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The Ultimate Guide to Project Management Software for Remote Teams.

project_management_software

What is the best project management tool for businesses & remote teams? We get this question a lot, and it’s something that’s critical to all of our projects at FullStack. We’ve used a variety of tools over the years starting with our own home-grown application that we called “Workflo”. Eventually, we moved onto some open source tools like Trac and Redmine. We’re now running things on SaaS offerings because the quality of available tools has picked up significantly in recent years.

Each project we work on is completely different, but proper project management has certain fundamentals that need to be addressed, no matter what tool used.

For these reasons, we’ve decided to create a series of different categories (plus winners) allowing you to pick the best tool for your needs.
We’ve divided our review into the following categories: Large Projects, Small Projects, Free, Personal & Overall Winner.

***We know there’s many, many great project management services out there, but we just haven’t had the time to properly use them all.  If there’s something you think we HAVE to try, please write in the comments!

****

Pivotal Tracker

 

Pros

  1. Points – Pivotal makes assigning points to stories very easy & gives project managers many different options to choose from for point systems. (Fibonacci, standard, etc)
  2. Linking b/w Cards- Pivotal assigns id #’s to each card, making linking very easy b/w various cards.
  3. Integrations – Pivotal integrates with almost every other service you might use in development (github, hipchat, slack,etc)
  4. Multiple WorkSpaces – If your team is large and has multiple projects, the Multiple workspace features allows you to jump b/w the different ones.
  5. Velocity + Volatility – Pivotal has many tracking features of points, allowing sophisticated teams to measure / optimize their workflow, identify bottlenecks, and work smarter.
  6. UX / UI + Flow- We love Pivotal’s automatic movement of cards for sprints from “Backlogs” into “Current”, the limited options, and simplistic feel of it.
  7. Reports: Pivotal gives users the ability to create burn down charts & other awesome projections easily and succinctly.

Negatives:

  1. Cost- Pivotal charges per user, so for large teams- or for teams that need to have non-developers ‘monitor’ the progress, the price can get quite high quite quickly
  2. Break in Period- There’s a break in period to get used to the flow & general look / feel of the board.  A full board can look quite intimidating at first glance
  3. Creating Cards – Creating cards can take a long time since there’s so many fields.  Not a problem for important projects, but unneeded for simple or test projects
  4. Small Cards – The actual size of the cards is small, which is not a problem for viewing the board, but is very annoying when creating the cards for the first time.  We really wish creating the cards happened in a larger box.

Overall:

We’re really big fans of Pivotal Tracker for project management, but the developers we work with also prefer it over other tools we’ve tried it in the past.  Pivotal has it’s share of weaknesses, and it isn’t the fastest tool to use, but large projects w/ a big scope generally won’t have cards that need to be re-written, or moved around quickly.  If your company or project is looking for something consistent and methodical so you can just focus on development, Pivotal should work great for you!

 

Jira

 

Pros:

  1. Feature Rich – Jira & Jira Agile has a tool for almost any project you could possibly think of.
  2. Well Known – Many people have used Jira at some point, so there’s not much of a break-in period.  At the very least, most people have used one of their other, non project management products.
  3. Atlassian – Jira is apart of Atlassian, which is essentially a Salesforce for developers.  They have a different service for everything a team (large or small) of developers would ever need.
  4. Flexible – So many features allows users to stick w/ Jira / Atlassian, and use different types of boards w/ different methodologies (Agile,Kanban,etc) without changing services.
  5. Stable – We haven’t really noticed much downtime in any of the projects where we’ve used Jira.

Negatives:

  1. Too Busy – The actual board itself is very busy w/ lots of features, which takes away focus quite easily.  While there are ways we can minimize this, we
  2. Too many features– There are SO many features that it’s easy to get lost as you’re trying to create the perfect environment for your team and projects
  3. Cost – Like Pivotal Tracker, it can get quite pricey quite fast.

Overall:

Overall, Jira is a solid option for many teams, but it’s hard to transition into after using other software.  Unfortunately, Jira is on the ‘More is better” side of the fence, and they have an overwhelming amount of features.  This produces the expected result of confusion, training manuals, and less focus on the core features from their internal team.  Hence, if you’re looking to switch and don’t see your company switching again for a long time, or already use another Atlassian product, then Jira will be a great fit.  Otherwise, we believe there are better options.

 

Basecamp

 

Positives:

  1. Simple Interface – Basecamp has a very inviting look & feel to it,
  2. Well Known – Basecamp has been around since the early 2000’s, which is quite a bit longer than the other services on this list.
  3. Good for non-technical. – Basecamp can be great for those who are non-technical and need a project management tool for non ‘app’ related things
  4. All-in-one features– Basecamp has chat, calendars, messages, etc.  It’s swiss-army knife, but doesn’t go crazy (like Jira)
  5. Built by customers – 37Signals has always built their product w/ their community’s feedback, so basecamp could be the perfect solution for what your team needs.

