So I started at a startup 3.5 years ago as an embedded developer and I was on the opposite coast from them in the U.S. So yes, companies do hire that way. I h

So I started at a startup 3.5 years ago as an embedded developer and I was on the opposite coast from them in the U.S. So yes, companies do hire that way. I have what I feel is a key advantage for that scenario however, in that I have a full hardware debugging setup which helps to eliminate a lot of objections or concerns. e.g. I have an oscilloscope, lots of misc programmers (JTAG etc), desktop variable power supplies, power load testers, soldering workstation, a microscope etc. I even have a small reflow oven. So essentially the only thing I needed was their specific hardware and schematics so I could be productive. I am not saying you need all that to get a remote embedded job, but it just removes a lot of objections if you don't need them to fully set you up. And as a freelancer it becomes kinda important that you are self sufficient. I also don't think all that is necessary just for a firmware job either of course, but it never hurts. If you want to freelance, I feel your tooling is your responsibility and they should be getting target hardware to you and that's it. One other aspect to it, I sold them a little on it back then but I truly believe in it. If we can work remotely on hardware and make it right then we have solved a lot of the remote debugging/support issues that usually pop up when you start shipping hardware. So we lived in an environment where we had to learn how to solve problems even if I wasn't right there next to the hardware exhibiting the problem. This I think has made us a better more technically competent company, hands down. And it made me focus on the firmware in ways for reliability that maybe if I was sitting in the office I wouldn't have started with to be honest, they would've been on things to do but may have been down on that list.