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Show HN: RemoteCoder.io – A jobsite for remote programmers
- ttty 12y ago{"type":"Error","msg":"Hostname/IP doesn't match certificate's altnames"} at linking my git
- deepakprakash 12y agoSame here.
- prattbhatt 12y agoI'm getting this error too.
- yonderboi 12y agoMe too.
- hiddentao 12y agoThanks, this should now be fixed.
- hiddentao 12y agoHi, this is my first potentially revenue-generating project, that I built in 2 weeks. There are still a few features missing (e.g. CV upload) but the general functionality is there - including the Github authentication. Would love to hear what people think :)
- reubano 12y agoI like the concept! I'm a freelance developer and working on my own web app for freelancers as well. One problem I have with services like these tho is the chicken/egg problem. I just did a search for contract positions and only saw two. As a dev, I wouldn't want to visit the site again unless I know there will be a lot more jobs posted.
- fiatjaf 12y agoYeah, this is really a difficult thing to make work. If it succeeds, it will be huge, but the odds are always against any chicken-and-egg service like that.
- hiddentao 12y agoYep, I always knew this would be a problem. Nevertheless I felt it would be worth putting it out there to gauge the interest in something like this. I'm happy to say a lot of people are interested (and new jobs are showing up on the board too) so I think there's scope to solve this problem. I have a few other ideas with respect to increasing traffic which I hope to apply to it in the near future.
- icebraining 12y agoWhat about a button to "email me when new jobs that fit this filter are posted"? Like Adioso for jobs :)
- zerr 12y agoAdvice: Please remove "Enforce Github authentication" functionality. Don't help popularizing "Github is your CV" bullshit. Also, since you're just starting, limiting your userbase is the last thing you want to achieve...
- alexchamberlain 12y agoWhy do you think it's bullshit?
- ownagefool 12y agoIt's not that it's bullshit, it's just that it doesn't encompass everyone which was the parents point. People who a) work on open source, or b) have enough free time that they're able to publish in their free time are the only people you want to hire? Great, have at it. But you'll quickly be wiping out a lot of people with experience behind them because they have a family. Some of them would have been the type to actually write code in their spare time when they were younger, you know, before github was around and before they had kids, they're probably still smart, but github isn't their CV and may never be. That said, code examples are a very nice thing to have, so it goes both ways.
- wastedhours 12y agoLots of developers do really great work in their day jobs committing code to closed source projects, or have private projects in a different VCS/Git location (such as a personal GitLab install). Whilst worthy, a developer's contributions to OSS or public code commits aren't the only determining factor of their quality/hireability.
- Touche 12y agoIt's not the only determining factor, but seeing someone's code is the best way to know that they are good at it. And GitHub is the best place to publish code for this purpose. From a purely practical perspective, being a developer who exclusively works on closed-source code in 2014 is a bad career decision.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- lordbusiness 12y agoConstructive feedback since you've asked... :-) Please don't withhold hiring company names. Recruiters do this and usually it means they don't actually have a job and are just canvassing resumes. I don't wish to accuse you of what has become a standard way to bootstrap (fake it 'til you make it) but it leads me to believe the content is imaginary and the last thing people need when they're job hunting (and possibly severely strapped for income) is time wasting leading them down the garden path. It's not only unprofessional, but I'd suggest borderline immoral. :-) And if they are real jobs, the first question will be who is the company anyway.
- MCRed 12y agoBiggest missing feature: Free text search box. Let me search for that elusive remote FORTRAN position! :-) I would prioritize this over all others as it lets you search for "european" or technology, or "hip chat" if, for instance, you're sensitive to the chat system the employer uses. Covers a lot of bases.
- hiddentao 12y agoThanks, that is on the todo list. I was trying to get this done in a short space of time - and because the initial list of jobs was going to be short I felt that I didn't need it for now.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- gee_totes 12y agoI'm not sure if the github authentication is working. I go to Apply for this job, it takes me to github, I click authenticate, then I get this error on on the github_oauth_callback page on remotecoder.io: {"type":"MongoError","msg":"E11000 duplicate key error index: remotecoder.users.$email_1 dup key: { : null }"} (My github username is the same as my HN handle)
- hiddentao 12y agoSorry about that, should be ok now.
