It is worth mentioning, that the Attorney General is the only person able to keep the Minister of Justice in check, and vice versa. It just so happens that this time they are the same person.
Here are the top 10 problems I faced after starting working remotely full time and moving to another country (both the employer and myself are in the EU) and the findings or solutions I considered or applied.
1. Career progression, especially in management is limited. You will be much better off career-wise in a company that supports and lives remote work than in the one which simply allows it.
2. Some people say it's difficult to negotiate salary increases, which is true, but not unlike negotiating anything else without personal presence. So make sure you negotiate during your regular on-site visits.
3. On-site visits - those really important for many reasons. You may like where you are, but even if the company is fully remote you still need to meet all the folks every now and then. That's in our human nature. However, this is a problem - you need to figure out of often, where to stay etc. Organising getaways with your team requires extra effort from your manager.
4. Meeting participation is difficult. You must overcome the rudeness of interruption. With the network lag you will most likely have to interrupt other people all the time in order to be heard. Also, since you can't just draw on the board easily, so make sure you're well equipped with tools to run your meetings. Take notes, close all irrelevant windows and participate fully.
5. Most managers want an easy life. If you are remote and they aren't, they need to put extra effort to support you. This is even worse if you are the manager or team leader yourself. That means they would often press for reduction in the remote work, so it's easier for them. It would require you to not only prove your worth, as in any workplace you want to grow, but also prove the remote work's worth. Unless there are many more people and the company sees the benefits and opportunities of remote work, it will drain you fast.
6. When it comes to payment that is usually quite easy, especially in the EU - a simple bank transfer. The taxing can be more tricky, but there are four most common options here: A) contracting agreement / self-employment / invoicing, B) having your employer to set up an office in your country, C) performing the duties of the employer of their behalf by yourself in your country, D) being sent for delegation, and regularly renewing it. If you're in EU that may give you tax benefits, if you live in a lower tax country than your employer is, and there is a decent agreement between those two countries to avoid double taxation. If you're an USA citizen though you'll probably not going to like having to pay double taxes. Please seek advice on that one.
7. Health care / insurance - in the EU you're usually better off not taking the company-offered insurance, but relying on the public health-care entirely and just paying for private visits out of pocket. If you like extra treatment you can get a private insurance, but it pays off in very few countries and situations. For the average person the health care in the EU is not that expensive, outside of what you're paying in taxes.
8. Not moving much. This is a big one, especially if you're working remotely from your home. You need to exercise a lot and go out as much as you can.
9. Educating people around you that remote work is still work. Your partner, children, parents, friends. Many of them will not understand at first that even though you're at home, you're actually working. On top of that, if you're taking a break, that is not to help out with some chores or other gardening tasks. It's the time you take to clear your brain, relax and get back to work afterwards - as if you were in the office. You wouldn't be asked to take the trash out while you went for a break out the office, would you? So, just find an agreement with your cohabitants - they will easily understand that once you explain it.
10. Isolation. The lack of personal contact with your peers can really hit you. Make sure you meet with your local friends regularly. Ideally the people you can laugh with and those you can talk to more seriously. Also, try to inject random topics when calling your workmates, maybe when the meeting is over early. They will appreciate that, and so will you.
There is a lot more to sort out, but the possible benefits of the remote work are fantastic. Enjoy!
Fantastic game studio working on Star Trek: Fleet Command mobile game. Previously released Kings of the Realm cross platform game as well.
If you want to enter the game development world working on backends for MMOs this may be your chance :) Both on-site (Dublin, Ireland) and remote options are available. From mid to lead roles.
It's optional for all team members after around a year in, when they are familiar enough with the systems. The reason it is optional is that not everbody is able to do it - due to family, health etc.
There is additional pay for on call, based on numbers of days served. It does not matter if there were alerts or not - this is especially important: we don't get paid for work but availability. This incentives to harden systems and adjust monitoring well.
We also rotate regularly.
Each alert is followed up with incident report. If there was a lot of work, manager would give extra time off.
I've been sitting at both sides of the table via TopTal. First I went through their interview process, which I didn't like and the experience afterwards wasn't great. More recently I helped to hire people via Toptal to work on a project I consulted for, and that was good. Really great developers, and what I can see they have a lot of flexibility.
However, have you considered remote work instead? There is more companies open to that setting and you can also have a good time flexibility. I work for game studio in Dublin - we offer fully remote setup, "unlimited" holidays and flexible working hours. Your skillset matches exactly what we need. But even if you aren't interested in making games for a living (python & java fullstack development) there is tons companies like us. I know because we have to compete with them for the best talent.
Thanks for sharing your Toptal experience. I was looking at Toptal as well. I don't feel that I am bringing value to the marketplace of Toptal, maybe I am wrong.
As a Software Developer I am very focused on software quality, good coding practices, maintainability; basically I always try create the best and most maintainable solution, over the fastest hacked mess but done (I know it's black and white and reality is not always that easy).
I don't see many businesses looking for that.
Yes I am considering remote work, I see a only few interesting job positions for remote work.
Sorry, but if it is not asked too much, can you name a few portals (or the main one) on which you compete with "tons of other companies", I am looking on https://remoteok.io/ .
If you like you can link your company website, I like to have a look.
The problem is that not many companies mention REMOTE even if they would consider it... This is the case for your company as well - not a single word mentioning that you're open to remote candidates.
When you were hiring developers was Toptal the only platform that you used to hire developers? Did you choose it because you were on it previously? Did you try any others?
