Hey guys,
I’m currently in a very stable job as an OpenEdge ABL developer working with databases and a tiny bit of front end Web. I’d love to get a remote job and try and persue the digital nomad lifestyle but the tech we use is so different to everything else my experience seems irrelevant when applying for remote jobs. Obviously I’m know working through FCC and building a portfolio and I’m learning but if anyone has any pointers for me that would be great.
My comment here is relevant to your current question.
Let me also say that I work remotely, and have for about two years now. The hardest part is finding an employer (in any part of tech) that is open to it. A good source for leads is StackOverflow, but of course putting yourself out there by making YouTube videos, podcasts, blog posts, etc. is a good way to get noticed. That’s how I got hired at my current job.
A slightly related comment. How do you view the job security in these remote positions? I feel like most companies would look at remote positions as being the first employees to get cut if a financial problem occurred.
In your experience with you, and people you work with, is the security in a remote position as stable as an on-site position?
I can’t say, because I only have my own experience, which is not typical. It makes sense to me that remote employees would be the easiest to fire. Especially when most of the team or department is not remote. There are all-remote teams, and it seems like that would be great, for various reasons that are off-topic here.
I work remotely now, and did at my last job (which I quit – I wasn’t fired), and in both cases I came in with experience and skills that were valued, and most of the rest of the team didn’t have my particular skills and/or amount of experience.
The most important thing is to perform in the role. You have an advantage in that you have fewer distractions from noisy or chatty co-workers, and you get to skip pretty much all of the meetings. So use that to your advantage to get things done.
You really should go above and beyond – mentor others, or even just help with other people’s tickets whenever possible, so that when your name comes up people see you as valuable. It’s easy to be invisible when you’re remote, and undervalued regardless of your contributions. So just be as visible as you can.
One thing to your advantage is that hiring programmers is really hard. Finding the right skills and personality locally is rare. The good people are employed elsewhere or living elsewhere. If you have skills that are in demand, I think you have a slightly better chance to find a remote job than you did 10 years ago. Especially if you know Go. I was contacted initially by my current company just because I had recently pushed a Go project to my GitHub account.
You probably won’t have as good of a chance with things like JavaScript, Ruby on Rails, or Node.js, because there are too many people in too many places all trying to do those things. And forget about .Net and Java – the market is flooded with those people.
Thanks Shawn for some very interesting feedback. I personally don’t think Go is for me at the moment having looked through it. I think i generally need to better myself at JavaScript greatly and I’ve also grown very attached to Laravel (a PHP Framework) for server development.
today is the day because today remote jobs are booming there are many opportunity for us freelancers due to pandemic.
HI @avajones!
Welcome to the forum!
Thank you for your response.
This topic hasn’t been active for three years. Please try to post in newer topics.
Thanks!