
Ask HN: Sources of remote dev work with minimal human interaction? - the_grind_sucks
Hi everyone,<p>I am in a situation that I feel some of you can relate to, so I wanted to pose this question in hopes of generating some resources for myself and similar people. I&#x27;ve had a few developer jobs so far in life and on balance, I haven&#x27;t really liked any of them. When I ask myself why, the reason is always the corporate bullshit that I must endure. I find the actual job of being a developer quite fun and enjoy solving problems and building things with code. I also have no troubles with the interpersonal side of developing, as far as working in a team and being a decent coworker is concerned. What I cannot stand is the corporate environment and it&#x27;s associated crap and rituals. I don&#x27;t like being &quot;obligated&quot; to put in extra time with my colleagues on team events and retreats. I don&#x27;t like daily stand-ups that are about talking about what you&#x27;re up to so you look busy, rather than sharing (both ways) useful info with the team. I don&#x27;t like a lot of the personalities I have to interact with at work (IMHO, certain departments&#x2F;roles attract people who I feel are inherently dishonest or manipulative. These people creep me out and I wish I didn&#x27;t have to be so close to them every workday). Many who read this will be able to add a lot to this list of complaints, as I can too.<p>What I want is a remote dev job where I close tickets. That is, one where the gig really is cash for functioning solution that meets spec, code standards, and QA. My ideal world would be where I log in somewhere, pull a respectably specified ticket with clear acceptance criteria, and then pull request myself to at least a modest quality of life. Does anyone know of any remote work where the hassle is just engineering related? I will specify that I am not interested in simply transitioning the interpersonal bullshit to a Skype-based model, so team-intensive remote work won&#x27;t suit this requirement. My greatest thanks for any insightful thoughts or resources you guys can provide.
======
notbob
I recommend learning how to put up with these things. Just stop caring about
them. Treat it like laundry or dishes. You don't have to enjoy it, and there's
no reason to get emotional over it. Just do it and move on. In particular, the
job that you describe doesn't exist and where it does is exactly the type of
development that's ripe for outsourcing.

If you can't find a way to play the game without emotional investment, then
perhaps look for jobs in lower-paying sectors where you're less likely to
encounter ambition and bullshit.

For example, have you looked for development jobs in the nonprofit and/or
public sectors?

Nonprofit/gov't work _in general_ can attract bad personalities, but IME the
software development shops within those organizations tend to have very few of
the types of people you want to avoid. The pay/prestige is low enough relative
to other development work that you mostly get "true believers".

Universities (software development departments, not research groups!) are also
typically nice laid back work environments.

Medium-sized non-software companies with small development groups (5-10
people) can also be good.

However, do realize that in all of those situations you are trading standups
and TPS reports for daily interactions with non-technical end users, which
come with their own set of frustrations.

~~~
neilv
One thing to be aware of with the nonprofit/government work you mention is
that it's the _other_ Hotel California, from the Silicon Valley one -- you can
check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. That's overstating it,
but even developers with nonprofit/gov't accomplishments that should be
impressive to dotcoms will have trouble moving back.

If you consider moving back to industry after some time in nonprofit/gov't, I
think many in dotcoms will tend to assume you're not good, even if you've been
doing similar or harder work as you would've in a dotcom. Because who would've
turned down dotcom kind of money (fair enough), and the chance to have impact
(questionable logic, to people saving lives and liberty), and the chance to
work with the best people who are them (now it's getting circular). Most of
their data points are from people who chose dotcoms, they see lots of
gov't/nonprofit-related dumbness in the news, and we all have prejudices about
things we don't know.

If you're not coming from another dotcom, besides your skill/aptitude being
suspect, you're also probably being judged with suspicion in some exclusionary
(and questionable) idea of "culture fit". It's not just women and some other
underrepresented socioeconomic groups who can be marginalized on this basis.

BTW, if OP thinks they have an unusually low tolerance for BS, I'd like to
suggest two possibilities: (1) maybe they really do have an exceptionally low
tolerance, and pursuing what they are asking for is a top priority; or (2)
maybe they're reacting to some bad experience that's not representative of
industry as a whole, and they'd find a more representative culture to be
tolerable, and a better environment in which to learn to work within
reasonable levels of BS.

(Regarding #2 above, I'm sympathetic. I quit a prestigious job at a place I
really wanted to be, which led to an aversion to one particular bit of "BS"
that I'd previously tolerated, but which foreshadowed untenable problems. I've
turned this particular thing into a cultural litmus test for the prospective
employer, which has caused me to turn down a lot of opportunities that
probably would've been fine, after the initial BS. OP's situation might be
similar: not wanting to get burned again, and being very cautious, to the
point that they're ruling out too many opportunities.)

~~~
tudelo
Actually I don't entirely agree. There are many actually interesting
government projects that may not pay great but will certainly impress
interviewers who just implement button x on app y. It's not as hard to move
out as you would think.

