I'm jealous. I have yearned for this type of work for years and I haven't been able to find it. I loathe the commute to an office. I don't want to pay the price of living in a "tech city". I'm even tired of wasting money on clothes for an office as I am a 41 year old jeans and t-shirt kind of guy. Some people just don't have the discipline of not being constantly supervised and have that "must be at the office to be productive" thought pattern. I am not a 9 to 5 person (and most companies have changed it to "you must be a 8 to 5 person"). There is just too much time and money wasted by going to someone's office if you don't need to. I was the only iOS developer at my previous employer. I barely had to collaborate with the business as much as you might think. Most of our communication was done via email, wikis and bug tracking tools. I couldn't understand why I had to be there. It was basically just an obstacle I had to overcome very damn day. I'm currently searching for new work and so many positions are downtown (Atlanta, in my case). I just won't deal with 1 hour commutes. Gridlock is just a horrible place to waste one's life.
Nice. We also work remotely, but our product is a tool to help engineers work remotely (Floobits YC13). I started this job less than two weeks ago and I am finding myself to be more productive, and overall happier working from home. I have less time and energy and money spent on commuting and more time with family and work and I love both.
Thanks! Let me know if you run into any issues or have any feedback! #floobits on freenode irc or info@floobits.com We reply right away, unless we are asleep. :)
I was in your shoes, and I know your pain. It's the awful pain of knowing that you live in a time where you could work from everywhere, and yet, YOU are the person who is still stuck in an office almost the entire daylight of your week and when you're not in the office, you're sitting in traffic. You're living a near industrial era life in a post tech world. You know in 100 years they will write in the history books about the tech generation that sat at desks in front of a screen typing 8+ hours a day with no windows. You feel you're literally watching your short life wither away while other people are sitting on the beach in Thailand with a Macbook Air under their umbrella.
Let me explain how I personally got out of this situation: I became a software consultant. For sure, it's not something you can become overnight, because you need clients, but it's a good way to get out quickly versus the ivory tower of starting your own profitable product offering. Heck, 37 signals and Fog Creek started out as consulting firms.
How do you get started as a consultant? It's easy to find articles that explain how to choose better clients and things like that, but how do you get started?
I started to give a vague answer, but I realized you asked specifically how I got started, so I'll answer that:
I took any random job that came up. First it was updating the website for my friend's art gallery getting paid $20 an hour in trade out when I was in college. Next it was helping out a friend who was doing a larger contracting project, then I did a project for someone who I randomly met at a friend's party. Before I knew it, I'd been doing little contracting projects on the side for 10 years.
That's when I decided to make the jump into full time. I didn't have the client base to do that, but I had the experience and confidence that I could present a professional front. I had business cards and invoice systems, time trackers, etc. I then did a similar thing to what rfnslyr described doing when starving: Find a product that companies need and you can build with your skills. Then it's just a matter of knocking on doors. Last year I cold called a company with a proposal on how I could augment their business. A month later they signed a $40,000 contract with me to implement stage one. Since then, they followed on with two additional contracts and now I have an open ended contract with them to work "As many hours as I have time for." The important question is to ask yourself what you can offer that will add value to a company. There are opportunities all around you for that. You just have to think a little bit outside the box. The really traditional and obvious ones are SEO type stuff and building websites, so those will in most cases have the least rewards and the most competition, but there are so many more out there.
I did the same things. Loads of reading and asking to find that "golden path" or secret to make it click. "How do I consult?"
Well, find a job somewhere, preferably a large corporation. Lots of people run their own consulting gigs on the side. Talk to them.
I found out a few people, just around my cubicles, run a consultancy on the side with a few people hired.
I started working part time for their consultancies as we're always in the office together, then once my contract at the company finished, I knew abut 5-10 people that consulted so I got a few gigs with them. Boom, now you're a consultant.
Best way is in person. The easiest gigs I ever had was when I was nearly starving and needed money. I went out, went to every business I could find that could possibly use a website with a proper backend (so I can take more time and bill more, don't want to do just frontend work). I got about 20 gigs that day, only completed a few over the course of the next year.
Two ways: talk to people you work with, or really go out there and STOP Googling and reading. There is no magic path, just do it.
OR, find an existing consultancy and either try taking out employees to lunch and talking about it, or work for a consultancy for awhile and take notes on how everything operates. How clients are landed, billed, how talent is acquired, etc.
I like the example you gave about offering websites with a back end by going door to door because it's different than what most people say when this question is asked. You made a product to sell: Website for the business; then you went out and found the client. Most people talk about showing love to your current contacts and working through your existing network by referral which just isn't feasible for everyone. Plus, doing that route, you're not really picking your clients. You're just hoping good ones fall on your lap through your limited network.
It's easier going door to door. When I was marketing a small app, I went door to door to over 200 houses. I met lawyers, coders, bankers, and cool people that invited me out for coffee just because they're curious about my ventures.
It's also better if there is a back end. Usually means they will want some specific feature that you can charge to build and cash in on maintenance costs. A proper backend takes way more time than frontend too, and people like to be in control of their data ;)
Most of the time I'm just writing a custom WYSIWYG editor for custom written blog software. Reinventing the wheel every time.
