
How to work remotely as a software developer - markcampbell
http://markcampbell.me/tutorial/2013/05/23/how-to-work-remotely.html
======
joel_perl_prog
I have to laugh at this. Not because he's wrong, but because it's so
indicative of the programmer's mind. Structured, orderly, formulaic. Laying
down rules and procedures. Which is fine--nothing wrong with that, however...

Let me offer a counter-example, for what it's worth, which perhaps isn't a
whole lot. I've been working at home for almost a year, after being in the
office for six. It's very simple. In the morning, I start working, sitting on
my couch, using my laptop. Eight hours later, I sign out. Obviously eating
some time in the middle there. That's it. Nothing to it, really.

~~~
jgj
I worked from home for 4 years straight and never gave it more thought than
"work when I feel like working or when the situation requires it." Look at
that, my method fits in a tweet!

~~~
MartinCron
I'm glad that you found a tweet-sized strategy that works for you. I can say
from experience that it doesn't work for everyone.

~~~
LekkoscPiwa
as if working from Starbucks did.

------
jiggy2011
I've never tried working from a coffee shop but it seems people do.

How does that work out financially? I imagine they aren't too pleased if you
just buy a coffee and then occupy space for 5 hours.

But I don't really want to spend a fortune on excessive caffeine consumption
and $5 bagels.

~~~
DavidHogue
I did it for a few months while moving to a new city before I had my own
place. It wasn't too bad. I'd buy a basic coffee (and sometimes a cheap bagel)
and find a corner to setup in. At lunch, I'd pack up and find something to
eat, then head to a different place and buy a coffee. Sometimes I'd go to the
library instead. It wasn't any more expensive than going out with coworkers
for lunch every day...

Most businesses did't seem to mind people hanging out, makes the place look
busier I guess. I figure as long as there are other empty seats I'm not in
anyone's way. That said, if I did it again I'd probably tip a lot more than I
had been tipping.

~~~
1337biz
This is pretty much exactly the way I do it. Best places are usually the big
chains with low wage workers who do not care the slightest how many hours you
are hanging around there. I have about 4-5 shops within walking distance and
rotate them around. In half of them they already discount my drinks and greet
me like an old friend.

------
GlennCSmith
I worked alone from a home office for 20 years in my consulting practice
until, in the last year, as my company has grown, I've moved to commercial
office space for the first time. I found working at home a delight, and
enjoyed many years of jokes about my short commute (18 feet.) However, in the
end, I found the repeated advice of friends to be correct: I'm more productive
with an outside office. The extra focus more than offsets the cost of rent.
Being in commercial office space has also made it easier to meet with clients.
It's also more social as there are other people at the office that I can talk
to (or ignore) as needed.

My commute is still short (I often do it on a Segway), and our company is
still virtual (with both staff and contractors working from their own spaces
-- which we don't plan to change), but don't underestimate the value of a
separate, outside, workspace.

~~~
seivan
If you can commute on a Segway then we're not talking what other people are
experiencing with "commute". Try spending two hours a day standing on a train.

Such a time sink.

Commuting on a Segway... doesn't qualify.

~~~
mseebach
Commuting simply means travelling between your home and your workplace. The
fact that many people impose a painful commute on themselves does not make a
less painful commute any less a commute.

~~~
adaml_623
I think if you look at the origin of the word commute you will find that it
did actually emerge from the trip between suburbs and the city and hence a
walk to work in the morning is not in the 'traditional' sense.

~~~
jarek
Do you by any chance have details on that? I'm genuinely curious but with a
brief search all I could find was a reference to Latin commuto which implies a
"to change, to transform" meaning, I'm guessing applied to a change of
environment or mindset from home to work.

------
stormbrew
I went back to remote last year after not doing it for quite a while and it
turned into a bit of a disaster. I won't deny that my being out of practice
with it and not doing some of the things this guy and others talk about
contributed massively to it not working out, but I want to add one piece of
advice since I don't think this talked enough about external factors:

Be careful who you do it for. When he talks about all the communication tools
you need to use in order to be successful at it, make sure they already have a
bunch of those already set up, unless you're in a position to make sure they
set them up and use them.

In particular, the company I was working for had no company-wide chat system
at all, and clearly didn't feel they needed it since most of their employees
were in-office or only temporarily remote. Various attempts at getting one
going were hampered by lack of support from above. They'd get maybe 5 random
people using them off the bat and it'd dwindle from there. At various times
there were competing solutions active.

In the end I gave up, they gave up, and it just didn't work out and was
frustrating for everyone involved.

