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How to find a remote job

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Re: How to find a remote job

#31

Post by TheCowboy »

gargarplex wrote: post #5
rpazyaquian wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Six months to land the right job holds for any job or field, remote or not. There's a lot of jobs available, but along with that you need to be picky - it can take some time to find a competitive, ideal option.

Let's say you take 6 months to find the competitive, ideal option. And you get an extra $20K in salary, going from say $100K to $120K (remote). So you sacrificed $50K in opportunity cost. End of year 1: job A $100k, job B $60K End of year 2: job A $200k, job B $180K End of year 3: job A $300k, job B $300K Of course if it's a startup, the odds are high that it would fold within three years. So unless it's a BigCo job…

I agree with your point that it is wise for job seekers to consider these costs and that companies will take advantage of this. I also think it's a long-term mistake when companies do this.

It's a problem because you end up with an employee who is now being paid below market rate. This is most effective against those who are not employed, but once they are employed they will be hearing from recruiters or start looking for the next job while still on the payroll. Because this company is unlikely to provide aggressive enough raises, their employees will be receptive to new offers. A year or two out, this employee gives 2 weeks notice. Was the win of saving the company a couple $10k worth it? Most likely not.

If employers have trouble both finding and retaining talent, then this is a mistake to leverage this against unemployed candidates. If you don't have this problem you soon will once recruiters discover a company full of underpaid but qualified candidates. People leaving is also a signal to current employees that better deals exist somewhere else.

Re: How to find a remote job

#32

Post by aantix »

navalsaini wrote: post #23
aantix wrote: post #14

Pro Tip : If the first person from the company that you talk to is from HR, you're doing it wrong. I wrote up my process in an article on Medium "How to Get a Remote Job, Even When Remote Isn’t Advertised" https://medium.com/@aantix/how-to-get-a-remote-job-even-when...

Nice short article. Its a bit difficult to do that same if one is from a developing country though (flying is expensive :-)). A more interesting problem to crack.

Agree, there's definitely another hurdle of perception if you're from another country. But I still think it's doable. It always comes down to trust - how can I make sure that if I work with you, you're going to commit code that I won't have to do a ton of cleanup on?

So, you combat that by :

1) Be visible. Have code up on Github that I can see.

2) Offer a month to month contract. 15 day notice for termination. This gives you and the company an easy way out if things don't work out and the added bonus of not having to deal with messy tax issues across country borders.

3) Flying is only expensive if your hourly rate doesn't justify it. Honestly, if you're approaching a company with some incredibly low number, e.g. $15/hour, even if that's a decent wage for your country, as a manager, I see that as a signal of cheap, inferior labor. Increase your rate, e.g. $100/hr, so that you could fly if you had to.

Re: How to find a remote job

#33

Post by am8 »

aantix wrote: post #32
navalsaini wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice short article. Its a bit difficult to do that same if one is from a developing country though (flying is expensive :-)). A more interesting problem to crack.

Agree, there's definitely another hurdle of perception if you're from another country. But I still think it's doable. It always comes down to trust - how can I make sure that if I work with you, you're going to commit code that I won't have to do a ton of cleanup on? So, you combat that by : 1) Be visible. Have code up on Github that I can see. 2) Offer a month to month contract. 15 day notice for termination. This g…

Hope your code cleanup is more “decent” than your spelling.

Re: How to find a remote job

#35

Post by monsieurbanana »

am8 wrote: post #33
aantix wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, there's definitely another hurdle of perception if you're from another country. But I still think it's doable. It always comes down to trust - how can I make sure that if I work with you, you're going to commit code that I won't have to do a ton of cleanup on? So, you combat that by : 1) Be visible. Have code up on Github that I can see. 2) Offer a month to month contract. 15 day notice for termination. This g…

Hope your code cleanup is more “decent” than your spelling.

That was completely uncalled for.

Re: How to find a remote job

#36

Post by aantix »

am8 wrote: post #33
aantix wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree, there's definitely another hurdle of perception if you're from another country. But I still think it's doable. It always comes down to trust - how can I make sure that if I work with you, you're going to commit code that I won't have to do a ton of cleanup on? So, you combat that by : 1) Be visible. Have code up on Github that I can see. 2) Offer a month to month contract. 15 day notice for termination. This g…

Hope your code cleanup is more “decent” than your spelling.

I outlined everything that I know that has helped me gain a remote job in hopes of helping someone else..

Certainly this isn't your best response to contribute to this conversation?

Re: How to find a remote job

#37

Post by radarsat1 »

Here's a question I'm trying to understand: if I intend to travel while working, where do I say I'm "from"? How do taxes work? Suppose that I have an apartment in some country, not necessarily my country of citizenship, and I will sublet it while I travel.

I suppose, to freelance, one needs to create a "company", but where is that company based? Does it need to have an address?

If I am a citizen of one country, a resident of another, but I'm working while I travel in _other_ countries, where do I owe taxes?

These are the roadblocks I find most complicated, beyond just "finding the job", I don't know how the legal "infrastructure" should work when you are freelancing and in such an odd living situation.

Re: How to find a remote job

#38

Post by morgante »

rpazyaquian wrote: post #3
pgeorgep wrote: post #2

I found a remote job this year on https://angel.co/ This article seems like an excellent resource, but it doesn't get into the drive you need to find a remote job (at least early in your career like me). When I started looking for remote jobs online, it took me over six months to finally land the right job. What articles like this don't emphasize enough is when you're applying for remote jobs, you're competing agains…

Six months to land the right job holds for any job or field, remote or not. There's a lot of jobs available, but along with that you need to be picky - it can take some time to find a competitive, ideal option.

I don't think 6 months is a typical developer job search, and that has nothing to do with being picky.

Almost everyone worth working for is hiring constantly. Hence it's relatively straightforward to run a bunch of interview processes in parallel while still being quite picky about the offer you accept. In most cases, it's highly unlikely that a better option will materialize with additional time (in 99% of cases, it would have existed when you started).

Re: How to find a remote job

#39

Post by ben1040 »

I'm on remote job #4 right now. Here's how I got each.

Job 1: Referred by a friend who worked for the company. She joined the company about 5 years prior, after being cold-emailed by an internal recruiter.

Job 2: Friend referral. I met the friend by way of a local developer meetup and we got to know each other over the course of a couple years. My friend was referred into the company by a friend of his, who had moved out of town to take a job with this company.

Job 3: Internet referral. I'm on a developer slack community and the position was posted there.

Job 4/Current one: A mishmash. People on the team knew me from developer conferences and a couple meetups in NYC (job #3 was based in NYC as well, and I would attend meetups when visiting the office). One or two of the people were also on that slack. My resume was ultimately brought in, however, by a local friend of mine. He got the job in a similar manner as the friend in job #2; a local friend of his moved to NYC to join the company.

Re: How to find a remote job

#40

Post by blktiger »

jcadam wrote: post #20

Most of the companies I've interviewed with will only consider remote workers who have prior experience working remotely. I just don't know how to demonstrate to employers that I have the self-discipline to actually work if I'm not forced to go into an office full of distractions every day. In any case, after yet another round of rejections for (mostly remote) gigs, I've given up on getting out of my crappy job for t…

I was able to get a remote job at my current employer without any prior remote experience. As long as you are a more senior developer, it's assumed that you have the self-discipline to do good work remotely.

We're currently hiring too if you have a background that fits. https://jobs.lever.co/sonatype

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