Tired of the long commutes, stuffy offices, or just having to put on pants in the morning? Turns out it's not just you. Software Developers from all over the world are interested in working from home. Luckily, with the steady growth of the tech industry, remote employment is becoming more and more available. I've personally been working remotely from my home for nine years and absolutely love the lifestyle it provides.
Recently, I've been talking with a lot of developers that have expressed an interest in working remotely, but didn't know where to look for remote positions. After answering the question so many times, I decided I should write an article listing the resources I use to find six figure remote Software Developer positions. So here they are!
Remote Job Boards
My favorite resource is remote job boards because the postings are guaranteed to be available for remote applicants. They provide a great a way to find contracts or jobs and often give you a good idea of the salary range. Some of the sites even allow you to setup email alerts for positions that match your qualifications, making it even easier to track new listings. The following is a list of remote job boards that I use when searching for a new contract or position:
- https://weworkremotely.com
- https://remoteok.io
- https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote-developer-jobs
- https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/remote-developer-jobs
- https://remote.co/remote-jobs/developer
Community Threads
Another great resource that I've had success with is community threads. There are thousands of online communities for Software Developers that can provide leads on remote jobs or contracts. I've personally gotten over three years of full-time contract work from http://reddit.com/r/forhire and is actually where I landed my current contract at the time of writing this article. The great part about using online communities to find remote jobs is that you often end up working with people that have similar interests. My two favorite contract teams that I've worked with came from forhire threads on Reddit. I absolutely love the online culture of Reddit and of course, so did they.
Additionally, communities like http://news.ycombinator.com post monthly threads for full-time, and freelance developers searching for work or employers looking to hire. whoishiring.io is an application that aggregates those threads and is a great way to track them.
Creating Keyword Job List Emails
In my most recent search for remote contract work, I tried out a new tactic that ended up landing me a couple interviews and a contract offer. Huge job boards like indeed.com are a little old-school and don't typically have a lot of remote postings. However, they do offer the ability to setup daily email notifications that include lists of postings that match a search criteria. So what I did was setup one of these emails using some keywords related to my career and included the word "remote". This doesn't guarantee that you only get remote positions though, so be careful when applying for positions from these sites, as some of them might not actually be remote friendly.
Linked In Recruiters
Most Software Developers have received messages from recruiters on Linked In and have more than likely been annoyed by it. I've definitely felt this way about recruiters but I think it's important to consider all possible leads when searching for remote Software Developer jobs.
With that said, there are some guidelines that you can use to make better use of both the recruiters time and your's. Let them know right out the gate that you're only interested in remote positions. Good recruiters will work with you to find positions that fit your requirements, when they come up. Bad recruiters will throw every single available position your way, regardless of your criteria. It's also a good idea to let the recruiter know things like your hours of availability, and salary expectations or contract rates. The more specific you can be, the more likely the recruiter is to come to you with tangible leads instead of random crap.
Slack Communities
As it turns out, other Software Developers are a great resource for finding available jobs. It makes sense if you think about it. Software Developers, by the nature of their career, have direct access to businesses that utilize Software Development services.
So where do you find other Software Developers? There are thousands of Slack communities available out there, including local ones. A lot of these communities have a jobs channel where people post available positions and contracts that they've run into. These communities are absolute gold when you're looking for remote work, because Slack communities, by their very nature, attract more modern thinking individuals. As an added bonus, Slack communities are a great way for you to network with others in the industry. Even if you don't find a job, you might make some great friends!
Parting Advice
The most import thing to remember when looking for remote Software Developer positions is to cast a wide net. You're competing with hundreds of thousands of other people and it's important to leave no stone unturned. Keep your resume strong, open enough channels, and you're bound to see results.
Good luck!
Looking for Tech Jobs? Check out my website ObviousJobs.com for jobs with full salary disclosure.
Top comments (21)
Nice overview!
By the way, I think that, within the "remote" space, you should make a distinction between remote employees and remote freelancers.
The former are looking for permanent jobs, the latter for projects (I'm in the latter category). This will make a big difference in the sort of tools and tactics that you use (your article seems more focused on remote employees/permanent jobs).
One other 'platform' that I would like to mention (and recommend) is Gun.io (gun.io). A bit of a funny name which has nothing to do with weapons, but with the idea of "hired guns". You can place them more or less in the same category as companies like TopTal, Gigster, Crew.co, etcetera, who are targeting "higher end" customers.
Their website might not look that impressive (they're in the middle of a redesign and relaunch), but their Slack community is fantastic.
Even though I didn't get any "gigs" through them as of now, I already got a wealth of good ideas and tips by participating on their Slack, and I really like their business ethics/philosophy - professional and honest and they're not out to screw you.
This article explains their philosophy pretty well: linkedin.com/pulse/how-gunio-raise...
