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Do I want to commute to the office? No, I very much do not. However, the people you know at work are your future professional network. Yes, you can do good w

Do I want to commute to the office? No, I very much do not. However, the people you know at work are your future professional network. Yes, you can do good work and be recognized for it while fully remote but nothing replaces a social bond, limited as it is, from having frequently interacted face to face with your colleagues. I can write much warmer and more fleshed out referrals for people I know something about than someone I've only seen as a square on a Zoom call.

scarface_74 2y ago
Alternate anecdote: Competence and being someone they want to work with again is usually enough. I got my first remote job in 2020 working at the Professional Services (cloud consulting) department at AWS. When I saw the writing on the wall, every single customer I worked with remotely and maybe flew out to see once that had some type of opportunity was more than willing to give me either a permanent position at their company or at least a contract. I met one of my coworkers in person maybe twice. He had left AWS a couple of months prior to be a director of infrastructure at a well known non tech F500. He said if I was interested, he would create a position for me to be over the cloud migration and infrastructure and that it would pay more in cash than I was making in cash + RSUs at AWS. I didn’t take him up on his offer just because I was over the big company thing. When I posted on LinkedIn that I had gotten another job, I had three former coworkers who had moved on reach out to me and say why didn’t I let them know. They would have brought me on their companies. These were all decision makers who could push me through without too much hassle. I had met most of these people in person maybe two or three times. Unless my performance really craters at my current company where I work remotely where I’m a staff architect, I can almost guarantee that anyone I reach out to that has worked with me will be more than happy to give me a referral about my skillset and work ethic.
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  I don't disagree with your anecdote but most of us aren't consultants, a big part of whose job is maintaining constant contact and alignment with customers and co-workers.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    If you go by the classic Joel Spolsky hiring criteria, all that matters about hiring is if the person is “smart and gets things done” of course it also has to be someone you want to work with. It really doesn’t take that long to prove those traits. True working in consulting I got to do it fast. I’ve got to get to know the customer, understand their problem, deal with the organizational issues, get them to accept the solution and implement the solution. During that time, I get to know a lot of directors and CxOs on the customers side and got a chance to meet my AWS coworkers who moved on to use their network to get better jobs as they did the same. Just for reference, both companies - AWS and the third party consulting company I work for now are full time positions. I was only looking for full time direct hire positions.

scarface_74 2y ago

Alternate anecdote: Competence and being someone they want to work with again is usually enough. I got my first remote job in 2020 working at the Professional Services (cloud consulting) department at AWS. When I saw the writing on the wall, every single customer I worked with remotely and maybe flew out to see once that had some type of opportunity was more than willing to give me either a permanent position at their company or at least a contract. I met one of my coworkers in person maybe twice. He had left AWS a couple of months prior to be a director of infrastructure at a well known non tech F500. He said if I was interested, he would create a position for me to be over the cloud migration and infrastructure and that it would pay more in cash than I was making in cash + RSUs at AWS. I didn’t take him up on his offer just because I was over the big company thing. When I posted on LinkedIn that I had gotten another job, I had three former coworkers who had moved on reach out to me and say why didn’t I let them know. They would have brought me on their companies. These were all decision makers who could push me through without too much hassle. I had met most of these people in person maybe two or three times. Unless my performance really craters at my current company where I work remotely where I’m a staff architect, I can almost guarantee that anyone I reach out to that has worked with me will be more than happy to give me a referral about my skillset and work ethic.

ThrowawayR2 2y ago
I don't disagree with your anecdote but most of us aren't consultants, a big part of whose job is maintaining constant contact and alignment with customers and co-workers.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  If you go by the classic Joel Spolsky hiring criteria, all that matters about hiring is if the person is “smart and gets things done” of course it also has to be someone you want to work with. It really doesn’t take that long to prove those traits. True working in consulting I got to do it fast. I’ve got to get to know the customer, understand their problem, deal with the organizational issues, get them to accept the solution and implement the solution. During that time, I get to know a lot of directors and CxOs on the customers side and got a chance to meet my AWS coworkers who moved on to use their network to get better jobs as they did the same. Just for reference, both companies - AWS and the third party consulting company I work for now are full time positions. I was only looking for full time direct hire positions.