How did you manage to get your first Remote job? And if anyone has some spare time and will, could you possibly help me understand what am I doing wrong?
I'm WebDev - PHP BackEnd with 3 years of experience. Cheers.
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 out, not just be another warm body.
- You need to demonstrate, without a doubt, that you can/have worked autonomously.
- You need to demonstrate, without a doubt, that you can/have been self managing in the past.
- You need to demonstrate that you provide a better bang-for-the-buck than anyone else who has applied
Source: Working and hiring remotely for the last 7-ish years.
Started on site, early on asked for remote which wasn't possible at the time, circumstances changed and I asked again. It felt like forever it was in the hands of higher-ups but after two years fro my my start date with the company I went on a 3 month remote trial.
Trial went well and I'm now permanently remote.
Ask, provide reasons why you should be permitted to work remotely & if denied ask why so that you can change and try again.
Edit: In this situation, he was hardly local first, given the short time between his hire and his moving far away. All of which is to say I agree with the poster I replied to.
https://www.google.com/search?q=average+programmer+hourly+wa...
I clicked on the second link:
http://www.salaryexplorer.com/hourly-wage.php?loc=18&loctype...
Maximum: 698 BDT / hr
Average: 326 BDT / hr
Median: 279 BDT / hr
Minimum: 58 BDT / hr
Maximum: $8.6 / hr
Average: $4.0 / hr
Median: $3.4 / hr
Minimum: $0.72 / hr
I would say it is easier to become remote if you are already working with a company that knows you. As for establishing such a relationship, I kind of agree with codingdave's advice in this thread.
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 aren't average).
People think that because they are out of the office that politics doesn't affect them and they don't need soft skills. But communicating effectively is even more important in remote work because of the inherently lower communications bandwidth.
Other times, particularly if the project has complicated architectural requirements, it's too hard to get the night shift on the same page a super the parent.
Competing on price or selling yourself to the lowest bidder is a losing proposition.
That said, most of the best Indian devs aren't making that money remotely, they're making a lot more (or at least, I've seen them getting paid a lot more).
I got contacted and worked remotely through Hacker News and, although it didn't pan out (I wasn't a good fit) it was a great experience and I met really good people from around the world.
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.
> - 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?
This is what you'll be up against when interviewing for good remote companies. I work for a remote first company, not just a remote friendly company, so the competition really is stiff.
With the wage I went in for, it was a no brainer. Was hired days later, and it's been the best job I've had so far.
As a remote worker, you really do have to be a self-manager, you're trusted by your team – in the same way you trust your team – to get shit done.
Another thing I did was ace the interview. I went into it with the confidence to present myself as I knew myself, as I knew they didn't. I switched the interview around and interviewed them, and in the end, we were all laughing.
What I would say is "show, don't tell".
In 8 hours that's very impressive. Thank you for your feedback. I wasn't aware that remote companies gave coding assignments, but it makes sense.
Yes, and you back that up with evidence of a project completed, references backing up their positive experience, etc.
Assuming all of your demonstrating points are just from previous employment?
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 it for long, because I don't like maintenance dev stuff, which working on Firefox stuff basically is if you a contributor for Mozilla, haha.
3. Do some remote studying
I started a master in computer science at a remote university here in Germany. They had two mandatory programming projects I had to do with a remote team of other students.
We did much coordination via slack, hangouts etc.
This was also a good way to get into the remote workflow.
4. Post your CV online and wait
I saved money for 2 years, so after one year of OSS and remote projects, I posted my CV on some recruiting sites (Angellist, Stackoverflow, etc.) and waited.
Took 3 months till I started my first remote job. Talked to 5-6 companies. Some never called back, some took 2 months to tell me they want/don't want me.
5. Worked remote for 2 years
I worked remote for 2 years in a startup that was about 300km away from me. Went there every 2 months for a day or two. They were rather picky with their remote employees and always tried to persuade me into working in-office. 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.
6. Started freelancing
With >2 years of remote experience and >10 years of general developer experience, I started freelancing.
