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Show HN: Learn how to work remotely from people doing it every day
- Jasber 8y agoHey HN! Here's a small side-project I've been working on to help remote workers. I noticed when I switched to full-time indie dev, I experienced some new problems, like building discipline, habits and healthy routines. I don't like most productivity advice, as Paul Buchheit says most advice is limited life experience + over-generalized to fit your situation. I thought a good way around this would to just tell stories about remote workers, how they got started, what they like, what they don't like, routines they've found that are helpful, etc... So that's what the site aims to do—interview remote workers so you can learn from their experiences. One cool thing about the site is you can deep dive specific questions, like * What do you like about remote work? http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-like... http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-like.... * What do you not like about remote work? http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-not-... http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-not-.... Let me know what you think, thanks!
- Jasber 8y agoNoticed both those links are broken, doh! Here they are again: * What do you like about remote work? http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-like-about-remote-work http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-like... * What do you not like about remote work? http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-not-like-about-remote-work http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-not-...
- imglorp 8y agoLooks like we soaked your quota, sorry! It's not in the Wayback Machine, is there another cache somewhere?
- 52-6F-62 8y agoThis is great. I'm currently browsing for viable, worthwhile opportunities for myself to set my girlfriend and I on the path to getting out of the city. Need more outdoors time. I haven't worked purely remotely before outside of a couple of light projects where I was the sole eng/dev. I'm always keeping my eyes open for new resources. Looks like it might be helpful! Good idea, and nice job.
- alayek 8y agoThis is great! Just one feedback - kindly reduce the CSS font-weight from 900 to something like 400-500.
- Jasber 8y agoThanks for the feedback!
- mmikeff 8y agoThis is great, I've been thinking about doing something similar but not been able to make the time so it is good to see someone else doing it. There is quite a lot of information out there about tackling the logistical challenges of operating remotely esp for software development, great to hear other perspectives and industries.
- chasd00 8y agothe best thing is no commute, the energy overhead of a long commute is terrible. The worst thing is missing out on conversations/decisions being made at the office. My corporate office is in San Diego while I'm in Dallas, even though I'm a director and the buck stops with me in engineering, lots of sidebar conversations and decisions get made in Sand Diego face-to-face and not on conference calls and slack channels.
- zip1234 8y agoThis is very difficult to address. I think people (in the office) need to buy in and use chat or email as communication mode number one. Either that or someone needs to come out with some better tele-presence for remote teams to interact with people in the office.
- jschwartzi 8y agoI've considered setting up a couple of tablets with webcams in my remote office and my office in the company. That way people can come talk to me whenever they need to.
- dotancohen 8y agoThink about what you are saying. We should forgo direct communication with people next to us, in favor of an online alternative? Even though your goal is noble (enabling remote workers) your method is unnatural. I agree that a way to better integrate remote workers is essential. However disposing of direct communication is not the way to do it. I don't have an answer, we need a novel approach.
- Tehchops 8y agoWe already used up your bandwidth quota?
- andyfleming 8y agoIt would be nice to have a way to separate full-time remote employees from consultants/freelancers and part-time remote contractors. I feel as though the constraints and consequences are very different between the two.
- Jasber 8y agoGood suggestion, I've tried to tag Freelancers/Consultants where appropriate but this is something that can be improved—thanks!
- senatorobama 8y agoThe key difficulty for me is finding a remote job (from scratch) in a name brand company i.e listed on the NASDAQ.
- bitlax 8y agoA lot of major companies offer remote work, but why is that important? Are you using that as a proxy for salary?
- senatorobama 8y agoHow do you find them?
- jambalaya 8y agoAre you based in the US? weworkremotely.com has worked well for me in the US
- mmikeff 8y agoShameless plug here, my side project https://www.mikesremotelist.com https://www.mikesremotelist.com finds about 10-20 newly listed remote positions a day, they are not all US based, but the majority are.
- TallGuyShort 8y agoIf you're looking for folks to interview, I've been full-time remote for almost 5 years and have managed to do it quite successfully. I'd be happy to share thoughts.
- Jasber 8y agoSure! Can you email brad@remotehabits.com and we can get something setup.