Negatives:

  1. Too Simple – For sophisticated & large development teams, Basecamp is simply not robust enough.  If your team has a dedicated project manager, scrum master, product manager, etc- there’s going to be a lot of things that the team will need to measure against, but Basecamp won’t be able to provide.
  2. Tracking – Similar to above, Basecamp is light on the # of tracking and measuring tools.
  3. Non-Professional– This is about ‘nit-picky’ as possible, but Basecamp’s warm and inviting interface might give some clients the wrong impression of it’s power.

Overall:

Basecamp is a great option for both small and large teams, and could be a perfect fit for agencies that don’t need to get too technical w/ their projects – designed focused firms for instance.  Either way, we definitely suggest Basecamp as an option for teams & projects leads to check out.

 

Trello

 

Positives:

  1. So Simple! – Trello is so ridiculously simple to use it’s funny.  We’ve gotten so good at it that we can create an entire set of user stories + sprints for a large project in under an hour.
  2. Well Known – Trello is becoming well known w/ non technical people, which can be great for input from clients.
  3. Drag-Based Interface -Trello has a very simple point and drag interface, which also carries over to their free iOS and Android apps.
  4. Communication It’s very easy to write messages & get team member’s attention through their @ feature + assigning cards to different people.
  5. Shortcuts – Trello has some nifty shortcodes which allows power users to create cards extremely fast.
  6. Cost – It’s free!  The premium & business tiers have a few more features, but it’s mostly organizational things.

Negatives:

  1. Too Simple– Trello has many features that work for a variety of projects, but it starts to become too simple for teams larger than 5.
  2. Tracking– Similarly to basecamp, Trello leaves a lot to be desired for teams that need to measure & optimize their output.  Trello wasn’t made for those types of projects, so it does prevent itself from reaching the entire PM market, but tha

Overall:

We love trello!  We’ve used it for managing projects, sales pipelines, content for our RemoteNation, around the house things, personal study projects, and even planning a bachelor party :).  They biggest downfall of trello (that it doesn’t have the sophisticated tools as Jira or Pivotal) is a blessing in disguise because they stay true to what the product is: a super simple and fast project management service!

 

Asana

 

Positives:

  1. Well Funded – Asana has raised over $38 Million (we’re not sure how…) so it’ll be around and they’ll be able to keep innovating
  2. Content Holder– Asana’s ‘project’ categorization style is great at holding large amounts of content for different projects
  3. Works– We’ve never really noticed bugs, or really anything wrong w/ the actual functionality of asana.
  4. Calendar– They have a great calendar which is good for collaboration.
  5. TeamWork– Asana is built for teams, so teamwork is a huge part of its workflow.

Negatives:

  1. Not Intuitive – Asana has never felt truly intuitive, and it took us awhile to get used to it.
  2. Pricing- Asana has a free tier that will be enough for most users, but the premium features can get quite expensive even w/ a small # of users.
  3. How it Works – Asana has invested quite a bit of time & money into their how it works videos, pictures and tutorials; proving that the app is not simple to use.

Overall:

Asana can be a perfect option, but it’d take a very specific project or team.  We assume that it’d be hard for most teams to switch to Asana if they’re already using something else; but, after looking at their portfolio we noticed most were startups so it was probably their first project management service.  Either way, solid tool that is something your team should try in some context.

 

Other Great Options (that we haven’t had the time to use)

Our #3 might be a head scratcher to some, but it all is based around our main criteria for greatness in this category, convenience & speed. We’ve decided to not select one application, but a few that are built into some very popular other services.

 

  1. Clarizen – Clarizen’s execution platform gives your whole team a centralized environment to manage projects, tasks, resources, budgets, as well as associated emails, chat and documents.  However, we find it to be a bit clunky and non-intuitive.  It could probably use an entire UX facelift, but that would disrupt all of it’s current users
  2. Podio – Podio  lets you get work done with your co-workers and clients on a social work platform that you make your own.  They claim to have over ½ million users, but we’re not sure if that’s accurate… The platform has a ton of features, and seems like a hybrid of Jira + Assana.
  3. Wrike– is all-in-one project management software that helps remote and co-located teams get more things done together.  We like Wrike’s central focused layout (everything is in the center..) because it forces the user to focus on the task at hand.  This makes multi-tasking harder, but that’s exactly what they’re trying to prevent.

 

Best Project Management for Small Teams

 

1st Place: Trello

Trello is a perfect fit for small teams that do not need sophisticated tracking tools and metrics that pivotal or jira provide, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful and perfect for small teams.  Trello shines in communication, UX, and their super simple interface which allows teams to jump into Trello immediately.  Also, we think features such as chat, calendars, and video conferencing are almost always better when you use a standalone app.