------
noonespecial
...pull a _respectably specified_ ticket with _clear acceptance_ criteria.

    
    
      1) respectably specified
      2) clear acceptance criteria
    

That's where 95% of the work is. That's what generates all of the
interpersonal crap. I hate to be quite so blunt, but you're asking something
like "why can't I just do the easy part?"

You can but you'll likely collect proportional pay. (ie the below mentioned
$5/hour overseas outsourcing).

On a completely unrelated note, most outsourcing projects fail because they
hope they can magically skip 1 & 2 and the outsourced labor will just genie up
a working product.

~~~
BurningFrog
_" Walking on water and developing software from a specification are easy if
both are frozen."_ \- Edward V Berard

~~~
danieltillett
This is a fantastic quote.

------
davidscolgan
Hey, I also dislike large company politics and have managed to more or less
accomplish what you've described here with freelancing.

You'll never get 100% away from interfacing with fellow humans, but I've found
that a couple of factors in the types of gigs I favor have made my life mostly
free from company life:

1\. Find gigs with small companies. And by small I mean like 1-3 people max.
My favorite are the solo founders who built a SaaS app and are quietly making
bank and need a developer to maintain it. Speaking of which, 2\. Find gigs
where you can become "the guy" (or gal) for your client. These smaller
companies often don't need a full time developer and can't even afford one
anyway. My favorite setup is 10 hours a week indefinitely where I basically do
what you described - acquire ticket, write code, make pull request. You are
the secret weapon for the client's success.

How do you get these kinds of jobs? Do interesting or impressive technical
things in public and don't be in a hurry. I've collected around 4 of these
over the last few years and now make a very good living working less than 40
hours a week. I never really have to do "the hustle" of freelancing because
these gigs are very sticky. I've never had anyone let me go, and in fact in a
few cases I tried to leave but they then offered me an even better arrangement
to stay around. Contrast this with the horrors of Upwork - freelancing doesn't
have to be like that.

I don't really know how I would ever go to a normal 40 hour a week job now.
Happy to chat with you or anyone else about this if I can help, my emails in
my profile.

------
brianwawok
If you distill your benefit to your work as

* Open ticket

* Write code for ticket

* Submit to QA / release

You basically described how many places outsource development. So you are now
competing with $5 an hour body shops overseas.

The reason I and many others hire local people, or at least people who want to
contribute is to brainstorm and solve problems together with. Just turning
specs into code is not worth paying someone 10x the overseas wage.

Now all your problems I understand. Perhaps try working at a smaller shop
somewhere? Maybe a company < 20 total people, especially one that isn't 100%
developers. Tons of little companies need a dev or two, but they don't have
any of the standup and paperwork type stuff. Just some problems to solve, and
a reasonable pace of life. Basically "boring backoff" type jobs.

~~~
tomcam
FWIW the least political job I ever had was at... Microsoft, in the dev tools
division. Seriously, less politics there than at the tiny tech company of
about 15 people where I met my wife. That was almost 25 years ago, but I’m
still amazed at how meritocratic it was.

~~~
EnderViaAnsible
My vote is for boring, unsexy industries that are always needed. Non-software
focused. Warehousing. Power companies.

Preferably an industry halfway to monopoly. Companies that don't compete every
day for survival don't worry as much about raises and have much less politics,
because people aren't always on the edge of being fired.

There are a lot of interesting problems in those industries, but they're not
flashy, so they rarely attract coattail riders, corporate cutthroats, and
empty suit salesmen.

And frankly there are very few compelling and accessible problems in software
at all in the private sector for software as such. Interesting problems you
can use software to solve, yes. Interesting software problems (that aren't
better situated at a research program at a university)? Not a whole lot.

Avoid volatile markets that suffer speculation or primarily employ low wage
workers or minimal skills workers, or both. Not because poor or uneducated
people are tough to deal with-- ime they are more pleasant than the college
educated a lot of the time-- but because it makes it very easy for companies
to lay off large sections of their work force. (Think agriculture or
construction.)

Speculation causes booms and busts. Low wage work does the same as the market
for work expands and contracts. Insecurity makes people cutthroat, and if they
can fire their main workforce and rehire identical cogs two years later, then
your job supporting those people can come and go, too. High skills labor force
makes a company think twice about letting people go, because they might be
hard to find again later. (You can fire your Fortran programmer, but good luck
finding a replacement quickly and for the same price in two years...)

As you point out, leadership at a company can change all of this. They can
foster a better culture. The problem is knowing this in the first place about
an employer, attempting to get located inside the company wherever that magic
happens, and then the insecurity of not being clear when the magic will end.
(Either because you don't know what created the magic to begin with or because
it's dependent on person exoduses that can't be predicted.)

