Show HN: I made a database of remote companies | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I made a database of remote companies

remotebase.io

747 pointsstockkid114 comments

This is great! I like that the focus is on companies (regardless of their hiring status), rather than job listings. When I started searching for remote positions a while back, I was more interested in finding a good company first, not necessarily a company that happened to have an open remote position at that particular point in time. So once I found a place that I liked, I'd add it to my notes and check their site from time to time (or if I really liked what they were doing, I'd get in touch directly). For me at least, that seemed to be more effective than constantly checking remote job sites.

For anyone else who's in the same boat, here are a few similarly helpful resources:

https://github.com/jessicard/remote-jobs

http://workingremote.ly/leaders/distributed-companies/

https://triplebyte.com/ycombinator-startups#q=&page=0&refine...

https://stayintech.com/info/explore (The companies on this list aren't all remote, but I'm including it anyway since diversity + inclusivity were also among my criteria.)

This is the first comment I read when seeing this and I agree with you, which makes me have an awesome feature to add. (I went back to see if it exists but the site isn't loading now) Sign up, select which companies you want to be notified of when they start hiring, and email you.

According to this tweet, that is already available.

https://twitter.com/remotebase/status/741513549919444992

Given these already strong lists, I'm curious why OP decided to start another vs. build upon them. We've seen several emerge in the past year or two, though unfortunately they're fragmented like this.

It's nice that RemoteBase is adding more structured data with filters to the mix, and while I'm not totally sure what "open database" means, I hope they're be an API.

It'd be really nice to have one authoritative source for referring to remote jobs, which as OP pointed out, for most interests really means remote companies.

I agree that it is nice to have a list of companies - it's nicer to try to find a remote job by company, rather than what jobs are open now and seem to be remote.

Recently joined Canonical through this exact process. After checking every once in a while for a year or so a position in Australia opened up and I jumped on it.

If anybody ever needed an answer to the question "will my startup/product be useful for the world?", take a look at this example/product.

This product doesn't seem like a startup-driven idea, but it addresses a serious pain-point for people (more specifically: developers) looking for (remote) jobs in a way that is required to find the right job:

> Using filters to narrow down to a subset of companies to apply to

Great job on this product, it is a great alternative to having to wait 30 days for each "Who is Hiring" without a guarantee that many remote companies who are hiring will post on that HN thread.

I agree, this is how it should be done! It's very useful :)

Seems strange that HN doesn't just add a job board.

They periodically post job positions for companies in YCombinator but that's about it.

Yes, I know, but I'm talking about a job board that's:

- pay to play for big biz - free to small biz - highlights YC gigs - etc.

It seems outside the scope of something YC would care about. Also the amount of sunsetted good tech job boards grows every year.

I think it's a dying business model, and perhaps one reason why we see a tech jobs startup in every YC batch (perhaps after a pivot or two), but approaching the problem from a new angle.

The most recent that come to mind are Gradberry and Triplebyte.

It also forms the basis of a platform and trusted brand that can provide third party services bridging the gaps between remote hires and startups. Nicely done!

I am quite heartened as well to see a wall of companies functioning at "100% Distributed" ;)

While I was hunting for a remote developer job last December, it was hard to find the company that really suited me.

Due to the isolating nature of remote working, it's important to know how the remote team communicates (Slack, email, Skype, Phone call...), and how they collaborate (Dropbox, Google Doc, Git, ...). The purpose of this project is to answer those questions and beyond.

I also wrote an article on this project: https://sungwoncho.io/i-am-making-remotebase/

Hi Sung, this looks great. Do you mind sharing what technology you used to build it?

Not an expert, but it seems to be built with meteor.

I used Meteor and Mantra. Mantra is an application architecture I am a contributor of (https://github.com/kadirahq/mantra).

Pretty cool and useful, thanks for sharing.

I wonder, what did you use as a db? Since you started with a spreadsheet, you could just use that. Google Spreadsheet has a json api that you can query directly from your web app.

I did it for http://hasgluten.com, if you want to see it in practice (hosted for free on github). Easier to keep the "backend" updated, since you just have to edit the spreadsheet.

