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How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

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Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#41

Post by zerr »

germanier wrote: post #31
taway_1212 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unrelated, but in Germany you get unemployment benefits after you quit a job? Wow.

There are two (mutually exclusive) kinds of unemployment benefits: Alg: Calculated based on your previous salary and paid for up to two years (based on how long you worked and your age). If you quit voluntarily, the first three months nothing is paid out to you. They will (try to) offer you employment opportunities. This is an actual (mandatory) insurance and costs 3% of your income (up to a limit). Alg II: Based on…

I believe this is only for German and EU citizens, right?

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#42

Post by Alacart »

deedubaya wrote: post #4

I see a lot of devs trying to convert to remote positions who get frustrated that they haven't landed a job after days/weeks/months. Going remote isn't as easy as what many devs are probably accustomed to, especially if you're new to the game (as the tech hiring market has been :fire:). If you're going to go remote, you need to realize a few things: - You're competing against waaay more candidates. You need to stand…

This is why I think more people who are looking for remote should be open to becoming a contractor/freelancer temporarily. Working remotely is already an accepted practice in that context, allowing you to build up a track record of successful remote work. That will give many companies the confidence they need to hire you remotely, and you can offer to take on a small project contract with them first if they need to see it for themselves.

I only contract remotely, with no intention of taking regular employment any time soon, and I still get asked if I'd like to join the team full time as a remote fairly often. Not because I'm so amazing but because they don't need to guess or take risks, they already have proof I can do it successfully for them.

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#43

Post by justboxing »

deedubaya wrote: post #4

I see a lot of devs trying to convert to remote positions who get frustrated that they haven't landed a job after days/weeks/months. Going remote isn't as easy as what many devs are probably accustomed to, especially if you're new to the game (as the tech hiring market has been :fire:). If you're going to go remote, you need to realize a few things: - You're competing against waaay more candidates. You need to stand…

Not trolling, but really curious, how do you propose one demonstrates the following in a very convincing way during the interview?

> - You need to demonstrate, without a doubt, that you can/have worked autonomously, that you can/have been self managing in the past

Do you simply state your experience of having worked autonomously, or having self-managed? If yes, how would you still stand out, because it's like every other candidate also states the same thing "Oh yeah, I require minimum supervision, always get my sh*t done on time by self-managing".

and

> that you provide a better bang-for-the-buck than anyone else who has applied

This is even more vague and fuzzy. How do you demonstrate that you "provide a better bang-for-the-buck than anyone else who has applied" during a phone interview? References?

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#44

Post by k__ »

taway_1212 wrote: post #24
k__ wrote: post #23

I don't know a generic solution, I just can say what I did: 1. I quit my office job. Worked there for about 7 years. I saved some money and got unemployment benefits (60% of my previous salary) so I had 1 year to do nothing. 2. I did some OSS stuff OSS teams are almost all remote and they love contributors. So it's not hard to find some and ... well contribute? It's an easy way to get into a remote team. I didn't do…

Unrelated, but in Germany you get unemployment benefits after you quit a job? Wow.

Well, it's like that:

You have to be employed for at least 12 months in the last two years AND you have to be fired. Then you get 12 months long 60% of your last salary.

If you quit by yourself (like me) you only get 9 months benefits.

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#45

Post by [deleted] »

deedubaya wrote: post #4

I see a lot of devs trying to convert to remote positions who get frustrated that they haven't landed a job after days/weeks/months. Going remote isn't as easy as what many devs are probably accustomed to, especially if you're new to the game (as the tech hiring market has been :fire:). If you're going to go remote, you need to realize a few things: - You're competing against waaay more candidates. You need to stand…

[deleted]

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#46

Post by peteretep »

petra wrote: post #40
learc83 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But when they go remote, aren't you competing with them? Not really. There aren't many companies who are considering both American and Indian remote developers for the same positions. Well paying remote jobs tend to have time zone constraints, and require better English communication skills than the average Indian developer has (there definitely are Indian developers with excellent communications skills, but they a…

Assuming an Indian coder is a good English communicator, would working the night shift be such a big barrier ,compared to the salary potential ?

