Ask HN: Looking to branch out into remote work, how to start

[hamstercat]

As the title suggest, I’m trying to learn more about remote work to find better opportunities than what is available to me locally. Where should I start? Any tips about where to look for work, how to make my resume attractive, what to look out for, etc. I’m not in a hurry to change, I want to learn what I can before and make an informed decision. I’m interested in a full-time job preferably as an employee.

I don’t know if it helps, but I’m a full-stack developer with 8 years of experience, located in Canada. Up-to-date with the latest web frameworks (React/Angular/Node.js/TypeScript) and have mostly worked with C# before that on enterprise software, with a bit of React Native on personal projects. Have worked in both back-end and web front-end projects depending on the need of my employer. My GitHub profile is pretty bleak, but I have personal projects that are public.

Also, will I need a work visa if I’m to be employed by a US company, even if I work from Canada? Do US companies typically hire you as a contractor or can you be employed as an employee? I’m asking because contractors usually have no benefits here, including holidays/vacation/sick days, insurance, company-paid parental leave and all other perks so it has a huge impact on effective salary.

[crabasa]

As someone who has spent the last 6 years working remotely, the #1 thing you can do to get started is to build a website that makes it clear to prospective employers not just what your skills are, but what your interests are and what you're like to work with.

Finding remote jobs isn't really the problem. The challenge is landing the job, and often it's less about your programming skills and more about fit. Here are a few examples of websites that I think do a good job of presenting a more complete picture of a developer:

- https://ryanhayes.net/

- https://github.com/dkundel/about-me

- https://www.fizbuz.com/u/yechielk

[alosarv]

There are various remote programming job sites such as:

https://weworkremotely.com/ http://remotus.com/ https://www.flexjobs.com/jobs/telecommuting-programmer-jobs https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote-developer-jobs https://www.10xmanagement.com/

There's also a "Who's hiring" thread here every month that has plenty of remote job posts.

[akuji1993]

Also check out https://remoteok.io/

[nniroclax]

As some others here have said and as someone who is currently interviewing candidates for a remote position, skills are equally as important as culture fit. A demonstrated ability to (successfully) work independently and with little oversight is an incredible skill sure to impress any potential employer.

So showcase those personal projects you've worked on, translate your work on them into how you'd be successful working with a remote team, and start finding companies to apply for. I'd try to find ones that have hired Canadians first if possible (many distributed teams will list the many locations their company is currently in on their careers page).

Here's a list of 200+ remote friendly companies: http://hallwayapp.com/articles/list-companies-remote-work-fr.... You can also try searching angel.co jobs listings and adding "earth" as your preferred location.

[philip1209]

Also https://www.moonlightwork.com

[hluska]

> I’m asking because contractors usually have no benefits here, including holidays/vacation/sick days, insurance, company-paid parental leave and all other perks so it has a huge impact on effective salary.

I'm Canadian and have worked as a contractor. The absolute best advice I can give you is that, if this statement is true, it is because you severely fucked up.

When you're a contractor, those benefits come from you. It means extra administrative work on your end and, depending on your income levels, it might make sense to incorporate, which means significantly more administrative work. But, that's why contractors generally charge at least 2-3x the normal salary a company would pay them.

[0110011]

2-3x?

I've been having this conversation with coworkers a lot lately. In San Diego, a senior sw guy can expect to pull $120-160k(there are outliers... I have a friend making $240k, but it's unsustainable) as an employee with benefits. As an independent contractor, you can make around $75-120 / hour. As a SW consulting company you can get $120-180 / hour. These are all rough numbers based on talking with people.

I don't know why there is a disparity between what ICs and consulting companies make but it seems to exist.

The amount you charge also depends on many factors (difficulty, on-site vs remote, total hours per week, ability of company to pay, etc).

[Mandatum]

I've heard that the rates are 1.2 - 1.5x for contractors in North America (aside from a few outliers of course). In Australia and New Zealand I can confirm your rate multipliers are valid and the norm.

[linsomniac]

As someone who has run a company that did remote work: Make sure you have a good story for how you are going to excel in a remote work environment. We all have stories of employees who faced constant interruptions from their spouse or kiddos. One thing I've told my kiddos when working from home is "Unless you're bleeding, I'm not here."