2nd Place: Basecamp

We considered many different options for our #2, but ultimately decided on Basecamp because it’s features are streamlined for small teams, and it can be used as an ‘all-in-one’ tool with its: chat, calendar, and many more features.  Finally, basecamp works really well for storing documents, so for a small team w/ a limited amount, it makes choosing Basecamp that much easier.

 

Best Project Management for Large Teams

 

1st Place: Pivotal Tracker

We use Pivotal for many of our large projects because it does exactly what we need, agile project management for large projects.  Pivotal is great when forming our sprints, release planning, and daily standups, but the ease of developer communication amongst cards & their integrations makes tracking progress easy for everyone involved.

2nd Place: Jira

We might get some pushback with choosing Pivotal Tracker over Jira for our #1, but we find Jira to have too many features ‘out of the box’.  Jira comes packed w/ many features that 99% of teams won’t end up using, but there’s a solid use case for everything included with Pivotal.  The price differences are nominal, & they have the same integrations, but we just ultimately find Jira to be too cluttered.

 

Best “Cost Sensitive” Options

We understand that startups, small businesses, and individuals typically like to save their resources (aka $$) for other essentials, when ‘free’ services are available. However, the services on the following list shouldn’t be looked at as inferior as to the other options. Rather, we think that the features list + the free aspects still make these excellent options for users in the need for video conferencing solutions.

 

Tie for 1st Place: Trello

Since trello is free and has all necessary functionality for teams, it’s an easy #1 for us.  While Trello does have a premium level, the only thing that’s really beneficial is the team organization, but that’s a ‘nice to have’ feature.  Further, there’s a “Scrum for Trello” for chrome (you can find by searching in the extensions) which allows teams to point their stories if they care to do so.

2nd Place: Basecamp

Basecamp came in as our 2nd choice because of their many features + their unique pricing setup, which could be a perfect fit for very large teams w/ a small # of projects.  Unlike almost every other service, Basecamp charges by the # of projects, NOT the # of users in a profile. Theoretically, a team of 50 could use Asana for $20 a month, VS $300 a month for Pivotal Tracker.

3rd Place: Asana

Asana has basic tier (up to 30 users) which is the only tier we’ve ever needed to use.  As we listed above, minus the quirks of Asana, they provide almost every tool a small or large project would need.  Certain things like giving points to stories for Agile teams is missing, but we’re sure you can mask this problem by creating your own system of labels in Asana.

 

*Bonus* Best PM Software for Personal Projects

Checklists and ‘to-do’ lists are quite common for a typical person, even if they’ve never touched a software project in their life.  These types of needs are quite different than one of a project manager for a lare software project with a large team, but that’s not to say the following are perfect to manage your life 🙂

1st Place: Trello

Trello wins again for its simplicity, ability to add photos, rapid creation of cards through shortcuts, and the intuitive UX/UI of the app.  As you can tell, we’re big proponents of trello, but for good reason, it has a ton of necessary features, but they don’t pile on the unnecessary like most of the other options on this guide.

2nd Place: Todoist

Todoist is a well known and powerful checklist creator built for a non-technical crowd.  Todoist has 100’s of use cases, but what it’s really great at is having a simple & clean user interface to get work done quickly in an organized manner.  Also, for power-users, Todoist has an easy folder system for categorizing larger projects or initiatives you might be working.  Finally, Todoist also has a nifty iOS and Android app, and more features on the way!

3rd Place: Checkli

Checkli is an even simpler form of Todoist, and places great emphasis on the task at hand.  Checkli has limited features, but is a great tool for creating simple daily to-do lists (grocery lists, chores, etc) but could also be used for larger personal initiatives.

 

Overall Winner: Trello!

We use Trello every single day for small, medium, large and personal projects.  It’s free, take < 2 minutes to create a workable board for a project w/ user stories + cards, and is simple enough for even the least tech-savvy client you’ve ever had 🙂  While some teams have to be able to measure and get reports on their progress each week, we feel as though this is still doable (not cleanly) through the “Agile for Trello” extension in the Chrome store + a few minutes of busy work on the PM.  Overall, there’s really not any core features missing from Trello (that can’t be found packaged in another tool we already use) so it was an easy choice for our team.

 

Please let us know your thoughts!  The Project Management Software industry is super competitive, so we know there’s a few we’ve left out!