You're not worried about accidentally corrupting data? I do that all the time with spreadsheets. Seems like it would could be pretty bad if you accidentally labelled something gluten free and it wasn't.

!? what's the diff with a db!?

Don't encourage people to use spreadsheets as a databases. It never ends well.

It's actually quite useful if your application never updates your data and you want a data entry system for free. Downside is validation is a PITA, but for certain things using something like Google spreadsheets will get you a very long way very quickly. You can then build a better data entry system after that.

In my experience the gains made from a quick setup are quickly offset by the amount of time wasted by not having any data validation, and the resulting bad data that gets into the system.

How is bad data getting in to the system if not through the application?

For an app with 200 records!?

I'm using MongoDB. At first, I used google spreadsheet as a database using JSON API. But the spreadsheet was public and it was vandalized so much.

So I just exported the sheet as JSON array and put it in Mongo.

Sorry, not sure I follow. Is mongo public? I dont think so. So the issue isn't the spreadsheet, it's your data with public write access, which is of course a very bad idea.

One of the issues I've found is that testers seem to be underrepresented by remote work listing sites. Or is it just the start-up scene, where testing is pushed onto the developers?

Unfortunately, I think that's true; dedicated testers at startups, especially early stage, are quite rare.

Given that, what kind of background do you have? Please reach out to me on Twitter or elsewhere!

Hmm, are you looking for testers?

It's always good to know more people, so when we decide we need something, we can let you know!

Pretty confusing as someone who's familiar with NomadList and RemoteOK (both by the same developer and which this borrows heavily, visual-design wise...)

That said, I like the filtering functionality built in to this more than what's available with RemoteOK.

https://remoteok.io https://nomadlist.com

This is great. One question/comment: I'm a bit confused as to what "100% remote" means in this context. Github is listed as 100% remote, but I'm pretty sure it has an office.

Also is it remote worldwide, remote for US citizens or remote in the US?

Edit: Just seen there is a "Worldwide" search filter, but it doesn't seem very accurate.

I expect "100% remote" means you're never required to go to the office, as opposed to going there regularly (e.g. once or twice a week/month).

On the "Add Company" form, question 7 says:

> Is the company fully distributed?*

> This means all of its employees work remotely and the company does not have an office.

So it seems the companies listing as 100% distributed may not be entirely accurate.

Yes, Trello is also incorrect. It lists 51 people (Non-remote: 0), but they have a significant number of people working from their office in NYC. And 51 seems low...

I started manually curating a list[1] while I was searching for a remote job. I abandoned it when I got a job. :-(

This one is awesome. Best Wishes.

1. http://oinam.github.io/remote-teams/

I cannot find a filter for Mobile Development (Swift, Objective-C, iOS in general). I would use the site, but I cannot find the positions for me. Also - clear text search would be useful, too.

Aside from the mobile technologies you mention, I also wish a filter for .NET was present. Granted, maybe no companies in the original dataset do .NET, but if I could filter for .NET and see no results, I would know for sure, currently I just can't tell.

This is great and thank you for making it. One suggestion: hiring region does not work as I would expect it to. If company is hiring worldwide, then surely it is also hiring in every region. Right now I can get a bunch of results for a worldwide query and 0 for otherwise same one, but limited to Europe.

Exactly.

A timezone-range would be the preferred method.

Countries are too limited and continents to broad as their timezone can range more than 4 hours.

Don't you find the "Technologies" list quite limited? How one would search e.g. C++ jobs? Please at least provide a free text search.

Not working on android chrome. Shows spinning disc but not responding to input.

Same on firefox. Maybe traffic load?

High traffic due to HN, probably.

Works ok on Chrome in Windows though

This is the best thread I've seen in a while - it will be really helpful if I decide to get back on the market. Working remotely full time instead of just the occasional day or two seems ideal for me.

Somewhat related, but reading that book "Quiet" about introversion really made me feel validated on my feelings of hatred towards the modern open office, and how important it is as a dev (or most people really) to have a quiet, private place to work.