- geoffrey123 8y agoI am looking for a remote developer role myself https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffreycallaghan https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffreycallaghan
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoMy experience after having fully remote jobs and onsite jobs in companies with satellite offices and other remote workers, as well as managing and hiring for a team that includes on-site and remote engineers, is that you are generally practicing all the same skills needed for working remotely even if you are based on-site. You have to fight through the distractions of the surrounding environment and practice self-discipline, you’ll have a video call option for every single meeting (and often even other in-office participants access the call by video rather than walking to the conference room), all “water cooler talk” is deliberately moved into a medium like Slack, other on-site people work from home often, even managers using video calls to talk about your yearly performance review. I’m sure many people making the transition could still use a service like this for good advice. But generally, on-site experience in many types of tech / ecommerce companies these days imparts so much of the identical skills used for remote work that you would find pretty much the sole difference is the utter bliss of not being in an open-plan office. Similarly when hiring for remote or on-site roles, I find years of experience specifically working remotely plays no role. It does not make a candidate more or less likely to fit in a new remote role. And lack of prior remote experience rarely ever factors in even when hiring for a remote role. In other words, most types of prior work experience already prepare you well to be a remote worker. There’s no special “being good at remote” skill that most on-site jobs fail to exercise, though some people might occasionally feel that they personally or idiosyncratically need more help with certain aspects, unrelated to what general job experience offers them.
- matt_the_bass 8y agoIt sounds like in your opinion “no open plan office” is the sole value of working remote? As I misunderstanding your comment? My office does not have open plan offices. Some of us work remote about 20% of the time. But I think we all generally enjoy working on site too.
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoThat has definitely been my experience from a worker’s point of view. People assessing costs, etc., might have other opinions. The second-biggest benefit is not spending time on a commute. And if you have child care needs or other family arrangements to tend to, the flexibility offered being at home is a benefit. But by far the biggest benefit is that it lets you get away from working in open-plan offices. At one past employer that had a mix of on-site and remote workers, the company had an amazing policy of letting on-site employees work from home as often as they wanted, no questions asked. During one especially difficult design and implementation phase for a certain project, I worked from home for three weeks straight, because otherwise it was literally impossible to get the work done with noise distractions and lack of private space to think and tinker while at the office. Personally, I like working on-site (in private offices) most of all, but the downsides of open-plan arrangements are so severe that I’d practically use any other type of working arrangement, even being fully remote, if it allowed me to avoid an open-plan office.
- stockkid 8y agoIt was working but now I'm getting "Server Not Found" when I click the link. I find the content very helpful. How do you plan to keep producing such good quality content in the long term? I've seen many Show HNs like this with meteoric launch getting abandoned after some months.
- omnimus 8y agoWell advice from one of the freelance webdevs (http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full-stack-web-developer-who-works-remotely http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full...) is to start to charging 10usd. He calls it reasonable pricing. I mean i live in quite poor country but 10usd is pretty hard wow. The great twist is that he works for YCombinator backed company as lead front-end dev. Way to go lol
- slow_donkey 8y agoOh boy. Please no one take that advice of charging 10/hr. Remote does not at all justify making < minimum wage
- mettamage 8y agoI agree, but I do like to play devil's advocate here (just for a bit). Say you live in Thailand, what is wrong with making less? Or at least, a little less? You can still participate in the local economy.
- Spooky23 8y agoBecause you are demeaning yourself as a professional. Rate should be tied to the value of the work. To put it another way, would you want to work with someone who values your abilities to be equivalent to a guy making French fries?
- stingraycharles 8y agoI understand your point, but in the end, isn’t it just market forces at work? I lived in Cambodia for two years, and I definitely charges a lot less than what I do now I’m back in Europe. It made sense for me: with two weeks of work I could live comfortably for two or three months, and I still charged way below Western market rates, so I had no problems finding clients. And it allowed me to be picky about the type of work I would accept. What’s not to like?
- mettamage 8y ago> I see a ton of new freelancer make the mistake of charging $15 or more from the jump without 0 reputation to back up that value. You can't expect to be paid what you want without having a way of proving that value in some way. [1] To give a counter point. I have done the opposite with 0 reputation, I charged between 60 to 70 euro's per hour. I now increased my rate to 75 euro's per hour, since I know a couple of bootcamp graduates who charge the same. Why do they charge the same? Well, one got into a dev shop and he quickly realized he was the best web dev and got rented out for a 100 euro's per hour. Though per haps one difference is that I knew people who needed a freelancer now. They couldn't find anyone and I was still studying CS and therefore available. Finding clients on your own with that rate may be harder. I think understanding supply and demand really important, as well as building trust with your client. Can you get the job done? If yes, then what's the going rate for any other freelancer and charge that. With all that said, it is just one interview that I am quoting. It is also interesting to see such diversity in there! [1] http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full-stack-web-developer-who-works-remotely http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full...
