I almost got scammed yesterday!

I'll post it all here to showcase the anatomy of an online scam in the time of LLMs.

1. I received this invitation to speak at a tech summit at a well known University in China. 2. I was traveling when I got this, and replied on mobile that we could explore. They sent a calendly link and I booked a slot for 2 weeks ahead.

3. The meeting would be yesterday, and one hour before the meeting time I received an email with the link to join. It was on this online platform called Buzzu, which I had never heard of.

Software Engineer salaries have wild variations around the world.

One thing is clear though:
- Regardless of where you live, working remotely for a US company will increase your salary. Probably by a lot! See Pakistan at the end of the list, the highest salary reported there is ~$16k/year.

So, if the highest paid Software Engineer in Pakistan lands a remote job earning a "low" US salary of $110k/year, that means an almost 7x salary increase.

Mind blowing stuff!

"My software product was developed by an Agency.

They've hosted it on their Github account, and now they're asking for unreasonable demands to give me access."

- (Yet another) Startup Founder told me recently Many unethical Software Development Agencies take advantage of non-technical Founders in many ways.

Retaining the client's Intellectual Property is one such tactic.

They host code privately on their Github account, and lock the Founder out.

Most people looking for remote jobs are wasting their time scrolling Linkedin.

It's frustrating! You'll mostly get ghosted by companies.

Try these alternatives instead: Linkedin isn't ideal for remote job seekers because:

- It's not optimised for remote (you need to select a city)
- It has lots of spam (many jobs aren't actual jobs)

But it's very high volume, and that's why it's a waste of your time.

"What do you do as a Fractional CTO? What problems do you help your clients with?"

Startup Founders reach out to me mostly with these 3 challenges: I've worked as a Fractional CTO for several years now.

During this time I've had 20+ clients, mostly startups in different growth stages, industries, tech stacks, team compositions, etc.

Most of my clients send me a DM here, seeking solutions for these problems:

Humans are terrible at data storage!

One day we'll forget the things we know today.

Even worse for companies. Every employee will eventually leave, and key knowledge will be lost forever.

As a CTO of Remote Teams, this is how I push my teams to document knowledge: If you think documenting knowledge is only important for remote teams. You're wrong!

Documenting knowledge is important for any team. Critical knowledge that lies on someone's brain is a source of fragility for any organisation.

"I haven't applied to remote jobs in the US, because I don't have a US Visa. Do I actually need a Visa to work remote for a US company?"

- This is a very common question I get in my DMs

TL;DR: No, you do NOT need a Visa. But you should understand the nuances though: 1. Understand the three different types of contracts that exist in Remote Work:

https://twitter.com/2539056306/status/1633467177943851013

I've interviewed several people who got laid off recently.

One thought seems to emerge in all of them:
- "I'll never again join a company that self-describes as a family!!"

Some reports are sobering: Most described periods when they made the compromise to miss time with their actual family, and instead spend it in things like:

- Work long hours to finish a project
- Join the company's happy hour drinks
- Go to the forest and plant trees with their team
- Company parties

My post about Software Developer salaries around the world went viral.

A common take was that US companies should simply outsource all work to Pakistan.

It's not that simple, though. As a Fractional CTO I've seen US Founders go wrong with outsourcing in many ways: 1/ Getting screwed by agencies

Outsource software development to an agency (in Pakistan or elsewhere) sounds tempting, for the savings of course.

However, I saw countless cases of agencies underdelivering, or ghosting their clients, or running away with the code base.

How much money can you make as a Fractional CTO?

TL;DR: Probably more than you think. But it's certainly more challenging to get there than you imagine.

Let me tell you more: I've worked as a Fractional CTO for a few years now. With dozens of clients. Either as side gigs, or as my main career path (like I'm doing now).

My first client paid me €100/h (that was around $110 back in 2016). The maximum I've charged recently was $900/h.

Let me explain:

You're freaking out about AI taking your job. And you're not the only one.

But is AI removing jobs? Or adding new ones?

TL;DR: Both!