May 13, 2015by remotenation
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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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Blog, Guides, Tools, Working Remotely

The Best Video Conferencing Solutions for Businesses and Remote Teams

best_video_conferencing

What is the best video conferencing tool for business & remote teams? We get this question a lot, and it’s a tool we use for the majority of our day, everyday. For a long time, it was hard to find a good video conferencing tool that actually added value to the interactions of a remote team. Now there are finally a number of viable options serving different needs, so we’ve created a series of categories winners, allowing you to pick the best tool for your needs. To get the most out of your video conferencing solution, we recommend checking out our article on the best audio and video setup for remote teams.

We’ve divided our review into the following categories: Large Teams, Small Teams, Cost Sensitive, 1 on 1’s & overall winner.

Best Video Conferencing Tools for Large Teams

 

1st Place: Zoom.us

At FullStack, we typically have monthly release planning meetings with our biggest clients.  Our biggest client, Higher Learning Technologies, asked if their department heads could be on the call, in addition to the development team. We were already at about 9 people at that point without the other department’s, and the Google Hangout quality was not sufficient and had a hard limit of 10 participants. After extensive research, we found that Zoom.us was the best for large teams because of:

Positives:

  1. Quality of the Audio – Light on the background noise, and very few problems throughout our many calls.
  2. Quality of the Video – Consistent video
  3. Chat functionality- an easy to use chat if you need to share links to drive folders or URLS
  4. Recordable – Users are able to download the entire conference (with Audio + Video) for later reference or to share if people weren’t present.
  5. Screen sharing – Zoom also allows users to share screens, great for large conference calls.
  6. Up to 100 video people on a call

Negatives:

  1. Cost. Zoom is relatively cheap if you use the service every day, or @ least on a consistent pattern, or if you’re not paying for it 🙂

2nd Place: Skype

In second place is Skype, but it seems as though Microsoft is making Skype a priority once again and the feature set & price is starting to improve. Most people in the US have a skype account (even if they barely use it) but it’s much more popular across the world. Skype was the first VOIP startup and defined the category, but has been pretty light on its extra features.

Positives:

  1. Best Video & Sound Quality
  2. Popular – Most people already have it installed on their computer, so there’s rarely a messy installation process.
  3. Mobile – Skype has both iOS and Android apps, allowing you to continue (or begin) your call through your phone.
  4. Price – Free!  Skype recently made their group calls free
  5. Screen Sharing – Skype has the capability to share your calls w/ others.

Negatives:

  1. App Based – Skype is a desktop application, so even though most people have it already installed, there’s some friction to getting a call started.
  2. Limit on Group size – Like Hangouts, there’s a limit of 10 people per call.

Overall, Skype is an awesome option, but there were some things that are better suited for large teams / conferences with Zoom. Interestingly, Skype is creating a feature that ‘instant translates’ your language into another if you’re speaking w/ someone from a different country.  We can’t wait to use that!

3rd Place: Google Hangouts

Our 3rd place finisher, Google Hangouts, is also the most convenient. Google Hangouts has great audio & video, but is very inconsistent w/ quality. We’ve had calls that were flawless from start to finish, but also seem to be asking each other ‘Can you hear me” for a minute (of wasted time) at the start of about one third of our calls (Quick Tip = We find that taking your headset out & plugging it back in usually fixes this). Although Hangouts is more reliable when headsets aren’t used, audio quality suffers.

Hangouts does have many features, such as chat, sharing a screen & inviting people via a phone number.  There’s also some fun features that allow you to add faces and mustaches (for example) w/ their Draw feature.

Positives:

  1. Web Based
  2. Mobile App
  3. Screen Share
  4. Extra Features

Negatives:

  1. Quality w/ Volume – The biggest flaw of Google Hangouts is that the quality of both the audio and video diminishes w/ the # of people on the call, and we routinely see people that drop off.
  2. There’s a max of 10 people on a Group Video Call. 

Hence, the stability most of the time and the convenience factor (it’s a total web application, nothing needs to be installed) makes Hangouts our 3rd place.

 Honorable Mention: AnyMeeting

We recently tried AnyMeeting which has a lot of good features, but is ultimately lacking in elite quality of audio. Anymeeting has 2 options, free (ad-supported) and paid, but if you can put up w/ the ads, the free version should be all you need.

Positives:

  1. Free – Ad supported version allows you to do almost everything you need.
  2. Up to 200! users on a call
  3. Features – ScreenSharing, chats, custom surveys, etc.

Negatives:

  1. Quality – Not the best
  2. Inverted camera – This is nitpicky, but all the other services use the same angle, and this really throws me off 😛

Overall, if AnyMeeting invested more into the sound quality and made the actual video screen sizes larger, this could compete w/ any of our Top 3.

Best Video Conferencing for Small Teams

 

1st Place: Google Hangouts

Hangouts is the winner because the primary negative isn’t a factor (audio & video quality diminishing w/  the # of people). The convenience factor of most people having Gmail, or having gmail as their work email, outweighs the quality of Skype. It’s very easy to schedule a calendar invite (through google calendar) and then use that link for everyone.