- sfteus 12y agoI see on the about page that you built the site with Waigo and Mongo. If you don't mind, could you go into a little bit of detail about the hardware you're running the site on? I had a similar scope site in mind (a few static pages and a form or two) and would like to get an idea of what it would take to run it with minimal issues or bottlenecks.
- hiddentao 12y agoFor now it's simply running within a Docker container on a Digital Ocean droplet (the 512 MB RAM one).
- mattt416 12y agoCongrats on the launch! It's getting to be a pretty crowded space, but hopefully you can bring something new to the table! -Matt @ https://www.wfh.io https://www.wfh.io
- petercooper 12y agoThe key business problem with job sites isn't getting job listings or even getting employers and recruiters to pay for them, but building an audience and getting exposure for the listings. Beyond a small Twitter and RSS graphic at the top, there doesn't appear to be much effort on this site to build an audience, yet that's the most important part and what its long-term success will depend on - I advise the creator think about ways to surmount those obstacles.
- 500and4 12y agoI think you've hit the nail on the head here. We've had a similar experience building http://www.zonino.co.uk http://www.zonino.co.uk. Plenty of interest from employers but without the traffic it's hard to justify charging. This is where sites like Stackoverflow really stand out because they already have a flow of relevant and highly engaged traffic.
- cbovis 12y agoWas about to post something similar. This doesn't really add much over sites like nomad list which already have job listings and a large audience. I think it's telling that all the job listings are development based...
- hiddentao 12y agoThanks, you're right. I was aware of this issue when I was building it, and I do have a few ideas regarding traffic building which may or may not work. For now I just want to see if such a job board would be of any interest in the first place, especially given that there are other job boards (e.g. nomadlist, weworkremotely) that overlap it. I really wanted to see if some the differentiating factors (e.g. Github auth, remote region specificity) would be of interest to anyone.
- bryanwbh 12y agoWhat would differentiate you against sites such as https://weworkremotely.com https://weworkremotely.com ?
- chadscira 12y agoor http://nomadjobs.io/ http://nomadjobs.io/ , its very interesting that they all are charging $200
- schmrz 12y agoI know that one thing I don't like about https://weworkremotely.com https://weworkremotely.com is that many of the listed jobs are not truly remote (they are limited to one country). At least on this board I can filter those out.
- joshuacc 12y agoI think the term "transnational" would fit what you are describing better than the term "truly remote." The US is a very large place. Someone working for an SF startup from their Florida home is just as "truly remote" as someone working from Mexico, Canada, etc.
- noise 12y agoor http://wfh.io http://wfh.io
- hiddentao 12y agoOne of the key differentiators is the ability to see which jobs are truly remote (like nomadlist does) vs. remote within a particular region. The other is that this job board is focussed solely on coders (whereas weworkremotely also caters for designers, business admin, etc). Hence the optional Github authentication.
- notinreallife 12y agoor http://remoyo.com http://remoyo.com
- matheusd 12y agoTried applying. When logging in to github got an error: {"type":"Error","msg":"Hostname/IP doesn't match certificate's altnames"}
- quangv 12y agogetting the same error.
- hiddentao 12y agoThanks, this should now be fixed.
- aptwebapps 12y agoGetting this one: {"type":"MongoError","msg":"E11000 duplicate key error index: remotecoder.users.$email_1 dup key: { : null }"}
- hiddentao 12y agoSorry, that should also be fixed now. Thanks for all the feedback (bugs and otherwise).
- jhuckestein 12y agoI suspect you won't get much of an audience if you don't make it clear how much these jobs will pay. Reading some of the posted jobs, I can't tell if these are actual engineering jobs or $20/hr variety.
- thedangler 12y agoYeah, All those jobs look nice. But they don't mention how much I will get payed.
- hiddentao 12y agoSorry, that seems to be a problem on other similar job sites too. I haven't yet thought about how to solve that problem, any ideas are welcome! Plus, with contract work I've sometimes had to negotiate with a client - I thought it would be better to therefore leave that detail to when the employer is having a conversation with the candidate.
- RussianCow 12y agoDisplaying a range for the salary/rate is certainly a good starting point. Obviously the final number is going to be decided based on experience and after some negotiation, but at the very least I'd like to not waste my time applying for jobs that pay a maximum of $50k if I'm looking for a minimum of $75k.
