warren_s

I work remotely, and have done so since 2004. I've worked for and with distributed companies and people all over the place, including the US, Slovakia, Singapore, New Zealand, and closer to home here in Australia. Where I live is classified as a regional city (100k population) and is 1 hour flight from the nearest major city (Melbourne). Software development work locally is virtually non-existent, or pays WAY below what I can make working remote, so I chose this path over moving my family elsewhere.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it IS out there, but remote work is probably the most hidden of hidden job markets - every single one of these roles/projects has come through word of mouth. As you've already pointed out, if you're in the US, you already have some things going in your favour, namely language, timezones, same culture, same currency and banking system, etc. The best advice I can give is start working your network - people you went to school with, mailing lists and IRC channels for technologies you use, etc.

If you want to ask me anything else about working remotely, feel free, I'll try and answer to the best of my ability.

Why would you not just say 10-20 hours then? If you know that you're going to wear any overrun costs, you owe it to yourself to give the estimate based on the worst case, NOT the average case.

Edit: If you think that 20 is a real outlier, and 12 is your average case, use something like the PERT formula: ( [Optimistic] + [4* Realistic] + [Pessimistic] ) / 6

If O=10, R=12 and P=20, that would give you an estimate of 13 hours.

How are you "forced" to swallow costs, unless you're contractually bound to deliver in 10-12 hours? If your client wants an estimate, by all means, give them a non-binding estimate. If you find yourself over-running your estimates, then it's either your fault or the client's fault - why should you have to bear the cost in both cases?

I know it sounds trite, but if you can't afford to walk away from a project, you probably shouldn't be contracting to begin with.

I say this from hard experience, the jobs I've taken against my better instincts are the ones that have bitten me badly.

Another thing that's important is to know WHO you are pitching to. I charge predominantly T&M, and my ideal clients are existing dev teams that are looking for an extra pair of hands for a particular project. Matching your billing model with the kind of clients you want to work for greatly increases your chances for success.

AND a wife. First (and most importantly) of all, you need to convince your partner it's the right option.

It's easy enough to talk about "geo-arbitrage" (or whatever Tim Ferris calls it) when you're single and unattached - it's another thing to uproot a family of five and move to another country.

If you can get to the point of both partners buying into the plan, then you need to consider things like schools, healthcare, appropriate housing for 5 people, etc. That's of course assuming you are eligible for a visa to live and work in the country you'd like to move to.

It's not impossible, but it's a lot harder when there are other people involved, some of whom depend on you for everything.

To be honest, for a family, simply moving a bit further away from the city to somewhere with a lower cost of living would probably deliver more utility for far less effort than changing countries.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't believe stuff should be down-voted just because it doesn't fit into the prevailing opinion, I'm just saying that I don't take it personally when it happens.

I agree about the PG-worship or whatever you want to call it.

I preferred to absent myself from here for a while after it got real bad (to the point of the first article commonly being a 2-3 year old essay that had bubbled to the top AGAIN), simply because I felt fundamentally outside of the norm here - I rarely agree with anything PG says in its entirety. Paul is a thoughtful enough person that I've never felt that it would upset him if I disagreed here, but I would imagine there would be a lot of people keen to argue with me until I was blue in the face about it.

An opinion is an opinion however, and we're all entitled to our own - I take downvotes not as a personal attack, but simply an expression of disagreement, be it with your opinion OR the way you express it.

Currently desksnear.me is focused on casual, short-term coworking/office sharing, but we're definitely interested in finding a way to connect startups who are looking to share a space on a longer-term basis.

This was partly out of necessity. I'm 32, I don't have the capacity to work all night like I did 10 years ago! Anyone who tells you that an extra 4 or 5 hours rubbish code is better than 4-5 hours sleep is dreaming. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, this is probably it.

Well, look at it this way: you've got about 50 weeks to practice for the next one. Also, I think you will learn far more in a project like this as part of a team.

This is not a bad idea. You should check out the pluginaweek project, it's a similar idea afaik.

Currently, it does, but we are discussing/planning the ability to add locations you don't own in a later release.

It's because we're from Australia :)

I blame Google!