------
drorco
I'm one of the founders of a company that fosters a network of coders and this
was one of its main ideas when we founded it - minimize the amount of
communication overhead and allow coders to focus just on coding. Practically,
you're getting assigned with Asana tasks that you tackle one after the other.
Naturally, you can't avoid communication at at all but if you want, you can
limit it to communicating pull-requests/scoping/QA etc.

Normally I wouldn't solicit people to sign up on HN, but since you asked for
sources I figured I'll take the opportunity to help fulfill your search:
[https://www.codersclan.com/](https://www.codersclan.com/), if you sign up,
mention you are the poster from HN and I'll make sure to speed the process up
for you. Do note that the hourly rates start from $30/hour and that right now
we're mostly looking for WordPress or front-end devs.

Another source you might want to look at is
[https://remote.co/](https://remote.co/) I think we even advertised there in
the past, but naturally the type of work you'll get will depend on the
contract you land.

~~~
ohyeshedid
You might want to state here that you only pay via Payoneer, and your pay
schedule is net+10. Both of these are terrible.

~~~
stephenr
Being paid in 10 days isn’t the end of the world. It’s not fantastic, but it’s
far from terrible.

But I have no idea what payoneer is. Unless it’s a weird way of saying “wire
transfer”, then yes it’s probably terrible.

~~~
ohyeshedid
It's not 10 days; Net term is a month, plus 10 days, so you get paid once a
month, 10 days into the next month.

Edit: That totally disregards that it's paid via Payoneer, so you'll also have
delays in transferring your money from Payoneer to your pocket, which could
take days more.

~~~
stephenr
Oh. My mistake. Yes that is fucked.

Edit: are you sure that’s the definition of “net 10”?

From
[https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/2017/5/7/accounting...](https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/2017/5/7/accounting-
payment-terms)

> Net terms. "Net" means that the full amount is due for payment. Thus, terms
> of "net 20" mean that full payment is due in 20 days. The term may be
> abbreviated to "n" instead of "net".

From [https://due.com/blog/10-invoicing-terms-need-
know/](https://due.com/blog/10-invoicing-terms-need-know/)

> Net 7, 10, 30, 60, 90

> These imply that the net payment is due in either 7, 10, 30, 60, or 90 days
> after the invoice date. For example, if the invoice was dated June 10 and
> you used one of the most used payment terms, Net 30, then the payment would
> be expected before July 9.

Edit2: the referenced site even says the same, presuming they handle invoices
end-of-month:

> Payouts are sent on a NET + 10 basis. It means that for every work completed
> and approved in a specific month you get paid for it on 10th of the next
> month. E.g. if for work completed and approved during September you'll get
> paid on October 10th.

So I’ll restate my original point: payment 10 days after invoice is not
terrible. It’s not fantastic but it’s not terrible.

~~~
ohyeshedid
Oh boy; I know, and I hate these terms as they can mean different things to
different people/companies.

From their faq:

"When do you send payouts?

Payouts are sent on a NET + 10 basis. It means that for every work completed
and approved in a specific month you get paid for it on 10th of the next
month. E.g. if for work completed and approved during September you'll get
paid on October 10th."

This is basically Net 30 + 10. It can get even more complicated by internal
payables cycle.

Edit: When seeing things like Net+10, always asks what the Net term is; it
could be anything + 10 days.

EditEdit: That 10 days you're referencing would be from the end of the month,
not the beginning. From the beginning of the month, you're 40 days out. With
legit corporate work, or direct to legit customers, this can work; when you're
subcontracting to seo shops like this you won't even know you're not getting
paid or have to fight for it until the next month.

~~~
stephenr
I don’t think that’s what most people would see as “net 30”. Terms are always
from the invoice date, which in their case seems to be last of the month.

------
tacon
While I have no direct experience in their system, Zerocracy[0] appears to
exactly match your requirements, modulo your salary or hourly rate. Yegor
Bugayenko, aka yegor256[1] online, is very prolific in writing and talking
about Zerocracy, among many other topics, e.g.[2] Zerocracy imposes penalties
for talking to other developers, instead of communicating solely via tickets
and other shared documents, which must limit the politics you detest.

[0][https://www.zerocracy.com/toc.html](https://www.zerocracy.com/toc.html)

[1][https://www.yegor256.com/about-me.html](https://www.yegor256.com/about-
me.html)

[2][https://www.yegor256.com/2014/04/20/how-hourly-rate-is-
calcu...](https://www.yegor256.com/2014/04/20/how-hourly-rate-is-
calculated.html)

While people may dismiss such a system for now, Yegor's prediction is that
essentially all software will be delivered this way in ten or twenty years.

~~~
ohyeshedid
"Zerocracy imposes penalties for talking to other developers, instead of
communicating solely via tickets and other shared documents, which must limit
the politics you detest."

It always makes me chuckle when someone tries to replace bureaucracy with
bureaucracy.