- rakel_rakel 12y agoGreat initiative! It seems like remote working is becoming more of a thing lately, which I think is aweseome, after ~7 years in the it-business I've made myself the promise of never taking a mandatory 40h/week inside-the-office-job again. So kudos for helping getting remote offers out there. That said, I always cringe when I see the "employer confidential" flag on job postings... I for one would never apply for a job (or even make the first contact) at an anonymous company. The demand for engineers seems to be high enough for me (anyone) to at least be able to check out the work of a potential employer before making contact.
- jcromartie 12y agoAt the same time, some companies that formerly embraced remote employees have decided that it's better to have them under one roof. Recent notable examples: Yahoo and Reddit have told all of their remote employees to relocate or find a new job.
- MCRed 12y agoIt's management instinct to want to see people. IF they can't see you, I think they feel that maybe you're slacking off. (Of course, the manager never sees you when you write a bunch of code in the middle of the night because you didn't get any real work done in the office.) These changes, particularly in the Yahoo case, reflect poorly on those managers in my mind, not on the concept of remote work. The ideal programming environment is effectively remote- every engineer in their own office, with multi-party audio or video (e.g.: google hangouts) for collaboration. If your primary cost is engineering staff, why would you make them %50 less effective when they're working and on top of that take 2 hours out of their day each day for a stressful commute?
- albakes 12y agoI think it's more about cultivating culture. It's almost impossible to build culture with 80% of your staff working remotely on different timezones. There are ways around it but it's just way better to see your team.
- sarhus 12y agoA good job board is often a by-product of an active community. Look for Stackoverflow, Github, and even the now defunct 37Signals Jobs (rebranded in WeWorkRemotely). If you could build a community around it, then companies will be happy to pay (and I've learnt this lesson the hard way!). Follow petercooper suggestions and best of luck!
- wnm 12y agogreat job on launching something! i'm working on something similar in this space. i think you will have a hard time attracting users (and therefore jobs), being that there are already remote job boards out there. chicken/egg markets are though to enter, thats why i'm trying a different angle with my project. especially weworkremotely will be a though competitor, since developed by the guys from basecamp they get a lot of trust from companies, and having a book about remote work helps attracting visitors as well...
- hiddentao 12y agoVery true. I also have another angle I wish to pursue with respect to this. But it's good to know that there's interest in such a job board. Furthermore, my focus with this board is on developers and developers only. WeWorkRemotely focus more broadly than that.
- pknerd 12y agoNO Search Option but still a good thing. How is it gonna be different than 37Signals' http://weworkremotely.com http://weworkremotely.com
- hiddentao 12y agoIt's focussed purely on developers (hence the Github integration that some jobs require) and it provides clarity on whether a job is truly remote anywhere or remote within a specific region.
- WhitneyLand 12y agoFirst I really wish you success on this. The bigger it gets the less wasted commute time. That said, how would this be different from StackOverflow Careers? They have a search option for remote and it seems like companies are actually respecting what the checkbox means.
- hiddentao 12y agoThanks. It's good if companies are respecting that checkbox. On other job boards I've used (e.g. weworkremotely) remote often turns out to really mean "remote within country X" or "telecommute". This was one of the frustrations that led me to build this board (plus, I thought it would be a fun thing to build!).
- lucaspiller 12y agoI started a blog similar to this the other month, however it didn't really get very far (like most side-projects :D). The main thing I wanted to differentiate with other remote job sites are that "remote" usually means "remote in the US". I wanted it to be focussed on jobs available to Europeans, hence the name RemoteTechJobs.eu. That was my first hurdle though, there aren't really that many remote jobs in Europe that are advertised. I think that's because companies don't really have a problem finding candidates. I spoke to a recruiter based in London and he said that most remote jobs he has get filled within hours or days rather than weeks for onsite positions. The other thing I wanted to do was actually put some content in there that would be useful to the candidate to know what it's like to actually work at a company. The top listing on this site is as follows: JavaScript developer for a massive multiplayer game: React.js; Phaser; As a potential candidate why would I even bother taking the time to reply to that? What would I even say "I've done React.js and Phaser, hire me!"? Maybe I could link to some projects on GitHub if I had something open source, but that doesn't really add up to much. Job listings work two ways, they are for you to tell candidates how great it will be to work for you, and how they won't be stuck working 80hrs/week generating Excel reports for you. This was the second hurdle though, most job listings just don't tell you enough of what it's like to work there. In the end I abandoned the idea, but I'd still like to resurrect the idea (the site is still up). Maybe just revert to basic listings like this, but if anyone has any suggestions / feedback I'd appreciate it! Edit: Formatting.
