Remote work has lately become popular in the tech circles and I couldn’t be happier. Having worked remotely for over a decade I hope more people embrace remote work this decade.

Remote work just like traditional work has different segments and over my career I have worked across these segments. Each segment targets a different set of developers and pursuing one which is not the right fit may result in a failure or just a bad experience. Over this post, I intend to identify the different segments and their targets.

The Newbie

Getting your first job is hard and getting it from a complete unknown who is sitting thousands of miles across is even harder. Breaking into this market is hard not just because of the inexperience but the sheer competition. Projects start at $5 and may go upto a few thousand dollars and may last from couple of days to a few weeks. Projects may be as simple as installing wordpress on a server to building out a custom application for hotel bookings. These platforms are good for college students and recent grads who are not technical strong and want to earn money on the side.

The platforms allow business owners to post projects and developers bid on them. Most times the lowest bid wins and because of this a lot of times these platforms are a race to the bottom. In the past 10–15 years there have been many consolidations in this market and the competition among the developers has gotten tougher. South-East Asia and Eastern Europe developers are well-skilled and cheap giving stiff competition to others.

They are a good place to get your start as your previous experience does not factor in much if you are ready to bid low and work your ass off to get projects. I started my career on such a platform — rentacoder.

Economics

Expect to work 20–50 hours a month for the initial 6–12 months making $20-$40/hour a month. Some may do better but you’ll end up working 3–4x the hours as you’ll have to spend many hours bidding on projects. The number of hours you work keeps increasing as your reputation on the platform builds and you start getting larger projects.

Opportunities

The leaders in this segment are upwork.com, fiverr.com, guru.com, etc. New platforms are best avoided as they don’t have a strong demand side.

Mid Career Switch

Most people who have approached me for advice around remote work belong to this segment. While this segment is easier to get into, the market is still small but is increasing rapidly. Most candidates in this segment have couple of years of experience and are looking for a better pay and work. Projects here range from few weeks to months paying anything between $30-$60. Most projects involve building features of a product or complete products too. You may be part of a team so communication skills become quite important. Late night meeting calls (because of time zone differences) is common.

For most engineering graduates working in companies these offer a good place to start as the work is good and you can make your hours. While the pay is good, the flow of projects isn’t as strong as you get experienced. You may also be walled into working on just one piece of technology limiting learning and future growth.

They provide a more saner introduction to working remotely compared to the newbie platforms as you work with clients who mostly come from software background and understand the mechanics of building software.

Economics

Developers make $30-$100 an hour and typically have 120–160 hours of work a month. Yes, these jobs are almost full-time. There maybe periods of no work while one is in-between projects and it may last few months.

Opportunities

TopTal, Gigster, X-team, Crossover are some platforms which are good. There are many others which promise a lot but hardly deliver. Do checkout their Slack groups and reviews before committing to join them.

The Top Dog

So you are good at what you do and have not only survived in the industry but are excelling at it and yet you are not satisfied with the challenges or the pay. It time to take the game to the next level and work at top tech companies. Working with top tech companies which are mostly based out of the US helps you grow not just as an engineer but also as a product person and a manager which become really handy going forward and moving into senior positions. There has been an explosion of remote jobs and while most of the jobs are still for people based in the Americas, the number of companies which are going distributed. Distributed is when you are remote and communication is asynchronous. Getting a remote position is fairly tough as the competition is fierce. The company can hire internationally so wants to hire the best, hence the competition. The corollary is that you can apply a company from anywhere in the world and not limited by geography so your options increased multi-fold. One major advantage of working in this segment is that you are part of the team, the tribe and not just a contractor who has to work as per the client’s request.

Economics

These positions are full-time with annual packages where you can make between $30K — $300K/year based on experience and role. Technically, you work as a contractor but in reality you are member of the team. Contracting helps with the legal issues from hiring someone from a different country easy which is why most companies prefer this route.

Opportunities

There are many companies which hire remotely, Remotive has a very exhaustive list at;

900+ Startups hiring Remotely in 2020 - by Remotive.io
UPDATED - The List of Awesome! From Remotive.io with ♥,Find 1,000s of remote jobs on Remotive! ➡️➡️➡️, www.remotive.io…docs.google.comAnother list is;

remoteintech/remote-jobs
A list of semi to fully remote-friendly companies in tech. - remoteintech/remote-jobsgithub.comThese lists are great to find remote companies and then apply passively. But if you are actively looking for a remote position, you would want to apply to open positions. While there are many remote job boards only a few do a good job of listing active positions and requirements. I have found WeWorkRemotely, AngelList, Hacker News’ Who Is Hiring Thread having a good conversion rate.

Finding the right companies to apply is the beginning, interviewing with remote companies is another challenge and thats a story for another day.

I hope this post helps you finding the right remote work for you. Tweet to me at @troysk704 or mail me remote at troysk.com to continue the discussion.