~~~
tacon
I had to check on the definition of bureaucracy, but I don't think this
applies. The algorithms of Zerocracy are implemented via an "AI chatbot", for
double buzzword bingo. I think bureaucracy requires humans, no? The better
developers seem to be quite happy with the system, like being good at closing
tickets or answering questions on StackOverflow.

------
iandanforth
Meta: The comments here are largely criticisms of the poster.

What norms should be established for Ask HN? On Reddit it is expected that the
premises of questions may be attacked, "me too" replies left, or jokes made.
On Stack Overflow questions that can be answered with specific information
usually are, but questions are frequently edited for clarity and to remove
editorializing.

What is the unique value of Ask HN and is this the type of question and
responses we want more of?

~~~
mikekchar
I have to admit that in a recent Ask HN I got downvoted for criticising the
poster. It might have been better to say nothing. It's hard to judge, though,
because sometimes, on balance, it's the best advice you can give. I can answer
the question you asked, or I can answer the question you should have asked ;-)

I kind of think of it like the original question being, "I'd like to jump off
of a cliff and I plan to strap pillows to myself to break my fall. What are
the best pillow for the job for under $20?"

Upon reading the question you think, "Should I answer? If I don't, maybe this
guy will jump off a cliff. If I tell them the best pillows for breaking your
fall for under $20 without mentioning that the pillows _definitely won 't
work_, that's probably the worst thing I could do. If I say, "Um... your plan
is probably not great. Pillows aren't going to save you from jumping off of a
cliff", it's pretty negative but perhaps that's what the OP needs to hear.

With this particular question, I suppose it might be easiest to ignore it.
However, I know _I 've felt exactly the same way_ at times in my career.
Honestly, even now, if someone could provide me a TODO list of technical tasks
and leave me to it, I'd be on cloud 9. It's would be especially good if they
didn't complain when I do what they asked but the business suffered because
they asked for the wrong thing.

There _are_ actually some jobs that are a bit like that, but in my experience
you _always_ get bitten in the end. The programmer is _always_ blamed, rightly
or wrongly -- for the very reasons that the OP is unhappy with corporate
culture!

I could answer: Do some freelancing and target small startup companies with
pigheaded CEOs who have no idea that they actually need a development team.
Most of those people will swear up and down that they know _exactly_ what they
want and that it will be 100%, for sure, the very thing the company needs. As
long as you have a thick skin, you can take their money, ship them their
software and when they inevitably blow a crater in the ground for themselves,
just don't return their calls. I know lots of people who make a good living
doing this.

But that's not what I think the OP asked for. They asked for a thing that
doesn't exist. If they are the type to get hyper stressed out about inter-
personal relationships, then going down this track is the _wrong direction_ to
go. So what do you do? Give them the answer to the question they asked,
knowing that it's going to lead to unhappiness, or give them the answer to the
question they should have asked?

~~~
sam_lowry_
To answer an earlier Ask HN, this is the kind of comment I save to reread in
the future by replying to it.

------
pwpwp
Well-paying jobs like this exist (I have one), but you need to be lucky to get
one. You need to find a remote-friendly/first workplace with a good manager
who knows you and trusts you, and then you need to push some more for those
additional freedoms you desire. Simply say you're not doing stand-ups anymore.
Chances are if they're already remote-friendly, then they can be nudged to
give up even more control as long as you deliver.

Good luck and don't give up, it's worth it.

~~~
sorryforthethro
To twist this slightly more positively: standups where remote or wfh people
can join in and watch silently, and instead of forcing everyone to say
something, just let people share what they want. And have a doc of notes for
people who missed it and care. Way better than traditional standups.

~~~
stephenr
The concept of a “stand up” generally doesn’t work for remote, because remote
often means “9 hours time difference”

Regardless, standups are stupid. It’s another ridiculous process invented by
managers to look like they’re doing something.

If developers need to know what others are working on because it affects them,
they’ll ask.

------
debatem1
I recently moved from a job that was onsite, had a management component, and
was nearly 100% human-oriented to one something like what you're asking about.
I'm now fully remote with few close co-workers on an essentially self-driven
project.

It's wonderful for me, but I have to caution you that it is both a career
limiting move and that you still have to do what corporate asks (and they
will). That will include status updates, presentations, design review
meetings, meetings with legal, required training, etc etc etc. I spend about 1
day out of 5 on this and still occasionally deal with "what have you done for
us lately" style concerns.

Part of this is probably due to it being early days, but you should be aware
that even in these very flexible, very remote jobs people still have to
justify your headcount. And that means you will need to spend time telling
those people how to do that.

------
gatherhunterer
Minimal interpersonal skills are a workplace requirement. I would either try
to learn those skills or see a medical professional to see if there is an
appropriate diagnosis that can help you seek out a role that accommodates
accordingly. I promise you that the other people in the office aren’t there
because they love you or each other. They are practicing social skills that
they have learned, some so well that they do so unconsciously.