Good things of Gun.io:
Great Slack community
Great company philosophy and ethics
Not wasting your valuable time with annoying up-front testing/screening in the form of largely irrelevant algorithm tests (like they do on other platforms as TopTal, Gigster and so on) in order to arrive at the (IMO largely useless) statistic of "we only have the top 1% developers" (whatever that means). You can just join their community - you'll be tested/screened of course, but only when you apply for a gig
Less positive aspects:
Word of warning: this platform is not for the impatient, but personally I like it and I see it as a long term "investment", especially for building my network, they don't have a long list of 'gigs' up for grabs (not yet at least, if ever).
It's just a very different model from Upwork etc (and even different from TopTal and so on whom you might compare them with).
Just my personal recommendation, I'm not getting paid or rewarded by them in any way to spread the word ... ;-)
Agreed. Freelance is often more about marketing your personal brand and networking. This article focuses more on full-time/contract work. Finding freelance clients would probably warrant it's own article.
Yup ... also because the most of the tools/platforms that you're mentioning are more geared to finding a fulltime job (even when it's remote). And yes, you need to spend more time on marketing and networking (I'm not doing that enough, to be honest).
Interesting article though! If companies get more used to working remotely then it will benefit both remote freelancers and remote fulltime employees.
Wish that I was already making a six figure income as a remote freelancer ... well it's a matter of patience, it's not going to happen overnight, but I keep working on it, obviously.
Thank you very much Colin, I always lurked about, but your article made me register just to thank you :)
Do you perhaps have some advice for a very junior developer? I want to get some exposure whilst being able to continue my studies. So a basic income would be nice. But I don't think anyone would take someone as junior as I for a remote job.
Right now I am doing a few MS courses mostly in SQL and C#. But I don't know if these areas are very sought after. What languages would give me an edge?
Thank you again!
It's very difficult to land full time jobs as a junior or entry with no experience. What I did to overcome this was seek out small one-off freelance jobs and slowly built up professional experience. Most people won't risk hiring you but there are thousands of "fix my website" freelance gigs out there. I wrote another article explaining how I did exactly this fullbit.ca/from-zero-to-six-figure... good luck!
Thank you Colin! I will apply your advice. Wish me luck!
Can you or someone please share the list of Slack communities or discord servers to help me and others get remote jobs specifically with Javascript stack and/or remote gigs. that would be really beneficial
Thank you, Colin! This was a really useful read for me being an 'on-site' full-time dev wanting to try out remote :)
I'll suggest Upstack for finding great software developers. Upstack is global network of vetted and tested engineering talent. Upstack provide access to full-time dedicated engineering talent available to join your team on-demand. Upstack's talent works remotely for your company while Upstack handles the HR, payroll, project management, QA, and support. Upstack engineer is senior level and verified to have at least 3 years of documented experience in their specific language of expertise. There are lot more info that I can share here, but if you interested with Upstack just click this link upstack.co/company/apply?5BCF44CE and you will start working with expert to discuss your needs and goals.
Thanks for your insights.
Do you have any hints on keeping portfolio of your past work? Or, putting it in another words, how to convince a client that you are the right person for the job?
Also, any advice for people who are experienced, but only worked so far in one place (regular job) and want to shift to freelancing. Are they on the same boat as the ones just starting their carriers in development from freelancing?
Thanks.
For freelance clients, they often want to see work you've completed that is similar to the work they want done. Unfortunately, when you come from a traditional job, you often can't use most of your work in your portfolio. The work around for this is to create public side projects and make them available for clients to view. They don't need to be huge, they just need to be on point for the related tech. This is especially important for back-end development because it's not as visually oriented.
Don't discount your full time job experience. It's just as valuable and can be used to strengthen your CV. If you are moving from a regular job to freelance you can try and find freelance jobs that have a strong match to tech you worked with. As long as you can show that you can work with those technologies and you can talk in depth about them, the client will pick up on your capabilities.
Tldr; Build a public portfolio with personal projects then lean on your professionl experience to sell yourself.
Good luck!
Great content, Colin! It is very useful.
I would definitely add 🚀 RemoteMore:
👉 join.remotemore.com/devto 👈
It is a marketplace for full-time/part-time remote jobs.
With over 300 remote companies hiring through it.
Awesome Colin. I recommend adding DailyRemote as it is also one of the great remote job boards with daily updated jobs posted in various categories for both tech and non-tech such as Software Development, Design, Support, Sales, Writing, Product, etc.
Thank you Colin for sharing the insight.
We have got some very interesting six-figure salary remote jobs posted at RemoteWorkJar. Some companies publicly show salaries and some don't.
All the best!
This list will hopefully grow, but here are engineering teams that are remote-friendly or fully remote on Key Values! --> keyvalues.com/remote-developer-jobs
Wow, this post is amazing! Thank you! Really great resources here.
workfromhomejobs.me/ also aggregates from 9 different job boards (many of them mentioned in the article) for those who prefer not to have to jump between dozens of sites :)
Well done! We are running a remote jobs board here: up2staff.com and there are some interesting jobs offering six-figure salaries. Check it out!
Yeah, can just sign this post.
Cheers Stefan
fullstackjob.com