Make sure that you have the ability and drive to complete it. One person I know just really isn't compatible with remote work, they keep getting and losing remote work jobs because they just don't take it seriously. Near as I can tell, they will just blow off work, dick around on their phone and social media, etc.

On the other hand, I have a co-worker who seems to spend all day at work reading reddit and watching youtube, in the office, so working on-site isn't a solution here.

But, in short, have a compelling story you can tell prospective employers about how you work, how you have an office set up at home, and how you actually treat it like work. If they don't ask outright, they will probably be looking for signs anyway.

[jpindar]

I live alone, so I don't have family/roommate distractions when working remotely. But how would I indicate this to potential employers or clients without it seeming weird? Put it in social media profiles or something, or wait to bring it up at an interview?

[philfreo]

> Any tips about where to look for work

- http://weworkremotely.com/

- https://remotive.io/

- https://remoteok.io/

Also post on your social media accounts that you're looking for remote work and make sure you have as attractive as an online presence as possible to show off your past work and skills.

> Also, will I need a work visa if I’m to be employed by a US company, even if I work from Canada?

No.

> Do US companies typically hire you as a contractor or can you be employed as an employee? I’m asking because contractors usually have no benefits here, including holidays/vacation/sick days, insurance, company-paid parental leave and all other perks so it has a huge impact on effective salary.

Most US-based remote tech companies work this way:

For people working outside of the US, they will be technically employed as contractors, but often treated like full-time team members in other ways, including vacation/PTO/sick days/parental leave. (This is how we do it at Close.io: http://jobs.close.io/). Medical benefits/insurance and retirement plans (401k) are very country-specific so that is far less commonly offered for non-US team members.

[organsnyder]

> For people working outside of the US, they will be technically employed as contractors, but often treated like full-time team members in other ways, including vacation/PTO/sick days/parental leave.

Is this legal?

[shubidubi]

#rant

The problem I find with remote work usually is that people pay you less than if you work onsite. when it's an on-site position you compete with local people in the market rates. when it's remote you compete with people in India, China etc that can get paid much less. Another problem I find is that it's harder/impossible for senior level engineers find projects, especially if you need to manage people. companies want their managers to be on-site.

[Nacraile]

> The problem I find with remote work usually is that people pay you less than if you work onsite.

Is this actually a problem, or even particularly surprising? Remote positions provide massive non-monetary benefits to employees (flexibility in general, but particularly: you can live wherever you want, including on the road, with no commute, in low cost-of-living areas, closer to other things you value, etc). These benefits attract more applicants, which alters the supply/demand balance, with predictable effect on market salary. Remote work should be understood as a win-win, where the employee gets significant quality-of-life and maybe reduced cost of living in exchange for somewhat reduced salary, and the employer gets significantly reduced costs (directly in terms of salary and office space, indirectly in terms of easier recruitment) in exchange for (maybe) somewhat harder management. If you don't like the employee-side trade-off, tough to be you, because you're competing against a lot of people who do.

> when it's remote you compete with people in India, China

It's not clear that this is really true. It's relatively easy to run a distributed organization that has a common native language, legal system, and continent. Language barriers, massive timezone discrepancies, and ..challenging international legal systems make successful management much harder. In practice, it seems that many companies are unwilling to take on those costs and risks.

[twymer]

Certainly there are companies that pay remote lower salaries but this isn't always true. Some companies want the best talent and know one of the best ways to make that happen is to not try to under pay any employee that you can find a reason to under pay.

I also disagree that you're competing, at least directly, with someone from the countries you listed. Depends on where you are and who you are, but as a remote employee I'm still working from the same timezone I was working from when I was in the office, it's very cheap to fly me onsite as I'm next to a major airport, and am a native English speaker. Hiring someone who wants to work from their home in the US isn't immediately the equivalent of hiring someone from another country with possible timezone, visa and language barriers.

[scarface74]

They call hiring people who live in lower cost of living areas of the US "rural sourcing". That's half the reason to hire remote workers, they are cheaper. Also with rural sourcing, the time zones are more compatible than outsourcing to a foreign country and its easier to arrange occasional onsite face to face meetings.

As far as companies not wanting to hire remote workers for senior level positions, I found it hard to find any senior developer/architect contracting positions that paid well in my local market. All of the companies that wanted my skill set at my price wanted permanent employees. I was going to contract this time around but I ended up takinng a perm position.

