Hacker News Reader

Comment by timmaah | Hacker News Reader

Get a remote job and take the leap.. What else is holding you back?

Not all remote jobs will be open to you keeping constantly changing and non-standard hours, right? I think freelance and self-employment would be more suited to this lifestyle.

That still perplexes me about "remote jobs", some employers still expect everyone to work synchronously. That seems to miss the point of having distributed workers.

I've done a few stints of 3 months nonstop on the road, and when I had an employer we typically had weekly & monthly milestones, and no Skype meetings. Our communication was asynchronous (email back then). They'd often ask for smaller things 'ASAP', but as long as everyone understands that could take up to 24hrs, it works fine.

[I would lean towards freelance & self-employment when doing this, though. My income was supplemented by products I sold myself online too.]

The point for the employer is access to a much larger pool of potential hires. Lots of people don't want to commute or move for a job. It doesn't always make sense to require synchronous work, but I can understand why some employers want a virtual 9-5 presence, especially if there's already an established synchronous team.

Aha! The part about widening the pool of hires makes sense. I didn't really understand why employers would want remote workers but then not then allow flexible hours. I missed that being able to hire outside your local area is a big upgrade for some businesses.

> That seems to miss the point of having distributed workers

Not wasting 5-10 hours per week in rush hour traffic is a pretty big perk, even if the working hours are pretty much set.

I would think you are correct, but I suppose it depends on the arrangement as well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com