I would love to see a default column of 'authoratative timezone' or something like that. This is a very useful tool and would be better if I could look at companies that were on a certain timezone.

As an engineer, timezone differences are one of my top annoyances. If I want to rapid fire discuss something with an engineer I want to do it now, not this weird game of delayed/janky ping pong.

Nicely done!

Minor nitpick: your wait-for-dynamic-content spinner (https://remotebase.io/images/logo.png) exhibits eccentric rotation, which might make some people a bit seasick :-)

Thanks. Noted. Strange that it does that.

I love the "Flexible Timezone" filter.

It puzzles me that companies insist on remote workers working to specific timezones. Having everyone work the same hours seems to negate a key advantage of remote workers - ideally while you are sleeping, progress is still being made on your projects by the various remote teams. They should be able to work independently, asynchronously.

I can understand if they are remote support roles, where you want to ensure you always have staff to deal with enquiries. But for most roles, it seems more important that the work gets done, rather than that the entire team are tied to Slack / Skype at exactly the same hours.

Nothing irritates me more than collaborating over a period of a days when it could be a period of minutes.

It all depends on what is being worked on but when I have to work with someone or even just review their code I would like to not have to wait hours/days for my comments on code to be addressed.

The problem with full follow-the-sun work is that it assumes the work can be performed in discrete quantities that are independent from one another. If you have overlap in tasks, then the coordination overhead becomes higher and more costly.

Awesome list. Great job!

As an addition, here is another extensive database of remote companies worth looking at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TLJSlNxCbwRNxy14Toe1... It was put together by Remotive.io [http://remotive.io/] and found on nodesk.co [http://nodesk.co/], lots of good remote work info there as well.

Is there something similar, but for contractors? I have a strange situation where suddenly, all clients want to work on site :(..

A small tldr about what does a company do would be helpful. At least a filter which sector they operate in. Most of the names do not ring any bells for me, but usually I have a some ideas about what I do/not want to do.

It would also be useful to see real past remote position descriptions - with dates that position was actively being recruited for.

Would be great if companies would list their preferred timezones, especially for non-US job seekers.

Example: UTC-01:00 - UTC+02:00

Seconded. A lot of "Remote jobs" are basically inaccessible for people in Asia because their office hours are basically set to New York/SF time. I mean you could work nights but it kinda defeats the purpose of remote working IMO.

How about remote jobs with Australian companies? Timezome difference with Asia is negligible. Not sure if the Australian market is big enough to specifically target Australian companies remote jobs though.

Great job! One note: a few of the images/logos are broken. Example: https://remotebase.io/reinteractive

There's not much point handling logos yourself when you can just use: https://clearbit.com/logo

Great idea, and nicely implemented.

One suggestion: one field in the "add new company" form asks to list the tools in our stack. How about in addition to that, you optionally link to a company's StackShare? We keep track of all of our tools there to give a comprehensive overview of what we use, so that will stay more up to date over time I think.

Here's an example, from my company: http://stackshare.io/third-iron/third-iron

Very exciting I've been working remote for last four years. Every time looking for a new job is a pain

This is nice, but just by reading the title I thought "wasn't there a few sites doing this already?"

The top one coming to my mind at the time being (which I'm surprised to not see in this thread already, considering the usual popularity of remote/rework/basecamp stuff on HN): https://weworkremotely.com/

Still, nice personal achievement in terms of developing and delivering a product.

This is great! I would also like to see a short description of what the company does in the main list. It would make it faster for me to find relevant companies. For example, I have zero interest in working for a social media company. Given the current UI, I need to look at every company in detail in the list to figure out who is not doing social media.

Very nice, very beautiful but I find this of limited use.

Firstly I have to look at every job page individually. So I'd rather look at remoteok.io for that. I guess this is good for speculative applications, but is it a good use of my time trolling through 100's of companies sending out speculative applications?

Secondly I am not in the US or on US time zone so there would be little relevant to me anyway.

Great Job Sung, I think with more users/visibility the list can be more easily curate and updated. I was using remoteok but got buggy lately and some jobs are really old. What is interesting about remotebase is that gives you a little look inside the company and tools they are actually using to collaborate and their stack as well. For sure more tech tags options are missing.