- chii 12y agoagreed. Also, a price range wouldn't hurt.
- moron4hire 12y agoIt would also help if the "Apply for this job" button actually worked. I clicked on that particular position, just to see what would happen, and got "{"type":"Error","msg":"Hostname/IP doesn't match certificate's altnames"}"
- hiddentao 12y ago
- jk1234 12y agoI took a look at an ad for an android developer but it sounded a bit too involved (I don't want to be his CTO, I just want a small project). My first impression however was that I couldn't write a comment. The person wanted an android app and maybe a website. I was going to suggest also advertising for web developers that have used phonegap or something. Comments could also help the person explain what exactly they require.
- cool-RR 12y agoLooks good. I'd add search functionality.
- tomek_zemla 12y agoYes! Search is a must. I specialize in certain types of work so keyword searches are crucial to me...
- hiddentao 12y agoThanks. Yep, that's on the todo list. Time was short and I predicted that initially there wouldn't be so many jobs so I prioritised other features over search.
- clockwerx 12y agoArgh, no CRUD for my job listing :/ The markdown preview and the actual rendering are quite different, so I appear to have posted a Wall Of Text :S
- hiddentao 12y agoSorry about that! I built this in 2 weeks in between doing other stuff (travelling, attending events) so I had to make some hard choices about the essentials. And editing was left out of that. However, I'm surprised the actual rendering looks that different - which job ad did you post? (see my HN Profile for the email). I can edit it manually for you.
- jister 12y agoWhy do I need a Github account to apply?!
- hiddentao 12y agoYou only need one if the employer has specified that you need one when creating their ad. It saves them having to ask you for your id in your application - better yet, it allows us to verify your github profile for them and even send them a short-line summary of your work.
- lazyant 12y agois there a (popular?) remote job board for server sysadmin work (esp. Linux)? anyone interested if I throw something together quickly?
- mattt416 12y agoWe post sys admin / "DevOps" roles on https://www.wfh.io https://www.wfh.io -- but to be honest, the # of these we get (or see online) pale in comparison to development roles.
- hilem 12y agoI'd highly suggest making the posting companies list salary and/or equity ranges ala angelist. It sets expectations a lot sooner and cuts through a lot of bs for potential users. I'd also recommend, having some indication of the listing companies commitment to remote work. Joining a team who is new to remote as one of the only remote workers is not fun. Supplying a short poll to each job creation, that generates a remote score, similar to the Joel Test people used to use, would help build confidence in potential users.
- MCRed 12y agoCall me old school, but I've always felt the term "coder" was a diminutive, while "programmer" (as used in the title) is more appropriate. I think of a coder as someone mindlessly implementing logic that someone else has laid out before them... while a programmer is someone who comprehends the problem, develops an algorithm and implements it. Of course, these days with so much work being about setting up a UI on whatever platform, there isn't as much algorithm development.
- acallaghan 12y agoI fear that 'coder' is akin to 'lab geeks' for scientists etc. It suggests that all that's needed is code (or pipetting test tubes), rather than it being part of a larger engineering discipline. In my experience, those terms are mostly used by people who don't understand what you're doing (or in this case, the domain was available)
- hiddentao 12y ago"RemoteCoder" sounded shorter and sweeter as a name which is why I went with it. So it was really about marketing, no offence to developers/programmers (I'm one myself after all ;)
- jpetersonmn 12y agoNeeds to have some search filters. Salary, Technologies required, etc...
- larssorenson 12y agoGreat concept, cool idea. Unfortunately: you hot link to google API, there's no search, and all of the jobs are web dev. The last one isn't really your fault I know, just a personal frustration.
- hiddentao 12y agoYeah, sorry about the lack of search and the hotlinking. I wanted to build this quickly and validate it before going any further. As for the job types, yeah I know - I have to admit that when I build this job board I initially had remote web developers such as myself in mind.
