I'd hate to go back to working in an office. I live in the countryside now and it's great.
However I realise it may not always be so easy. So:
- I'm self employed. Foreign companies aren't going to set up a branch office just to employ me. Purchasing my services however is easy.
- I've niched down to a business vertical, and I'm starting to niche down more technically as well. No more "I'm a full stack developer with a track record of delivering results across multiple industries".
- I write software for the agricultural sector. It's not an industry that tends to cluster as much in big cities. A lot of companies are based in regional areas, and it's not realistic for them to source all the talent they need locally. People are open to networking online.
It's not a raging success yet but it's a lot better than working in an office everyday in the city was for me.
Being self employed makes it easier for companies abroad to hire you - international invoicing is orders of magnitude easier than international hiring and usually comes from a different budget post.
Choosing a business vertical and running with it is the secret sauce to getting ahead. I’ve focused on insurance and pensions and being able to speak the same lingo as the business people on day one has been a game changer.
Could you go into more detail? Enterprise software, embedded software, industrial PLC's? Agro is one industry that I would expect quite difficult to work remotely since there is usually some form of physical system that you deploy on a farm. I would be really curious to know more about your gig?
There's a lot of IOT systems that capture data from farms & food. Fruit ripeness, water levels, livestock location, livestock weights. So plenty of frontend work required.
However I realise it may not always be so easy. So:
- I'm self employed. Foreign companies aren't going to set up a branch office just to employ me. Purchasing my services however is easy.
- I've niched down to a business vertical, and I'm starting to niche down more technically as well. No more "I'm a full stack developer with a track record of delivering results across multiple industries".
- I write software for the agricultural sector. It's not an industry that tends to cluster as much in big cities. A lot of companies are based in regional areas, and it's not realistic for them to source all the talent they need locally. People are open to networking online.
It's not a raging success yet but it's a lot better than working in an office everyday in the city was for me.
YMMV if you live in a US tech hub.