I don't think it was already mentioned, but whoishiring also has filter for remote jobs https://whoishiring.io/search/30.864/-43.242/2/?remote=true (link set to filter remote jobs only).

What does the "Official" filter do?

It only shows listings for companies with verified profiles.

This is absolutely fantastic and wonderfully useful for so many! I only work remote jobs due to medical reasons(I have cystic fibrosis) and seeking suitable remote work is just an annoying layer added to the task, this is a really wonderful resource and I look forward to using it. Thanks to the author for creating this!

Doesn't seem to be working for me, all I see is a spinner...

Although this particular site works for me, I find this happening more frequently to me. Some bells and whistles and basic functionality breaks down.

Sorry. I'm fixing it. I wasn't expecting heavy traffic.

This is great! Would it be possible to display the pitch of each company as an @title when mousing over the company name, as to give an idea of what each company does?

Just added it.

Please come up with twitter handle and post latest jobs there.

This is a really cool idea with a lot of potential. I think with a bit more work it could be super useful to a lot of people. First thing I noticed was that it isn't always up to date with companies hiring. Clicking on one that was hiring, the website said that they were no longer accepting applications. Anyways, keep up the good work!

This is really sleek. Does anyone know of open source resources for setting up a database frontend app similar to this? The filter views have been done so nicely here, it would be cool to take that idea and apply it to other areas (drill down through employees, etc)

I hope this will be feature complete with the listing of open positions soon. This is a great product.

Probably worth stealing from/working with the guys at http://www.golangprojects.com as they often have remote jobs and I note there's no golang on your tech filters.

Yeah being able to type in the filters instead of picking an item from a short list would be great.

Nice list. I'll be happy to add a couple of companies that I know are missing.

This is really awesome. I have bookmarked it and i know i have to visit regularly.

Very small suggestion: get rid of that progress/animation in company details. The one that makes you wait couple of seconds every time you open the tab to see remote percentage and so on.

This is great and very well thought-out. You could definitely scale this.

I can't find a search box to check if my company is listed. Do I really have to load more until I pull the entire database and then use browser search?

Sweet idea and a comfortable user interface. Nice work.

Can you add asp.net into the technology filter please?

I will work on text filter for technologies. Right now there are not many options.

Love the idea but doesn't seem to work (any more): I clicked on "Fully Remote" and it keeps loading...

It's likely just falling down under the weight of HN traffic. I can't get the site to load at all.

Very nice!

Note: the "company name" field in more filters doesn't appear to work in mobile Safari.

Useful product, consider adding skills/technology used as a filter.

Sick design mike - thanks.

DigitalOcean is missing from this, how to add companies to this DB?

At the bottom of the page there is a link to a form for this: https://mike706.typeform.com/to/o6eSiQ

How can we add to this?

There's a link in the footer that leads to a submission form:

https://mike706.typeform.com/to/o6eSiQ

Great! This is really helpful. UX really simple.

Thank you! Well designed and very useful.

This looks really cool.. UX is great!

And the loser is: http://imgur.com/HVzJG1N

What's wrong with hipchat?

Overall user experience comparing to Slack is much worse.

It's also a lot cheaper (about a fourth if I recall correctly) and has good integrations with the other Atlassian products.

> and has good integrations with the other Atlassian products.

That's not necessarily a positive.

Really... How is integration with something like Jira a negative thing, how could it be? If HipChat locked out all non-Atlassian products, that would be bad, but they don't.

It makes arguing against the use of JIRA -- and all the project-management-oriented complexity it seems to bring if you don't keep a tight grip on it -- that little bit harder. Sure, not a negative for everyone, but has the potential to be the thin end of the wedge.

Nothing really, it's fine. Based on the comments I read on HackerNews however, I think stability is a major issue in the US (US time zone). HipChat has be extremely stable for us, but we're using it when San Francisco is a sleep.

So my guess is that Atlassian might have issue scaling.

Ah, same here, havent noticed any stability issues either.

your a genius.

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