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Developers, Guides, Working Remotely

Top 5 Sites for Finding a Remote ASP.NET / C# / Microsoft Stack Job

Remote_Microsoft_Stack_Jobs

After repeated requests from users on the site, we decided to make a job board post on .NET.  However, we soon realized that we should also cover C# to make it more well rounded (like our inclusion of Django for Python), essentially making this a “Microsoft Stack Job Board”

ASP.NET is developed by and runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system and has a set of 13 software packages and 7 different development models available to work with.  It’s an an open sourced, web and mobile app develop framework that isn’t regarded as a simple framework to get started with.

For the most part, the developers you’ll find w/ experience are less the ‘hacker’, but have a CS / Computer Engineering background.  Further, we find that most developers using these frameworks have about 5+ years of experience programming (if not more) so at the very least, employers won’t be dealing with rookie developers making careless mistakes.

#5. Indeed

Pros

  • Extremely Popular Job site (typically top ranking results for job searches)
  • OK filter (enter “Remote, Telecommute, OR anywhere ” in location OR Keyword search)
  • Decent number of opportunities
  • Good Mix of Startup + Corporate

Cons

  • Is just an aggregator, you will have to apply on employer’s site
  • Not Developer focused
  • Lots of ‘noise’ to go through, and filter’s don’t work too well

 

Overall

Indeed/ SimplyHired aggregates from a huge amount of job boards, so it initially seems as if they have the most opportunities. However, since they only aggregate, interested .NET job seekers will still have to apply on the listing companies site, which is a huge time waste if you’re applying to many opportunities. The search function only returns opportunities that have ‘remote’ (or similar) in their subject line, but this still returns a decent amount. Overall, Indeed & similar job sites are average at best for finding remote .NET jobs, but they have the potential to be a great resource if they add a “remote” search box

 

#4 Skip The Drive

Pros

  • Only Remote Opportunities, No need to filter jobs!
  • Mostly corporate or agency positions
  • Simple to navigate – Simple UX / UI

Cons

  • Limited opportunities + some opportunities are aggregated.
  • Only a few startup opportunities.
  • Average quality of opportunities (lower salary + perks than the other sites)

Overall

Skip the Drive had a surprising amount of opportunities (compared to other sites w/ .net), but it’s lacking any game-changing quality that would push it to the top 3 sites.  Skip the Drive had a good spread of opportunities, but we found the random opportunities that were aggregated a bit annoying amongst the other opportunities.  Either way, Skip the Drive is one to keep an eye on, but it’s currently not a ‘top’ site.

#3. FlexJobs

Pros

  • Most popular .NET / C# job board (FT, PT, & Contract)
  • Largest # of real opportunities (very low on recruiters)
  • Well known (good marketplace)
  • Mix of Corporate and Startup

Cons

  • Poor UI
  • Have to become a member to apply
  • COST (monthly fee to be a member)

Overall

At first, we didn’t think too much of flexjobs because the site looks a bit ‘spammy’ at first glance. However, they have a huge amount of C# / .NET Opportunities, more than all the other job boards. The one giant glaring weakness is that they charge job seekers a monthly subscription fee to apply to their positions. This allows them to have cheaper prices for employers to post opportunities, but is also quite annoying when nothing is guaranteed on the job seeker side. Nevertheless, if you’re really looking to get a new remote position, the monthly fee is nominal if you actually do apply to a ton of opportunities and use your payment to it’s full potential.:)

#2. Stack Overflow Careers

Pros:

  • Number of truly remote posts (approx 50+)
  • Quality of Employers: There’s some really solid employers posting great opportunities.
  • Quality of Applicants: Through our experience hiring, we consistently found awesome applicants through Stack Overflow
  • Application Management: Strictly for employers, but Stack Overflow has created a very simple way to manage applicants. Making it more likely that employers will stick with it.

Cons:

  • Price: $495 a post for employers, which limits the pool size.
  • Awareness: We think they could draw more attention to it for developers

Overall

We’ve posted to many different job boards to help clients fill technical positions, but have always gotten the best .NET applicants and the highest volume through Stack Overflow. On the job seeker side, we always find a solid number of opportunities, fast responses from the employers, with a great mix of startup and corporate positions.

