
Fast-Growing Remote Startups - warp
https://www.freedomiseverything.com/fastest-growing-remote/
======
inertiatic
My experience is that it's extremely hard to even get to the interview stage
with most well-known remote companies, I assume due to the sheer volume of
applications they get.

At the same time, the initial application form for a lot of them keeps growing
so for myself it just seems no longer worth spending the time to craft
responses to these questions for a very small response rate.

~~~
jawns
You're right. Here's how I see the remote landscape:

* Well-run 100% remote companies - Extremely high application rate, not only because the pool of candidates is much wider (people all over the country and in some cases all over the world) but also because it's a dream job for many of them. In order to deal with that extremely high application rate, the companies need to figure out a way to turn away the vast majority of them as quickly as possible. In many cases, that involves up-front hurdles, like passing tests before you even get a preliminary call with an actual person. But because there is no coordination between companies, you have to jump through the same hurdles for every single application, which makes these opportunities infeasible for a lot of people who just need a job right now. There are a few services, such as Triplebyte, that are seeking to reduce the friction by letting you apply once and qualify for multiple companies, but their support for remote positions is still in its infancy.

* Well-run companies with some remote positions - These positions tend to be those that can't be filled locally because they are too highly specialized. It is uncommon for traditional companies with mostly in-office workers to be looking for remote generalists unless they're growing so rapidly that they can't even find them in their own market. Instead, for these remote positions, you need to have a rare set of hyper-specific skills. Chances are that at any given time, a job seeker will only match those skills for a handful of companies, so it's better if you're just passively looking for new opportunities, rather than actively looking for a new job.

* Poorly run companies or those paying below-market salaries - These constitute the vast majority of remote positions I've seen advertised. They're hoping that the pool of potential candidates is large enough that at least a few will be dumb enough or desperate enough to apply.

~~~
camwoodsum
This is a damn good breakdown.

The one thing I'll add about 100% remote companies is that because they
operate with much more written collaboration than a traditional company, the
application and interview process frequently reflect that.

This is a big part of why you'll very robust application processes upfront.
They want to see if you can effectively communicate your thoughts in writing.

~~~
cosmodisk
And that is a very fair point.This morning I got to work just to find an email
from a colleague,who is in a very important position, asking to review an
email he is about to send out to a supplier. One page email was literally
bleeding with track changes in word after I reviewed it. I can't see in no
shape or form that person maintain any reasonable job in the next company he'd
join. With remote, I'd absolutely give writing tests to every single candidate
to make sure I wouldn't end up with people who can't write emails.

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k__
Pro tip: If you can't land a job at one of those "high perferformers" try
freelancing.

Freelancer are even accepted as remote workers in non-remote companies, after
all, you're just another "external" company they are working with.

The barrier to get hired on a project are lower than getting hired on a
permanent position, because the companies take less risk.

If you living somewhat frugal, the money you get from 3-6 months project work
can be enough to pay for the whole year. So you only need 1-2 "yes" on your
applications a year to get along.

~~~
Cyberdog
As someone who has been struggling while freelancing remotely for about three
years now, I'm having many of the same problems getting noticed. I've only
been able to land two long-term clients, and the one that's left is starting
to fizzle out on me. With 13 years of professional experience, I don't think
it's a lack of skill, but just for whatever reason I'll get to the interview
stage maybe once for every 50 applications or proposals I send out there, and
then almost never get anywhere past that. I can only imagine that even with my
qualifications, the sheer number of applicants these listings get (perhaps
combined with my unwillingness to work for a rate that's _too_ much below
market value) is working against me.

~~~
k__
Maybe it's because of the specific tech skills you got?

I have to admit, what I wrote was 2 years of my freelacing career. I started
blogging 2017 and now requests from clients are coming to me.

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KyleBrandt
I wonder what the criteria is for "startup"? GitHub jumped out to me as maybe
not a startup anymore.

Glitch, formally fogcreek is 20 years old... Maybe has employees about the
same age as the company :-p

~~~
itronitron
yeah, neither is Elastic which is a public $6B company

~~~
camwoodsum
Hey guys! I created the product so I can answer this one.

You're right that Elastic and Github (and Stripe and Twilio) aren't startups.
The list is really just the fastest-growing companies (not necessarily just
startups).

This is good feedback. I might clarify this in the text before the table
itself.

Even though these companies are big, they're growing fast and I thought it
would be helpful to add them.

~~~
tasuki
Elastic is marked as "Remote First? No, but heavily remote" \- I work at
Elastic, and would say Elastic is very much remote-first, though our preferred
term is "distributed":
[https://www.elastic.co/about/distributed](https://www.elastic.co/about/distributed)

Edit: Also, we're bigger than GitLab! ;)

~~~
camwoodsum
Fixing this now! Thanks for letting me know :)

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philsnow
By "fastest growing" they mean by employee headcount:

> Understanding employee growth numbers: Employee growth measures how fast the
> number of employees has grown. i.e. 100% employee growth in 1-year would
> mean the company has doubled in size in the last year. 200% employee growth
> would mean the company has tripled in size.

Revenue growth is a better metric to use for figuring out where to apply to.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
>Revenue growth is a better metric to use for figuring out where to apply to.

Perhaps revenue-growth and headcount-growth are proxies for different aspects
of the company?

For example, revenue-growth might signal how long the positions are likely to
last, and maybe something about chances of the company being acquired.

Whereas headcount-growth _may_ be a better signal regarding how much the
organizational / management structures will need to change, and what the odds
are for carving out your own role amidst the chaos.