------
dubcanada
Not gonna lie, you're not going to find a job that requires zero human
interaction.

I understand the "interacting" with humans can be tough. But as humans,
interacting is what we do.

I am not saying there is no jobs like that, or you won't be able to find a job
where you could do that. But there will always always always be some sort of
corporate "crap" to put up with.

~~~
Davertron
I think there's a very large scale of "corporate" crap though, and so why not
seek to be on the low end of that scale? I've worked at a bunch of companies
at this point, and I can tell you for a fact that there is a big difference in
company cultures and the amount of bullshit you have to deal with. My current
company, for example, is around 20k employees, and the bullshit runneth over.
The last company I worked for never got above 40 people, and while there was
still obviously some stuff that wasn't perfect, there was almost zero bullshit
to deal with.

Just as an example, at that job I still interacted with people quite a bit,
but almost non of it was mandated; people worked together to get shit done,
and were trusted that they could reach out when they needed help etc. At my
current company, it's all lowest-common-denominator; everyone has to use the
same processes because some people will just sit around and do nothing if you
don't make them tell everyone what they're doing all the time.

Anyway, to the op, I would say that you probably won't find something with
close to zero interaction, but I do think you can absolutely find places where
the vast majority of the interaction is fruitful.

------
Davertron
I've had subcontracting roles like this in the past. Still not zero
interaction, but if you build a network of strong people and you're known for
getting shit done, what I've found is other developers that know and trust you
are more than happy to subcontract work out to you, and that tends to be very
low-overhead from an interaction perspective. The last time I did this, I had
zero contact with the actual customer (which can be a downside to be honest
sometimes); the dev with the contract and I would just sync up so I knew what
I was supposed to be doing and I would just go off on my own and get it done,
then we'd sync up for the next thing, rinse and repeat. In my experience, as
long as you get along really well with the other dev(s), this is pretty close
to what it sounds like you're looking for. But this does require building up a
network of people who are willing to subcontract you out work, which isn't
always easy.

------
znpy
What you probably want is to start your own company in the form of “solo
founder”. No boss, no colleagues, just “the problem”.

~~~
mgkimsal
"the problem" being getting people to pay you for something of value, right?

i wouldn't rule out "start your own company" but there needs to be some more
clarity and purpose behind it beyond "i hate putting up with BS from other
people in corporate jobs". moving _towards_ something defined will be more
productive than just moving _away_ from something.

~~~
davidjnelson
that's an important mindset shift from 'how can I avoid this' to 'wow there
are so many cool opportunities in the world'.

------
sudhakarrayav
AFAIK building software is a collaborative event. What I mean by that is, most
of the time, we learn what works better as we get into the process of building
it. So, the ideal world you are expecting is not practical. Even if some work
can be specified to that level of clarity and details, it is better to build a
tool that takes in this structured spec and build the feature.

But, I hear your concern about working in a setup which feels ineffective. My
suggestion would be to pick teams that are small (2 - 3 devs) with a well
defined goal. Keep your interactions effective and short with this small
group.

Standups and iteration planning meetings have value. Unfortunately many follow
it as just rituals instead of seeing the real reason behind doing them and the
value it provides. You don't need to call them as standup or IPM as long as
what they are achieving are met in your project. That is the whole point of
being agile.

------
Veen
Have you considered becoming an independent developer and creating a small but
sustainable product. Examples like Pinboard or perhaps Overcast and similar
one-man businesses come to mind.

~~~
eropple
The OP reads misanthropic to me, and that's a large stumbling block to what
you suggest. Building good products generally requires _quite a bit_ of
talking to people. And the (personally, financially) valuable ones very often
plug into all that "corporate bullshit", so understanding it--and
understanding why it exists past the _prima facie_ cynical explanation--is
often important, too.

~~~
return1
I have to disagree. You don't have to be a misanthrope to be fed up with the
wasted time in a company environment. Making your own product is a lot of fun
and requires interaction with _your users_ which is an entirely different, and
motivating thing. Having done that for 10 years, i can not justify the time
wasted doing futile things or meetings in a typical company environment.

------
obviuosly
I do not get why cooperations make it so hard for people who simply want to do
their job with minimal bullshit. You would think the free market gets rid of
such inefficiency, but evidently the free market is not efficient enough for
that.

Why is it not efficient enough?

Perhaps it has something to do with propserity. Prosperity allows bullshit to
grow without bounds because bullshitters cannot experience complete
distruction if they can easily feast on our prosperous wealth, so they can
easily maintain their illusions and fakery.

~~~
bradleyjg
I see two possibilities:

1) You and the OP have discovered a trillion dollar bill on the sidewalk just
waiting to be picked up.