Stack Overflow has positioned itself so well by creating two simple check boxes: one for employers, one for job seekers. In the job posting form (for employers) the following statement is below the ‘Telecommute’ checkbox–‘Check this only if you are considering candidates who will work entirely remotely’. Job seekers have the option to select ‘Allows remote’ in their locations 

#1 Dice.com

Pros

  • Largest # of FT opportunities
  • Well known in the Tech world
  • US & a large number of international opportunities
  • Good Filters

Cons

  • Some positions posted by recruiters (Cybercoders)
  • Need to go into “Advanced” filters to find remote filter.
  • Most positions require you to apply on company site (like Monster or CareerBuilder)

Overall

We were quite surprised by the # of great remote opportunities on Dice for .NET, but do know that it’s primarily used for a different audience than the Ruby / Startup type positions we post or look for ourselves.  One big weakness of Dice’s job seeker UX is that users need to go into advanced filters to check the ‘telecommute’ box, which we expect many users fail to do.  We’re not sure why this isn’t front & center on the location search (like Stackoverflow’s) but we’re sure they’ll add it at some time.  Finally, they could do a better job of finding startup opportunities, but we only know a handful of startups that use the Microsoft stack in the first place.

 

Summary

Dice.com out of nowhere for the win!  Dice is rarely a site we’d check for remote opportunities, but after a few conversations & research in the .NET community, we really didn’t think it was fair to put any other site as the top .Net job board. As mentioned above, we do highly suggest Dice moves their ‘telecommute’ checkbox to the first page, but that’s just preference.  For the others on the list, we didn’t find too many startup opportunities, but were pleasantly surprised by the decent # of choices on all the sites.  Overall, interested job seekers should check all the sites during their job search because we didn’t find too many similar choices amongst the sites.

Further, we found creating this list harder than some of the other languages and frameworks for a variety of reasons, namely our lack of experience recruiting .NET / C# / Microsoft engineers.  Most of the developers we work with started with .NET or PHP & then moved into Rails after it really start to grow around 2010.  Further, we haven’t really met any developers that have ‘toyed around with .NET’ or are interested in learning the foundations of it, and we don’t get asked to develop applications in it.  However, it’s more secure than some other frameworks & is quite established, and we don’t really see an end in sight for it.  For these reasons, we expect more disagreement in the comments than for our other job boards, but welcome all help in creating the perfect list!

May 6, 2015by remotenation
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Developers, Guides, Working Remotely

Top 6 Sites for Finding a Remote Python Job

Top_Remote_Python_Jobs

Python is a language that is easy to read, can be used in a wide variety of ways, is scalable, but for whatever reason is not routinely talked about as a ‘go-to’ language.  We have friends in the industry who use python as their main language for creating quick scripts for marketing or other simple tasks, but we’ve yet to hear someone say ‘Our back-end is written in Python”

Nevertheless, we had to do some major digging to find the best resources for remote python developers (check out this article in Hacker News about Python Jobs) but only found a handful of sites that seem worth it.  The following is what we found to be the top six sites for remote Python jobs.

#6. Linkedin

Pros

  • Well known: Almost everyone has a Linkedin professional requirement
  • Filter works in Keyword (will also have to try “telecommute”
  • Huge # of opportunities
  • Mostly Corporate jobs

Cons:

  • Not Developer focused (lots of clutter)
  • TOO MANY CHOICES, awful filters (we counted 8k)
  • Most of the positions are posted by recruiters (cybercoders specifically)

Overall:

We were surprised by the huge # of opportunities, but ultimately disappointed because 1/2’s of them were posted by CyberCoders (a tech consulting firm) & their truly awful filtering capabilities.

However, since Linkedin has become the dominant social network for careers (and most people having a Linkedin Profile) it’s one of the most populous job boards. The best benefit (if you have a filled out profile) is you can apply directly to positions using your linkedin profile, so no resume is needed. Going forward, if Linkedin was to add a “remote’ checkbox as a filter criteria, we might move Linkedin to #1 on our list

#5. Indeed / SimplyHired

Pros

  • Extremely Popular Job site (typically top ranking results for job searches)
  • OK filter (enter “Remote, Telecommute, OR anywhere ” in location OR Keyword search)
  • Decent number of opportunities
  • Good Mix of Startup + Corporate

Cons

  • Is just an aggregator, you will have to apply on employer’s site
  • Not Developer focused
  • Lots of ‘noise’ to go through, and filter’s don’t work too well