~~~
benji-york
Agreed. I have been working 100% remote for three years and it has been great.
However, I was very careful to choose a company that has had several 100%
remote teams for many years over a company where I would be the first. I did
not want to be both the person pushing for change and the only person that
would be out of luck if the change didn't take.

------
fein
The only thing that I have grown to despise a bit is timeboxing. Coding is a
job and a hobby to me, and sometimes setting those hard limits kills my
ability to improve code by forcing me into a rigid schedule. It turns what I
view as play into unpleasant work, and that's how burnout starts.

Sometimes its faster to come up with a solution without setting hard time
limits, and just let your mind churn passively on a concept. I've always found
a certain amount of anxiety associated with feeling like I have to complete a
task in a predetermined amount of time.

You should always have (and try to meet) deadlines, but the micromanagement of
25 mins per hour (example from the article) is just stressful.

~~~
hopeless
I think you've misunderstood the Pomodoro technique if you think it's 25mins
_per hour_. It's simply 25mins blocks of time, 5mins non-work, rinse-and-
repeat.

When I timebox, I use Vitamin-R which let's me extend the time slice to finish
a task. Probably the hardest part is breaking tasks down into 25min chunks

~~~
fein
I just used that as an example from the article. Honestly I think the idea of
timeboxing may be useful if a person can't keep on track, but I don't have an
issue with getting stuff done on time. One of the arguments from the article
was that timeboxing can prevent "perfectionism", which I think should be
prioritized and not restricted by a time constraint. Finish the important MVP
features first, then, if you have time left, make it sexy and perfect.

The thought of using a program to timebox, then asking that _program_ to
extend your time just seems bizarre to me.

No judgments on your end here, I just do what works for me, and you do what
works for you. I think that people should try to feel it out first, and if
that fails, move to a structured technique.

edit: just read my typo. mean 25mins/block perviously.

------
__chrismc
I wrote something pretty similar almost 8 years ago[0], and for the most part
I've found the advice holds up.

My current job is a lot more flexible for remote working than any other I've
had before. I don't work remotely all of the time, but at least 33%. For me, I
found a bit of self-discipline is essential, as is being able to "train"
others. I'm living with my parents at the moment and had to get my mum to
realise she couldn't just pop into the room at any moment to chat - I could be
in a call with my boss/a client, or trying to focus on a task... anything
really.

Another anecdotal observation I've had - once you've trained yourself to work
from home, you'll often find you're at your most productive there. I know I
do. Partly it's the more comfortable/relaxed setting, and partly it's guilt of
being caught "goofing off". Scott Hanselman mentions the guilt aspect in his
reaction to the Yahoo! ban on remote working[1].

If I ever lost the ability to work remotely I don't know what I'd do. Nowadays
I can't go more than a few days at the office without feeling completely
drained, demotivated and demoralised. The flip-side is working from home for
an extended period can leave you wanting to go into the office to see real
people again, not just a Office Communicator window.

[0][http://chrismcleod.me/2005/06/15/six-tips-for-working-
from-h...](http://chrismcleod.me/2005/06/15/six-tips-for-working-from-home/)
[1][http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BeingARemoteWorkerSucksLongLiv...](http://www.hanselman.com/blog/BeingARemoteWorkerSucksLongLiveTheRemoteWorker.aspx)

------
tarekmoz
I have been remote for 10 years. The secret not to get nuts is to interact
online with colleagues as often as possible.

"From the employer’s perspective, you’re risking burning yourself out if you
work 50-60 hours a week"

mmm... 50 hours is pretty common in the software industry, and being remote
makes it easier not to burn out in fact because you're not losing time in
commutes and in loud open spaces where you can't hear yourself coding.

In any case it's quite hard to define a number of hours per weeks. Building
software is done by waves. You can spend a 70h week because of a production
push that goes wrong, then a very calm week. So don't take those numbers/week
too seriously imo.

~~~
ChiperSoft
50 hours is common in _startups_, not the industry as a whole.

~~~
tsotha
50 hours a week is pretty common for companies that produce commercial
software, startup or no. Some segments (games, for example) are more.

