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Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

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Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#21

Post by pimterry »

One thing to look out for is remote-first companies, not just remote-ok companies. Zach Holman has a good post on this: https://zachholman.com/posts/remote-first/

If you're one of few people in the company working remotely (or worse: one of few in your team), you get cut off really easily. Remote practices won't be up to scratch (because most people aren't using them), meetings will happen in person and dialing you in will be a chore, and things won't work as well. You'll hear about major events by email that everybody knew about last week from office chatter. This isn't to say it'll be a disaster, but it'll be less effective, and less fun.

Companies where everybody works remote by default meanwhile are a different ballgame. Everybody understands how remote interactions should work, and that's what gets used to get everything done. People are good at using the tools and processes required to pull this off well, and the company will be better at managing solutions to the downsides of remote work (by flying everybody into a summit to see each other in person every 6 months, for example, or covering coworking space costs). You're no longer the great developer they want _despite_ you working remotely - you're now one of many people, all working remotely, and all working together on the same playing field.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#22

Post by throw110911 »

I have spent last some years working on different projects, mostly remotely. What I have seen is that if you want to have a career in a specific company, try to find a company that has remote work in its DNA. That means, many or even most of the people are working remotely.

I have in practise seen that things usually don't work out well for the remote people, if the company has also a physical location where you have some "higher ranking employees" (project managers, architects, etc) as well as a certain amount of developers. If the company is not actively fighting against it, very soon you will end up with situation where things are discussed offline and those working remotely are left out. This can start very small. On the bigger meetings you hear certain things have already been de facto decided in the offline meeting. Instead on influencing, you are then just reacting.

This then leads to the most important thing for the remote worker trying to build a career: You need to fight this tendency to be left out. It is in remote workers interest that there are regular online meetings or gathering where everybody participates (even on daily basis). You need to gently remind people that you want to be involved in discussions as well. Be pro-active in Slack and try to push discussions to take place there. If the organisation is growing, push for quarterly or twice-a-year get togethers so that you have also physical contact with the new people. It makes a big difference for the remote communication when you've had a few beers with somebody.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#23

Post by psynapse »

lil1729 wrote: post #11
dwightgunning wrote: post #6

The fundamentals of being a highly effective and valued team member and employee are actually the same. That said, perception is reality and being remote does add some friction to certain aspects of the job and the way the team works. If you take a proactive approach these can be managed or overcome, leaving you with just the benefits of working remote. Things that come to mind: - Written communication: Crisp emails…

+1 to all the points made. I have been working remotely for a while now. These are the things I learned. - time difference matters. It is better if there is some overlap with at least some people in the team. - "showing up" (via various communication channels) have more value at one of the places I worked than the actual work. - I was consistently rated less compared to others because my interactions were only over v…

The addition of stress is under-represented when talking about working remotely. The more you have going on at home, the worse it is. You have to work out whether the "convenience" pays for the loss of clean separation from family life.

The family will claim to understand that you have to work, sometimes (often?) uninterrupted. But the perception, especially for children, is that you are there; just not participating.

This segues into to the other point I found pertinent - everyone being remote is definitely better. This is currently how I work, but I was previously a "minority" remote worker. Depending on the organisation, there is a whole political architecture that others navigate/recruit, but that you cannot access to the same degree. It doesn't matter how good you are, you can be undermined by people who resent advice/change/correction/omission/etc. This contributes its own stress.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#24

Post by thingamarobert »

0xmohit wrote: post #19
lil1729 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to all the points made. I have been working remotely for a while now. These are the things I learned. - time difference matters. It is better if there is some overlap with at least some people in the team. - "showing up" (via various communication channels) have more value at one of the places I worked than the actual work. - I was consistently rated less compared to others because my interactions were only over v…

"showing up" (via various communication channels) have more value at one of the places I worked than the actual work Reminds me of a Dilbert strip: When you don't have anything to do, walk fast and look worried. Carry a notebook, it helps. I even heard a coworker say: "It doesn't matter whether the work gets done as long as you are worried about your work."