Overall

Indeed/ SimplyHired aggregates from a huge amount of job boards, so it initially seems as if they have the most opportunities. However, since they only aggregate, interested Python job seekers will still have to apply on the listing companies site, which is a huge time waste if you’re applying to many opportunities. The search function only returns opportunities that have ‘remote’ in their subject line, but this still returns a decent amount. Overall, Indeed & similar job are average at best for finding remote Python jobs, but they have the potential to be a great resource if they add a “remote” search box

#4 Skip The Drive

Pros

  • Only Remote Opportunities, No need to filter jobs!
  • Mostly corporate or agency positions
  • Simple to navigate – Simple UX / UI

Cons

  • Limited opportunities + some opportunities are aggregated.
  • Only a few startup opportunities.
  • Average quality of opportunities

Overall

Skip the Drive had a surprising amount of opportunities (compared to other sites w/ python), but it’s lacking any game-changing quality that would push it to the top 3 sites.  Skip the Drive is one to keep an eye on, but it’s currently not a ‘top’ site.

#3 DjangoGigs

Pros

  • Large # of Python opportunities
  • Well known in the Django world
  • US & a large number of international opportunities.
  • No Signup Necessary
  • Great Design

Cons

  • Django Focused Board (not just Python)

Overall

DjangoGigs is a great job board for Django (we really couldn’t find any strong negatives) but since our list is for Python, we didn’t feel as though it was proper to put it as our #1.  Either way, props to the team at Djangogigs, they know how to make a simple, intuitive job board!

#2. FlexJobs

Pros

  • Most popular Python job board (for all positions)
  • Largest # of real Python opportunities (very low on recruiters)
  • Well known (good marketplace)
  • Mix of Corporate and Startup

Cons

  • Poor UI
  • Have to become a member to apply
  • COST (monthly fee to be a member)

Overall

At first, we didn’t think too much of flexjobs because the site looks a bit ‘spammy’ at first glance. However, they have a huge amount of Python Opportunities, more than every other job board site yet. The one giant glaring weakness is that they charge job seekers a monthly subscription fee to apply to their positions. This allows them to have cheaper prices for employers to post opportunities, but is also quite annoying when nothing is guaranteed on the job seeker side. Nevertheless, if you’re really looking to get a new remote position, the monthly fee is nominal if you actually do apply to a ton of opportunities and use your payment to it’s full potential.:)

 

#1. Stack Overflow Careers

Pros:

  • Number of truly remote posts (approx.): High (49 Python)
  • Quality of Employers: There’s some really solid employers posting great opportunities.
  • Quality of Applicants: Through our experience hiring, we consistently found awesome applicants through Stack Overflow
  • Application Management: Strictly for employers, but Stack Overflow has created a very simple way to manage applicants. Making it more likely that employers will stick with it.

Cons:

  • Price: $495 a post for employers, which limits the pool size.
  • Awareness: We think they could draw more attention to it for developers

Overall

We’ve posted to many different job boards to help clients fill technical positions, but have always gotten the best Python applicants and the highest volume through Stack Overflow. On the job seeker side, we found a solid number of opportunities, and it was a great mix of startup and corporate positions.

Stack Overflow has positioned itself so well by creating two simple check boxes: one for employers, one for job seekers. In the job posting form (for employers) the following statement is below the ‘Telecommute’ checkbox–‘Check this only if you are considering candidates who will work entirely remotely’. Job seekers have the option to select ‘Allows remote’ in their locations

 

Summary

Similar to our Ruby Board, Stack Overflow won because of it’s superior interface, volume & quality of opportunities, and the popularity / trust of the site.  There isn’t that much buzz for Python these days, and most of the Python sites we reviewed had a design similar to what was commonplace for the internet in the mid 2000’s.  We’re not sure if these site owners just don’t want to reinvest in their sites because they know the language is losing popularity, or just plain laziness.

Further, we found creating this list harder than some of the other languages and frameworks for a variety of reasons, namely our lack of experience recruiting Python engineers.  Over the past few years, we routinely work with developers that “know some Python” & either used it when they were first starting out, or worked with it since it was the legacy code they inherited in an old position. We haven’t met any developers that have ‘toyed around with Python’ or are interested in learning the foundations of it, and we don’t get asked to develop applications in it.  For these reasons, we expect more disagreement in the comments than for our other job boards, but welcome all help in creating the perfect list!

