Everyone these days wants a remote programming job. Pay is great, you have all the freedom to travel the world, and if you’re good at what you do, it’s a pretty low maintenance work. However, there may be some obstacles in your way to becoming a remote front-end developer. In today’s article, we will discuss those obstacles and how to go around them.
First obstacle is the experience. Many employers want you to have experience of working independently. This gives them a guarantee that you have the discipline and organization skills to be an effective developer from home. If you want to get your first remote job, you should have strong credentials and other draws, like proved experience and a robust portfolio of great projects built in web. Then you should be able to convince employers to take a chance on you.
In almost all cases, it’s best to negotiate with the company you work for. Ask them to let you work remotely. If not permanently, at least temporarily before they find your replacement. If they agree to let you work remotely (even at a slightly reduced rate), take it. If you don’t like your current responsibilities or workload, suffer few months and then get another remote job. This time, you’ll have remote experience, so it should be easier.
If this is not feasible, think of any relevant experience of working from home. For example, if you spent even a small portion of time working from home at your current developer job, mention that. Maybe even exaggerate it. If you did spend time at your home collaborating with other developers on open source projects, or other passion projects, mention that as well. Employers want to see that you are capable of working as a part of a team without going to the office.
Getting your very first job is difficult. If you want that job to be remote, that will make the task even more difficult. It’s not impossible, but your portfolio will have to be even more impressive than otherwise.
In this case, you’re more likely to find success on freelance platforms like Upwork. Employers who look for web developers on these platforms are satisfied with remote work. If you can show good enough portfolio and write a good proposal, you have good chances of landing a job. Once you have a bit of Upwork experience under your belt, you can move on to better jobs.
Finally, let’s talk about where to look for remote developer jobs. I really like SO job board in general. It’s not exclusive to remote positions, but it’s a developer community and often there are better opportunities available there. There are also websites like ‘We Work Remotely’ and ‘Remote OK’, which are geared specifically towards developers who’re looking for remote jobs.