor regions often have something halfway resembling a a DBA or sysadmin within an hour radius.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't want to derail the conversation, but I'd love to hear more about gingrapp. What made you choose this niche, what were the early days like?
Well, I had recently adopted an Australian Cattle Dog puppy but had a full time in-office job. They’re a very active breed and leaving her at home all day wasn’t an option. That prompted me to find a dog daycare, something I had never heard of (and honestly thought was slightly ridiculous). When checking out the first day, I noticed their business was a mess. Everything on paper, in messy stacks at the front desk. An…
Absolutely love this. Proof that opportunity is everywhere. Congratulations on an awesome success story!
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#147Genuinely curious, I don't mean to be insulting, and a hiring manager will be asking the same question: you've been playing with tech for a long time and sound like you're interested enough to be competent. How is it that your work experience is generic, unskilled jobs? I realize it's a poor region, but it's still the US (no visa issues), remote wasn't unheard of pre-covid, and even poor regions often have something…
Finding the first job in tech, when you don’t have any previous experience to show, is not easy. I was in the same boat for a long time. I assume what OP is trying to do is to find an entry-level job with the intention to move up from there.
Also, when you’re broke, you often don’t have time to look for a good position, because you need money right now, so you take up whatever job is on offer, which leaves you with no time/energy to look for something better, and you can’t take the risk to just quit and follow your dreams because you don’t have any safety net. You can easily spend years this way.
Of course, all this would not sound great in a job interview. That’s why, when I interview people, I tend to focus more on the attitude, personality, and actual skills of a person, and avoid asking questions about past odd jobs, prolonged unemployment periods, and the like.
We all need to start somewhere. OP just happens to be starting now.
Good luck, OP.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#148Hi Anon, Since you have limited time to find a remote job and nobody has mentioned it yet: HTML/CSS still pays pretty well, is fast to learn, and may be even easier to get paid for than Javascript or other coding work since a lot of "better developers" do not want to do it. I would start by building yourself a personal website and using that as your portfolio, and then expand that portfolio as quickly as you can whil…
I spent months trying to find an HTML/CSS job without success. Every web dev position I found was heavily JS-oriented.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#149Lots of good advice here. I'll add learn AWS. The video training on acloudguru.com is excellent. If you get a few certifications (udemy.com has excellent test prep) under your belt, that may open doors and it's all remote-enabled work. For a few hundred dollars and focused time, you can learn a lot about modern software development.
Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?
#150One more angle since I haven’t seen anyone mention it. Instructions on how to bootstrap a software portfolio: Pick a language (sounds like you chose JS which would be my pick as well), buy a copy of cracking the coding interview, make a leetcode.com account, make a codepen.io account, and get to work. If you’re smart and dedicated you can teach yourself this stuff and these are the best tools to help you in my opinio…
Cracking the Coding Interview and leetcode are good advice for getting a job at a FAANG or a startup (not that startups hire juniors..), but they're much less relevant at small- and mid-sized software companies. Applying to a FAANG/startup you're up against top graduates, people who have been coding for decades (even for junior roles), and highly motivated people who already have more demonstrable experience than you.
If you're applying to somewhere small it's less important to demonstrate you're already a good developer, and more important to demonstrate that you're interested in learning what the company can teach you, you're a decent human being who the company will want to be part of the team, and that you're not going to give up after a few weeks. Tools like leetcode won't teach you those things.