Raúl Santos
One of the biggest perks of working in software development is the ability to work from anywhere in the world. A lot of people tell me they don’t know how to find a remote job or project, though. Since I have worked remotely for the vast majority of my career, I figured I’d share some of the websites I use to find remote full-time or part-time jobs, as well as freelance projects.
Unfortunately, the two best websites I knew, Stack Overflow Jobs and Github Jobs, have been closed down in 2022 and 2021, respectively. :(
Luckily for us, there are many others!
Top recommendations
1. Climatebase
My current top recommendation is Climatebase.
It’s not the job board where you will find the most jobs but I believe it is where you should start - for a reason that most people don’t usually think about.
Climate change is by far the single most urgent challenge humanity is facing, and I believe we should all try to do what we can to fight it. If we can get a remote job in the software engineering world that also happens to be doing something positive about this, we should do it.
In this job board will more easily find jobs that will allow you to put your skills to good use.
2. Welcome To The Jungle
This is by far the nicest job board I have ever used. It has a very nice way to filter the things that matter the most to you and the ones you do not want. For example, you can specify that you only want fully remote jobs, in the health industry, working with Go or Elixir, and you don’t want to work with React or Javascript (obviously 😏). They also send out regular alerts for jobs that match your preferences, and one of my favourite features is that you can apply directly from their site using your profile.
There’s also a few quality-of-life details that I love, like allowing you to see only jobs that divulge the salary range, or jobs for which you can apply directly from the website, jobs that you previously applied for or saved, and a few other niceties.
Not only is it the nicest, it has also been the place where I found the highest number of interesting jobs.
3. Key Values
The second place goes to Key Values.
It is also not the place with the most jobs but it has a unique approach to job searching that helps you find jobs that share your values. For example, you can filter by places that value work-life balance, or high-quality code bases, or light meetings culture. I would love to see this in more job boards. It does lack the ability to filter for the usual things, though.
One little detail that I love is that for each value you pick, they give you a bunch of questions you can ask during job interviews to help you further understand that company’s values and culture.
4. Wellfound (formerly AngelList Talent)
Lots of young startups and most of them are in the VC game, which might be something you want to take into account, since the ultimate goal of the game is to sell the company, at which point, all the promises that were previously made are tossed out the window.
Remote-focused job boards
These websites are focused on remote work. They may also have other types of jobs but their bread and butter is remote.
- https://remoteok.com
- https://remotive.com
- https://weworkremotely.com
- https://dailyremote.com/
- https://justremote.co
- https://jobspresso.co/
- https://www.workingnomads.com/
- https://www.virtualvocations.com/q-remote-software-development-jobs.html
- https://www.flexjobs.com/
Non-remote-focused job boards
These are not focused on remote work (they do have ads for remote work) but are still quite good.
- https://hiring.cafe - Nice way to filter the list of available jobs, with very fine-grained details.
- https://www.unlistedjobs.com/ - Interesting approach that inverts the usual way job boards work: on this one, the job seeker pays to access the ads, instead of the employer paying to post the ads. In theory, this should lead to higher quality ads and a better experience for the job seeker.
- https://portfolio.joinef.com - There are usually a lot of very interesting positions on this one.
- https://hnhiring.com/ - An aggregator of job posts from Hacker News “whoishiring” account
- https://airtable.com/app53PsYpHxJW61l3/shr303f0nPKns4n45/tbl8QszTVi0TT7ur8 - A list of other interesting job boards.
- https://hired.com - You create a profile and companies can find you and request an interview.
- https://www.honeypot.io - Similar to Hired.
- https://landing.jobs - Similar to Hired but to be completely honest, I’ve had nothing but bad experiences with them, both as a job seeker and as an employer. And they focus a lot on the Portuguese market, which means lower rates.
- https://authenticjobs.com
- https://relocateme.eu
- https://www.monster.co.uk
- https://www.simplyhired.co.uk
Talent matching
These sites actively find projects and match them with developers after a pre-selection process.
- https://www.toptal.com - Great culture and work-life balance
- https://x-team.com - Great culture and work-life balance
- https://turing.com
- https://www.gun.io
- https://www.vettery.com
Freelance work
A good way to get some more income with some side projects, or if you’re getting started it can also be a good way to find simple projects to gain some experience with.
- https://www.upwork.com - One important thing to keep in mind is that some employers demand that the worker installs Upwork’s software, which is basically spyware: every 5 minutes or so, it takes a screenshot of your screen(s) and a picture through your webcam.
- https://www.guru.com
Tips and articles about salary negotiation and interviewing:
These are great articles to read with lots of super valuable insights. If you want the most valuable ones, here are three basic rules:
- Never, ever tell a recruiter how much you want as a salary; let them give you a number, otherwise you will probably leave lots of money on the table.
- Always try to negotiate the salary. No one will give up on you if you ask them if they are willing to pay a little more. If they are that close-minded, you probably don’t want to work with them anyway.
- Never sign an NDA or non-compete agreement.
- How I negotiated a $300,000 job offer in Silicon Valley
- Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued
- Deploying Guerrilla Tactics to Combat Stupid Tech Interviews
- 8 reasons why I rarely sign an NDA
- Ten Rules for Negotiating a Job Offer
- How to sabotage your salary negotiations efforts before you even start
Header photo by Kristin Wilson on Unsplash