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Ask HN: Remote work for non-developers

33 points by notananthem ↗ HN
My friend is looking for remote work, he's not a dev and has mostly made his way doing a combination of trades and tech services for small businesses and locals, he's pretty remote away from urban centers to boot.

He wants to find something bigger and work for someone, but I don't know remote work job listings that aren't dev work. I am in an urban area and I'm a PM getting an MBA- my career is all about non-remote work, its about face to face and being with teams all over the world. I have no concept honestly how remote work.. works.

Can you give some tips for me to give him?

8 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 30.3 ms ] thread
marrone12
He needs to find companies that are fully remote already, as they will have those positions available.
hluska
I have a tip from the trenches. Just about every site he looks on will have ads for writers. On one hand, freelance writing is a good way to make money and the jobs are generally great intros to working remote. Hell, freelance writing has been 'remote first' since before people even knew what remote was.

However, these same sites tend to attract bottom feeding pieces of shit who will offer insane rates like $0.05 per word for articles that require a fair amount of research. $50/1000 words isn't much and generally equates to significantly less than minimum wage.

Complicating matters, many pubs (including famous ones) are absolutely shitty clients. Net 30 is a pipe dream. Most of the time, you should be happy with most of net after eighteen emails to your editor. Those $0.05 per word sweat shops will generally want at least three treatments before picking one they like enough to do six rounds of edits on. And, about half the time, your article will never go anywhere and you just won't get paid.

DoreenMichele
Pocketputer.com has a listing on the Links page. I'm on mobile or I would give the direct link.
JSeymourATL
> has mostly made his way doing a combination of trades and tech services for small businesses ...

Basic Sales/Marketing question-- (think Buyer Personas). WHO exactly would make an ideal target employer for this guy?

Assuming he's interested in Contract Consulting-- what types of small business does he like to help? What kinds of problems does he solve?

If he can get clarity around those questions-- the World is his marketplace.