- larssorenson 12y agoWhich is totally fine! I'm more of a systems programming kind of guy, and it is still doable remotely. Just seems to be a distinct lacking of those job positions for remote work.
- hiddentao 12y agoThat's true, I'm not even sure if there are many such remote systems programmings jobs out there waiting to be advertised. In any case I'm open to adding that in as a category if the demand for it goes up.
- nerdy 12y agoSome of the fonts need adjustment, in particular the header and the titles in the search bar (screenshot from Firefox): http://imgur.com/VTLLn5I http://imgur.com/VTLLn5I Also desperately needs a way to search or filter job listings by keyword.
- hiddentao 12y agoHi, what version of FF are you using? And thanks for the feedback. Yep, search is on the todo list.
- Bargs 12y agoThanks for adding a filter for contract vs full time work. This is a feature I really wish more job sites had.
- hiddentao 12y agoYou're welcome :) It's something I've always wanted to see too.
- akmiller 12y agoThe job board is RemoteCoder but already looked at a Rails/EmberJS job posting and they are looking for candidates "hopefully" within 2 cities they mention and definitely within Australia. If a remote job board is to succeed, IMO, I think those posting should not be allowed.
- hiddentao 12y agoJust saw that myself, thanks for noting it. One feature I want to add at some point is the ability to "flag" a job ad as either misleading or inappropriate - but this would have to be implemented in tandem with basic CRUD functionality, in case the creator made an innocent mistake. In this case I shall contact them and find out whether the ad criteria needs to be adjusted.
- akmiller 12y agoNo problem and good luck with the site! It looks nice and I definitely hope to see more job boards focused on remote work only succeed!
- gkop 12y agoUX suggestion: some of your abbreviations introduce needless cognitive impedance. Expand "perm" to "permanent" and "cont" to "contract". It'll make it easier for users to parse the words. If you are worried about the expanded words taking up too much space, consider icons.
- Dewie 12y agoI'm pretty sure that shorter words (abbreviations) like that are easier to parse than the full version. Perhaps you were looking for the verb understand?
- hiddentao 12y agoI thought about that - whether to use icons or text - in the end I decided that with shorter text, at least for the initial release.
- rahilsondhi 12y agoI'm trying to publish my post and it keeps saying "RuntimeError: Failed to send emails: self signed certificate"
- hiddentao 12y agoSorry, that should be fixed now.
- TeamMCS 12y agoI'd love to actually have a purely remote job. I work from home quite a lot but I can never find any 100% remote jobs which don't pay graduate salaries :(. Seems a real gap in the market given most companies don't even have any seats for you
- Blackthorn 12y agoAh yes, a job for "Anywhere in San Francisco" right on the front page. edit: Make that four that say that. What is this I don't even.
- nshemesh 12y agoI filled out the entire job posting and it won't let me submit. Anyone else having this issue? says I need to fill out everything above but everything is filled out.
- hiddentao 12y agoHi, it's probably an incomplete company URL (need the http:// http:// part) and other such things. One immediate improvement I intend to add on is form field highlighting - so it will show you which fields are yet to be filled in correctly.
- dreamcatcher12 12y agoI have several thoughts on this "open-source" software contribution mania:- 1)Will you not hire a "salesperson" if they don't make sales calls in their free time, or a baseball team won't pick a player if they don't play in their free-time? 2)IMHO hiring should be a "selection" process and not a "rejection" process. Your application at this point looks like a "rejection" system. 3)Having github/open-source contributions is based on a lot of factors such as availability of free-time(being a good engineer dosen't necessarily mean one has to write code in their free-time), passion for a particular project/domain etc. Too much of anything causes burn-out. 4)Just because a lot of companies have this criteria, it does not make it a valid one. There's a lot of "herd" mentality in technology recruiting. 5)As a business decision I would think you should make open-source contributions optional and let the employers decide if they want it or not.
- hiddentao 12y agoI agree with all of your points, and indeed Github authentication is optional for the jobs posted on the site. I admit I did initially have it turned on by default (because I really liked the feature) but now it's off by default given the general feedback I've received. And I'm glad to see that companies who do care about it are using it when posting their ads.
- vram22 12y agoDo you have a business model for the site to generate revenue?
- lost_my_pwd 12y agoFYI - just got a signup email with my password included in it. Please do not do this.