April 27, 2015by remotenation
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Developers, Guides, Hiring, Working Remotely

Top 7 Sites for Finding a Remote PHP / Lamp Stack Job

Top_PHP_Remote_Jobs

PHP is a language that is not as ‘sexy’ as it once was, and is definitely not the wave of the future.  However, php is the framework for many popular applications (Facebook, Yahoo, WordPress) and is one of the first languages that many developers learned.  Unlike Ruby on Rails, which preaches Convention over Configuration, many developers like the flexibility of writing PHP, but it’s also why many programmers think that even‘good’ php looks messy.

However, the PHP as a server side language isn’t going down easily.  Wordpress is positioning itself as the strongest CMS, and is built on PHP.  This means that unless something rapidly changes, there is still going to be an extremely large majority of the web written in this language for years to come.

Similar to our other job boards, many have pretty poor filters for truly 100% php remote jobs (without some crafty keyword searching) but we’ve done the majority of the heavy lifting for you 🙂  For these reasons and more, we find the following to be the Top 5 best sites for finding a remote php job.

#7. PHP Classes

Pros

  • Large # of PHP opportunities (avg. # on recruiters)
  • Well known in the PHP world (because of it’s classes & scripts)
  • Mix of Corporate and Startup
  • Fulltime + Contractual po

Cons

  • Poor UI
  • Opportunities list is cluttered: mix of corporate, startup, contract, and international opportunities
  • Have to become a member to apply

Overall

We have more experience with other languages and frameworks, so we had to do a bit of digging to find phpclasses. At first glance, it looked very promising, but we could eventually tell that (for whatever reason) there’s not as much time or attention given to the site as there was at some point.  The majority of the opportunities are international, and aren’t “premium”, leaving much to be desired for a great developer.  Essentially, if you’re looking for a high-end position w/ great pay, stock options, good perks, etc; then this isn’t the site for you.

#6. Indeed.com / SimplyHired.com

Pros

  • Extremely Popular Job site (typically top ranking results for job searches)
  • OK filter (enter “Remote, Telecommute, OR anywhere ” in location OR Keyword search)
  • Decent number of opportunities
  • Good Mix of Startup + Corporate

Cons

  • Is just an aggregator, you will have to apply on employer’s site
  • Not Developer focused
  • Lots of ‘noise’ to go through, and filter’s don’t work too well

Overall

Indeed / SimplyHired aggregates from a huge amount of job boards, so it initially seems as if they have the most opportunities. However, since they only aggregate, interested php job seekers will still have to apply on the listing companies site, which is a huge time waste if you’re applying to many opportunities. The search function only returns opportunities that have ‘remote’ in their subject line, but this still returns a decent amount. Overall, Indeed & similar job are average at best for finding remote php jobs, but they have the potential to be a great resource if they add a “remote” search box

#5. Authentic Jobs

Pros

  • Built for Remote & Contract type Jobs
  • Decent Mix of Startup & Corporate opportunities
  • Best Filter among all of the sites we’ve reviewed.
  • Good Design
  • Good Quality Positions

Cons:

  • Very few PHP positions (5)
  • No junior or entry level positions, only senior and experienced

Overall

This site has earned a reputation for the quality of its posts, and is well known amongst developers and designers. (i.e Employers can expect a decent # of applicants applying to their jobs) As with stackoverflow, there is a checkbox to tag the post as a telecommuting position, ‘Work can be done from anywhere (i.e. telecommuting)’. The other bonus here is filtering that allows you to separate out full-time jobs, contract, internship, etc. However, with all these great features, there’s still a limited # of php opportunities, but the process is great if interested in that list.

 

#4. WeWorkRemotely.com (37Signals)

Pros

  • Only Remote Opportunities, No need to filter jobs!
  • Well known for remote – 37Signals has written extensively on the topic
  • Many Startup opportunities
  • Simple to navigate – Simple UX / UI

Cons

  • Limited opportunities (we counted 8)
  • Too Simple for employer profiles: There’s limited space to describe the position.
  • Mostly Startup Opportunities: Lacking corporate jobs.

Overall

The posts are of good quality, but for a company that is such a large proponent of remote working, we think they should have more positions & better filter’s, but a 2.0 could be in the works.  WeWorkRemotely has a good mix of php + Lamp opportunities, which all seem to have great benefits.  Overall, solid site that should be every job seeker’s list.

 

#3. Linkedin

Pros

  • Well known: Almost everyone has a Linkedin professional requirement
  • Filter works in Keyword (will also have to try “telecommute”
  • Huge # of opportunities
  • Mostly Corporate jobs

Cons:

  • Not Developer focused (lots of clutter)
  • Too many choices, not good enough filters
  • Most of the positions are posted by recruiters.

