It really is as awesome as sitting at home and coding all day :). I've been working remotely part-time for about 13 years and full-time for a little over 1 year. I love working remotely and would only seriously consider remote jobs if I were to look (unless I became desperate, of course). I only fill the tank in my car about once a month or less. No rush hour, no wasted time in the car, no driving in dangerous weather, no road-rage at all.
The ideal remote position has the entire team working remotely (managers, developers, testers, etc). It can be challenging if you are the only remote team member. The team should use Slack (or something similar) to communicate, including both formal meetings and informal chatting, joking, etc. There is no physically banging down doors, so everybody on the team needs to be willing to watch the shared communication channel (Slack or something else) and respond reasonably quickly.
If you are considering it, you should be sure that you can commit to it. It seems you have the right attitude, but if you live in a shared space (family? roommates?), you need to get buy-in from everybody else in the household. They need to agree that when you are working, you are "not at home". Get this agreement before accepting any remote job.
It's nice to have the flexibility to go pick up your kids from school and whatnot, but it either needs to be part of your typical day and the rest of the team knows you will be gone for that time or it needs to be infrequent (ie, no more than once or twice a month). If you have kids and your spouse works, they need to be in daycare, at least if it is expected that you actually watch and entertain them (you can't work and watch young children at the same time).
You also need to have an office with a door that you can close. The office can be used for other things, but it can't be a shared space. This is important to not only be able to have a space you can work without being distracted, but also a place that you can leave when you are done working for the day (it's important to have some psychological barrier between work/home life). The further and more isolated this space is from the rest of the household, the better (fewer distractions, more distance between work and home).
You will probably want to participate in Meetups and user groups as well as go out to lunch or dinner once or twice a month with friends that are in the same profession as you. I haven't missed being in the office much. Perhaps this is due to my team's good use of Slack, or that I attend professional events, or maybe it's because I'm more introverted than others, but I don't feel like my social life is lacking due to working from home.
Super useful reply thank you! Everyone seems to be advising towards a fully-remote team, I never even thought about that but it totally makes sense.
Fortunately I do have an office space, I use it to code and home and make music, which I can see becoming a distraction - Might have to move that equipment somewhere else.
And I do have roommates, luckily they are all usually at work from 9 - 5.
This reminds me of when I first started working remotely and I didn't have a separate office space - my desk was just wedged into the corner of our dining room. My ex-wife's mother came around to visit with my wife and kids one day about 2pm in the afternoon. They sat in the dining room while she drank a cup of tea with my wife. After about 10 minutes of them sitting there while I was quietly working away in the corner she turned around and said "James! You're being so rude to me!"
Make sure that everyone who enters your home knows that this is your workspace.
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It really is as awesome as sitting at home and coding all day :). I've been working remotely part-time for about 13 years and full-time for a little over 1 year. I love working remotely and would only seriously consider remote jobs if I were to look (unless I became desperate, of course). I only fill the tank in my car about once a month or less. No rush hour, no wasted time in the car, no driving in dangerous weather, no road-rage at all.
The ideal remote position has the entire team working remotely (managers, developers, testers, etc). It can be challenging if you are the only remote team member. The team should use Slack (or something similar) to communicate, including both formal meetings and informal chatting, joking, etc. There is no physically banging down doors, so everybody on the team needs to be willing to watch the shared communication channel (Slack or something else) and respond reasonably quickly.
If you are considering it, you should be sure that you can commit to it. It seems you have the right attitude, but if you live in a shared space (family? roommates?), you need to get buy-in from everybody else in the household. They need to agree that when you are working, you are "not at home". Get this agreement before accepting any remote job.
It's nice to have the flexibility to go pick up your kids from school and whatnot, but it either needs to be part of your typical day and the rest of the team knows you will be gone for that time or it needs to be infrequent (ie, no more than once or twice a month). If you have kids and your spouse works, they need to be in daycare, at least if it is expected that you actually watch and entertain them (you can't work and watch young children at the same time).
You also need to have an office with a door that you can close. The office can be used for other things, but it can't be a shared space. This is important to not only be able to have a space you can work without being distracted, but also a place that you can leave when you are done working for the day (it's important to have some psychological barrier between work/home life). The further and more isolated this space is from the rest of the household, the better (fewer distractions, more distance between work and home).
You will probably want to participate in Meetups and user groups as well as go out to lunch or dinner once or twice a month with friends that are in the same profession as you. I haven't missed being in the office much. Perhaps this is due to my team's good use of Slack, or that I attend professional events, or maybe it's because I'm more introverted than others, but I don't feel like my social life is lacking due to working from home.
Super useful reply thank you! Everyone seems to be advising towards a fully-remote team, I never even thought about that but it totally makes sense.
Fortunately I do have an office space, I use it to code and home and make music, which I can see becoming a distraction - Might have to move that equipment somewhere else.
And I do have roommates, luckily they are all usually at work from 9 - 5.
This reminds me of when I first started working remotely and I didn't have a separate office space - my desk was just wedged into the corner of our dining room. My ex-wife's mother came around to visit with my wife and kids one day about 2pm in the afternoon. They sat in the dining room while she drank a cup of tea with my wife. After about 10 minutes of them sitting there while I was quietly working away in the corner she turned around and said "James! You're being so rude to me!"
Make sure that everyone who enters your home knows that this is your workspace.