Hey HN! Here's a small side-project I've been working on to help remote workers. I noticed when I switched to full-time indie dev, I experienced some new problems, like building discipline, habits and healthy routines.
I don't like most productivity advice, as Paul Buchheit says most advice is limited life experience + over-generalized to fit your situation.<p>I thought a good way around this would to just tell stories about remote workers, how they got started, what they like, what they don't like, routines they've found that are helpful, etc...<p>So that's what the site aims to do—interview remote workers so you can learn from their experiences.<p>One cool thing about the site is you can deep dive specific questions, like<p>* What do you like about remote work? <a href="http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-like..." rel="nofollow">http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-like...</a>.<p>* What do you not like about remote work? <a href="http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-not-..." rel="nofollow">http://remotehabits.com/interviews/question/what-do-you-not-...</a>.<p>Let me know what you think, thanks!
I've been remote for about 5 years now. Once thing often overlooked is the perception of working remote by significant others. It took a handful of fights with my wife until we came to an understanding that from 8-5 i'm at work, even though I'm home, I'm still at work. Granted, there's give and take like with all things in a marriage but when I "leave" for work and shut the office door I may as well be 30miles away in an office building until 5.
> I see a ton of new freelancer make the mistake of charging $15 or more from the jump without 0 reputation to back up that value. You can't expect to be paid what you want without having a way of proving that value in some way. [1]<p>To give a counter point. I have done the opposite with 0 reputation, I charged between 60 to 70 euro's per hour. I now increased my rate to 75 euro's per hour, since I know a couple of bootcamp graduates who charge the same. Why do they charge the same? Well, one got into a dev shop and he quickly realized he was the best web dev and got rented out for a 100 euro's per hour.<p>Though per haps one difference is that I knew people who needed a freelancer <i>now</i>. They couldn't find anyone and I was still studying CS and therefore available. Finding clients on your own with that rate may be harder.<p>I think understanding supply and demand really important, as well as building trust with your client. Can you get the job done? If yes, then what's the going rate for any other freelancer and charge that.<p>With all that said, it is just one interview that I am quoting. It is also interesting to see such diversity in there!<p>[1] <a href="http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full-stack-web-developer-who-works-remotely" rel="nofollow">http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full...</a>
Well advice from one of the freelance webdevs (<a href="http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full-stack-web-developer-who-works-remotely" rel="nofollow">http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full...</a>) is to start to charging 10usd. He calls it reasonable pricing. I mean i live in quite poor country but 10usd is pretty hard wow. The great twist is that he works for YCombinator backed company as lead front-end dev. Way to go lol
It would be nice to have a way to separate full-time remote employees from consultants/freelancers and part-time remote contractors.<p>I feel as though the constraints and consequences are very different between the two.
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My experience after having fully remote jobs and onsite jobs in companies with satellite offices and other remote workers, as well as managing and hiring for a team that includes on-site and remote engineers, is that you are generally practicing all the same skills needed for working remotely even if you are based on-site. You have to fight through the distractions of the surrounding environment and practice self-discipline, you’ll have a video call option for every single meeting (and often even other in-office participants access the call by video rather than walking to the conference room), all “water cooler talk” is deliberately moved into a medium like Slack, other on-site people work from home often, even managers using video calls to talk about your yearly performance review.<p>I’m sure many people making the transition could still use a service like this for good advice.<p>But generally, on-site experience in many types of tech / ecommerce companies these days imparts so much of the identical skills used for remote work that you would find pretty much the sole difference is the utter bliss of not being in an open-plan office.<p>Similarly when hiring for remote or on-site roles, I find years of experience specifically working remotely plays no role. It does not make a candidate more or less likely to fit in a new remote role. And lack of prior remote experience rarely ever factors in even when hiring for a remote role.<p>In other words, most types of prior work experience already prepare you well to be a remote worker. There’s no special “being good at remote” skill that most on-site jobs fail to exercise, though some people might occasionally feel that they <i>personally</i> or idiosyncratically need more help with certain aspects, unrelated to what general job experience offers them.
I am getting a 509 Bandwith Exceeded error. The sites is still accesible via <a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jNN8m0qEa2EJ:remotehabits.com" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jNN8m0q...</a>
Hey guys, I saw a few people quoting my interview here and I appreciate the criticism and wanted to clear a few misconceptions is the word? up!<p>For reference: <a href="http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full-stack-web-developer-who-works-remotely" rel="nofollow">http://remotehabits.com/interview/interview-with-john-a-full...</a><p>When I say charge $10 USD that is what I started charging personally as I felt it gave me the most competitive edge as I was a recent graduate and JUST starting out. The minimum wage in Puerto Rico where I live is $7.50 so it definitely made sense to me and I'm the type of person who doesn't like overselling themselves or feeling like I'm being cocky/arrogant, plus I was starting out I barely knew anything haha. It's a personality thing you know. I am however by no means saying hey charge $10 USD to start out, that made sense to me and worked for me because I was a recent graduate, have no debts and no family to support. Someone with all these things to consider $10 USD would be DISMAL to even accept and I get that. What I was trying to convey above all is be reasonable with your pricing, charge something that for you recognizes your value and needs and ALSO Values your client and their needs if that makes sense!<p>Also someone mentioned me being a lead front-end dev at OpenSea which YES is backed by YCombinator but I wanted to clear up one thing which is I said main dev not lead front end dev as I have been with them from early on, that title belongs to the co-founders haha I'm sorry for that confusion and wanted to clear it up, I hate taking credit where credit is not due! I am/was the lead front-end dev for a startup called freshChefs in shanghai for their food delivery app though which was an AWESOME experience!<p>Finally, I have upped my rates considerably from my early days starting out and now usually charge $50/hr so I definitely climbed those up over time, I just started at a reasonable price that worked for me but in no ways mean works for or should be done by everyone.<p>Thanks guys! And I hope the article gave you some insights and it's crazy to see it somewhere like HackerNews!<p>PS: I'm actually 24 and that picture was from my graduation day back in 2015 because I abhor pictures, I still have a baby face though XD
If you're looking for folks to interview, I've been full-time remote for almost 5 years and have managed to do it quite successfully. I'd be happy to share thoughts.
This is great website! I think we need more things like these to make it easier for people to learn how to work remotely. I have outlines some of comments in this video message I recorded for you:
<a href="https://www.useloom.com/share/3e8262418d7c4f1187d3b92b037624ca" rel="nofollow">https://www.useloom.com/share/3e8262418d7c4f1187d3b92b037624...</a>
It was working but now I'm getting "Server Not Found" when I click the link.<p>I find the content very helpful. How do you plan to keep producing such good quality content in the long term? I've seen many Show HNs like this with meteoric launch getting abandoned after some months.
I am looking for a remote developer role myself<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffreycallaghan" rel="nofollow">https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffreycallaghan</a>