2) There's value in what the two of you consider "bullshit".

~~~
obviuosly
It's both.

Of course there is value in such bullshit. It rewards the status drive of
those who can play the game. Those who don't, get only negative value out of
it. Overall, productivity probably suffers. But those in charge do not care
because bullshit games allowed them to get where they are and stay there.

~~~
bradleyjg
I meant value to the shareholder. If there is none, then that trillion dollars
is just waiting for you to grab it.

------
DoreenMichele
I'm not a coder. I am a remote worker. I basically have the thing you want as
a writer.

I wish someone would create the service you are asking for. I don't think it
exists at this point in time.

However, I share this list of remote work platforms pretty often:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JfNAbUX_lN9K3MCNHO15...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JfNAbUX_lN9K3MCNHO15GJtJ5qpk7H9Cl3xTBwv2FR8/htmlview)

Best of luck.

------
alexpetralia
With my current colleagues, we actually started with more frequent Zoom calls
and standups, but as we built trust, we got rid of these. (Sometimes however I
think it's still necessary, even if we don't rationally understand why, just
to see someone else's face periodically).

Now we just communicate over Slack, close tickets in Asana and document
everything in Nuclino. Generally, if we're feeling anything ("Hmm this process
seems inefficient or useless"), we simply express it, and change it. If that
meant more bureaucracy, we'd do it. If it meant less, we'd do it too.

The most important thing is to communicate how you feel and why. I feel
encouraging this culture really comes down to good organizational management
and good product management (especially when it comes to feature
requirements), not any kind of engineering process.

I definitely appreciate this perspective and plan to keep it in the back of my
mind - this is probably what some developers are thinking even if they don't
say it!

So if I keep this handy, people will say: "Oh, it's already been said, and
that's okay! Now what? We can figure this out."

------
jimrhods23
"What I want is a remote dev job where I close tickets. That is, one where the
gig really is cash for functioning solution that meets spec, code standards,
and QA. My ideal world would be where I log in somewhere, pull a respectably
specified ticket with clear acceptance criteria, and then pull request myself
to at least a modest quality of life. Does anyone know of any remote work
where the hassle is just engineering related? I will specify that I am not
interested in simply transitioning the interpersonal bullshit to a Skype-based
model, so team-intensive remote work won't suit this requirement. My greatest
thanks for any insightful thoughts or resources you guys can provide."

I have been contracting for the last 10 years and I have a contract like this
now. It's great, I've been completing tons of work for the company, but it's
not the norm.

I report directly to the CTO of the company and talk to him almost daily. I
have no daily standups and almost no meetings. Everything is as needed. IE: If
we need to meet with someone in the company. we schedule a short meeting.
Everything else is through our main ticketing system.

"pull a respectably specified ticket with clear acceptance criteria, and then
pull request myself to at least a modest quality of life"

If you want a better quality of life, choose companies that don't rely on
software as their main source of income and have been in business at least 5
years. I usually only choose companies that utilize software, but the main
product is not the software itself.

My motive is that I have side businesses that I also run during the day.

Consulting companies are probably the worst in terms of work/life balance. I
worked for a consulting company that had hundreds of clients and multiple
projects all going on at the same time. The pressure was crazy.

They originally hired me to get a project done in 3 months (down from the
original estimate of 1 year). When I started working on it, they told me I had
7 weeks and pushed me every day until it was done. Luckily, I was able to
figure out some better ways of completing the required tasks and got it done
in time.

As far as pull a "respectably specified ticket" goes, this might be difficult.
Most of the time, people don't know exactly what they want and part of your
job (unless it's a very large company with a layer in between you) is to
decode someone's request and translate it to software. It will almost never be
as easy as seeing a ticket with perfect requirements.

But it really does sound like you should be contracting. You won't need to be
part of any gatherings or useless meetings, because a company is paying you
hourly.

~~~
burger_moon
"If you want a better quality of life, choose companies that don't rely on
software as their main source of income and have been in business at least 5
years. I usually only choose companies that utilize software, but the main
product is not the software itself.

My motive is that I have side businesses that I also run during the day."

This post really resonates with me.

People on here always tout the idea that you don't want to work for a company
where software isn't the main product because then you're in a 'cost center'
so it drove me into a job at a faang company. Now that' I've been at one for a
few years I see that it's just full of people chasing clout so they'll work
themselves into the ground.

Trying to work on side projects is futile when you're expected to work lots of
unpaid overtime so if you have any ambitions outside of work you won't fit in
well. I wish I had known this earlier on.

~~~
jimrhods23
Remote work is also a good option if you want to work on a side business/other
project. At minimum, you save your commute time, which can be used for so many
other things.

"expected to work lots of unpaid overtime"

A great thing about contracting is that you are paid for every hour you work.
It has more risks (less stability than a full-time job), but it definitely can
give you a better life balance, if you want it.

