Avoid These 3 Mistakes When Starting Your First Remote Job as a Software Engineer (So You Can Actually Enjoy It)
Plus: how to give yourself an extra salary.
My first job as a software engineer was completely remote.
My second and third were the same. The COVID-19 pandemic was hitting hard, and the world had shifted to almost 100% remote knowledge work. This reality is changing now, but there are still lots of completely remote jobs out there.
If you are starting your first remote job, avoid these three mistakes I made.
Doing less for you than you should.
Not having well-defined working hours.
Being available for a “quick call” all the time.
If you manage to successfully avoid all of the above, I guarantee your experience will be much better—you will be able to focus on what matters most in the beginning: learning as much as you can.
Mistake #1: Not having well-defined working hours
One of the worst mistakes you can make when starting your first remote job is not setting boundaries for your work time.
This leads to quick changes in production at 8 p.m., multiple calls with multiple people, and even working on weekends. When you instead have a clear period of time where you are working, everyone else needs to adjust to your schedule if they want something from you. Something like 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, is the best thing you can do to avoid burnout and stay motivated and sharp for everything else in your life that also requires your attention.
Remote work is not a game of always being available but of doing what needs to be done when it has to be done.
Mistake #2: Being available for a “quick call” all the time
After establishing clear boundaries on your working time, you need to make sure that you progress on the tasks you are supposed to work on.
This means that you cannot always be available to hop on a quick call every time some of your colleagues or your boss decide they need your input. Quick calls are never quick, and they are draining to the point that you feel you have done a lot of work when, in reality, you still haven’t done anything. You can avoid this by having clear times when you are available for calls and times when you focus on work.
Use your calendar and create periods of “office hours” when you attend requests, hop on calls, and reply to messages, as well as “sacred hours“ when you are most focused and least responsive.
Mistake #3: Doing less for you than you should
When you establish clear boundaries for your working hours and develop a strategy for getting things done every day, you will find that you complete everything that’s required of you in less time.
Use this to your advantage. All the free time you get without sacrificing anything expected from you is an opportunity to do more for yourself. Use this time to improve your fitness, focus on your family and relationships, or make progress on your personal projects.
You always have something to improve that will significantly impact your life, and you must actively make time for it.
Mistake #4: Not giving yourself an extra salary if possible (a little bonus for making it this far)
We are terrible at understanding the scale of things.
I learned this after spending most Saturdays in a year performing on-call support for my company. My duty was to stay at most 30 minutes away from my computer and always be available on my phone in case “something happened.” They would pay me even if no one called, just for the trouble of being available on a weekend.
One Saturday, I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. Something had happened, and I had to work for five hours to fix it—collaborating remotely with other engineers from different teams. After the stressful experience, I decided never to take one of these support days again because I thought they were not worth the trouble.
And then my wife said, " At least you got an extra salary.”
This was the 30th weekend day I’d gotten paid for, and the only time “something happened” that made me work for five hours.
I’ll take that job every day.
Opportunity is scarce.
Be on the lookout.
—Alberto
Author of The Competitive Programmer's Guide to Graph Theory
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