Ask HN: Do you work remotely? How did you get that job?

My first remote job started as an in-office job and I eventually asked to transition to working some shifts from home on an interim basis, and if it went well, to transition to fully remote. That transition happened and everything went well.

My next remote position found me through my existing network. I was asked to do some work for an agency that they didn't have enough bandwidth to handle, and that eventually turned into a full-time gig.

I maintain a personal site and blog where I keep updating what I do along with what I learnt. Beside that I promote my blog posts on different platform.

Majority of the work I got via my website/blog.

A few months back I wrote a blog post how developers can have exposure to their work. Check link at:- http://blog.adnansiddiqi.me/5-ways-developers-can-have-multi...

One hint from personal experience is you will always need at least one real-life interaction before being taken seriously. Such interaction can be a tech conference, a common acquaintance, a direct interview at their HQ, etc. etc. The more the market is flooded by unknown / untested quantities from everywhere, the more trust building goes back to pre-internet methods.

I do work from home in the past probably 5 years (working technical lead job for a big telco), I just decided one day there was no more fun in the office and told my boss I'll work from home since my team is spread around the country anyway, so no point to waste 30 min each way to drive to the office... The point is if you perform well and can be trusted, you can work from home... My next goal is to work from another country for long periods of time, but here I think the problem is different employment laws and probably the health/life insurance...

I worked for a company for 1.5 years and mentioned I was moving and that I would like to stay with them and work remote if possible otherwise that I would be moving in 6 months.

I was incredibly lucky and know it put pressure on them to find special remote opportunities or 'fly and build/fix it' type opportunities for many clients. I work in network security and networking.

my employer already knew me and was very happy with all of my work, otherwise I cannot see anyway I would have obtained this opportunity.

I am cofounder of my company based in the Bay. I didn't get my US visa and ended up having to leave, but remained in charge of Android product and payment processing (easily isolated but still critical tasks so I could operate async).

I spent 2 years as a digital nomad while fulfilling that role. It was a bumpy ride as our 4-5 person team figured out the logistics and managing expectations and productivity. But now 3 years later, even after I got my US work visa we don't have an office, meet up in coffee shops a few times a week as 2-3 people, and each of us take a month to work remotely from a different city or country regularly for a change of pace at our convenience.

The biggest reason we support remote work is that once we learned how to make it work, not paying office rent and increasing our salaries proportionally was seen as a win-win all around.

I started out on a 3 month contract with the understanding there would be a good chance it would either end in 3 months or I would move to the Bay Area after to renew. I flew to the office quite frequently. I worked hard to prove myself, and three months later after some negotiations I had a FTE offer for remote work.

Worked full time in SF office for 1.5 years, worked from the company's Tel Aviv office 3 months, then moved to Austin in a slightly different sales focused role (was implementation before), and been working from here ~ 1 year.

This post makes it sound like you are on the junior side. IF that's the case, I'd absolutely advise getting a "desk" job first. Get your skills way up. That feedback loop will absolutely be tighter if you are a junior.

With remote work, it's about what you can show for it, not just the words. What do you have to show for what you've learned?

@good_vibes - Is this presumably directed only at devs or are you speaking to any remote workers? I'm head of Sales for Pagely.com and just finished a program called Remote Year where I worked across 51 cities, 16 countries and 4 continents. I ended up giving a talk at PressNomics in April on everything involved in making this situation work. It was well-received. You can find that here if interested: https://pagely.com/blog/2017/04/making-remote-work-work/

lmk if you have any questions I can help with

Just an FYI that might interest you:

http://gigworks.blogspot.com/2017/04/moonlight-work-for-soft...

hehe I'm in a rather similar situation, but instead of trying to find a job I'm trying to create my own, and since you talked about habits, I need to share my work now! https://everydaycheck.com :P

Believe it or not, I had a recruiter call me and I got the job that way. I normally never even took those sorts of calls.

I started working in the a vacant office, because one of the boss was in South Carolina and the other boss was in Denver. (I was in Denver.) Myself and a few other hanger-oners came into the office.

The company downsized and they closed the office and I was sent to work from home.

I worked from home for 2 years as a senior dev. My wife reminds me that at first I wasn't happy about working from home. But after a month, remote is the only way to go.

I left that company and went remote for a startup for 90 days, and left before it imploded.

Now I'm stuck in a cube! Help me!

(also when applying to remote jobs, it seems that having remote experience is very beneficial.)