2nd Place: Skype

In a close second, Skype’s superior quality shines once again. We can safely assume that small teams have each other’s skype names, and can continue using their skype ‘group’ for calls & to hold all their chats. 

Overall, it’s hard for us to really recommend any other services simply because of the convenience, quality, features, and lack of negatives of Skype + Hangouts.

Best “Cost Sensitive” Video Conferencing Solutions

 

We understand that startups, small businesses, and individuals typically like to save their resources (aka $$) for other essentials, when ‘free’ services are available. However, the services on the following list shouldn’t be looked at as inferior as to the other options. Rather, we think that the features list + the free aspects still make these excellent options for users in the need for video conferencing solutions.

Tie for 1st Place: Skype

Skype is once again a winner because of it’s premier quality, popularity, and features.  For most situations, skype’s product suite is a perfect fit

Tie for 1st Place: AnyMeeting

AnyMeeting is a very close second to skype because it has almost every feature a user would need to host large scale conference calls (up to 200), have good quality team calls / chats or to share screens.  While the ads can be somewhat annoying after awhile, the ability to have 200 people for an unlimited time is an extremely great value and makes up for any shortcomings.

3rd Place: Google Hangouts

Hangouts is in 3rd place because the quality does not compete w/ Anymeeting, nor their features w/ AnyMeeting. The convenience of Hangouts is always a huge plus, but we can assume that those who are cost-sensitive don’t mind taking one extra step to get a feature they need or have a problem with ads.

Best Video Conferencing for “1 on 1” Meetings

1 on 1’s, or just quick chats between two people are definitely the most common type of video call or chat, but really come down to two things: convenience & speed. Sometimes a quick 5 minute call is infinitely better than a 20 minute email, but it’s obviously based on the situation.  For this review, we’ve assumed that the two users speak to each other frequently.

1st Place: Hangouts

This is the only category where we find that Hangouts is a clear #1 and shines above the rest.  Most of the quick 1on1’s we have are the result of a miscommunication through chatting, either on Slack or Hangouts, and it’s incredibly easy to stop chatting and just ask “hey, want to have a quick call to figure this out?”, & press the video call. However, one big drawback of Hangouts Calls is that all chats during the call are not saved. We’re not sure why this feature isn’t updated, but we’re sure google is on it 🙂

2nd Place: Skype

The consistently awesome Skype jumps into the #2 spot here, simply because our common chat situation which we explained in our Hangouts review.  However, if you typically have Skype open on your desktop, and don’t use hangouts, then we suggest Skype as your #1. 

3rd Place: Built-in Service

Our #3 might be a head scratcher to some, but it all is based around our main criteria for greatness in this category, convenience & speed. We’ve decided to not select one application, but a few that are built into some very popular other services.

  1. Hipchat – If you only use Hipchat as your communication tool, then you’ll love how quickly you’ll be able to do a Hipchat Video.   The quality is average, but it’s acceptable for 10 minute calls and under.  The only drawback is that it’s only available w/ their premium package.
  2. Facetime – We’ve only used Facetime a handful of times, mostly when one of our other tools aren’t working.  Facetime should be getting more popular since Apple has worked it into Yosemite (their new Operating System Version) and people are just getting the hang of it.  The biggest positive is that many people have Macbook’s for work (in the tech world) as well as an iphone.  However, the biggest drawback is that it’s not available for those without Apple products.
  3. Slack– TBD – Slack recently acquired screenhero, which we’ve used a few times in the past.  We currently use Slack as our main chat application, and can safely assume that the integration w/  screenhero will make video calls seamless.  Slack might move up in the charts soon, but only time will tell!

Overall Winner 

Google Hangouts! There are many different use cases for having a video chat, but the convenience, cost, quality, and built-in functionality of Hangouts makes it the best overall choice for teams both big and small. We did consider Skype because of their superior quality for video and audio, but Skype didn’t have the overall feature set of Hangouts.

We do expect that this list will change over time, so please let us know what you think of our rankings!

April 13, 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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Guides, Tools

Remote Entrepreneur? Best E-Commerce Platforms Reviewed

The first documented secure online E-Commerce transaction occurred in 1994 on a website called NetMarket. Since that time, E-Commerce has become one of the main things we do online and secure financial transactions are happening everywhere all the time. The amount of money we spend online each year has grown steadily and shows no sign of slowing.

E-Commerce platforms have evolved over the years, although somewhat slowly. Today, there are a number of unique options available for full-scale e-commerce applications as well as one-off product sales widgets. Solutions range from hosted, to open source, to lightweight Javascript widget add-ons.In this article, we introduce you to our favorite platforms with a basic review of features, benefits, and weaknesses.