Overall:

We were surprised by the huge # of opportunities, but ultimately disappointed because 1/2’s of them were posted by CyberCoders (a tech consulting firm). However, since Linkedin has become the dominant social network for careers (and most people having a Linkedin Profile) it’s one of the most populous job boards. The best benefit (if you have a filled out profile) is you can apply directly to positions using your linkedin profile, so no resume is needed. Going forward, if Linkedin was to add a “remote’ checkbox as a filter criteria, we might move Linkedin to #1 on our list

#2. FlexJobs

Pros

  • Most popular php job board (for all positions)
  • Largest # of real php opportunities (very low on recruiters)
  • Well known (good marketplace)
  • Mix of Corporate and Startup

Cons

  • Poor UI
  • Have to become a member to apply
  • COST (monthly fee to be a member)

Overall

At first, we didn’t think too much of flexjobs because the site looks a bit ‘spammy’ at first glance. However, they have a huge amount of php Opportunities, more than every other job board site yet. The one giant glaring weakness is that they charge job seekers a monthly subscription fee to apply to their positions. This allows them to have cheaper prices for employers to post opportunities, but is also quite annoying when nothing is guaranteed on the job seeker side. Nevertheless, if you’re really looking to get a new remote position, the monthly fee is nominal if you actually do apply to a ton of opportunities and use your payment to it’s full potential.:)

 

#1. Stack Overflow Careers

Pros:

  • Number of truly remote posts (approx.): Highest (62 total) (49 PHP)
  • Quality of Employers: There’s some really solid employers posting great opportunities.
  • Quality of Applicants: Through our experience hiring, we consistently found awesome applicants through Stack Overflow
  • Application Management: Strictly for employers, but Stack Overflow has created a very simple way to manage applicants. Making it more likely that employers will stick with it.

Cons:

  • Price: $495 a post for employers, which limits the pool size.
  • Awareness: We think they could draw more attention to it for developers

Overall

We’ve posted to many different job boards to help clients fill technical positions, but have always gotten the best php applicants and the highest volume through Stack Overflow. On the job seeker side, we found the highest number of opportunities, and it was a great mix of startup and corporate positions.

Stack Overflow has positioned itself so well by creating two simple check boxes: one for employers, one for job seekers. In the job posting form (for employers) the following statement is below the ‘Telecommute’ checkbox–‘Check this only if you are considering candidates who will work entirely remotely’. Job seekers have the option to select ‘Allows remote’ in their locations


Summary

Similar to our Ruby Board, Stack Overflow won because of it’s superior interfacet, volume & quality of opportunities, and the popularity / trust of the site.  There isn’t that much buzz for PHP these days, and most of the php sites we reviewed had a design similar to what was commonplace for the internet in the mid 2000’s.  We’re not sure if these site owners just don’t want to reinvest in their sites because they know the language is losing popularity, or just plain laziness.

Further, we found creating this list harder than some of the other languages and frameworks for a variety of reasons, namely our lack of experience recruiting PHP engineers.  Over the past few years, we routinely work with developers that “know some php” & either used it when they were first starting out, or worked with it since it was the legacy code they inherited in an old position. We haven’t met any developers that have ‘toyed around with PHP’ or are interested in learning the foundations of it, and we don’t get asked to develop applications in it.  For these reasons, we expect more disagreement in the comments than for our other job boards, but welcome all help in creating the perfect list!

 

April 17, 2015by remotenation
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Designers, Developers, Guides, Working Remotely

Top 7 Sites for Finding a Remote Ruby / Ruby on Rails Job

Ruby_on_Rails_Remote

There are a lot of job sites out there for ruby developers, but only a few of them even bother to identify remote / telecommute jobs. Within that small set, far fewer of them actually allow you to filter for truly 100% remote jobs without some crafty keyword searching.

Ruby and the Rails framework have been consistently growing in popularity for almost a decade now. Rails is popular for its’ ability to let developers quickly create simple web applications, making it perfect for most startups. Also, Ruby’s easy to read syntax makes it popular among both beginners and advanced programmers for API’s & other web based applications. Typically, employers will look for Ruby programmers with a knowledge of HTML / CSS & Javascript, and experience with another server side language is taken as a big plus. Finally, we’ve seen a rise of employers requesting experience with mobile, usually writing API’s for native iOS & Android applications in Ruby.We expect that Ruby will continue to grow in popularity over the next few years, especially because of the ‘lean startup movement’. For these reasons and more, we find the following to be the Top 7 best sites for finding or posting a remote Ruby / Ruby on Rails job.

