Mastering Remote Work: The Developer’s Guide To Navigating Global Opportunities

Are you curious about how people secure remote jobs? In today’s interconnected world, the opportunities for remote work are vast. If you want to learn how to find a remote job that suits you, join us on a journey through this developer’s guide to navigating global opportunities. 

Remote work refers to employment opportunities that allow individuals to work from the comfort of their own home. We at Dixre sat down with Victor Abbah Nkoms, a FullStack Developer, who has been working remotely for over seven years and has a lot of insight to share in this episode of Dixre podcast.

This episode exposes developers who are interested in remote work to discover what it takes to land their dream job, identify the essential skills they need to have, where to find remote job opportunities, roles of geographic location in remote work, tips for continuous learning, with career progression, effective tools for remote work collaboration, and some challenges they are likely to face and how to overcome them.

Essential Skills for Remote Developers

As a software developer, you need to have strong coding skills and a deep knowledge of programming languages such as Java, Python, or JavaScript and you also need to be comfortable working your choice independently.

How to Find Remote Job Opportunities

‘‘I go on Twitter and follow everybody that is in that community and I started getting interested in startups. So I followed so many people that are into the startup ecosystem in Nigeria, I was following them and I noticed something; that they were good at what they do, so good that you just couldn’t ignore them, and they had so much integrity and they were very open always, like all this information, you deduce it from their tweets, right? so I said I’m going to try to make myself as good as they were. That was when I started applying for remote jobs, I just felt like I’m in Kaduna. I’m in Nigeria, right? but if people in Lagos could do it, I could do it’’ –  Victor Abbah Nkoms

Follow people who are better than you are, have mentors i.e. people you look up to in that career,  know all that it entails to land a remote job, apply for an internship and never look down on opportunities. Build your CV, nothing is too small to start with and also start with personal projects.

The Role of Geographic Location in Remote Work

‘‘There are companies that are fully remote and they don’t care where you are, they just look for somebody good enough and they can just bring you in’’ –  Samaila Chatto Bashir

People around the world have the mindset that their location is a barrier for them to land a remote job but in a real sense these companies do not care about where you are, all they want is productivity and dedication; like, can you give them what they want at the appointed time and date, if yes, they bring you on the job.

Tips for Continuous Learning and Career Progression

‘‘The tech industry is a very very fast-paced industry, it’s not like an industry where you get a job and you probably would not need to learn anything else till like maybe when you need a promotion, it doesn’t work that way here, if you leave JavaScript for like six months, I promise you that if you come back you have to start learning certain things afresh, like almost every week there’s a new JavaScript framework coming up that is useful that can make your life better and if you don’t know it, you will suffer’’ – Victor Abbah Nkoms

As a software developer, never stop learning, because every day in the tech world things keep evolving and the moment you stop learning, you become obsolete. Also, the fact that remote work is not like the regular 9-5 jobs makes it easier for you to keep updating yourself.

Challenges Encountered While Working Remotely

‘‘One of the major challenges I faced so far is, at times you work with people who don’t trust you and if you’re going to be sincere and be fair to them, I understand why they don’t trust you; you get what I’m saying yeah, I mean you are working with somebody that is miles apart from you, they want to make sure you’re doing what you’re doing’’ – Victor Abbah Nkoms

People who work remotely over time have come across some challenges, and some of them are trust and racism, but you wouldn’t blame them because these companies are going to be releasing vital information about their companies to total strangers. Some of them go to the extent of tracking your device and Skype call you, just to make sure you are on their job and you are genuine. 

Common Tools for Remote Work Collaboration

Most companies use Zoom or Google Meet for video conferencing, Jira, asana or trello for project management, google drive, dropbox or microsoft onedrive for file sharing and cloud storage, slack for communication and messaging, google work space (formerly G suite) for collaborative editing, miro  for visual whiteboards, focus mode by geekbot, todolist, toggl or rescue time for time tracking and productivity, figma for collaborative design, lastpass for password management, nectar or fond for building team culture and salesforce for customer relationship management.

Parting Advice for Making the Transition to Remote Work

‘‘Build your portfolio; if you’re applying for jobs, be confident. Confidence is something you can see, you can smell. Find a way to exude confidence whenever you’re in a meeting, they are not going to kill you, the highest thing is No, so be confident yeah; make sure your LinkedIn profile is updated’’  –  Victor Abbah Nkoms

For insight into getting remote job opportunities as a developer, this episode of Dixre Podcast would be a great place to start.
Interested in getting more information on skills in technology, business, remote work, and professional networking, then Dixre Podcast is an excellent  place for you to learn.