------
simonsarris
I really enjoyed this article, and I'd like to add that software developers
working remotely could probably learn a lot from the wisdom of writers, which
has been collected in hundreds of articles on the web. (search for "advice
from best authors" or "daily routines of great writers", etc, and you're bound
to find many such articles. Some are good, most are puffery, but so it goes
with anything).

Not all of the advice applies, of course, but there's a lot of good advice on
making a good workspace and keeping yourself motivated. I've certainly noticed
after working alone that there's a lot of implicit encouragement merely from
working near other people, and this makes working at home harder than the same
work might otherwise be. That's part of the reason why many prefer to work
from cafes or worker/hacker-spaces, I think. Motivation is contagious.

(The positive flip side is that working from home removes a certain set of
distractions that might otherwise be bothersome, and gives you more fine-
grained control over the distractions you have in general).

Lots of authors use funny setups to transition from home-mode to work-mode.
Some people build extra doors in their house so they can "leave" their house
and "enter" an office that is sealed off from their house, but is otherwise
the same building. One author (Roald Dahl?) worked from a bunker.

That being said, its probably a bad idea to get hung up on the idea of perfect
working-from-home conditions. Per E. B. White:

 _"A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die
without putting a word on paper."_

Some similar important words from Tchaikovsky, which I found especially
relevant to working from home:

 _Do not believe those who try to persuade you that composition is only a cold
exercise of the intellect. The only music capable of moving and touching us is
that which flows from the depths of a composer’s soul when he is stirred by
inspiration. There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have
sometimes worked without inspiration. This guest does not always respond to
the first invitation. We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must
not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for
the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent
and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to
those who can master their disinclination._

I think motivation is under-stated in its importance when it comes to working
from home. Even if our work demands little distraction, we're social
creatures, and we've probably all had days where its hard to even open up the
editor.

It's important to stay positive and stay at it. As Joel said, "We just have to
come in every morning and somehow, launch the editor."[1]

[1] <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html>

~~~
smutticus
A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what
he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing
the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration,
or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have
never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt
reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer.
I'd much rather go fishing. for example. or go sharpen pencils, or go
swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have
produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and
when I had to sit down and say, 'Well, now it's writing time and now I'll
write.' There's no difference on paper between the two.

\--Frank Herbert

~~~
sillysaurus
Some of my best code was written after basically abandoning the problem for a
day.

Of course, the problem wasn't really abandoned -- I was thinking about how to
solve it the whole time. But I wasn't writing any code.

Forcing yourself to write isn't necessarily best.

~~~
nikster
One of the most effective things you can do is become a virtual smoker.
Smokers get an urge and step out for a cigarette every hour - or every time
they get stuck.

I don't smoke (never have) but I am trying to emulate that; the most effective
way to solve a problem is to step out and do nothing for about 5 minutes. Take
a walk. Look at the trees. Anything. Then when I come back I have either
solved the problem or decided to leave it with a hacked together patch and
work on something else; Ill probably still resolve the hack sometime later.

The opposite is to seek out some distraction, click around on facebook or HN
or something - you solve nothing but spend lots of time....

~~~
gordaco
I honestly wish I could do something like that at work. I already do it all
the time at home.

~~~
dlgeek
I do this by going to the water cooler for a refill. I use a small cup, so I
go every hour or so. I usually take the slow way there, and think about my
work on the way.

~~~
pjungwir
Before I started working from home I would sometimes get up and pace.
Fortunately we had an empty part of the building where I didn't disturb
people. I felt a little self-conscious about it at first, but being eccentric
is sort of fun. :-)

------
dageshi
I've had a bit of a revelation recently.

I absolutely need some kind of human voice in the background for at least a
few hours per day. If I don't get it then my mind just shuts down and refuses
to work on anything.

My favourite radio presenter went off the air about 8 months ago and I've not
really found anything I really liked since. But since then my ability to
actually get anything done has gone down drastically.

Anyway on a whim I re-listened to one of his old episodes for a few hours
while working, suddenly I'm tearing through my work again.

I can't explain it but it makes all the difference in the world.

~~~
miloshadzic
I never felt what you're describing but I do enjoy listening to RBMA Radio
Fireside Chats[0] while while I'm working. You may like it.

[0]: [http://www.rbmaradio.com/categories/interviews-
features/form...](http://www.rbmaradio.com/categories/interviews-
features/formats/fireside-chat)

~~~
dageshi
Thanks, I'll take a look.

