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Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

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Re: Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

#62
post #59
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? 5 years seems really long to me. A university is only 4 years. Changing companies every few years helps to expand networks and learn new skills.

Not really. Beware you can be easily replaced in your new company without any compensation. Risk is often not accounted for. If you're a twenty something it's ok, but imagine you're a parent of 3 and you have to switch jobs every two years: unbearable.

There are very few projects spanning 5 years or even close to that. Even if you want to stay in a company, you might not have the option.

Re: Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

#63

Remote != home. If you lack social interaction or networking, join a co-working space.

This does rely on there being enough people to make co-working possible. I live in a town of 20000 in Belgium there's literally no-one doing remote work. There's a local company that's tried to open a co-working place. I'm the only one there. Going to the cafés in town in the mornings, again there's no-one else. Maybe two or three people over the course of a year.

Re: Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

#64

Working remotely pretty much destroyed my career for two reasons: (1) my networking opportunities plummeted to zero and (2) I was fired for reasons I believe could have been avoided if I had worked in an office and had stronger relationships with more co-workers. My remote job was at a fully distributed company with good compensation. I worked there for about five years, receiving only positive reviews. Groups in the…

The last thing I'll add since edits don't seem to be working ... My advice to you is that unless you are at the end of your career, or value working from home over your career prospects for family or health reasons, avoid working 100% remotely, even in fully distributed companies. The ideal is a situation where you work in an office, but have a flexible schedule where you can work from home 1-2 days a week, or 1-2 mo…

Anyone have an opinion about 4 days remote, 1 day in office?

(The whole company doing this)

Re: Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

#65
I've been working remotely with UK companies from Belgium since 2010. I'd worked with both companies in the UK before I left. Both companies are great and treat remote workers well. But I knew the people well before I went remote.

They pay me to keep doing what I do. I don't see it as some kind of career path.

In the side I'm continually doing coursera courses and learning other languages or computer science fundamentals just in case the jobs change.

It's a pretty lonely existence and really hard to work consistently, but you get to see your kids grow up.

Re: Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

#66

Working remotely and having more control over my schedule (they don't always come together) allowed me to work on my side project until it was making enough money to cover my living expenses. The only problem is that now, after running my own business for a few years, I cannot phantom the idea of going back to a regular job. In that sense, my career as an employee is over.

Same here. I was remote for some years then went freelance. Now, I can never imagine going back to a regular job. Being on my own time has allowed me to spend as much time as I like with my newborn son. Did it hurt my career prospecs? Most likely. Would I change anything I'd I could do it again? Absolutely not. For some people their work is their life, for me, family is everything.

Re: Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

#68

Absolutely it has for me. For 5 years I worked on a video store website as the sole developer, every few months having the two founders drop by to look over my code and tell me how terrible it was. Living in a remote suburb of the city, I didn't have the ability to go to meet-ups or build a network (outside of LinkedIn, which doesn't really count). So now I'm out of a job for the past 9 months, and don't have a netwo…

It sounds like most of your issue is not with the fact that you worked remote but that you worked remote and lived in a remote area. It is certainly possible to work remote and live close to where the action is. Example... you may live in Boston and work remote for a company in Silicon Valley. I know people who work remote but go to meetups at night all the time.

You don't need to network in person to network. I've never been to a meet-up in my life and manage to interact with hundreds of people on GitHub through side projects / open source work. If you put yourself out there constantly, good things will happen. Don't fool yourself into thinking moving to a city is a magic bullet. You can be just as isolated in the middle of a city.

Re: Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

#69

Absolutely it has for me. For 5 years I worked on a video store website as the sole developer, every few months having the two founders drop by to look over my code and tell me how terrible it was. Living in a remote suburb of the city, I didn't have the ability to go to meet-ups or build a network (outside of LinkedIn, which doesn't really count). So now I'm out of a job for the past 9 months, and don't have a netwo…

Yes, it is easy to fall into this pit. I did this too and it was a huge mistake. I'm 1 year into looking for a job since I too have no network. Cold applications are not working :(

So there is a lesson here... :)

Re: Ask HN: Has working remotely harmed your career growth?

#70

Working remotely pretty much destroyed my career for two reasons: (1) my networking opportunities plummeted to zero and (2) I was fired for reasons I believe could have been avoided if I had worked in an office and had stronger relationships with more co-workers. My remote job was at a fully distributed company with good compensation. I worked there for about five years, receiving only positive reviews. Groups in the…

No job and no project is forever. 5 years is a lot, many times the average. If it can make you feel better, an in office situation would probably have gone the same. Companies and team changes slowly over time, people move on.

> 5 years is a lot, many times the average.

This is incorrect as a general statement. I have reviewed several hundred resumes over the last 2 years on which software developers stayed at a company between 4 and 6 years as the median. In the Bay area 4 years is often the vesting schedule for people's first stock option (and it can be the biggest one people get) and I think that contributes.

When I see a resume with a bunch of 1 or 2 year engagements without that person being a contractor it always raises a flag for me to investigate that during the interview.

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