I have done a lot of remote work both as a contractor (Auckland <-> Portland) and as an employee (Auckland <-> Wellington). The biggest problem I experienced is poor communications. You really don't want to be the first/only remote worker for an organisation where everyone else is in the same office. Companies that have a lot of remote workers will understand that they need to invest more:
As a senior dev I am expected to pair with/mentor less experienced developers. Often I had to organise for my team to have good headsets so that they could hear each other properly while on a call or remote pairing session.
Make sure that they buy you a really good headset unless you already have one. It makes a world of difference.
Make them buy good quality conferencing equipment otherwise you'll be attending stand ups or planning meetings where someone just dials you in with their laptop speakers/microphone and not get that all you can hear is "mumble mumble mumble laugh".
You'll need to change your behaviour too. Social interaction in an office just happens as a by product of you all being there but if you're not there then you have to dial up the volume. If your company uses a tool like Slack then you need to spend some of your time being visible and probably funnier than you really are to make sure that people remember you're there.
For a couple of years I was living by myself and working remotely. Sometimes it is just really, really lonely. A local co-working space really made all the difference for me; I got to talk to peers and make new friends. Some of them are friends for life. You should definitely investigate whether there's a space near you. Otherwise there's always local cafes, just make sure that the owners are happy with you working there and that you spend money while you're there.
Working remotely is hard. But it's not as hard as a crushing commute or an office where you don't really fit in. You get out what you put in.
A local co-working space really made all the difference for me
I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "co-working" space! I feel like Portland is likely to have some I'll have to look around🕵️
You'll need to change your behaviour too. Social interaction in an office just happens as a by product of you all being there but if you're not there then you have to dial up the volume.
Makes sense. Never thought about that.
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I have done a lot of remote work both as a contractor (Auckland <-> Portland) and as an employee (Auckland <-> Wellington). The biggest problem I experienced is poor communications. You really don't want to be the first/only remote worker for an organisation where everyone else is in the same office. Companies that have a lot of remote workers will understand that they need to invest more:
You'll need to change your behaviour too. Social interaction in an office just happens as a by product of you all being there but if you're not there then you have to dial up the volume. If your company uses a tool like Slack then you need to spend some of your time being visible and probably funnier than you really are to make sure that people remember you're there.
For a couple of years I was living by myself and working remotely. Sometimes it is just really, really lonely. A local co-working space really made all the difference for me; I got to talk to peers and make new friends. Some of them are friends for life. You should definitely investigate whether there's a space near you. Otherwise there's always local cafes, just make sure that the owners are happy with you working there and that you spend money while you're there.
Working remotely is hard. But it's not as hard as a crushing commute or an office where you don't really fit in. You get out what you put in.
Good luck!
Thanks for the reply.
I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "co-working" space! I feel like Portland is likely to have some I'll have to look around🕵️
Makes sense. Never thought about that.