Full Scale E-Commerce Platforms


Shopify

Shopify is a full scale hosted e-commere platform that allows you to quickly and easily get online with a beautifully designed template. They’ve also partnered with Stripe.com to offer their own payment gateway called Shopify Payments, which offers competitive transaction fees with other gateways. If you use Shopify Payments, Shopify will waive store specific transaction fees, and you’ll only have to pay the gateway transaction fees.

Out of all the e-commerce solutions out there, Shopify has one of the best back-end interface designs and collection of 3rd party integrations. The quality of available themes is extremely good and the Liquid templating engine on which they are built allows for almost unlimited customization of the store’s functionality and appearance.

Shopify has been a pioneer in the Ruby on Rails e-commerce development space and has open sourced a number of components that run Shopify. These projects include an e-commerce payment library called Active Merchant, a templating engine called Liquid, a shipping library called Active Shipping, and a number of others. Knowing that this is the technology that powers Shopify should give you a lot of confidence in the quality of the back-end and the Shopify team’s commitment to continued development of their product. This open source strategy along with their robust API has enabled Shopify to build one of the most well supported communities of 3rd party apps.

Shopify also provides an in store sales option and POS software that allows you to accept credit cards in person. This tablet ready POS app integrates seamlessly with the online store.

Use Shopify if you want a full featured hosted e-commerce solution that provides almost unlimited customization and integration options. You can sign up for a free shopify account and try out all of their features.

  • Cost: Monthly Fee + Per Transaction Fee* + Gateway Fees (*Per Transaction Fees Waived if you use Shopify Payments Gateway)
  • Themes: Free & Premium Themes + Customizable CSS + Liquid Templating Engine
  • Supported Gateways: Numerous + Shopify Payments
  • Transaction Fees: 2.9% + 30¢ or lower (Waived with Shopify Payments)
  • Extras: Extensive High Quality Themes & Plugins, Quality Native Mobile Apps, POS System, Free Mobile Credit Card Reader, Product Reviews, Discount Codes, Customizable Email Templates, Built-In Analytics and Reporting
  • Trial: Unlimited Free Trial (Pay When You’re Ready to Accept Real Money)
  • Multi-Language Support: Yes
  • Weaknesses: No Free Option
  • Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5

BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a full-scale hosted e-commerce platform that allows you to fully customize the design and functionality of your e-commerce website. This solution will handle your entire website including static content, blog, social media integration, online store, and order fulfillment tracking.

In recent years, BigCommerce has launched an app store that includes a variety of partner apps that automatically integrate with the platform such as, Facebook, Constant Contact, MailChimp, LivePerson, Shipwire, and many others. BigCommerce offers a number of pre-designed and customizable themes to help you get your online store up and running quickly. Pricing starts out at $29.95 / month with a 10% discount for yearly payment.

The theme editor for BigCommerce is not as full featured as the Liquid template engine included with Shopify, but it does include an easy to use visual theme editor that will enable you to easily change color schemes and other aspects of the theme without getting into the code.

Use BigCommerce if you’re interested in an online only presence with a full-scale customizable e-commerce website.

  • Cost: Monthly Fee + Per Transaction Fee + Gateway Fees
  • Supported Gateways: Over 65. They probably have what you’re looking for.
  • Transaction Fees: 1.5% (Waived if you upgrade to the Gold Plan @ $79.95 / mo)
  • Extras: Easy Facebook Shop, Custom Templating Engine, Built-In Product Reviews, Single-page checkout, Abandoned cart saver, Side-by-side product comparisons
  • Trial: 15 Day Free Trial
  • Multi-Language Support: No
  • Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

SpreeCommerce

SpreeCommerce started out as the premier open source Ruby on Rails e-commerce plugin. The platform is still open source and can be downloaded for free and modified as needed. SpreeCommerce also formed a commercial open source initiative and a certified partner program that has caused it to gain significant traction. This partner program includes hosting and development partners that can help you build and host a fully customized e-commerce solution. Spree is quickly becoming the new de facto open source e-commerce solution.

The folks behind SpreeCommerce also created Wombat, which they call the E-Commerce Operating System. The idea behind Wombat is to become the common clearinghouse for all E-Commerce related data and systems such as accounting, shipping, fulfillment, inventory management, etc. Wombat supports a number of popular 3rd party applications with more being added all the time.

Overall SpreeCommerce will end up providing a significant amount of customizability. However, prepare to leverage a Ruby on Rails developer if you choose this route. If your application requires special integrations, functionality, or other aspects that are not covered in an out-of-the-box solution, SpreeCommerce may be a great place to start.

Use SpreeCommerce if your e-commerce application requires unique customizations and you have a bigger development budget to pull these things off.