I think the best way to explain it, is there's part of my mind, perhaps the
really creative bit that needs to be distracted in order to actually get
anything done. As in, if I've got a problem I need to solve and actually it's
just a case of iterating/implementing to get it done, if that bit of my mind
isn't being occupied by something I'll immediately try to "think the problem
to death" which ends in procrastination and getting nothing done.

But If I have some kind of conversation going on in the background then that
part of my brain is occupied and I seem quite capable of getting on with
things.

I wish I could describe it better but it has really made a noticeable
difference in the past few weeks.

------
notacoward
No surprises there, but good solid advice that a lot of people need to hear.
Well done.

The one thing I'd add is that working remotely means working away from
machines as well as people - test machines, internal websites, etc. Even
companies that are generally supportive of remote workers (like mine) often
scatter essential information and resources across an annoying variety of
machines that are not accessible from outside. Then they give you a VPN that's
utter crap (usually because it's overloaded) or ssh to a bastion host so you
have to tunnel/forward anywhere else. It's really worth the effort to make
sure you use every trick in the book to get networking on your home machines
and/or laptops set up in a way that actually allows you to get work done. I'm
pretty darn good at that kind of stuff, but even so it took me several
experiments over a period of weeks to get something I was happy with - and BTW
it bears no resemblance at all to what the IT group thought would suffice.
Similarly, it pays to make sure that using test machines is as friction-free
as possible, and that common tasks are automated as much as possible so that
you don't have to keep watching/tweaking things from afar. All good sense even
if you're not remote, but even more important when you are.

------
c0nfused
As some one who does this every day. This is all good advice.

I would add that it is really really important to occasionally do something
different. If you you usually work from home, go to a coffee shop, sit in a
restaurant for a few hours on a laptop.

You will be amazed how much of a difference that one day outside your office
will make you excited about the same work that the day before seemed like a
boring slog.

------
ewheeler
Good advice. I'd like to add something that has helped me in the last year or
so of working from home: have a dedicated work device (in my case a laptop +
monitor) that is exclusively for work. All other browsing, personal side
projects, etc that I do in the morning before I begin work or in the evening
is done on my "personal" devices (second laptop or ipad). This way my
workstation is in the state I left it in the next day and there aren't any
distracting tabs I have to prune before I get to work.

------
grownseed
Been working remotely for a bit more than a year now and it's definitely
largely about pace for me too. I generally start relatively early to try and
catch up with my colleagues (I'm on PST and they on GMT) then head to a coffee
shop later in the morning. Just having the walk in itself is quite an
important motivator.

As far as coffee shops go, I think the criteria for a good place to work from
are as follow:

\- how is the coffee, and do they have refills

\- how good is the wifi: speed, quality of signal, ... also whether they use
tickets. I find tickets irritating, I keep forgetting about the limit and
having remote shells disconnecting and whatnot.

\- how good are the seats: comfortable as well as good for your back

\- how good are the tables: I tend to prefer individual tables to large,
collective tables, possibly because it feels more like a desk. You also want
the height of the table to be good in relation to your seat

\- do they have a lot of power outlets throughout the place

\- what's the atmosphere like: I've been to places that turn into pubs half-
way through the afternoon, even with headphones it's really not conducive to
work, particularly when lots of people walk right around you.

\- how good is their food: if I find a good coffee shop with bad food, that's
not a deal-breaker and I just won't eat there, but good food does help

Surprisingly, I haven't found that many places ticking all the boxes. I
actually wonder why there aren't more places dedicating themselves to
providing this sort of environment (at least in SF and Vancouver).

~~~
herge
Your ideal coffee shop does not sound like a very profitable enterprise as
opposed to catering to people ordering takeout and large groups who drink
alcohol.

Have you considered co-working spaces?

~~~
grownseed
The few places I have found which more or less matched my points seemed to be
rather profitable and I know have been around for a while. I've tried co-
working spaces and didn't particularly like them. I know it's really
subjective but most of them felt pretty sterile (like so many open-space
offices). I find I'm more productive in a (good) coffee shop, but that's of
course pure personal preference.

------
VinzO
I thought this article would give tips on how to find a job where you can work
from home.

------
orangethirty
Allow me to add:

Time Zone issues: If you work in a different time zone, then adjust to it to
lessen the difference. This only works if you are from 1-4 hours away. Your
team will appreciate the effort.