One more thing.. don't be afraid to ask pressing questions. It's not your job to take care of their insecurities. If they feel uncomfortable answering a question, it's their job to say so. I ask things like "how much did you make last year from this gig?", "how did you get started initially?", "how much did you pull in your first few months?". It's all just nature of the business, money.
I've working in consulting-type roles for a long time. The biggest problem for solo-operators (or even with a couple employees) is that most clients require you to be in their offices...
If you are a "senior-level" programmer (ie you have a bunch of experience and have shipped products) one possibility is to make contact with a SV consulting company for subcontracting to larger enterprises. Such is the dearth of talent that big, boring companies can't find anybody and end up hiring a lot of H1Bs and contractors. Going with a contracting company rather than contracting yourself directly has several advantages, like you don't have to buy your own insurance (can be very expensive) or incorporate, if you don't want to.
A caveat is that you'll almost certainly be working with Java rather than iOS, but not necessarily. Just get your name out there and talk to a few places.
I know this approach works because it's what I did. I don't even live in the US (western Canada) and it's worked out fine. I have to fly down and hang with the client once a quarter and that's about it.
Thanks for the info. I have been searching for the contract approach. I've been a Java developer since 2000. I have been an architect and lead. So, I am a senior developer. My latest job offer is also a senior position. "Architect" is not in my career path as I do not like that title. It brings about too much baggage and too little tech. So, I'll keep trying. I'd really like to move out to Fort Collins, Colorado to be with family out that way. But, they aren't a tech city and I need remote work to pull it off.
Colorado feels really under-represented on HN for some reason. On Who's Hiring I've only ever seen at most 2-3 Colorado based companies hiring. However, Fort-collins/Boulder/Denver all have a very rich tech culture if you look hard enough for them.
disclaimer: I'm a senior at Colorado State and have no intention of leaving Colorado.
Apparently Portland Oregon lead the way on this - by focusing in the early 90's on new zoning, bicycle pathways and greener parks, they became a nicer place to live, so people who could move (young,professional) choose to move there - and young professional people attract companies who want to hire them (not it turns out so much the other way round)
this seemed to work so well for Portland it also arose in other nice places to live and work - Denver apparently being a winner in that respect internationally too.
I work in Fort Collins as a technical lead; I've never had trouble finding work here. That being said, there are many more opportunities in Boulder, Longmont and Denver. I've turned away lots of opportunities in order to stay in FC; many of my tech friends have moved further south.
My team is 100% remote working, some of us get to meet up during the year but not everyone has met in person yet. A couple of the team would do better if we had a group office but it's also good experience for us to figure out how to solve these kinds of problems as it's not an option for us to hire an office for just one person in every city, and the kind of work we do doesn't translate to co-working spaces.
We make it work through solid communication, and I'm sure like us there are many opportunities for you to get a great remote position. Would the HN admin team consider adding a 3rd Who's Hiring entry, dedicated to remote positions?
I've been working remotely for most of the last 20 years. It has its tradeoffs (nobody says, "What a pretty new sweater!") but I would not consider anything else. (How _do_ people get work done without a cat on their lap?)
When it comes to looking for work, telecommute is a non-negotiable item for me. I am happy to visit the office, which to me means "go onsite for one week every quarter" (as in-person time _does_ matter, just not on a day to day basis). But if someone says they require me to work onsite, it's a reason to walk away, in the same way that a lot of other people say, "No way would I relocate."
Plus, I see a refusal to permit telecommuting (for appropriate work, especially creative/innovation) as a sign of the company culture... and not in a good way. Do you really trust your employees so little that you have to have them under your watchful eye?
I work in Atlanta for a multinational company with 20,000+ employees, almost daily I connect with people from the Midwest, West coast, India, and UK. We allow remote workers, have flex time (although 8-5 is considered the "norm"). Our dress code is relaxed (I prefer jeans + polo daily). I know that we are hiring because I am meeting new hires daily (along with new contractors). I just got hired in July.
Let me know if you would like to know more I saw you were in Atlanta (we are not downtown).
The email field in your account is not public information. You have to actually put it in the 'about' section. Your email is not there as of a few seconds ago.
I took this journey from crappy commute and job to working for a boss 5000 miles away. http://www.mikadosoftware.com has a few notes, and it was partly luck and quite a lot of determination - I was out for two nearly three months and two years on the cost of that break is still hurting.
But it made a vast difference to my life - I went from a miserable commute eating three or four hours a day in a car, doing "management" work at a large company that did not get it to working in my own office twenty minutes walk from home hacking in open source code for Rice University in Texas.
It's not some over night, all is perfect now story, I have not treated myself as a proper business, I have not done the right things - but the big stuff, that's in place and I hope to stay the right side of the tax collector and produce not awful code for paying clients - it's a good road I am on. Join me. seriously, just start putting the word out and be prepared for some pain to start with.
We just launched a talent agency for startup founders who aren't interested in full-time office positions, but are willing to take on contract work that can be done part-time and remotely. We got over 400 signups in the first 5 weeks. It sounds like this could be a good fit for you. Check it out at http://getlambda.com
A large part of Mozilla works from home. And I don't know of any team in the company that have everyone in a single location. In other words, we've very distributed. Have a look at: http://careers.mozilla.org