[CalRobert]

Sample point of 1 here, but I just got "hired" by a US company with no point of presence in my country. They use a firm called CXC Global. Basically, I'm an employee of CXC offering consulting services to their client company.

It's not like a typical staffing agency arrangement in that I interviewed with the US company, negotiated with the US company, got an offer letter (of "engagement", not "employment") with the US company, etc - CXC only came in at the final stage.

So, that may help with the visa options.

Also, check out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16768024 for more recent discussion.

[acconrad]

Someone else asked this recently so I actually just put together a massive list of remote job sites (50+), could be useful to you:

https://userinterfacing.com/here-is-the-full-list-of-my-50-r...

I also provide some helpful getting started work as well, stuff like about polishing your resume and getting your online presence in good shape.

[k__]

I started with searching for startups and joined one as remote developer.

Their VC forced everyone to work on-site later, so I left.

Switched to freelancing later, because I didn't want to meddle with all this company politics anymore and live by my own rules.

Working for remote 4 years now, 2 years as an employee and 2 years as consultant. Wouldn't go back anymore.

[el_benhameen]

If you don't mind sharing a little bit, how did you make the switch to freelancing?

[chrisbennet]

"Do US companies typically hire you as a contractor or can you be employed as an employee? I’m asking because contractors usually have no benefits here, including holidays/vacation/sick days, insurance, company-paid parental leave and all other perks so it has a huge impact on effective salary."

In the US, if you're a contractor, they can't treat you as an employee. A few years back, Microsoft contractors complained that they did everything an employee did but didn't receive the same benefits. As a result, law(s) were put in place forbidding employers to treat contractors as employees in everything but name. [1]

Independent contractors are responsible for all their own benefits. If you work for someplace as an employee that in turn hires you out, you can sometimes get benefits through them but you also share a portion of what the client pays them.

If you want vacation and benefits, you might want to consider a remote employee position for a US company.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-...

[philfreo]

It sounds like the OP is not in the US.

[hagbarth]

We're a remote first company, FWIW we post positions here in the Who is Hiring posts, and on Angel List.

The very first thing we look for in new employees is indicators that they will be able to perform in a remote environment. This is by far our most important flag.

Good indicators for remote performance could obviously be previous remote experience, but also experience as a freelancer or founder of a startup. We do hire people without these if they are great communicators and obvious self-starters during a take-home task that we give everyone.

[dizzystar]

As noted by someone else, you should be charging enough per hour to take vacation, sick days, and so on, when you work as a contractor. It's all about trade-offs. I almost feel like an employer would see such concerns as a contraindication for doing remote work.

Remote work is a mindset, and in my opinion, a skill. You have to be ultra independent. You have to deal with little to no communication, which means you aren't going to be tapping someone on the shouler for help. You have to set your own hours, and you have to deliver, no excuses.

I think that it's highly unlikely that you'll find work as a generalist. Most contracts that are general are going to seed from the local area. When the search gets more specific, companies start being more open to dealing with remote work.

Also, learn Linux or Unix if you aren't using already. As a contractor, you have to supply your own equipment, get set up, and get things working (in the US), and by golly, things better load up and run when you submit code. An employer is supposed to supply your computer, but I'm not sure how often that really works out.

There are many ways to get work. I know this thread is getting flooded with various remote position sites, but I personally never got work from them. Be open to working on tech you aren't familiar with, and be open to doing small jobs for companies that aren't really well-known. Some of my best and most consistent clients were non-tech companies that needed small jobs done now and then.

[scarface74]

Be open to working on tech you aren't familiar with

I would think it was just the opposite. As a contractor, I wouldn't even try to get a gig unless I knew at least 90% of the technology. I would think a company wouldn't be too happy about paying someone to learn a certain tech stack.

As a full time employee, I usually go for jobs where I don't have but at most 70% of the required skills (and I'm honest about it), companies are willing to give FTEs some amount of ramp up time and they could care less if you work extra hours to come up to speed to learn - they don't have to pay more.

[rb808]

In a related note- has anyone kept a full time job and worked on small remote projects at home at the same time? eg an occasional 20 hours on a weekend. or a few hours per week.