#7. Indeed


Pros

  • Extremely Popular Job site (typically top ranking results for job searches)
  • OK filter (enter “Remote” in location)
  • Decent number of opportunities
  • Good Mix of Startup + Corporate

Cons

  • Is just an aggregator, you will have to apply on employer’s site
  • Not Developer focused
  • Lots of ‘noise’ to go through, and filter’s don’t work too well

Overall

Indeed aggregates from a huge amount of job boards, so it initially seems as if they have the most opportunities. However, since they only aggregate, interested job seekers will still have to apply on the listing companies site, which is a huge time waste if you’re applying to many opportunities. The search function only returns opportunities that have ‘remote’ in their subject line, but this still returns a decent amount. Overall, Indeed & similar job are average at best for finding remote Ruby jobs, but they have the potential to be a great resource if they add a “remote” search box

#6. Github


Pros

  • Almost every developer uses Github as their code repository
  • “Remote” works in Location
  • Clean UI

Cons

  • Extremely limited ruby choices

Overall

We expected Github to have more listings because of the huge amount of developers that already use the site, but it was surprisingly low. We’ve posted opportunities ourselves, and didn’t think the applicants were as strong as some other sites, so maybe it’s just not a feature that’s marketed well on github. Either way, if they decide to make this more of a priority and developers take to it, this could be a powerhouse site.

#5. WeWorkRemotely.com (37Signals)


Pros

  • Only Remote Opportunities, No need to filter jobs!
  • Well known for remote – 37Signals has written extensively on the topic
  • Many Startup opportunities
  • Simple to navigate – Simple UX / UI

Cons

  • Should be more Ruby opportunities (for a site dedicated to it, by the guys who made Rails)
  • Too Simple for employer profiles: There’s limited space to describe the position.
  • Mostly Startup Opportunities: Lacking corporate jobs.

Overall

The posts are of good quality, but for a company that is such a large proponent of remote working, we think they should have more positions. Also, they have a ‘is this position not remote?’ flag, but they should manually be going through the job board each day.

#4. Authentic Jobs


Pros

  • Built for Remote & Contract type Jobs
  • Decent Mix of Startup & Corporate opportunities
  • Best Filter among all of the sites we’ve reviewed.
  • Good Design
  • Good Quality Positions

Cons:

  • Very few Ruby positions (3)
  • No junior or entry level positions, only senior and experienced

Overall

This site has earned a reputation for the quality of its posts, and is well known amongst developers and designers. (i.e Employers can expect a decent # of applicants applying to their jobs) As with stackoverflow, there is a checkbox to tag the post as a telecommuting position, ‘Work can be done from anywhere (i.e. telecommuting)’. The other bonus here is filtering that allows you to separate out full-time jobs, contract, internship, etc. However, with all these great features, there’s only a limited # of Ruby opportunities.

#3. Linkedin


Pros

  • Well known: Almost everyone has a Linkedin professional requirement
  • Easy to filter (enter “Remote” in location)
  • Huge # of opportunities
  • Mostly Corporate jobs

Cons:

  • Not Developer focused (lots of clutter)
  • Too many choices, not good enough filters
  • Most of the positions are posted by recruiters.

Overall:

We were surprised by the huge # of opportunities, but ultimately disappointed because 1/2’s of them were posted by CyberCoders (a tech consulting firm). However, since Linkedin has become the dominant social network for careers (and most people having a Linkedin Profile) it’s one of the most populous job boards. The best benefit (if you have a filled out profile) is you can apply directly to positions using your linkedin profile, so no resume is needed. Going forward, if Linkedin was to add a “remote’ checkbox as a filter criteria, we might move Linkedin to #1 on our list

#2. FlexJobs


Pros

  • Most popular Remote job board (for all positions)
  • Largest # of real ruby opportunities (very low on recruiters)
  • Well known (good marketplace)
  • Mix of Corporate and Startup

Cons

  • Poor UI
  • Have to become a member to apply
  • COST (monthly fee to be a member)

