I've been remote (or mostly remote) for 8+ years, and I would describe myself as extraverted and desiring social interaction. Nevertheless, remote work has bee

I've been remote (or mostly remote) for 8+ years, and I would describe myself as extraverted and desiring social interaction. Nevertheless, remote work has been great. I feel like I've had enough time to experiment with what works and what doesn't work that I'm now very comfortable working remotely and hope to do so for the rest of my career, if possible. Granted, some of the things that make remote work tolerable or intolerable are under the control of your employer and some are under your own control, so both you and your employer need to be committed to making it work. Being one of the only remote members of your team can stink, because you know that the other team members are mostly having their water cooler chats by the water cooler. But when you're on a team that's majority or fully remote, a lot of that happens via chat (text or video) and you don't feel like you're not being included. Having a remote-friendly culture is important. For instance: People remember to add a video chat link to every meeting invite. Your employer invests in quality teleconferencing equipment to make meetings run smoothly. When company swag is given out, remote employees are included as well. I've found that I get stir-crazy after sitting in my home office for more than a day at a time. So I like to go out to a library, a coffee shop, or a park (when it's nice out) for an hour or two. Even if I'm not directly interacting with other people, it helps. I'm at a stage in my life where office friendships aren't my main source of friendships, and so while I enjoy forming friendships with my coworkers, I don't feel like I need to be going out to every office happy hour or rec league softball game. And that allows me to make time to cultivate and maintain other friendships. I'm also at a stage in my life where having kids in the house helps a lot. My wife homeschools, so our family is able to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner together most days, and throughout the day there's a sense of liveliness in the house. Again, that can make a big difference, even if you're heads-down and not directly interacting with them during work hours. P.S. One life hack I've discovered is that if you can find a remote position that's within about a 90-minute commute radius, and you can commit to driving in occasionally, you can still (mostly) get the benefits of face time, and you can make the case that you deserve the same market-rate salary as the in-office people, as opposed to the "adjusted cost of living" rate that is sometimes offered to fully remote employees. That opens up a lot of possibilities, in terms of where you can live. I live about 75 minutes from my company's headquarters, but in a state with a lower cost of living.