
Show HN: RemoteCoder.io – A jobsite for remote programmers - hiddentao
https://remotecoder.io
======
lucaspiller
I 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.

~~~
hiddentao
Very interesting points. To be honest I created this board out of similar
frustrations (applying for a "remote" job ad only to find out that it meant
within the USA only). I like your point about how job listing should work both
ways - I think that SomewhereHQ comes close to doing this.

Also, good job on getting RemoteTechJobs.eu up and running. Another reason I
built the job board (and built it quickly in 2 weeks) was to force myself to
get something done and ship it on time. It's great to see other people doing
the same.

~~~
sitkack
I think you are doing the site a dis-service by allowing postings that require
someone to be onsite.

[https://remotecoder.io/j/senior-software-deve-
inc358647](https://remotecoder.io/j/senior-software-deve-inc358647)

~~~
hiddentao
Agreed, I need to email them about that.

------
hilem
I'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.

~~~
hiddentao
That's a really good idea, thanks :) it's on our todo list now.

------
rakel_rakel
Great 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
At 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
It'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
I 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.

~~~
ajslater
I disagree. Denying that online cultures exist is just as silly as denying
that quality software cannot be written by remote people. You've just posted
to a very distinct culture.

All of my remote gigs have had very different cultures. People communicated,
friends were made, etc, etc.

------
hiddentao
Hi, 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 :)

~~~
zerr
Advice: 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
Why do you think it's bullshit?

~~~
wastedhours
Lots 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
It'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.

~~~
Iftheshoefits
> seeing someone's code is the best way to know they are good at it <

Depends on the context. I have lots of pure crap in my bitbucket and github
accounts, because I tinker and explore outside of my day job. I even have one
project that is almost complete (that is, it functions without bugs and
doesn't make me want to scratch my eyes out when I look at the UI), but
because I work on it for an hour here, an hour there, in the capacity of said
exploration, the quality of the code is...less than stellar. Yet somehow I
manage to be employed without a single gap in my resume.

That I don't have a high-code-quality complete project in these locations says
one thing and one thing only about me, with respect to being a signal to
employers: I'm not willing to devote myself 100%, heart-and-soul, to
programming at my peak for 10+ hours a day.

You're deluding yourself if you think your comment about being a bad career
decision applies outside of a small sphere (usually web-dev or mobile-dev for
startups seeking a very particular kind of employee (young, naive, willing to
work long and hard for relatively lesser pay). I have yet to see a job I'd be
otherwise qualified for or interested in list "have a github profile with
projects for us to look at" as a requirement, or even a nice-to-have.
Certainly that won't necessarily last forever, but right now it's not a bad
career decision for a great many (vast majority) to eschew public display of
their personal code projects.

Frankly, I view the insistence on public display of personal code in the same
category as I view trivia-quiz-interviewing: they're both bandwagon nonsense
things that people convince themselves are highly effective ways to measure
people.

~~~
Touche
Showing that you tinker and explore outside of your day job is attractive to
potential employers. The fact that the code isn't amazingly architected is not
a negative.

> I have yet to see a job I'd be otherwise qualified for or interested in list
> "have a github profile with projects for us to look at" as a requirement, or
> even a nice-to-have.

Every job on this job board has such a requirement.

~~~
hiddentao
Nearly every job I've applied for recently has asked for my github id - at
least for web development it seems almost mandatory.

~~~
mindcrime
_at least for web development it seems almost mandatory._

That may be true, but there's a whole world of programming jobs out there that
have nothing to do with "web development". There's all sorts of internal
corporate app stuff, embedded system/firmware, control systems / automation of
various sorts, scientific computing, simulation software, data mining /
machine learning stuff, etc., etc., etc.

------
bryanwbh
What would differentiate you against sites such as
[https://weworkremotely.com](https://weworkremotely.com) ?

~~~
schmrz
I 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
I 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.

------
petercooper
The 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.

~~~
hiddentao
Thanks, 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.

------
dreamcatcher12
I 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
I 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.

------
sarhus
A 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!

------
jhuckestein
I 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.

~~~
hiddentao
Sorry, 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
Displaying 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.

------
jpetersonmn
Needs to have some search filters. Salary, Technologies required, etc...

------
MCRed
Call 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
I 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)

------
matheusd
Tried applying. When logging in to github got an error:

{"type":"Error","msg":"Hostname/IP doesn't match certificate's altnames"}

~~~
hiddentao
Thanks, this should now be fixed.

~~~
aptwebapps
Getting this one:

    
    
        {"type":"MongoError","msg":"E11000 duplicate key error index: remotecoder.users.$email_1  dup key: { : null }"}

~~~
hiddentao
Sorry, that should also be fixed now. Thanks for all the feedback (bugs and
otherwise).

------
jk1234
I 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.

------
clockwerx
Argh, 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
Sorry 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.

------
ttty
{"type":"Error","msg":"Hostname/IP doesn't match certificate's altnames"} at
linking my git

~~~
hiddentao
Thanks, this should now be fixed.

------
Blackthorn
Ah 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.

~~~
hiddentao
Yep, I'm going to email them about that. That's not what this job board is
about.

~~~
hiddentao
Jobs which are "under review" are now shown as such on the site.

------
gkop
UX 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.

~~~
hiddentao
I thought about that - whether to use icons or text - in the end I decided
that with shorter text, at least for the initial release.

------
Bargs
Thanks for adding a filter for contract vs full time work. This is a feature I
really wish more job sites had.

~~~
hiddentao
You're welcome :) It's something I've always wanted to see too.

------
akmiller
The 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
Just 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
No 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!

------
nerdy
Some 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
Hi, what version of FF are you using? And thanks for the feedback. Yep, search
is on the todo list.

~~~
nerdy
FF 33.0

~~~
hiddentao
I tried it with FF 33.0 (on OS X) and couldn't reproduce the issue you're
seeing. However the font is a Google Font that's downloaded on-the-fly from
their server - I am now hosting the font on my server so hopefully that will
fix the issue for you.

------
TeamMCS
I'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

------
larssorenson
Great 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
Yeah, 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
Which 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
That'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.

------
wnm
great 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
Very 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
NO Search Option but still a good thing. How is it gonna be different than
37Signals' [http://weworkremotely.com](http://weworkremotely.com)

~~~
hiddentao
It'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
First 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
Thanks. 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!).

------
nshemesh
I 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
Hi, 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.

~~~
nshemesh
thanks but that's not the issue. I have that.

~~~
hiddentao
I have now added form field highlighting so now you can see which field is
causing the problem.

------
lazyant
is there a (popular?) remote job board for server sysadmin work (esp. Linux)?
anyone interested if I throw something together quickly?

~~~
mattt416
We 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.

------
rahilsondhi
I'm trying to publish my post and it keeps saying "RuntimeError: Failed to
send emails: self signed certificate"

~~~
hiddentao
Sorry, that should be fixed now.

------
cool-RR
Looks good. I'd add search functionality.

~~~
hiddentao
Thanks. 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.

------
lost_my_pwd
FYI - just got a signup email with my password included in it. Please do not
do this.

------
vram22
Do you have a business model for the site to generate revenue?

------
jister
Why do I need a Github account to apply?!

~~~
hiddentao
You 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.

