Anyone here moved to a rural area or homestead type scenario?
Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
31–40 of 187 posts
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#32I work remote now and like it, but I'm not really sure how well that would have played out for me right out of school. Almost all of my social network, from friends to future wife, flowed through those in-person jobs. I was (am) very introverted, but the "Hey, we're heading out to grab lunch, wanna come?" experiences at that time allowed me to meet people.
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#33I've done it a bunch of times. The big thing to be aware of is that managing remote people requires better management skills, so you need a boss who cares about doing it right. I had two experiences go sideways, in both cases my manager got stressed and busy, and because I was their only remote report, they did a crappy job. Prior to them getting too busy to do a good job, it was fine. It really is a lot better if th…
so as a Canadian, remote work in US is easier to find if you remind them of w8-ben, even if they are only listing REMOTE inside USA?
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#34I’ve worked remotely for 15 years, variously in a bustling major city with a startup scene and currently do so in a small seaside town a few minutes from the beach. Quality of life depends where in life you are. City is better for meeting people, seaside town for raising children. Remote work is generally good for work-life balance, nobody cares if I stay at home with a sick child or finish early for a school play, b…
Congrats on year 15! I'm on year 5 of working remotely.
Working in software I definitely think most companies are fine with remote individual contributors, and that it has been shown to work effectively.
If the company is setup for majority distributed communication (slack, wikis, ticket tracker, etc), then I even think tech team leads can be remote.
That seems to be the limit though unless the company is remote first or close to it. I haven't seen any remote employees in Sr. Management roles. Although Sr. Management at the company I'm working for have been working from home, I think when things are back to 'normal' the expectation is that they will be in the office again, although I'll be curious to see if they work from home one or two days a week.
YMMV
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#35As a new engineer, onsite is a better career option because it will create more robust bonds in your professional network. Who you know matters. Being onsite will also probably generate more what-you-know as well simply by virtue of casual interaction. There's nothing wrong with remote in theory, but it simply does not provide equivalent networking potential to physical interaction. You can always go remote later. Go…
This is true, but has to be weighed against the fact that you may land a job that is a better fit for your skill set, which I would argue trumps everything. Remote allows you to find work where you're a star, IFF you're willing to hunt for it. This is more likely to matter if you already have other career skills though (i.e. mature applicants transitioning from other work)
For an early career engineer I'd argue finding the highest quality coworkers is the highest priority. Even if it's in a stack that's not one's first choice. So much of this profession is rules of thumb and best practices that we learn from our colleagues.
Then for a mid-career engineer I think your statement becomes accurate.
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#36[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#37As a new engineer, onsite is a better career option because it will create more robust bonds in your professional network. Who you know matters. Being onsite will also probably generate more what-you-know as well simply by virtue of casual interaction. There's nothing wrong with remote in theory, but it simply does not provide equivalent networking potential to physical interaction. You can always go remote later. Go…
This is true, but if you're not in a good market I think the OP is right that having access to better companies and jobs outweighs that.
I work with a number of people who were hired, both remote and out of network, pre-COVID, onto a mostly co-located team. They have built trust and a strong network within the company, leading to promos and significantly increased comp, and through their excellent performance have built networks that will stay with them throughout their careers.
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#38Expect to work their time zone, which may conflict with your local time zone. East coast vs west coast is a big deal. You'll also be making a shitton of money, even with their CoL adjustment, so, don't be a dick about it.
> You'll also be making a shitton of money, even with their CoL adjustment, so, don't be a dick about it.
CoL adjustment is a pretty bad signal. If the company has time and money to pay folks to try to squeeze every penny it can from CoL it's not trying to attract the best talent.
I believe in rewarding contributors proportionally to their contributions, not some arbitrary spreadsheet HR cooked up.
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#39I’ve worked remotely for 15 years, variously in a bustling major city with a startup scene and currently do so in a small seaside town a few minutes from the beach. Quality of life depends where in life you are. City is better for meeting people, seaside town for raising children. Remote work is generally good for work-life balance, nobody cares if I stay at home with a sick child or finish early for a school play, b…
You've summed up my experience, both with location descriptions and pros and cons, to a T.
Re: Ask HN: Remote workers in a non-tech city, what's your experience?
#40My company is headquartered in Cupertino, CA and I live and work in Dallas, TX. The obvious pros are I don't need to commute or really drive at all, I can work from bed (probably doesn't matter to most, but I've got 10 screws in my spine from past surgeries and it matters to me), and I can live in a 3,000 square foot 4-story townhouse within spitting distance of downtown for less than my sisters in California pay for…
If your health requires you to work from bed, why do you live in a 4-storey house?