Notes on Finding a Remote Job
I started searching for a remote job back in February 2018. I stopped a few months later when I realized I couldn’t find anything. That surprised me because I assumed it would be easier. Life tends to surprise me like this. My professional background was not the issue. My location was the issue.
I worked in a fully distributed async team. It was the best working situation I’ve had to date. I think it’s the best way to work — especially for IT. We hired people from anywhere. It made no difference where a person was. I wanted to join a team like this.
My partner and I packed up and hit the road in March 2018. We’re still on the road now. The plan was to travel South East Asia indefinitely before settling down in Hawaii. This was a problem for the overwhelming majority of companies I spoke with. StickerMule (which was my top pick) was the exception.
Other companies could not understand my situation or ruled it out because of geographic restrictions. Here’s how some of those conversations went:
Me: I’m a US citizen currently on the road. I’m in Bali right now.
Them: We’re not authorized to hire Indonesians.
Huh? That’s a lost cause right there. What does one even do with that? Here’s another.
Me: I’m traveling right now. I’m in Bali for the next few months.
Them: Oh, where are you from?
Me: I’m a US citizen, originally from California.
Them: Oh, well we’re not allowed to hire people outside the US.
Sigh. Here’s another.
Me: I’m traveling right now. I’m living in Bali for the next few months.
Them: Are you authorized to work in the US?
Me: Yes
Them: Oh, well we can hire people in Indonesia.
Various conversations like this. This doesn’t account for the conversations where I find out they only hire in specific time zones or other arbitrary restrictions. I had issues explaining that I don’t have a permanent residence right now. It has surprised me how difficult it is to explain that I’m traveling and location independent.
I’m disappointed. I can’t wrap my head around these organizations. They advertise themselves as remote. They clearly are not upon deeper inspection, nor are they close to location independent. If the location is “anywhere” and there are no other stipulations, then people from anywhere can and will apply. So, if a US company posts an “anywhere” job and a person outside the US applies, and then the company doesn’t want to do a 1099, then what was the rationale in the first place? If the location is set to “anywhere”, but only open to residents of certain places, or time zones, then make that explicit. That’s a glaring omission that ends up wasting the time of both the candidate and hiring organization! These types of errors call an organization’s “remote” aspects into question. Truthfully, it’s better to avoid these organizations. That’s why I stopped searching.
I’ve factored this into my scouting process. In fact, it’s my first question because it’s the road block in all but one organization I’ve spoken with.
This doesn’t even account for compensation. Most jobs don’t post compensation or won’t discuss it until the end of their interview process. I find this confounding. I don’t see the benefit for the organization or the candidate. The reality is that each person has a minimum income they must maintain. Given the typical technical interview process takes weeks, it’s a total time sink to find out the job pays 30% under your required salary. Now, I try to get compensation information ASAP. If they won’t provide it then that’s a major red flag.
Now it’s about time to restart the search. Hopefully I have better luck this time. My criteria is still the same:
- Remote and async (no geographic or time zone restrictions)
- Mature culture
- Backend/SRE work
- Fun product
If this is you and you’re hiring, then please contact me. I’ll continue to crawl the job boards and pursue word of mouth and other networking opportunities. If not, then I’ll happily keep developing slashdeploy and my SaaS.