Many hiring managers will be carrying around at least some latent racism from previous interactions with offshored developers that worked out as well as a car crash.

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#47

Post by k__ »

expertentipp wrote: post #34
k__ wrote: post #23

I don't know a generic solution, I just can say what I did: 1. I quit my office job. Worked there for about 7 years. I saved some money and got unemployment benefits (60% of my previous salary) so I had 1 year to do nothing. 2. I did some OSS stuff OSS teams are almost all remote and they love contributors. So it's not hard to find some and ... well contribute? It's an easy way to get into a remote team. I didn't do…

> I saved some money and got unemployment benefits (60% of my previous salary) so I had 1 year to do nothing. Well thanks, I'm out. In most of the world after quitting job one has literally nothing but savings, and even registering as an unemployed (to get the mere public health insurance) is not trivial.

One year I lived from the benefits, 60% were about 1600€ a month. Got this for 9 months, which made about 14k€. I also had about 18k€ in savings, back in the days and a month cost me about 1k€. So I could have done this without benetifs, but it was nicer with.

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#48

Post by softawre »

jinfiesto wrote: post #11
deedubaya wrote: post #4

I see a lot of devs trying to convert to remote positions who get frustrated that they haven't landed a job after days/weeks/months. Going remote isn't as easy as what many devs are probably accustomed to, especially if you're new to the game (as the tech hiring market has been :fire:). If you're going to go remote, you need to realize a few things: - You're competing against waaay more candidates. You need to stand…

This. I work remote currently and my job was not initially a remote position. After about a year of demonstrating the above, I was offered remote as a benefit. So that's something that might also be an option: finding a company that's open to remote work and converting after working in office for some amount of time.

As a tech manager, this has worked really well for me. I have had 5 remote employees. 3 were local first, and all 3 were great. 2 were remote hires and both failed.

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#49

Post by mixmastamyk »

gozur88 wrote: post #26
k__ wrote: post #23

I don't know a generic solution, I just can say what I did: 1. I quit my office job. Worked there for about 7 years. I saved some money and got unemployment benefits (60% of my previous salary) so I had 1 year to do nothing. 2. I did some OSS stuff OSS teams are almost all remote and they love contributors. So it's not hard to find some and ... well contribute? It's an easy way to get into a remote team. I didn't do…

>One day they they lost a investor and had to let a few people go, since I was the only remote guy left, I guess they simply wanted to get rid of me, haha. So I got fired. That's my concern with fully remote work. You're not at the office, so only the people who work with you directly even know your name, and you don't form a personal connection with anyone. Even the people you work with directly have only seen you a…

> It's a lot harder to fire people when you've been swapping stories about the kids and...

Maybe in the past but those days are long gone. The key to longevity is to make sure your work is of critical importance to the company. And if you're let go it isn't the end of the world, lots of dev work to be done.

Re: How to actually get a remote job as an intermediate developer?

#50

Post by softawre »

gozur88 wrote: post #26
k__ wrote: post #23

I don't know a generic solution, I just can say what I did: 1. I quit my office job. Worked there for about 7 years. I saved some money and got unemployment benefits (60% of my previous salary) so I had 1 year to do nothing. 2. I did some OSS stuff OSS teams are almost all remote and they love contributors. So it's not hard to find some and ... well contribute? It's an easy way to get into a remote team. I didn't do…

>One day they they lost a investor and had to let a few people go, since I was the only remote guy left, I guess they simply wanted to get rid of me, haha. So I got fired. That's my concern with fully remote work. You're not at the office, so only the people who work with you directly even know your name, and you don't form a personal connection with anyone. Even the people you work with directly have only seen you a…

It's a tradeoff, sure. But working from a low COL area means you can be prepared for periods without a job.
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