  • Cost: Free + Hosting + Gateway Fees
  • Supported Gateways: All Active Merchant Gateways
  • Transactional Fees: None
  • Extras: All integrations supported by Wombat
  • Trial: Free Sandbox Account on Spreecommerce.com
  • Multi-Language Support: Yes
  • Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

E-Commerce Plugins


WooCommerce

WooCommerce is designed to work as a WordPress Plugin. If you have a WordPress website and you’re looking to stick with WordPress as your primary CMS, WooCommerce could be a good add-on option to e-commerce enable a portion of your site. As with any WordPress based application, expect a fair amount of hacking to get things to function the way that you desire.

WooCommerce rides on top of the WordPress platform as a basic plugin and also supports a variety of extensions that allow you to customize the functionality of the platform. You will be able to manage customers and orders directly in your WordPress back-end. You won’t pay for WooCommerce directly, but you will likely pay for one or more extensions to get WooCommerce to do everything you need it to do.

Use WooCommerce if you want to host your own WordPress based e-commerce site and you don’t mind hacking with WordPress and the WooCommerce extensions a bit to get things to work just the way you want.

  • Cost: Free + Hosting + Gateway Fees
  • Supported Gateways: A wide variety via the WooCommerce Extensions Library
  • Transaction Fees: None
  • Extras: WooCommerce Themes & Plugins
  • Trial: You Must Download and Install on Your WordPress Installation
  • Multi-Language Support: Yes
  • Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5

FoxyCart

FoxyCart is a lightweight JavaScript based E-Commerce plugin that rides on top of any website. FoxyCart is really all about the cart+checkout flow. This solution will leave the layout of the store and product pages up to the developer or designer implementing FoxyCart, so don’t expect a turn-key e-commerce store with this solution. On the upside, you’ll be able to control the user experience on your e-commerce site using whatever CMS you are currently running.

All FoxyCart plans come with unlimited products, discount codes, users, shipping options, bandwidth, support, etc. You’ll pay a low monthly fee and a very low fixed transaction fee for sales beyond a certain level depending on the plan you select.

Use FoxyCart if you want to install a simple e-commerce store on an existing website that gives you full manual control over the presentation of the store and products. Expect a relatively robust back-end that does not offer inventory management.

  • Cost: Free + Hosting + Gateway Fees
  • Themes: Basic Styles + Customizable CSS
  • Supported Gateways: Numerous 3rd Party Gateways
  • Transaction Fees: First 100 – 1000 transactions / mo free / 5¢ – 15¢ thereafter
  • Extras: Basic Styles
  • Trial: Unlimited Free Trial (Pay When You’re Ready to Accept Real Money)
  • Multi-Language Support: No
  • Weaknesses: No Inventory Management, Not a Full Featured CMS
  • Overall Rating: 4.25 out of 5

E-Commerce Widgets


Gumroad

Gumroad is a simple lightweight hosted e-commerce widget that is great if you just want to sell one or two digital products and don’t want to bother with a full featured platform. It is one of the simplest and easiest to use e-commerce widgets available. It really shines if you’re selling digital downloads, but will also support physical goods as well.

Gumroad is ideal for independent filmmakers, musicians, and writers. You can also build Gumroad right into your iOS or Android app using their native libraries and sell things like audio books, videos, or other digital media through your apps.

Gumroad ships with an onboard credit card gateway, so you won’t need to secure your own. This widget is incredibly easy to get started with and requires the least amount of commitment to get started. One of the drawbacks is the amount of time it takes for you to receive the money that you’ve made through Gumroad. Gumroad pays you via PayPal every two weeks. Most of the other solutions get the money into your account via bank transfer within 2 – 3 days of the sale on an ongoing basis. Still, if simple is what you’re looking for, you don’t need to go much further than Gumroad.

Use Gumroad if you want to sell a digital product on an existing website or via an existing mobile app.

  • Cost: Free for up to 10 products – $99/mo + Gateway Fees
  • Themes: Basic Styles + Customizable CSS
  • Supported Gateways: Numerous as listed on the Ecwid.com website
  • Transaction Fees: None
  • Extras: Native Android and iOS Library
  • Trial: Free Plan (Pay for more products or features)
  • Multi-Language Support: Limited
  • Weaknesses: Long delay before funds reach your account, No inventory, Limited Physical Goods Fulfillment Management, Not a Full Featured CMS
  • Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Ecwid

Ecwid stands for “e-commerce widget” and it effectively works as it is described. Ecwid can be installed on top of any existing website or social media presence. Like Foxycart, you install Ecwid using a few lines of Javascript.

For being a widget, Ecwid has a very robust back-end and even handles inventory and fulfillment management. Unlike Gumroad, you can use Ecwid for a full scale e-commerce initiative.