Companies are also less likely to give you overtime if they need to pay for
it. Most of the time, I have to get overtime approved.

It really depends on your goals. Working for FAANG is good for some
developers, because they want the prestige, you can make really good money,
and you get to work on some really cool software. I don't care about any of
that. I just want to make a living while I'm working on my next business.

The business is my goal.

------
RickJWagner
I have a job that's almost like you describe.

I'm a software support engineer. (A job some find undesirable, so it keeps the
field open and provides a decent pay scale.) I don't get paid 'by the piece',
but I do work remote and don't have to put up with much office-nonsense. I
really like the job. Maybe you can find one like it.

About 'piece work', I think that'd be a hard game to play. There are lots of
talented programmers all over the world, and some of them live in low cost
areas to live. (Very low cost.) I'd hate to compete with those kind of folks
for a paycheck, even when I win I wouldn't win much.

Good luck to you!

------
sigi45
Don't act like you want to act and be proactive.

People will use you as you act. If you are someone who is always quite, never
has time for team events, never interact much but works on tickets in good
quality, your team lead or manager will learn to use this for them.

I like to have a team with everyone engaged but if i have someone on my team i
can give a ticket and they just do it in good quality or don't mind if i tell
them how they have to rework it, great.

Make sure you are not in a start up. There is stress and direct communication
needed. Look for something less edgy, less modern. Something which works but
is not that interesting and good defined.

------
chad_strategic
I think the answer you are looking for is algorithmic trader.

Work only for the whims of the Mr. Market. When your making money, the only
people you have to deal with is the people you pay.

I would say bitcoin trader, but well that didn't turn out so well.

~~~
akimball
Bitcoin continues to be one of the most lucrative trading opportunities, but
automated trading has become highly competitive in the past 4 years. Much
higher levels of knowledge and abstraction are now required in order to get
returns which were formerly almost accidentally possible.

~~~
chad_strategic
Not sure if my sarcasm was properly illustrated.

------
droptablemain
You and I generally feel the same way here. I freelance remotely with very
minimal human interaction. Often I will go weeks without interfacing with a
human.

As far as sources for that type of work, you have to treat it like a business.
Get clients and keep clients that need ongoing and long-term work. Between
that and referrals that just come in naturally, I essentially never have to
source work. I always have more than I need.

It also helps to have strong call skills. I have gotten quite good at
communicating via phone or similar whilst remaining a lifeless bag of meat in
IRL social situations.

------
stephenr
In my experience you’re describing remote “consultant” work.

I haven’t worked in an office for over a decade, I generally work with smaller
companies who aren’t obsessed with “doing agile” or scrumping or koombaya
boards.

My current major client uses slack and we probably chat about either bugs or
new features on 3 days out of a given week, but mostly it’s just working on
tickets.

This doesn’t necessarily work well for all roles or clients but good clients
generally just want the result.

What technologies do you usually work with? Some tend to have more corporate
use and thus may be harder to find less corporate-y clients.

------
csomar
I did that work for a while. Basically, they were outsourcing to me because
they can't fill their local position. I did charge higher than the local rate
though (London). But you'll need to go through the client acquisition first
and there will be emails, payments, etc... You know: freelance bullshit.

There are ways to avoid corporate bullshit:

\- Start your own product. But you might face some government bullshit.

\- Trading. Probably the best if you want to avoid any human interaction.
While you are at it, move to a tax-friendly jurisdiction and pay 0 in taxes.

------
fizx
This is almost exactly the specification of offshore workers. I pay anywhere
from $5/hr-$100/hr, depending on skillset.

I'm not sure if this gets you a modest quality of life where you live.

------
mandeepj
check this out -
[http://www.admcloud.net/en/ACDN](http://www.admcloud.net/en/ACDN)

They have a pool of tickets and developers outbid each other to win work. I
think this is what you want. Honestly, I find this type of work to be very
depressing.

Team events are there for a reason - to build team bonding and coordination.
I'll recommend you to get a coach to help you get accustomed to corporate
life. As they say - if you can't fight them, join them.

~~~
mythrwy
They should put up a ticket to install SSL on their site.

------
mooreds
In my opinion if you are looking to compete solely on output and not
relationships and understanding of the context of the problem solving (which
is what "please put it all in ticket for me" says to me), you are
commoditizing yourself. After a bit, I think you'd be competing against the
rest of the world.

I'd rather avoid competing against smart people with lower fixed expenses,
than you very much.

------
aantix
You get what you put out?

If you keep quiet, but regularly update your tickets and/or PRs with just the
facts, do people still bother you?

------
hnruss
I work in a position that is exactly as you’ve described. To get this sort of
position, I searched for small companies that have a developer position that
I’m well-qualified for.

To be fair, I started on-site and became remote when I moved away. Also, I’ve
never worked for a big company because I knew I’d hate all of the stuff that
you described.

------
dangrossman
You can work for yourself. Make and sell your own software/saas products. I
pay myself well, and have a six figure number of users/customers, but have
never spoken to any of them in person or on the phone. I do answer emails but
that could be outsourced if you really want zero human interaction.

------
trevett
In my FAANG experience, the people with deep technical expertise can simply
say "no" to most of the corporate b.s. The environment you are in now may be
too distracting a place to build that expertise however. A startup or smaller
engineering org may be a better fit.