Overall

At first, we didn’t think too much of flexjobs because the site looks a bit ‘spammy’ at first glance. However, they have a huge amount of Ruby Opportunities, more than every other job board site yet. The one giant glaring weakness is that they charge job seekers a monthly subscription fee to apply to their positions. This allows them to have cheaper prices for employers to post opportunities, but is also quite annoying when nothing is guaranteed on the job seeker side. Nevertheless, if you’re really looking to get a new remote position, the monthly fee is nominal if you actually do apply to a ton of opportunities and use your payment to it’s full potential.:)

The Winner: #1. Stack Overflow Careers


Pros:

  • Number of remote posts (approx.): Highest (62)
  • Quality of Employers: There’s some really solid employers posting great opportunities.
  • Quality of Applicants: Through our experience hiring, we consistently found awesome applicants through Stack Overflow
  • Application Management: Strictly for employers, but Stack Overflow has created a very simple way to manage applicants. Making it more likely that employers will stick with it.

Cons:

  • Price: $495 a post for employers, which limits the pool size.
  • Awareness: We think they could draw more attention to it for developers

Overall

We’ve posted to many different job boards to help clients fill technical positions, but have always gotten the best Ruby applicants and the highest volume through Stack Overflow. On the job seeker side, we found the highest number of opportunities, and it was a great mix of startup and corporate positions.

Stack Overflow has positioned itself so well by creating two simple check boxes: one for employers, one for job seekers. In the job posting form (for employers) the following statement is below the ‘Telecommute’ checkbox–‘Check this only if you are considering candidates who will work entirely remotely’. Job seekers have the option to select ‘Allows remote’ in their locations

Summary

We’ve posted opportunities on many of these sites & other team members have used them in the past for new opportunities, but we were quite surprised by the results. A few “Ruby Only” job boards that we’ve used in the past either didn’t have remote opportunities, or only had a handful of actual positions. Further, some developer job boards we’ve used in the past (some very large ones..) simply had awful searches for remote ruby positions, but we assume this is a reflection of the market & the types of companies that post to those sites. Nevertheless, we expect this list to dynamically change over time, and we will update it to reflect these changes.

Post in the comments if you think we’re missing any great resources & why!

 
March 29, 2015by remotenation
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Advice, Designers, Developers, Guides, Hiring

Top 5 Sites for Finding a Remote Developer or Designer Job

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There are a lot of job sites out there for web designers and developers, but only a few of them even bother to identify remote / telecommute jobs. Within that small set, far fewer of them actually allow you to filter for truly 100% remote jobs without some crafty keyword searching.

Top 5 Sites for Finding a Remote Developer or Designer Job

Having been down this road and experiencing the frustrations first-hand, here are five sites that I would consider to be the best of the bunch.

The Contestants

In no particular order.

Stack Overflow Careers 2.0

  • Site url: careers.stackoverflow.com
  • Filter type: Location (Telecommute)
  • Number of remote posts (approx.): 127
  • Observations: It is rare to find a quality site that has an explicit location filter for telecommute positions. Also impressive is the fact that the job posting form (for employers) has the following statement below the ‘Telecommute’ checkbox–‘Check this only if you are considering candidates who will work entirely remotely’, I’ll raise a glass to that!
  • Grade: A

37signals Job Board

  • Site url: jobs.37signals.com
  • Filter type: keyword search
  • Number of remote posts (approx.): 15-20? (it was hard to tell, you have to guess the terms: telecommute, remote, anywhere, etc.
  • Observations: The posts are of good quality, but for a company that is such a large proponent of remote working they do a pretty lackluster job identifying those posts. Also, their job posting form simply has an open text input for location with no checkbox or other way of identifying the post as remote.
  • Grade: B

Dribbble – Jobs

  • Site url: dribbble.com/jobs
  • Filter type: none
  • Number of remote posts (approx.): 10?
  • Observations: Similar to 37signals job board, there are some quality remote gigs here, but you have to dig without any assistance. In fact, this site offers no filtering at all and this job board is simply a launchpad to external sites (i.e. passive income generator). Best bet is to Ctrl-F for ‘Anywhere’, which is a hint on the location text field within their job posting form.
  • Grade: C

Authentic Jobs

  • Site url: authenticjobs.com
  • Filter type: checkbox
  • Number of remote posts (approx.): 60
  • Observations: This site has earned a reputation for the quality of its posts and it is the only site in this group whose sole purpose is listing jobs. I also noticed you can bookmark a useful URL after filtering authenticjobs.com/#onlyremote=1. As with stackoverflow, there is a checkbox to tag the post as a telecommuting position–‘Work can be done from anywhere (i.e. telecommuting)’. The other bonus here is filtering that allows you to separate out full-time jobs, though the telecommute checkbox to ’Show only telecommute jobs’ is buried under a map icon.
  • Grade: A

