I've managed to get a remote gig at some point, and i'm sure i can go 100% remote at my present employer. Seems to be the best way like someone above mentioned is to get a non remote job, prove yourself to be a valuable asset and then negotiate remote, never failed in my case.

Everyone is different but having actually worked for this company is the reason I won't ever work remotely ever again.

How come?

High turnover, low loyalty, low pay. There's plenty of guys and gals there that are great there and not everyone was treated badly but I don't think it is the majority.

I think the way to get a remote job is to start with a non-remote job and slowly convert it to remote. Haven't pulled it off successfully yet but it seems like a much easier path, so long as you're willing to put in the time.

I want to warn against this.

My biggest "issue" with remote working is always when there are differing amounts of remote work within teams.

When you have half the engineers in office, and half remote, the 2 sides end up with communication issues. In-office meetings where a few are remoted in are awful unless the company spends the money on a real remote-conference setup, having co-workers that don't like to pick up the phone and call the remote guy ends up keeping remote workers away from the problems.

I will never work at a remote company that isn't actively working on maintaining a remote workforce. Because even though I absolutely love remote work, it's not easy, even for those that are heavily invested in it.

This is absolutely true.

I lead a dev remote team and I have to actively communicate with people on the office to know about things going on. There is a shitstorm happening and we don't know about it until they need something from us.

I've done it a few times. This works better since you get a lot of the relationships, culture and company knowledge established before you spend less time in the office and if you do it slowly you all learn and fix what needs to be put in place to make it work well.

It doesn't work in all companies, but you can often work this out in advance. A good sign is obviously if some people already work remotely, but I have found where this works best is if the company already has teams spanning multiple locations and time zones and have the management structure and communication tools developed to do that properly.

You're not competing with your locality but with an entire country, or more. You need to stand out somehow.

This. I'm from Argentina, what worked for me was to start a blog about the problems I was solving back then for my current job, worked in opensource stuff, responded questions for an opensource tool in a forum (there was no stackoverflow back then) and somehow built a "personal brand" for some niche technologies. It all happened like 10 years ago in the span of 3 months. I got my first remote job offer for an small software firm in Europe because they read a blogpost I wrote about solving a problem they had. I've worked since then for 3 different companies from Europe and the US.

I wasn't looking for a remote job to be honest, but it happened. I honestly didn't know I could work for a company remotely back then, I was very young and had not idea about the paperwork, transactions, etc.

There are a lot of players in this, some are just looking for cheap labor, but there are also companies that understand that talent is everywhere and they are looking for that.

Certainly more than an entire country.

Yet, you can receive offers from the whole world.

How is this any different than a job at Big Tech in SF or NYC?

Because there, you're _only_ competing with local SF/NYC applicants, within like 1h drive radius or whatever.

Everyone I know who lives in SF moved there when they got offered a job there.

SF and NYC attract the top talent from around the world.

Not all of it, just the top talent that doesn't mind the living conditions in SF and NYC

Exactly, not all talent is prepared to up and move country. Age and family all factor into it.

Why is remote such highly requested? I work remote but, not cause I HAVE to. My team is just all fully remote.

Honestly, saving 1-4 hours of commute every single day equates to an absurd amount of extra time.

People underestimate how long commuting takes away from your day. Just the time you take getting ready, waking up early to get breakfast first or even getting out to eat lunch. Normally people don't add those times to the commute total and count only the actual car/bus/metro time.

No matter small those are, they add up and you don't ever get that back. Even if you only take 1 hour a day commuting (rare in my experience) you will get at least 5 hours extra in a week that you can use to... live.

Be it learning time, family time or even just relaxing time, it's 5 hours that seemingly come from out of thin air.

Your experience is atypical. The median commute time in the United States is 25.4 minutes each way. The HN zeitgeist's insistence on living in major cities and taking public transit has a drastic cost in terms of commute time as well as money, one that most Americans do not pay.

The US is only one country in the world. I imagine this median goes up if we include more countries.

Regardless, my point stands. with that median we'd have 50 minutes every day which would total to ~4h/week literally wasted moving around.

I want to be able to move whenever I want. Especially as my partner might change cities a few times in the next years.

On day-to-day basis I enjoy good coffee, self-made and more healthy food and the possibility to have a quick nap when really needed. I can also take a big break and stretch the workday a bit if I stay available and feel like it.

edit: oh and I forgot: silence or good speakers.

Working on great products, great money (compared to local offers) while I don't have to restart my life in a new country.

Personally, I've done remote and decided after a while i didn't enjoy full time remote. The advantages? Getting to choose where i live, freedom in working my own schedule as long as deadlines are met, working in my boxers ?