~~~
mandeepj
> FAANG

Let's be inclusive and start using FAANGM in an honor of Microsoft

~~~
chupasaurus
Well, as for now $1T are MAGA

~~~
mandeepj
that acts like bleach for the original MAGA

------
wolco
I applied for a remote place that advertised exactly this. What is your
skillset?

I work that way on upwork, no phone/video calls or hourly roles. Limits me but
its a second income.

Topical might work this way.

------
pythonbase
This sounds like an ideal working arrangement, in contrast with the likes of
Upwork where you have to sell your soul to the client, and the marketplace.

Also interested to know if such jobs exist.

------
piinbinary
I think the issues you describe are a function of company size. If you find
one that is under 50 (or even under 20) people, there will be basically zero
corporate fluff.

------
return1
You re either looking for freelance-type work, or why don't you start your own
thing? You can look at indiehackers for some inspiration.

------
davidjnelson
Have you looked into toptal? They sound kind of like what you are looking for.
Haven't used them though, so not totally sure.

------
craftoman
Ask HN: Sources of remote dev work with minimal human interaction?

140 points

100 comments

And that's why I love this community so much...

------
atemerev
I am currently transitioning to sustaining myself as a full time
cryptocurrency trader. It is definitely not for everyone, and extremely risky
to say the least, but it fits my personality and one of the very few
possibilities of earning one’s living without any human interaction. It’s just
you and the market.

~~~
nickthemagicman
You're a full time gambler? Or have you somehow figured a way to beat the
market?

~~~
atemerev
My risk tolerance is very low, so I focus mostly on automated market making
and microstructure trading. It is more like reversing other people’s
strategies and designing my own to profit from them.

Which, by the way, is a full time job, you cannot just design some good
algorithm and sit back while it earns you money. It is not this easy. :(

~~~
acct1771
No, you're constantly rebuilding.

Like a hedge fund.

It is smart to be doing this now, as it'll only get harder as the large
financial firms get better at it over time.

------
nikhildaga
Hi, I think we can be a good fit.

I would like to receive your application here:
[https://ideatostartup.org/join](https://ideatostartup.org/join)

------
rixed
First, the practical answer: you sound like you have been unlucky enough to
work only in pretty awful corporate environments. Stand reassured: all
companies are not like that. Simple rules to vastly increase your chances of
working within better environments:

Rule #1:Avoid big companies.

Big companies seem to attract and promote more sociopaths. Or maybe they are
just more visible because of the larger population? Possible explanations
include: sociopaths are focused on their carrier path within an organisation
rather than on accomplishing something, which attitude is only possible within
a big organisation where many layers of hierarchy and processes offer shelter
from the hard realities of customer (dis)satisfaction and competition.

Rule #2: Avoid the web.

The technical culture is just too bad there. Ideally you should look for a
development job in a company that also employs other kind of engineers
(telcos, construction, industrial equipment...) The culture will be more
grounded in science (and the economy), and the objectives less vaguely
defined.

Rule #3: As a last resort, consider leaving the USA and emigrate to Europe,
where the corporate culture encourages less openly hypocrisy. Note, though,
that this "fake it until you make it" attitude that tends to make American
coworkers creepy to us Europeans has been shown to have a positive influence.

Now, I also wanted to address you depiction of the ideal engineering work as
closing well defined tickets.

You are certainly already aware that explaining to a computer how to solve a
well understood problem is a very simple task, compared to the work required
to explain to a bug tracker what a problem actually is and what its solution
should be.

The first task consists merely of translating a specification into a program,
while the other task requires to understand a complex system, what it does,
how and why, its history and to anticipate its possible futures, plan its
evolutions, etc. This is so much harder, especially because to reach this
point where you understand enough the problem that you can write the
specifications (or directly the program) you have to collect information and
ideas from many human sources and to also fight human incompetence, lazyness,
malevolence and conflicting interests. To do this efficiently you need a lot
of knowledge, not only technical but also about the industry, the internal
working of the social organisations you are part of, etc. That's being an
engineer in IT here and now, and very few jobs will match what you are looking
for.

And if you ever find one, chances are that you will then just play a role in
some managerial intrigue and nobody will actually care about what you are
doing.

------
dlphn___xyz
you have to learn office politics

------
sodosopa
With respect, are you sure you're in the right industry? You like to code
however you don't enjoy the human issues associated with the job. Every job
has those in tech and many outside of tech do too.