[beefalo]

I am doing this now. I work full time and spend another 10 - 20 hours per week doing work for a startup as a contractor. The other contractors I work with are all on opposite side of the world time zones so it's a bit difficult to communicate. I end up working really random hours, 6 - 9PM, 10PM - 1AM. I'm not sure how common this kind of work is but it has been going well so far. I think the key to my situation is that the company is local to me (I live 2 blocks from their office). I only go to the office once or twice a week for a couple hours and I am the only contractor that is local.

[wolco]

I did and do smaller projects now. Last year I worked ft and had a put in 100 hours a month during a contract. It was too much after 6 months plus I had other smaller projects I wanted to keep relations after working with these clients for years.

I want to get something similiar capped around 80 hours a month. I found that position by talking with the founder for a year on angellist after he went through a number of cheaper php employees he needed someone to solidify the code base and add in advanced features. Once that was done he was able to go back to younger and cheaper.

[artmageddon]

I have; it can be tough especially if the client is a demanding one. For me it was more like 10-15 hrs/week, but sometimes it'd easily be 30 hours if things were broken or some new deliverable came up. Luckily my wife had her own thing going on with her Ph.D at the time so she was super supportive and understanding... it also helped that the work covered half the cost of a new car we needed part way through the project.

[peelle]

My personal experience is that you can often find work with companies that are headquartered in rural towns. They know they cannot easily get skilled workers to move to them.

The downside to this is these type of companies still put out ads in the local paper, and local craigslist, or the job board associated with the language they standardized on, so it takes more digging to find them.

Because of your visa requirement you most likely won't be able to find work with smaller US companies. In my experience the smaller ones are less likely to have a full HR department and less likely to want to deal with that extra hurdle. On the flip side smaller Canadian companies are still an option.

[jinfiesto]

I have worked remote for a company that's primarily in the UK and South Africa for almost 2 years now (I've been with the company for longer than that and am located on the US west coast.) My advice would be to try to convince your current company to let you go remote or at least partially remote. It's important to get some remote experience, because it shows you can be trusted to get work done away from the office to other future remote employers.

[barry-cotter]

Relevant recent post

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17047736

[pvg]

An evergreen as a topic and specific question (couple of threads about it in the last 2 months or so). Sorted for recency:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=remote%20work&sort=byDate&pref...

[ed_balls]

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

[msukmanowsky]

I've worked remotely for Parse.ly (https://www.parse.ly/) for the last 6 years and am also a Canadian, living in Toronto.

To answer some of your questions:

Q: Where should I start?

Job boards like https://remoteok.io/ and https://weworkremotely.com/ are great places to look for remote work (Parse.ly has posted jobs and hired candidates from We Work Remotely before).

For companies that you see on those boards, follow their social accounts and maybe the accounts of their founders/leadership. They'll often tweet about postings prior to them even going up on a job board.

Q: How do I make my resume attractive?

One of the most critical parts of remote cultures is being an effective communicator. Since you won't be in an office to bounce ideas around, you need to show that you can express your thoughts. Your resume itself will convey some of this, but if you have links to blog posts/essays that's great to see as well.

Aside from that, always good to see examples of work that you're proud of.

Q: Will I need a Visa if employed by a US company?

Not necessarily. If the company has a Canadian office, they'll likely take you on as a full time employee and pay all the regular benefits and payroll taxes for you. If they don't, you'll likely work as a contractor and will have to decide if you want to incorporate or be a sole proprietor. You do not require a Visa to be a Canadian working for a US company as a contractor.

You are correct that contractors have no insurance/benefits, but that's usually OK because you can negotiate higher wages as a contractor and pay for benefits yourself via something like Blue Cross (https://on.bluecross.ca/health-insurance/health-insurance-so...).

If you have a spouse, it's also possible you're covered under their plan so that's a good thing to check.

Regarding holidays/vacation, it's just something to negotiate as part of your arrangement. If you're "consulting" for one company, you're effectively a full-time employee and will likely have some level of vacation time built in to your contract.

Parse.ly has amazing holiday and parental leave policies and we're hiring https://www.parse.ly/jobs/#frontend-engineer :).

You can also learn more about the how and why of our distributed team here https://blog.parse.ly/post/3203/the-how-and-why-of-parse-lys....

[smithmayowa]

Quick question do a have a degree, I.e did they require a degree from you.