~~~
philsnow
They're proxies, yes. Headcount is an easier number to come by because
companies (misguidedly?) think that "we quadrupled our headcount in the last
12 months!" is something to brag about, so they're more public with these
numbers than with revenue / cost numbers.

Yeah if you're okay playing game of thrones and don't particularly care that
the company you work at might not be serving a viable market, headcount is a
good metric to go by.

~~~
camwoodsum
Hey guys! Cam here (the creator of the product).

Thanks for taking the time to check out this list and for commenting about it
:).

Revenue growth and profit growth would be awesome metrics to have but those
aren't publicly available for most of the companies on the list.

I think employee growth is the best objective metric because it captures
fundraising and/or profit growth in one combined metric (because companies
that are hiring either raised money, are making money, or perhaps aren't good
at running their business).

This is really just a starter metric to compare thousands of companies to each
other but obviously if you were going to join one of these companies you would
want to do much deeper due diligence.

------
lukasm
shameless plug [https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-
job](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job)

~~~
wyclif
On almost all the remote job boards I've seen (LinkedIn, remote.io, We Work
Remotely, remote.com, etc etc), you cannot filter for junior positions. I
don't understand why. If you search specifically with the "junior" keyword,
you'll still get loads of senior-only results. Useless for someone at non-
senior level.

~~~
Etheryte
From my personal experience, junior or entry level work, which ever term you
prefer, is arguably a lot harder remote than with direct interactions. Greener
employees benefit immensely from having immediate direct feedback and from
having someone around to casually discuss problems with. Both of those are
arguably easier to achieve in a face-to-face situation. I'm a huge proponent
for remote work and I do coach some people remotely as well, but I do think
the dynamic for that type of interaction works better when you're in the same
room with someone.

Not sure if it's the actual reason why the filter is missing on such sites,
but it would be my personal guess if we had to take bets.

~~~
wyclif
While that seems like a logical explanation for the lack of junior remote
positions, it doesn't explain why it's so difficult to _search_ for the ones
that do exist. And they do...it's just painful to find them.

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sailfast
Can I ask where the rocket is going? Or is that also too presumptuous?

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jonahbenton
Trick question! Everyone is remote now.

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polishdude20
To the author: Can you please include a location column as well? The non-
remote companies don't have a location column and I'd like to skim past to see
if any of them are near me.

~~~
camwoodsum
Thanks for the request, maybe I'll add this on the next edition! Would be a
fair amount of work to go back and add that now.

If you click on the jobs link for each company then it will take you straight
to their job listings (will show you locations).

------
zkid18
Still some of the remote-only companies remained constrained to citizenship
and legal right to work in the company's HQ country.

~~~
npsomaratna
Remote company founder and lawyer-to-be here (just finished the finals -
hopefully, I've passed!)

Labor law is local. If you hire someone in a different country (say, Sri
Lanka) and things go south for whatever reason, they can sue you in the
relevant local court.

To re-emphasize: by hiring an employee in that country, you've submitted
yourself to the jurisdiction of the labor courts of that country. This
supersedes and replaces any language you might have in the employment contract
about the jurisdiction of employment.

Of course, enforcement is a problem. If a court in Sri Lanka issues your
company a summons and you ignore it, the legal consequences will be limited
(although you might be arrested if you ever visit that country). However, if
that employee is located in a major country or bloc (e.g., the European
Union), not being able to travel there ever again is a high price to pay.

In nutshell, this is why many remote companies are careful about hiring in
foreign jurisdictions. The potential legal complexity is probably not worth
it.

~~~
Etheryte
Coming from a fairly small EU country, one way I've alleviated the issue
before is the equivalent of an LLC. The company makes a long term contract to
buy services from me through my company, I pay myself through that legal
entity and handle the taxes on the local level. It means the legal interaction
is slightly different, as are the benefits and downsides, but it's a good
option when it fits both sides. I'm not sure how it compares to the situation
you've outlined above, and hopefully I won't have to ever find out, but
offering my two cents.

~~~
npsomaratna
That's definitely one way of solving it.

The con is that (as an employer), you'll have to require each individual
employee to incorporate their own LLC and contract out their services that
way. For obvious reasons, I can see more than a few employees giving this a
pass.

~~~
camwoodsum
Good related thread here!
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022563](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022563)

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javiramos
I would love to see hardware startups attempting a remote model. I think that
there is a lot that could be done remotely even in the hardware space. New
web-based tools like Onshape enable easy remote collaboration. I could imagine
services that do all assembly/prototyping/debugging so engineers don't need to
have labs in their homes.

~~~
jlokier
Chip (ASIC) design and FPGA logic design can certainly be done remote.

Electronics is sometimes done sort-of remote by shipping kit to little
consulting firms of one or a handful or people who work on it then ship it
back. For them, remote means the supplier has their own little lab/workshop
with scopes, soldering & other electronic tools, and other test & measurement
kit. Not a lot else required.

CAD for product design can be done remote, and you can get the results
manufactured elsewhere.

Finally, I know of a stealth-mode startup that is working on making custom
silicon available at a low-ish cost, similar to the way you can order PCBs
today.

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jordank
DuckDuckGo should also probably be on this list (and is hiring for a couple
director-level technical roles IIRC).

~~~
camwoodsum
They were only omitted because their two year growth is much slower than the
rest of the companies on the list. Cool company though!

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bigcohoneypot
hcaptcha.com is remote only and hiring