Use Ecwid if you want to install a lightweight e-commerce store on an existing website that has a fully featured back-end.

  • Cost: Free for up to 10 products – $99/mo + Gateway Fees
  • Themes: Basic Styles + Customizable CSS
  • Supported Gateways: Numerous as listed on the Ecwid.com website
  • Transaction Fees: None
  • Extras: Facebook App, WordPress + Joomla + Drupal Plugins, API
  • Trial: Free Plan (Pay for additional features)
  • Multi-Language Support: Yes
  • Weaknesses: Limited Integrations, Not a Full Featured CMS, Limited theme customizations
  • Overall Rating: 4 out of 5
February 24, 2015by Josh Cramer
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Guides, Office, Working Remotely

Ideal Audio and Video Setup for Remote Teams

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Updated on January 26th, 2018.

What is the best mic / headset / audio setup for a remote distributed team? I get asked this question a lot. In fact, I’ve been asked two times today already, so I thought I’d throw down these thoughts in a post to share with folks.

Audio / Voice

We do a lot of voice calls all day long, every day. For a long time, we used Skype exclusively. More recently, we’ve switched to Google Hangout for our smaller team calls and Skype for our larger calls (more on that later). And like you, we also talk with clients who use a variety different audio tools to communicate without being in the same room.

Here is what not to do:

  • Do not use the built-in speaker and mic in your laptop. The problem here is that the mic in your laptop is far away from your mouth and is designed to pick up audio from the entire room. It’s better to use a headset with a boom that places the mic directly in front of your mouth.
  • Do not use a wireless headset. We’ve found that these things last about 3 – 4 months tops before they break. They are also prone to interference or dying batteries. This is the last thing you want to worry about while you’re in the middle of a call with people. These are not things we have to deal with when we’re interacting person to person, so it’s best to just eliminate the possibility of problems by going direct with a cable.
  • Do not use a USB headset. We’ve found that USB headsets will produce garbled Darth Vader like sound or interference from time to time. Usually, you can remedy this by disconnecting and reconnecting your USB headset, but this is not something you want to have to mess with in the middle of a call with people. If you stay away from USB headsets and go direct into your computer’s sound input jack, you’ll eliminate another potential cause for problems.
  • Avoid phone based conference call bridges whenever possible. The main problem here is that most phone bridges are low fidelity audio. Computer audio like Skype and Google Hangouts leverage HD Audio, which we’ve found to make an enormous difference when communicating as a team. It’s amazing how much of a difference it makes to pick up the subtle nuances and tones of voice that you can with HD Audio.

Our recommended audio gear for the Solo Road Warrior:

  • A headset with passive noise canceling boom mic (like this Sennheiser). By the way, I have used the one linked for almost 2 years without fail. Removing all the wireless, USB, active noise canceling, complicated nonsense, just leaves a solid performing and reliable headset.
  • If you use a mac, you’ll need to get one of these to plug directly into your Macbook Pro or other Mac computer. This will also let you use the headset with your mobile phone if you want.

Conference room audio setup on a budget:

  • I’ve done a lot of research into the ideal conference room mic. I’ve tried the Blue Snowball Mic, this Audio Technica Condenser Mic (which will make you sound like a radio DJ), and others. We’ve found that this MXL AC404 does the best job of picking up audio from throughout the conference room, while canceling out sound generated from the speakers. We recently replaced another conference room mic with the MXL AC404 in 2018 and the difference was night and day. Amazing product!
  • For speakers, we’ve used these simple Bose Multimedia speakers. If the person on the other end is using one of the headsets above, it basically sounds like they are right in the room with you.

Video Calls

Video is still remarkably hard to get right, but current state video has reached the point where it adds significant value to interactions. We’ve used Skype, Google Hangouts, Google Meet, Zoom, Slack, and other solutions for video calls. Almost all of these solutions work pretty good and some have their quirks. We’ve found that the most important thing to consider when doing video calls is to have good internet upload bandwidth and a good camera. Unfortunately, the cameras built into most laptop computers are middle of the road. They’ll work and add value, but there are several after market cameras that you can get to make you look more clear and to push highre resolution, like this HD Logitech camera.

For conference room setups, a newer entrant into this space is the innovative Meeting Owl 360 degree camera. This camera has 360 degree audio and video coverage and auto focuses the camera on whoever is talking. It is a little pricey, but if you want the best possible experience blended with a conference room setting, it is worth considering.

We’ve also tested the LG UltraFine 5K Monitor. People have a love/hate relationship with this particular monitor, but the camera built into this monitor is superb. I personally, have appreciated the video clarity on this monitor as well and have not really had any issues with it paired with my Macbook Pro.

February 9, 2015by Josh Cramer
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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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