I work remotely for a 100% remote company.

I'm a Sr software engineer, and was hired because I taught one of the co-founders while I was a teacher at a coding bootcamp.

We've hired one Jr engineer who I knew personally beforehand (a former student). And we've hired one mid-level engineer whom none of us has ever met in person.

My thoughts based on personal anecdotal evidence:

- Hit the job boards hard and don't stop. Persistence wins. Here are some great resources[1]

- 100% remote companies are the way to go. You don't want to be the sole remote employee (or one of a few) at a mostly on-site company. You'll be a 3rd class citizen. I've seen this numerous times.

- It is entirely possible to be a Jr engineer and get successfully integrated into a remote company. We've done it this year. We allocate some extra time for our engineers to further their own learning. We also do lots of screen-sharing sessions, etc.

[1] SO remote jobs: https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote-developer-jobs

Hacker News monthly job listings (search in-page for REMOTE): https://hn.algolia.com/?query=who%27s%20hiring&sort=byPopula...

https://weworkremotely.com/

Ask your current employer for it.

PS https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job

Luck.

I'm a senior developer. Company contacted me about a position in the Bay area. I told them I recently moved across the country and asked if they would accept remote. They said that's ok (they had other remote workers and almost everyone is remote now). Phone interview the next day and an offer the day after. Flew out about a week after that for two weeks on-site. I go back for a week every now and then on-site. The irony is that I was looking for a full-time, remote position in the Bay area for years and less than six months after I moved, there it was.

Definitely recommend looking for companies with a remote culture. At another company, they flew me in for an interview, told me they wanted to make me an offer, then refused when I told them, as I had made it clear before the interviews, that I was not interested in moving back to the bay area. I've never been so speechless in an interview as when they asked me, "What would it take to get you to come back to SF?" and I knew the figure I wanted was nowhere near what they would want to pay. I also would recommend not doing any sort of take-home assignment for any company, but especially for remote jobs. That will be a lot of wasted time and the company might not even look at your work after you've spent hours or days on it.

Bonus question: are there C or C++ remote jobs? Basically non-web and non-mobile development jobs.

Having prior experience will definitely help you find a remote position.

Personally I don't think being a junior remote employee is a bad thing, but a lot of the time hiring manages are afraid of hiring remotely.

I have worked remotely for a couple years now, and I found both of those jobs via Hacker News' "who is hiring" threads. A lot of companies on that thread are hiring for remote folks.

If you are in a situation where you are junior, but cannot work in an office for whatever reason, there are ways to dig into certain positions.

Companies with significant open source projects are a good place to start. If you can make significant contributions to a company's code via open source they might be more open to hiring you.

Be careful to not slave away for a company as free labor, but if you're learning and trying to grow your skills, some strategic open source development could be a good start.

After we shut down my last startup, Staffjoy [1], I wanted to travel full-time. I realized that I hated going to an office every day. I also knew that I wanted to contract, and that the contractor market was broken on both sides.

So, I started Moonlight [2], and started working for a variety of companies remotely on a contract basis. We're working to expand the marketplace, and are adding more projects every week. One of the factors that helps getting remote contract work is having a track record - meaning, at least 3 years of experience working professionally in technology.

About a month ago, I sold all of my stuff (I currently own a carry-on suitcase and backpack) and hit the road. I'm currently in Mexico City until the end of August, working about 10 hours per week through Moonlight to pay for all of my living costs.

[1] https://blog.staffjoy.com/staffjoy-is-shutting-down-39f7b5d6...

[2] https://www.moonlightwork.com

I published some freeware. Someone contacted me about making a fancier paid version. 10 years later that product is long dead but I'm still here.

I got out there and then I got lucky.

My wife owns a business with 20 employees that basically makes it so that we can't move out of the area. Moving would have been preferred but they understood it wasn't an option and did have some other remotes at the time. Many more now though.

I'm a contractor/consultant and 95% of the time I work in my own private office. In order to duplicate this arrangement it helps to have some sort of expertise/reputation such that your clients don't think they need to watch you work.

If you worked for company A at one point in your career and left on good terms, you might do some part time contracting for them from home. If you worked for companies A, B and C and you can swing the same arrangement you're now a consultant.

I'm a Principal Software Engineer at my company and had been working there for about 4 years (on-site) before I transitioned into fully remote.

I was moving away from the city for personal reasons and discussed options with my manager/team. It helps if you've demonstrated your ability as a self-directed high performer.