I've compiled some hard data, so you don't have to: In this analysis of 5 million Upwork jobs posted since November 2022 we can grasp a few patterns:

- Writing, translation and customer support jobs are down pretty badly. These are among the killer use cases of ChatGPT and GPT-enabled bots.

Asynchronous communication is NOT a new concept.

Message queues have been a core component of distributed systems for many years.

Async comms is simply the same concept applied to distributed teams.

Let me explain: In a distributed system, messages are sent between each of its services.

Issues can occur whenever:

- One of the services is unavailable -> Messages get lost

- One of the services receives too many messages in a short period of time -> Fails to process some of them

Most people looking for remote jobs waste their time scrolling Linkedin.

That's frustrating, you'll mostly just get ghosted by companies.

Try these alternatives instead: The reasons why Linkedin sucks are:

- Not optimised for remote (you need to select a city)
- Lots of spam (many jobs aren't actual jobs)

Frustrating. It's a waste of your time.

The Startup CTO role changes every few months, as the company grows.

An experienced Startup CTO is one who knows when to change gears.

These are the 3 stages of the Startup CTO role: 1. Pre-seed companies need a builder

At such early stage, the CTO is a hands on coder, who is comfortable using non-ideal engineering standards (eg: no tests, no staging, etc).

Shipping must be fast, the startup survival is at constant risk.

What would I do if I were to start my career in tech from scratch?

This question came up in the Remote Jobs Braintrust recently.

This is what I do: Btw, if you want to be a part of these conversations and have direct access on Slack to myself and 120+ other community members, you should join us:

sergiorocks.gumroad.com/l/remote-jobs-…

The Company<>Employee trust has eroded, indeed:

- In 2021/2022 we had the Great Resignation. Millions of tech workers left their companies to pursue remote work and entrepreneurial ventures.

- In 2023/2024 we're seeing industry-wide layoffs and passive-aggressive RTO mandates. One thing has been equal through all these market cycles, though:

- Companies invest more in hiring than they invest in retention.

Historically companies have been more generous with offers to new employees than they were with raises to current employees.

How to standout in job interviews.

TD;DR: Your interviewer has 10 back-to-back interviews that day. Tell a story they'll remember and share with their colleagues.

This is how: As a CTO, I've interviewed 1000+ candidates for my remote teams over the past decade.

I don't remember most of them, of course.

I do remember most of the ones I hired.

But I do also remember some I didn't hire, but they just did great in our interview.

Why I don't use Scrum to manage my Remote Teams?

TL;DR: It adds at least 8 hours of meetings per Sprint. That's 2 full days of lost productivity, per team member, per month!

This is what I do instead: Earlier in my career I did use Scrum. A lot, actually.

At times because I was pushed to do it. Other times because I didn't know better.

Everyone was doing it, so it felt like the natural way to manage tech projects to me.

Remote jobs are highly competitive.

If you're looking for one, you must position yourself as "unique" to the role you're applying to.

That's how you standout from a crowded pool of applicants.

Take a few examples: You must create a public persona that cannibalises the opportunities you do NOT want, and that makes you more “unique” to the opportunities that you DO want.

Eg: By positioning yourself as a "Javascript Engineer" you standout for Javascript roles, but you cannibalise all others.

I've worked remote for US companies for 7 years now.

I live in a low wage country 🇵🇹, and a salary above $100k/year was life changing.

Remote work allowed me to triple my earnings since then, without increasing my cost of living.

This is what I learned about US remote jobs: First of all, why do these salary figures matter?

A $100k/year salary might be on the low end, if you're in SF or NY.

However, if you live in a country with a low cost of living, that $100k+ income puts you in the top earning percentile.

It means financial freedom for most!

https://twitter.com/2539056306/status/1488436986763431939

I've worked remote for 7 years now.

During this time I've interviewed, hired and managed hundreds of people.

This is what I know about remote work: Pandemic remote was NOT a fair representation of remote work.

- Constant fear and anxiety for a global health threat
- Unable to go outside or meet friends and family
- Home-schooled kids

It was challenging to work in such conditions.

Normal remote work is much better.