
Interview with Jacob, a Site Reliability Engineer who works remotely - Jasber
https://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-jacob-a-site-reliability-engineer/
======
erwan
A few months ago I took some time off school to hack on a couple projects.
Learnt a ton and even got to sell the end result for a decent amount of money.
The overall experience is a net positive.

However, be warned that it can get lonely really fast. Even if you have your
family around. I usually never mind being alone for extended period of times
even though I do enjoy people's company. But that was something else entirely.
It is a feeling, not unlike loneliness but more subtle and that can get
crippling some of the time.

The thing is that even if you have people around, meet with your friends
regularly, see your family etc. No one "gets" what you are doing and so you
don't have anyone to celebrate with, share the burden of a task, brainstorm
and challenging your status-quo, or licking your wound after things got tough.
It's a bit harsh. After some time of independent work, I found myself longing
to go back to school, which I did and I'm happier - and stronger - now.

Digressing a bit on startups: I think this experience tipped me off (for the
future) that starting a solo company is making it harder on yourself than it
has to be.

Granted remote work is different since you are connected to a team. Still, a
word of caution feels necessary.

~~~
richardlblair
This is something that simply isn't talked about enough. We seem to live in a
culture that really glorifies remote work. However, the truth is that it's
actually really hard.

I made the switch more than a year and a half ago. When I did, I made a rule.
See a stranger every day. This addressed the crippling loneliness that comes
with the change. I lived in a really friendly neighborhood at the time, so
meeting people and having real conversations was pretty easy.

Your other points made me realize how much I have taken my network of engineer
friends who work in the industry. I'm going to do better at contributing to
those Slack channels.

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Jasber
Hello HN! RemoteHabits is a small site I launched here on HN a few months ago
to figure out the best ways to work remotely.

I noticed when I started remote work, I struggled with a lot of basic things
like habits, disciplines, routines, finding community, etc...

I wanted to learn from other people that had already done it, without
prescriptive advice like "the 10 things you MUST do with remote work"—so
landed on remote interviews.

We aim to release a new interview every Monday, and are always looking for
interesting remote workers to interview. If you're interested head over to
[https://remotehabits.com/interview-me/](https://remotehabits.com/interview-
me/)

~~~
beat
I just got back into a regular office again after two and a half years of
remote work. I really miss working from my sofa...

~~~
sigfubar
Working from a sofa is really bad for your posture and your small muscles, but
that’s beside the point.

Why did you go back into an office? Was the choice made for you?

~~~
beat
Previous contract ended, it was time to find a new job. The current job was
great for everything, except having to commute (both good offers I had were
in-office gigs). And the current job really is good, except for the
frustration of commuting. I'm at the junction of what I want to do, what I'm
good at doing, and what they need someone to do, which is more than I can say
for the two remote gigs I had.

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kylek
Appears to be hugged to death-

[https://web.archive.org/web/20181105190101/https://remotehab...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181105190101/https://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-
with-jacob-a-site-reliability-engineer/)

~~~
vl
Looks like his site is not very reliable...

It seems this remote work thing is not working out that well.

~~~
dijit
Quippy comment!

And I would agree, however the blog is not hosted by the SRE who is being
featured.

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Multicomp
Getting a 508 resource limit is hit but it sounds interesting so will be back
in a few hours to try again.

~~~
Jasber
Thanks for the notice, currently working with host to keep the site up!

~~~
fuddle
Sounds like you could do with some help from Jacob :)