Got 2 projects. One I found by pure luck online in some project small directory and one in the company where my girlfriend works. Both don't care how and where I work.
ALG2 admins are harder, but you get ALG2 after being unemployed for more than a year, so it's understandable, I think.
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 the bare minimum you need to live. Without any limits but you need to actively work on getting a job. This is financed through general taxes.
Alg II is a bit more complicated: It is available to all persons that have their regular residence in Germany (with some restrictions). Again, foreigners may be required to leave the country based on the residence permit they have (and of course lose the benefit). For example, foreigners with a settlement permit (which is generally available after five years and allows unlimited residence) don't have any restrictions here.
It is incredible to see how underdeveloped social networks are especially in the US.
It starts by reconquering the words of the language we speak.
People who don't are unemployed but don't get benefits still have to pay about 180€ a month for health insurance.
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.
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 handful of times.
When the time comes to cut someone loose, you're the obvious candidate unless your work is head-and-shoulders above the other people. It's a lot harder to fire people when you've been swapping stories about the kids and how about that game and whatever over the watercooler for any length of time.
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.
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.
In other words -- if you are looking too hard for remote work, that could be exactly what is holding you back. Look for the jobs that match your skills and background first. Then from those jobs that you know are a good match, prioritize the ones that are remote.
Be a Distributed systems specialist. Or a machine learning guru. write a book, go talk at meetups and get them posted online. You need a differentiating factor.
If you think people are going to trust you to work remote because you have 3 years of PHP backend experience, you're wrong. You need to be trusted in the greater community, to have presence. If anything you should be landing gigs through referrals, not applying with your CV. So how do you get from point a to b? network. Meet people. Go to lots and lots of meetups and talk at them.
In other words, I controlled more bargaining chips. I feel that is going to need to be true for any remote position. You need to be experienced and valuable enough that letting you work remotely is worth having you over someone on-site (for non-remote cultures).
For remote-cultures, the talent pool interested in remote work and the sheer number of people interested in it makes it far more competitive. As deedubaya said in their earlier response. You need to show without-a-doubt why they should choose you over anyone else. The competition is more fierce.
A month ago I didn't even have any web presence because I didn't need it. Since then I've polished my CV, made web portfolio, and every few hours I check each site that posts Remote/Freelance jobs. . .
- You need to stand out, have a decent Github profile and/or solid code samples that you can share
- Demonstrate the ability to work autonomously
- Be patient, it takes time.
It's also worth mentioning that if you do get rejected ask them what you can work on. Helps to know what you can do to bet better and get a remote gig later!
Source: working remote for the past year
I would not want to work remotely for a company that hasn't gotten used to distributed workers yet.
After about 2 years of working in the office I told my manager that I would be moving to another state and that I was interviewing for remote positions. I also said I would stop interviewing if they gave me the ability to work remotely, which they did (and I was very, very happy to stay). It is going to be difficult to find your first remote job, but this is how I did it.
The company I'm working for is fairly distributed across the globe, and a lot of the computer engineers are part time remote (three days at home, two days at office, say). But typically no one is fully remote at this company. I came to work on site at a city where they had an office and a few employees but it was a satellite office and I worked there for a year or so. Then the boss that was managing that office left the company and they decided to let the remaining workers from that city go full remote (it was just two of us and they didn't want to continue paying for an office for just two of us). Since I was going to be full time remote anyways I kept working for them but I can live whereever I want so I just relocated back to my hometown.
I did have to push at one or two points to ensure I ended up full time remote, but mostly it was luck, in other words. This company knows I'm a good worker and responsible from my year working on site so that may be why I can get away with the full time remote whereas for new people joining a company I can see how it would be a hard sell.
The above are just a few questions to start off with. You'll find better answers once you give a better idea of what you've got going and what you're already doing.
I'm preparing a talk for the KC Developers Conference "The Two Question Code Quiz" on how to run an effective technical interview. Please reach out to me, https://github.com/scottconnerly, I'd love to bounce my ideas off you.