Taking advantage of Airbnb's Epic New Remote Policy
There are some skills you can learn to set yourself for the remote work movement. Aimed at Coders
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Airbnb has an epic new policy. So epic, that I have decided that I am going to send in my resume to every available position. If you see my LinkedIn updated as “Sales Trainee @Airbnb”, don’t be surprised.
There are several companies that have been embracing the remote lifestyle. All the organizations I worked at have been fully remote, and many places I am interviewing at are also embracing the remote lifestyle. Work from Home has too many benefits for the employees. It’s become such an important part of people’s demands that Ian Goodfellow, former Director of Machine Learning at Apple, quit his job after Apple demanded employees return to the offices.
Remote work has allowed me to travel around the country, and get work done on my own time. Most recently, this has allowed me to explore Alaska, where I was lucky enough to catch the Northern Lights in all their glory. My employers benefit since I am much happier to actually get the work done and there are lower amounts of dead time. I also don’t show up to the office tired from a commute. It’s a win-win for all parties.
I probably don’t have to talk to you about how awesome remote work is. However, as the world embraces remote work, there are a few sectors I see which will benefit immensely from it. If you want to take advantage of this transition into remote work, looking into one of these domains might be the move for you.
Cyber Security
Remote work → More Time Online + Plus More Data Being transmitted online → Greater Need to be careful. Since Employees will be working from home, it will be important to build systems that are both technically safe (hard to breach) and safe from human misuse (something that a lot of people miss).
You might be wondering why I include the latter. However, companies lost a lot of money to this. Google and Facebook, for example, lost over 100 MILLION USD to one man. Read that sentence again. 1 Man took over 100 Million Dollars from 2 companies where some of the smartest people work.
The need for people who can continue to build more secure systems will be paramount. With remote work, a LOT more data will be transmitted online. Security Experts will become more crucial.
The obvious thing would be to work on your Engineering in this domain. Learn about Networks, Malware, Spam Detection, and Building Systems with better checks. However, to stand out, you should go a step beyond.
The problem with a lot of csec devs is that they don’t spend enough time understanding economics and scamming techniques. The FB example above is perfect. The article talks about how industry-standard software is still using old-school practices (like 3-way Matching). A software dev with some knowledge of newer financial procedures can create new-gen software, or integrate some of the checks directly into the protocols of companies.
As a developer, it is important for you to understand the domain in which you will be creating your solutions. It’s not enough for you to create a system that holds up in technical ways.
Data Compression and Transmission
Data can get very expensive to store. Now remote work is great because you can record meetings etc. so that people can refer to them later. Unfortunately, your storage costs can get out of hand. This is why so much money is put into coming up with compression and efficient data transmission procedures.
Think about all the TBs of data being shared every day. If you can make transmission 0.001% more efficient, you will save a lot of people a lot of money. And they will like you a lot, so they will give you some of that money. And you will be happy, and remember me, your best friend. Everybody wins.
This will also help you if you want to get into the booming Leisure market.
Content Creation
No, not what I do. You can try, but that’s a new can of worms. As the world goes remote, more people will be interacting with content as opposed to people. You can take advantage of this in two ways- Learn to create interactive content OR Create the platforms that make interactive content possible.
The former involves working on your communication, and learning how to use certain tools. As remote work and differing time zones become more common, people will reduce the presenting designs and technical specs in meetings and just start forwarding the docs for these things. This is already being done, but the process is going to explode.
Current design docs have a lot of problems. They aren’t interactive and can be very hard to get through. We will see more interactive design docs, that will fully utilize a lot of the modern technologies. People aren’t talking about this yet, but AR/VR will be a game-changer for certain kinds of industries. Visual media-heavy ones like Photography, Metallurgy, and Construction are already using them extensively. These industries will pay a lot of money for people with know-how. Even Software Companies will appreciate you if you can make the technical spec docs easier to understand and get through. You have no idea, how many job offers I’ve got as a Technical Writer/Videomaker. Learning how to create such content to present your work will pay off big.
For my Web/App/Game Dev peeps, you guys will do the latter. To create these platforms/tools look into 3D Geometry. Understanding how shapes and 3D Vectors/Geometry work is crucial to this endeavor. The field is still in a very early phase, so having some mathematical foundation will set you apart and help you develop the right technologies. It is the wild wild west in terms of tools, so establishing yourself early will be a huge boost to your career.
I want to close on something important. It is important to experiment and test out different technologies and work. There is also nothing wrong with trying out new streams because there is a lot of money in that field (I encourage it, you never know when you might strike gold). However, don’t make the mistake of playing hopscotch with technologies and sectors. For the long-term growth of your career, it is important to find a skill and seek to master it.
Not seeking mastery in a skill will leave you in a perpetual state of doing boot camps and courses for the next big thing, and will make you vulnerable to the mass layoffs that are becoming more common. The steady accumulation of expertise over the years is going to be much safer than a few intensive “Masterclasses”. Check out this message I got from a reader-
Mastery will never become redundant. It will also allow you to transition into different roles and challenges in a relatively steady manner. Keep that in mind. Are there any sectors in software engineering that I missed, that will benefit from remote work? Drop them in the comments below.
If you want to learn how you can get recruiters to reach out to you, check out my article How to build your LinkedIn Profile to get lots of Job Offers. In it, I give you a detailed step-by-step breakdown of how to create your Linkedin profile to get recruiters to reach out to you.
For all the mentioned skills, a base in Software Engineering is crucial. It will help you conceptualize, build, and optimize your solutions. My daily newsletter, Coding Interviews Made Simple covers topics in Algorithm Design, Math, Recent Events in Tech, Software Engineering, and much more to make you a better developer. I am currently running a 20% discount for a WHOLE YEAR, so make sure to check it out.
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