Carl-WTLDR
I just launched a website where I have collected resources for developers to look for remote jobs. There are over 200 companies that work remotely and hire engineers, and then there are some other resources like job boards and online communities.
If this sounds interesting to you do check it out, it's all free, and I'm adding companies and features as time permits.
I also submitted it to ProductHunt if you like the project do consider checking it out there and support it so more people can get access.
👉 https://www.producthunt.com/posts/remoet-dev 👈
If you want to know a little bit of the back story and overall reasoning do continue with this post. 👇
How it started
Back in 2019, I was making the infamous switch to Software Engineering and for location reasons, I had to go remote.
It was a lot of hard work, late nights, tutorials, and janky projects. It almost broke me, and I almost gave up on the idea. Because I was alone, I had no contacts, and being seen on the internet is not easy.
This was pre-pandemic and my perception was that very few companies were adopting the remote model. But I was wrong, and it gave me the confidence to continue grinding.
I wrote my story down here if you are interested: https://dev.to/ugglr/junior-developers-checklist-for-landing-a-remote-job-2ldb
Being in good company
During my job search, I collected all the resources I could find into a Github repo:
https://github.com/ugglr/Remote-Developer-jobs-directory
and the sheer amount of companies who work remotely just blew my mind 🤯 Further this motivated me to keep going 💪 Because every day I could find a new awesome company to apply to or I could circle back to other companies in the list and see if they have any new job postings out.
This proved to be a much more solid strategy than applying through job postings on job boards. Because when you apply directly to a company you interact with them, and not through a middleman.
Job boards are a lottery
I must have applied to thousands of jobs through different job boards and I most often never heard anything back. This is not surprising because there is no friction in applying for a job on those sites. Many times it's a one-click deal and that means each post will be flooded with an ocean of applicants.
This is a problem for both serious applicants but also for employers, because how to shift through that amount of people in a reasonable amount of time?
In my opinion, it's a lottery, and not a valid strategy anymore. The chances of actually getting to interact with the company are close to zero.
What I would do if I was looking for a new remote job?
Do your research. Find companies that resonate with you and fit your general situation. Many companies, even though they are remote, have location restrictions. So pay attention. https://remoet.dev is a good place to start but there are other ways to find remote companies.
Check their careers page directly, look for jobs that apply to you, and organize a strategy for applying to them. Every company's application process will be slightly different.
Try to network with people who work inside the companies. Twitter is a great place to start building connections and is one of the most important tools for developers to create a virtual network. Comment on posts, be helpful, and hopefully, you can ask for a referral when an opening comes around.
Create content about your journey, it might include learnings in form of blog posts, or it might be vlogs uploaded on youtube or even just Twitter. It will make you stand out, but remember the point is to make an honest representation of who you are. I don't recommend adopting an over-the-top persona that is not genuine.
Build projects with a wide variety within your code niche. If you managed to gather attention, you also need to show that you got the skills, because, by the end of the day, that's what matters. Your job is to create value and solve problems with code.
That's all I have to say for now.
Support the project
Check out the site https://remoet.dev and if you think it might be helpful for others consider sharing it within your network. The more people use it the more I'm motivated to create new helpful features.
Support us on Producthunt https://www.producthunt.com/posts/remoet-dev Check us out and maybe even share it with your friends.
The original repo is still up: https://github.com/ugglr/Remote-Developer-jobs-directory If you are more inclined to stay on Github that's a good resource as well (although some things might be outdated by now).