Try splitting the work day into shifts. One of the issues I had was working
non-stop (as in an office job) for 8 hours. Reason was that I felt jailed into
my house. So I splitastwer my work day into two shifts. One during the
daylight, and one during the night (once my family has gone to sleep). I work
better, and faster.

Get a hobby. When you work in an office, you have little hobbies that you do
without ever noticing. Maybe its talking with another employee, or cleaning
your desk, or anything. When you are home, you feel like you are in the office
24 hours a day. So get a hobby (preferably outside the house), so you feel
like your life is not all about work.

------
sinemetu11
Working remotely was tough for me as I was working with an all non-remote
team. One thing that I took away from that was that communication is really
key in that situation. It also helps if the local team members know that as
well. Everything seems to take longer unless communication is preserved.

------
porker
This works when you're a remote worker, but what about when you're a
freelancer with multiple clients, using time tracking software? Where do you
bill the "going for a walk to clear your head", the "restroom break" or that
all-too-common one, "popping on Hacker News to see if anything exciting's
happened in the last 5 minutes"?

Joking aside, I've reached burnout by driving myself hard to get 8 billable
hours each day (plus communication, writing proposals etc on top), and apart
from lunch don't step away from the computer even when tired and
procrastinating. Because if I'm sat there working on a problem I can bill the
client, if I step away (even though I'll be more productive when I come back)
I can't.

I know it's a matter of perspective on how I define 'honest' and 'billable',
but I cannot make the mental leap needed!

~~~
rpwilcox
I suggest you alter your assumptions of how many hours you can get in a day.
If your monthly budget depends on you billing 8 hours a day, 20 days a month
you are setting yourself up to be disappointed.

I know that, by in large, I can bill a 30 hour week, assuming I have a full
time project. Between not billing for restroom or mental health breaks, random
trips to Fry's for a new hard drive, etc... those tasks can eat up your
calendar.

When I have little client work on the radar I assume I'll be able to get 20
billable hours a week in- the rest of the week is eaten up with Buisness
development, meeting with new clients, estimating projects etc.

~~~
porker
It's not my monthly budget, so much as my guilt complex that people in full-
time employment are paid to do 8 hours work each day. I don't quite 'get' how
they can be employed in that and have a clean conscience if they then
procrastinate or use it for restroom breaks - and I do know that office
workers waste a lot of time.

You're right though about the hours; 30 seems sensible to aim for, especially
being newly-married where working late every evening isn't a Good Idea (TM).

------
nraynaud
That's strange, there is nothing I hate more than routine. But everything is
this world seem made around routine and the expectation that tomorrow will be
the same as today. Did anybody have the same aversion as me and try to tackle
that?

How do you work without common everyday routine in the team etc.?

------
chuckcode
A lot of this article applies just as much to working at the office. Managing
time, distractions and communicating clearly are important no matter where you
are.

Does anyone have any links to articles that talk more about the tool for
collaborating and developing remotely? With existing tools I find it pretty
easy to get code written and coordinate remotely, but it it still seems very
difficult to actively collaborate in real time remotely. I'm a little
surprised at how hard it is still to do some white boarding with someone else
remotely or just share my desktop with them so they can see a prototype
easily. Gotomeeting and Webex are ok but cost money and are more geared to
showing presentations than anything else.

~~~
benji-york
It sounds like you're doing Windows development, so this may not help you
much, but it helps me. :)

I have a little open source project that lets two Linux users share a console
session remotely. It is much like sharing a screen or tmux session but without
all the setup. If you're interested you can check it out at termbeamer.com

I'm actively improving it and hope to release a version soon that will let the
"client" connect using an SSH client and not need Termbeamer installed at all.

~~~
technomancy
> I have a little open source project that lets two Linux users share a
> console session remotely.

Me too: <https://syme.herokuapp.com>

SSH is really handy for this kind of thing as long as you don't need a
browser.

------
gedrap
I have found opposite regarding using email.

In 6 months, I have been using IM mainly first half, email mainly the second.

While using IM, I tended to talk more about doing than rather doing. It used
to take hours to discuss things and chats which were supposed to be 15mins
long happened to be an hour or more.

When switched to email, I became way more efficient. I spent more time on
thinking about questions I'm asking, and questions to potential answers. This
lead to 1) well thought designs 2) efficient communication 3) no distracting
IM.