Career Pages on Employer Sites

  • Site url: You’re gonna have to dig.
  • Filter type: n/a
  • Number of remote posts (approx.): n/a
  • Observations: The fact of the matter is that the current state of job boards, with regards to finding remote jobs, sort of stinks. There are very high quality remote positions out there, but you are going to have to seek them out. That being said, make a list of the companies that offer remote working arrangements and keep an eye on their career / jobs pages. The demand for remote jobs is rising and as with traditional jobs, the best employers don’t always rely upon job boards.
  • Grade: n/a

The Winner

If I had to pick one, the best site is authenticjobs.com, followed closely by Stack Overflow Careers 2.0. Both of these sites allow for explicit filtering of telecommuting jobs and provide a means for employers to clearly tag a job as such. The slight edge goes to Authentic Jobs mainly for its advanced filtering.

The common thread in each of these contestants making my short list is the quality of the job posts. These sites represent not only some of the biggest players in the web industry but also employers with a solid reputation with regards to work environment. As with any job search, you will be doing some digging in turning up the gems. The good news is that the jobs are out there if you are willing to put in the work.

Things You Should Pay Attention to While Searching

Location: USA – The meaning of this ‘location’ is wildly inconsistent. From what I can gather, it typically means they want somebody from the USA; however, it does not mean that you can live anywhere in the USA. In short, they want to relocate you..

Searching for keywords is never all that reliable, but in particular the term ‘remote’ will bring back a potpourri of things since the term has many meanings within the web / technical industry. The keywords ‘telecommute’ and ‘anywhere’ provide superior accuracy.

Employers (even those who are not truly offering a telecommuting opportunity, for shame) know that people like you are searching for those keywords. As with any other ‘optimized’ content, they are going to stuff these words in their job postings (e.g. ‘telecommute not an option at this time’).

Another annoyance you will come across is employers who offer ‘alternative work arrangements’, but label them as telecommuting or remote working. In fact, what they are really offering is the option for you to work from home on occasion–once a week, due to inclement weather, etc.

Lastly, if you are fortunate enough to get a response, then don’t be afraid to clarify the remote working arrangement up front. Neither you nor the employer want to prepare for, schedule and trudge through an entire interview only to find out you have different interpretations of the term ‘telecommute’!

Happy hunting and if you have any other good advice or links, please share in the comments below.

January 14, 2015by Ryan Kearins
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Blog, Developers, Working Remotely

A Day in the Life of a Remote Developer

remote_working_developer
So what’s an average day like in the life of a remote developer? Let’s find out.First, a little background. I work on the engineering team for Fullstack, an organization that employs people all across the US. Fullstack has its headquarters in Iowa City, and while three of the four continental time zones are represented, the majority of people are either on Central or Eastern time.

The Beginning

I like to start my days at 7:00 PST. I’m on the west coast, so starting early helps me feel like I haven’t missed out on too much.

We use Skype to keep in touch, so firing up Skype and catching up on the various conversations that’ve been happening is my first order of business. After that’s done, I catch up on email and any feedback I’ve been given on the stuff I got done yesterday.

We follow an agile methodology at Fullstack, so we have daily standup meetings (via Skype). Usually within an hour of starting work, I have my first standup of the day. There could be more than one of these, depending on how many projects I’m assigned to at any given time. Standups are usually pretty brief, and once they’re done, I have a full list of things to accomplish for the day.

The Middle

After meetings are over, the actual work starts. This part is pretty typical of any engineering job. I have stories assigned to me in Pivotal Tracker, and I keep track of what I’m spending time on using Harvest. Once I get rolling, the day goes by pretty fast.

And The End

Afternoons are occasionally punctuated by random calls from co-workers, or other ad-hoc discussions. Around 4:00, I sign off Skype and pack up my things.

Roll Credits

Sound similar to an ‘office’ job? It is! Other than my physical location, not much has changed and that is kind of the point. Working remotely as a developer is fundamentally the same as if my location were in an office.

Still not convinced? Give a try some time, ask for a single day of working from home. The odds are that most of your coworkers won’t even realize you are ‘away’.

November 28, 2014by Josh Black
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