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Ask HN: How to find remote development jobs?

• klaut 16y ago
  I would start by looking at http://jobs.github.com/ http://jobs.github.com/ , http://jobs.37signals.com/ http://jobs.37signals.com/ , http://www.authenticjobs.com/ http://www.authenticjobs.com/ and filter out those that say "remote|anywhere" in the location field.
  • bendmorris 16y ago
    Excellent, thanks for the suggestions.
• gexla 16y ago
  Depends on the type of job you are looking for. If you need total flexibility, you might try freelancing. You will be more likely to find freelance gigs anyways.
  • jmoses 16y ago
    I've had fantastic luck freelancing at odesk. They guarantee you get paid for hourly work. Use my refcode. ;) (https://www.odesk.com/referrals/track/jmoses https://www.odesk.com/referrals/track/jmoses)
    • tjarratt 16y ago
      Beggars can't be choosers, but a cursory look at some of those jobs are awful. You can choose between doing some college student's cs100 homework for $15, or building a replica of match.com for $300. Off topic, but how do people determine how much a project costs? Even at a conservative $50 an hour, that's 6 hours to build an entire website. I can see start a rails project with mysql, building the schema and writing some simple controllers that display some markup for viewing profiles, but really - how could you create a complete website from scratch for $300?
      • kls 16y ago
        People that take this kind of work are a) using something like Drupal and throwing a skin on pre-built work and b) in Eastern Europe or Asia. These freelance sites are not where developers doing highly custom work are finding their gigs. There are a lot of good freelance developers making that rate hourly and worth every penny. If you look at the ads it is always build me Facebook for $100 or a dating site for $200. People grab some Drupal plugins, buy a template slap, it together, collect, rinse and repeat.
        • krakensden 16y ago
          So, where are they looking for additional work?
          • kls 16y ago
            Please note I am not endorsing this site because I do not use it, but a few freelancers that I know do and claim the quality of gig is pretty good: http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/ http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/ That being said, it has been a long time since I "looked" for work. But when I did I actively marketed for them and did not hit the freelance boards, So for me, I would most certainly post a "I am available please take a look at my skills if you are interested" here in HN. I would throw some money into a LinkedIn, AdSense and Facebook advertising campaign and generally actively market myself. Reason being, when you are applying for gigs you are competing in a deep pool with a lot of variables, while the gig is real and you have less false leads, the chances of getting selected over someone just as qualified is lower. With active marketing, you get more breadth or "surface area" if you will, you chase more false leads, but in the end you have more exposure and are competing in a smaller pool. They have contacted you and generally have only you or a few candidates in mind for a gig. The breadth also does not leave you heavily invested if you don't get the gig, because you have other coming in all the time. Finally, I like active marketing because you generally enter the project in earlier phases than applying for a posted gig. When I did market, I entered most projects at the planing phase, which I like a lot more than at the build phase, as it gives me an opportunity to address items at that point instead of telling the client at the point that they are ready to build, that they need to go back and redesign stuff. Now days, Euro and IBM take up all of my and my teams time, so we have not marketed for work in years, any specifics I would give would be rusty. Some of the marketing guru's on HN could probably give you specifics on where and how to maximize your return with a marketing campaign.
  • bendmorris 16y ago
    I have done some web dev freelancing in the past; we have a new baby so I'm looking more for the stability of guaranteed full-time work.
    • gspyrou 16y ago
      First of all : Congratulations for your baby! You may also check Stackoverflow careers . http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=&location=&range=20&telecommute=true http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs?searchTerm=&locati...
• cpenner461 16y ago
  If you're into python, you can check out http://www.python.org/community/jobs/ http://www.python.org/community/jobs/, there are the occasional remote/telecommuting jobs posted there. A company I've run across before that only works with remote devs is Art and Logic: http://www.artlogic.com/ http://www.artlogic.com/ (absolutely no affiliation, I just know they're a remote company).
• PonyGumbo 16y ago
  Craigslist worked for me. There's a huge amount of garbage on CL, but I found a remote contracting dev job that turned into salaried gig.
• bdmorgan 16y ago
  Speaking from experience of years as a software architect and now a development manager at a very large technology company, unless you've got a HIGHLY impressive track record of experience, no job worth a crap is going to hire you to work remotely. If you're dead set on it, then as others have pointed out, the freelancing approach (Elance, Guru, oDesk, etc.) does work, to a point. On those sites, you'll always be competing against some insanely low-cost (and low-quality) offshore workers but that's not as big an issue. Again, even on those sites, the issue will be a demonstrated track record of excellence. So, best advice would be to take 3-5 projects on those sites of any size doing anything you feel comfortable doing and don't worry about the $$. Hit home runs on those projects and two things will happen: (1) There's a very good chance those who hire you will hire you again or extend the projects out (2) You now have ammo to get other better/more lucrative online freelance projects. Do the online freelance thing for maybe two years and have tons of good real-world experience under your belt and then you have a shot at landing a full-time remote work position. Just my two cents worth...
  • bendauphinee 16y ago
    I've been working remotely for a few years now, and I can say that I don't have a HIGHLY impressive track record, but that has not stopped me from being interviewed to see if my skills were worth something. I suggest if you have a little time and don't need the money badly, cook up a project of your own. Managing even a small project that you aren't getting paid for and progressing in that is a good mark of dedication. Other than that, spread around your resume, and post that you're looking for work. Never know what will come of it. Heck, I got a job interview and offer from another HN user here, because I asked if anyone wanted my skills.