Work at home/remote location programming jobs

djk1000

Hi,

First time in the development forum, woohoo!

Long story short, I'm a graduate programmer, I have a friend living in South America and I'd love to be able to head over there for a year or two, before I get my hopes up, I'm wondering is remote working a feasible option for programmers.

Since the cost of living where I'm going is ridiculously low, I could have a comfortable life on Irish minimum wage. Do you think there are employers out there that would accept remote working and time zone issues in return for paying below the going rate for a grad developer? Would getting a year or two's experience in Ireland first make a difference?

Thanks!

Mort5000

It would be my experience that you can't actually apply for and get a work from home job per se.
Where I've worked, people only end up working from home when their circumstances have changed and the company wants to retain their services but allows them to work from home.
It is very difficult to manage someone who isn't alongside you in an office, let alone on another continent / timezone.
I'd be more inclined to look for local work in the region.

CreepingDeath

Junior programmers starting in a company require a lot of supervision.
Also, if someone is new, the last thing a company wants to do is give them full access to the network from home.

I'd imagine most employers will only let you work part-time from home if you've built up a good level of trust and can work well independently.
Or if you have to provide customer support out of normal business hours.

So I'd say you'd need at least a year or two under your belt with an employer before you can request working from home.
Even then, they'll probably require you to drop into the office at least once a week/fortnight.

An alternative, might be to work for a big multinational who has offices in South America, and after a year or two, see if you can request
an internal transfer there.

djk1000

Good advice, thanks guys.

stevenmu

If you could get anything, you'd probably be considered an offshore contractor and be paid accordingly (i.e. not very much).

Freddio

There is freelance work out there - (why limit yourself to Ireland either).

Just be careful not to get ripped off

The Corinthian

First of all, as has been suggested, teleworking as a graduate or with limited professional experience is not a runner. Teleworking is not easy and requires that you are both very disciplined and knowledgeable in many aspects of the development project cycle and I would doubt that any developer would be able to do this without at least a few years under their belt - if ever, as not everyone is cut out to do this.

Winning freelance work is not easy. If you're not even physically in the market, it's even more difficult, with few sales channels open to you apart from sites such as eLance. Having an 'agent' on the ground, as it were, makes things a lot easier.

As such, if this is what you really want to do, I'd look at a two to five year plan. Work locally to build up experience, knowledge and connections. Also build up a network of contacts in SME's that may eventually want to farm out work to you (do a few nixers with them to build up a working relationship). And finally plan for no work to come in for the first few months that you start - both in terms of strategy and cash flow.