A useful tip even for a hard-worker when times are bad.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#26

Post by yami »

thingamarobert wrote: post #14
mohsinr wrote: post #13

I suggest in spare time contributing to open source. This will build a good profile for prospective employers from future. As working remotely you may not be visible much in scene, however if you have strong presence in open source space, you will stay visible and prove how much you get done being self motivated. And any future company , most remote employers love self motivated, accomplished team members. And your o…

This is a very good point! I do collaborative work regularly on GitHub but on private repositories of the company with their assigned GitHub account. I should look into how this history can be joined with my public profile which has very little activity as I do other programming on Gitlab and Bitbucket.

You can chose to display contributions to private repositories on Github but it has to come from your account.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#27

Post by Iv »

About 10 years ago, I met for the first time someone who was working remotely. I hate commuting (As an employee, I have always lived close to my office) and at that point, I had decided this was what I wanted. It took me about 3 years to get to that point. Here is how it worked for me:

- Start freelancing. I started by negotiating with my employer to transform a full-time job into a part-time one. This is a great way to start.

- Accept what you find until you can get 100% freelance, but have a preference for remote work. Be ready to cut your rates to work remotely.

- Grow your network and reputation until you can have 100% of remote work at a decent rate.

Now we moved to a countryside we like with my wife, we have a house for half the price of an apartment in the city we used to live. I now say upfront to clients that I can only work remotely. I occasionally go to meetings in Tokyo (which is a bit less than 2h away from where I live) but Skype works most of the time.

Be available. Be reactive. Be ready to make mistakes that will cost you time and stress. Be ready to have some shitty clients that will bitch and won't pay. It takes a few years before you get to a level where the stress is lower than an employee job but it is worth it IMHO.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#28

Post by thingamarobert »

Iv wrote: post #27

About 10 years ago, I met for the first time someone who was working remotely. I hate commuting (As an employee, I have always lived close to my office) and at that point, I had decided this was what I wanted. It took me about 3 years to get to that point. Here is how it worked for me: - Start freelancing. I started by negotiating with my employer to transform a full-time job into a part-time one. This is a great way…

A very practical piece of advice! Thanks. This is roughly the picture I had in my mind about how to progress. My mother (who is a full-time consultant now) did this. She'd work at the government office during the first half of the day, then offer consultations during the rest of the day at a private establishment. She carried this on for several years and finally, when she retired from government service, she went into full-time practice and that seems to be working very well for her. The time-line of this is much longer than what you managed but I think her focus was never to quit government service asap.

Congratulations on where you are! I'd love for something like this in my career.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#29

Post by elcct »

pimterry wrote: post #21

One thing to look out for is remote-first companies, not just remote-ok companies. Zach Holman has a good post on this: https://zachholman.com/posts/remote-first/ If you're one of few people in the company working remotely (or worse: one of few in your team), you get cut off really easily. Remote practices won't be up to scratch (because most people aren't using them), meetings will happen in person and dialing you i…

Oh and that in the company some people can view your remote working as a special treatment and there will be an active look out for on-premise replacement - which doesn't help with maintaining healthy relations. If company is not remote first, having contractor relationship is much healthier in my opinion.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a career working remotely?

#30

Post by drusepth »

Lots of good information here already, but I also wanted to throw in Zapier's Guide to Remote Work[1]. It's very long but provides a ToC for you to jump to what's relevant to you, but the gist is that it discusses the pros and cons of remote work from both the employer and the employee's point of view.

You're probably learning many of the benefits of remote work already (but there might still be some tips for you in there to get the most of it), but it's also handy to know what the upsides (and potential downfalls) are for your employer(s) so you can better see issues from their point of view, make a more compelling case while interviewing for a remote position, and so on.

I definitely second the suggestion to look for remote-first companies. After interviewing around and getting through a half dozen interview processes to finally get an offer "as long as I was comfortable potentially relocating later if remote doesn't work out", I ended up completely omitting all companies that weren't 90+% remote from my job search. When you can actually work remotely, the whole world is your job market -- you can afford to exclude companies that are on the fence about remote work.

Good luck!

[1] https://zapier.com/learn/the-ultimate-guide-to-remote-workin...

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