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Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#71

Post by draw_down »

calcsam wrote: post #4

An old colleague of mine, who'd worked for an LA-based tech company for 10 years, went to hand in his resignation. He was moving to Charlotte so he could be with his girlfriend. His boss begged him to stay -- he could even work remotely. My friend took the deal. He lives in Charlotte now and flies to LA every 2 or 3 months. The best place to look for remote jobs is to talk to people who have worked with you in the pa…

You'll have a job if you do that- but you might not be able to advance, you can be the odd person out, and out of sight/out of mind. I did what your friend did once upon a time; within a few years (during which I got a lot done), it was obvious that it wasn't going to work out any longer. Of course that's a possibility with any job, but if there's not many other opportunities around where you moved to, it can get tricky.

Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#72

Post by crdoconnor »

dandandan wrote: post #40
crdoconnor wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't work for companies like that. I have a few "red flags" which I look for when I interview for companies to avoid this type of mindset and if I see enough red flags I reject the company. Those places are usually career dead ends anyway, even if you're not bothered about working remotely. Unfortunately, there are many places which only have employers like that which means you either move or you deal with it.

Can you elaborate on what you're looking for at the interview stage to determine a company has this mindset? I've seen it after a few weeks at an org but figuring that out earlier would be helpful.

I have a few questions I ask which often tease out the red flags:

* What hours did you and your team work in the last month? (anything that indicates long hours are frequent is a red flag, not because long hours are intrinsically bad (though they are), but because it's usually being used as a proxy for measuring productivity).

* What is your policy on remote working? Who do you have remote working currently and under what circumstances? ("no remote working" is ok for me if there's a non-bullshit reason but YMMV).

* Who is currently your best or one of your better developers? How did you come to that conclusion?

* What characteristics do you look for in clean code vs. technical debt-laden code? How do you handle and plan for paying down technical debt?

* Who reads your team's pull requests? (worst answer is "nobody", 2nd worst answer is "the team").

* Have you read any of my code? What did you think?

I'm usually not looking for a perfect answer to all of these questions, just avoiding the companies that give an impression of widespread systemic dysfunction in their answers or a manager who is clueless.

Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#73

Post by zeahfj »

_noqo wrote: post #29

Job boards * http://weworkremotely.com * http://remoteok.io * http://remotebase.io * http://workingnomads.co * http://authenticjobs.com * http://folyo.me * http://jobspresso.co * http://wfh.io * http://remotefriendly.work * http://linkedin.com/jobs * http://angel.co/jobs * http://designernews.co/jobs * http://news.ycombinator.com (monthly posts for freelance jobs) * http://dribbble.com/jobs (only design) * http://get…

Why do you recommend against gigster specifically? Just curious given that Andreessen funded them.

Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#74

Post by ozaark »

hackermailman wrote: post #63
ozaark wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything positive anyone who uses toptal can share about them vs other services? It seems others are concerned about the interview process and rate fixing

There's older threads about them, the interview process is better described here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10109036 The good things are you don't have to chase down clients for payment or constantly hustle for gigs like other freelancer sites, it's like a temp agency they do all that for you, and you work for established companies (AirBnB ect) so hopefully the person telling you what to do has an idea of w…

Wow thanks for the HN thread. From that it looks like they were called out for practices and decided to astroturf the thread with fake positive views. There are a couple of 'current toptal users/devs' on there that clearly just created their account for the thread and never posted again after.

Doesn't seem like they are a 'top 3%' themselves honestly.

Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#76

Post by coupdejarnac »

fastftw wrote: post #16

Toptal! If you want a referral, let me know! https://www.toptal.com/talent/apply/#book-just-devoted-progr...

Yeah, Toptal. One of the least professional interview experiences I've had. Didn't bother doing their coding exercises. Life is short.

Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#77

Post by JoshuaDavid »

zeahfj wrote: post #73
_noqo wrote: post #29

Job boards * http://weworkremotely.com * http://remoteok.io * http://remotebase.io * http://workingnomads.co * http://authenticjobs.com * http://folyo.me * http://jobspresso.co * http://wfh.io * http://remotefriendly.work * http://linkedin.com/jobs * http://angel.co/jobs * http://designernews.co/jobs * http://news.ycombinator.com (monthly posts for freelance jobs) * http://dribbble.com/jobs (only design) * http://get…

Why do you recommend against gigster specifically? Just curious given that Andreessen funded them.

I read that as

  I do not recommend
  * http://upwork.com
  * http://freelancer.com
  * http://nubelo.com
  * http://fiverr.com
  * http://workana.com
  * http://guru.com
i.e. [redacted] does not recommend upwork, fiverr, freelancer.com, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#78

Post by dasmoth »

crdoconnor wrote: post #72
dandandan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what you're looking for at the interview stage to determine a company has this mindset? I've seen it after a few weeks at an org but figuring that out earlier would be helpful.

I have a few questions I ask which often tease out the red flags: * What hours did you and your team work in the last month? (anything that indicates long hours are frequent is a red flag, not because long hours are intrinsically bad (though they are), but because it's usually being used as a proxy for measuring productivity). * What is your policy on remote working? Who do you have remote working currently and under…

>>> * Who reads your team's pull requests? (worst answer is "nobody", 2nd worst answer is "the team").

What's the best answer you've heard for this one?

Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#79

Post by crdoconnor »

dasmoth wrote: post #78
crdoconnor wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a few questions I ask which often tease out the red flags: * What hours did you and your team work in the last month? (anything that indicates long hours are frequent is a red flag, not because long hours are intrinsically bad (though they are), but because it's usually being used as a proxy for measuring productivity). * What is your policy on remote working? Who do you have remote working currently and under…

>>> * Who reads your team's pull requests? (worst answer is "nobody", 2nd worst answer is "the team"). What's the best answer you've heard for this one?

Something involving not only the team reviewing each other's code but somebody with the power to hire/fire (i.e. the answer "I will").

Re: Ask HN: Best place to look for remote jobs?

#80

Post by mrgrowth »

calcsam wrote: post #4

An old colleague of mine, who'd worked for an LA-based tech company for 10 years, went to hand in his resignation. He was moving to Charlotte so he could be with his girlfriend. His boss begged him to stay -- he could even work remotely. My friend took the deal. He lives in Charlotte now and flies to LA every 2 or 3 months. The best place to look for remote jobs is to talk to people who have worked with you in the pa…

Thanks for sharing. In a similar situation but my boss really wanted someone in the office. Just not very open to the idea. Shame.
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