IM is still good for the times when you need to discuss something quickly. And
I mean really quickly.

I guess it largely depends on the stakeholders/managers communication habits.

P.S. I am working solo with my boss

------
Kaivo
Is that kind of job viable when constantly moving? I want to travel in the
next two years, and I was thinking about keeping only stuff that fits in a bag
and just going away with my wife, but doing that without a decent amount of
cash or a job you can have on the road would be hard. Is it viable to have a
remote job while travelling, in the event that I might stay for several days
in each city and do most of the travelling on weekends?

I believe that not having a place would help in keeping the blood pumping and
staying proactive, yet it would probably be hard during crunch times if the
correct workspace cannot be found. Would it be worth giving a shot?

~~~
pickettd
I have a full-time, remote, software development job that I started while
travelling. It is doable. You may find that it is hard to be motivated to do
work when you'd rather be out seeing the place that you are visiting though. I
also find that it usually takes me a week or two to get into a daily routine
in a new place. So when I plan to go places I generally make it fit into a
(long) weekend or I plan to stay for 2 weeks or more.

My working space is pretty much always just wherever I'm living at the time.
Which means that checking ahead to make sure I'll have a decent internet
connection is part of picking a place to live. I especially like when I can
find a place that has at least a separate office nook.

------
AJ007
From my discussions with other people working remotely and my own personal
experience (not quite a decade), it is the eating-exercise-social parts that
are extremely difficult.

If you already are strong in these areas and continue your current behavioral
patterns you should be fine.

If you live somewhere outside a densely populated area, or if your eating-
exercise-social patterns revolve around work you can be in for a very
difficult time. The first weeks, months, may be fun, years in you can end up
with real medical problems.

Figure those three things out, and then wrap your work patterns around that.
It is much more sustainable.

------
codegeek
"it’s not things, techniques, or even programming languages that get you rich,
it’s people (no one got rich on their own!)."

The best line in this post for me. If only we could all print this and stick
on on our walls!!

------
mumrah
This article makes no mention of spouse or kids, both of which can be major
distractions. For adults, it's very hard to not see someone as "here" even
though they are just down the hall; for kids - it's impossible. The compromise
my wife and I have is that I take time during the day to help out around the
house or run errands, but I make up the time at night.

Also, I pretty much have my headphones on all the time, which is not so
different from when I worked in a real office.

~~~
kscaldef
"Having a space to work that you can ignore people is key to getting work
done. Constantly being interrupted by people you live with or other people
will kill your productivity."

------
prathyks
Also, in some work place like mine. There are set of pseudo rules implied by
managers who ask people to quote a valid reason when you work from home. Most
of the times, There is no reason when I feel like working from home. Actually
thats also i have come across few people who kind of misuse the option of
working from home and employ it when they have some other stuff to do, in
which case they would be spending lot less time working.

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westoque
I think everyone has their own cup of tea. I have been working remotely for
about a year now in different places around the world and what I find most
appealing to is to find a co-working place where I can get stuff done and have
that busy/creative feeling all around without the constraints for work hours.

I have met some of the smartest and most amazing people in these places. It's
also nice because doesn't make you such a loner :-)

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albertzeyer
Can you recommend some companies where you can work remotely? Maybe even
abroad? (I'm living in Germany.)

I'm searching for a part-time job somewhen in the future.

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jtbrown
I'm a huge fan of coworking spaces. Depending on your budget and needs,
sometimes you can even rent a desk to call your own. It's been great for me to
work around other developers, bump into people and have interesting
discussions, and just get out of the house.

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snarfy
I've worked remotely for over a year on multiple occasions. The article sounds
right to me. You absolutely need your own desk and office, with a door that
closes. There is no substitute.

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Marwy
_> Work the amount of hours you agreed to with your employer_

I was wondering: are there any firms that don't set strict number of hours one
have to work? How many of them is like that?

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andrew_wc_brown
This whole bed is for sleep is anecdotal nonsense. My back isn't great so
switching from standing to sitting to laying is what I do throughout the day.

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motyard
I work from bed, that's the worst part of working from home.

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baconhigh
thanks for writing this - i'm about to be a 'work from home' contractor so all
the advice I can get helps!

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adamconroy
Next thing people will be telling me how to look out the window. Maybe there
is a book in that?