- Oras 8y agoBandwidth Limit Exceeded
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- tomcooks 8y agoDeath by hugs, 509 bandwidth exceeded~
- fcanela 8y agoI am getting a 509 Bandwith Exceeded error. The sites is still accesible via http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jNN8m0qEa2EJ:remotehabits.com http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jNN8m0q...
- fcanela 8y agoIt seems like the cache link I previously pasted does not allow to click on deeper links on the site. Sorry. At least it helps to have a quick view to the content.
- samat 8y agoBandwidth Limit Exceeded The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
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- ddtaylor 8y agoI am curious, what kind of provider is this and what kind of bandwidth limits could be burned through by a basic HTTPS website? I tried to do a reverse DNS but it only came up with a generic "com.remotehabits.in-addr.arpa" I only ask this because even my very poor $2.50/mo server gets 500GB to 1TB of bandwidth allocated to it which is enough for millions of standard page loads.
- duggan 8y agoSome whois sleuthing suggest a company called Conseev who operate a shared hosting service[1] with a 250MB bandwidth limit. [1]: https://www.purespeedhosting.com/shared-hosting/ https://www.purespeedhosting.com/shared-hosting/
- steve_adams_86 8y agoIs it not 250GB Data Transfer? That would be a lot more than 250MB. Still hard to guess how they would get over that limit.
- chasd00 8y agoI've been remote for about 5 years now. Once thing often overlooked is the perception of working remote by significant others. It took a handful of fights with my wife until we came to an understanding that from 8-5 i'm at work, even though I'm home, I'm still at work. Granted, there's give and take like with all things in a marriage but when I "leave" for work and shut the office door I may as well be 30miles away in an office building until 5.
- organsnyder 8y agoI'm starting a remote position on Monday, and my wife and I have had a similar conversation. I've portrayed it in similar ways: when I'm working, it should be the same as if I were still at my downtown office; but I can teleport home instantly if there is a true emergency.
- xmcp123 8y agoSeconding this. I've worked from home for 16 years(my whole life). I've taken to asking my SO to treat it like I'm at an office, and not home at all. A lot of discussions end in "is that something you could do during your work day?"
- throwaway284726 8y agoAs someone who’s not married it also isn’t good for relationships in general. Staying home all day basically makes you the least interesting person in the world. You never have any crazy stories, weird colleagues, office romances, and whatever else normal people talk about. How do you answer “how was your day” and make it interesting?
- richardbrevig 8y agoI know I'm unusual about this, but I really try to keep my conversations away from simply just normal happenings. I recognize this is probably a necessity to share our days, but I value people that speak about ideas more.
- jschwartzi 8y ago
- johnc113 8y agoHey guys, I saw a few people quoting my interview here and I appreciate the criticism and wanted to clear a few misconceptions is the word? up! For reference: http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full-stack-web-developer-who-works-remotely http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full... When I say charge $10 USD that is what I started charging personally as I felt it gave me the most competitive edge as I was a recent graduate and JUST starting out. The minimum wage in Puerto Rico where I live is $7.50 so it definitely made sense to me and I'm the type of person who doesn't like overselling themselves or feeling like I'm being cocky/arrogant, plus I was starting out I barely knew anything haha. It's a personality thing you know. I am however by no means saying hey charge $10 USD to start out, that made sense to me and worked for me because I was a recent graduate, have no debts and no family to support. Someone with all these things to consider $10 USD would be DISMAL to even accept and I get that. What I was trying to convey above all is be reasonable with your pricing, charge something that for you recognizes your value and needs and ALSO Values your client and their needs if that makes sense! Also someone mentioned me being a lead front-end dev at OpenSea which YES is backed by YCombinator but I wanted to clear up one thing which is I said main dev not lead front end dev as I have been with them from early on, that title belongs to the co-founders haha I'm sorry for that confusion and wanted to clear it up, I hate taking credit where credit is not due! I am/was the lead front-end dev for a startup called freshChefs in shanghai for their food delivery app though which was an AWESOME experience! Finally, I have upped my rates considerably from my early days starting out and now usually charge $50/hr so I definitely climbed those up over time, I just started at a reasonable price that worked for me but in no ways mean works for or should be done by everyone. Thanks guys! And I hope the article gave you some insights and it's crazy to see it somewhere like HackerNews! PS: I'm actually 24 and that picture was from my graduation day back in 2015 because I abhor pictures, I still have a baby face though XD
- hoyin_remotes 8y agoThis is great website! I think we need more things like these to make it easier for people to learn how to work remotely. I have outlines some of comments in this video message I recorded for you: https://www.useloom.com/share/3e8262418d7c4f1187d3b92b037624ca https://www.useloom.com/share/3e8262418d7c4f1187d3b92b037624...