Working remotely not only provides you with a comfortable, relaxing atmosphere, but it’s also great for the company you work for. Research shows that remote workers are between 35% and 40% more productive than those in an office.
In many ways, working remotely offers the best of both worlds, especially when it comes to tech jobs, which can pay well without requiring you to leave your home — or even your bed. Read on to learn about how the remote work movement is gaining momentum, as well as full-time and contract jobs you can do remotely.
Many companies are now using remote workers
Many companies in the past year have made the transition to allowing employees the option to work remotely. Today, 56% of organizations in the U.S. allow their employees to work remotely, and 18% use full-time remote workers.
Along with the 35% to 40% boost in productivity, remote workers also report being happier in their positions. Fostering a productive, positive environment has a ripple effect, resulting in better customer service and higher employee retention.
These benefits weren’t realized for many companies until much of the world was forced to embrace the remote workplace because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that working from home — or elsewhere — has become part of the new norm, the number of full-time and contract remote work positions has increased. Here are some of the top tech jobs you can do from anywhere you have reliable internet reception.
How to find tech jobs that can be done remotely
The internet has many websites that list remote work opportunities. Some of the options include:
- Working Nomads
- Flex Jobs
- We Work Remotely
- Remote OK
- Dynamite Jobs
- Jobspresso
- ZipRecruiter
- Indeed
You can also ask an employer if they would be OK with you working some or all of the time remotely. In some cases, a company may be willing to extend this provision to the right person, knowing they can get top talent by being a little flexible.
Full-time jobs that can be done remotely
Here are some full-time jobs you can do from home.
Front-End Web Developer
A full-time Front-End Web Developer can bring in around $104,280 a year — even while working remotely. As a Web Developer, you’d design web applications that help organizations meet their internal goals and engage with customers. As a Front-End Web Developer, your focus is on the user-facing elements, including the user interface (UI), which you leverage to create a positive and productive user experience (UX).
Your pay as a Front-End Web Developer reflects the importance of your job: You ensure that apps are useful and tweaked for optimal end-user performance. With our Front-End Engineer Career Path, you can gain the knowledge and experience you need to start your journey designing effective user-facing solutions. Because you can sign in to your company’s VPN or cloud environment and access the tools and resources you need, it’s easy to take the skills you learn in our courses and turn them into remote income.
A Back-End Web Developer
A Back-End Web Developer brings in an average of $120,010 a year. They design the inner workings of web apps — the elements you use but can’t see. Back-End Web Developers link apps’ dependencies to power their functions, such as databases, business logic, application programming interfaces (APIs), and hostname dependencies.
In our Back-End Engineer Career Path, you’ll learn what it takes to power business-critical apps, enabling companies to solve problems for themselves and their customers.
Software Engineer
Software Engineers perform a similar job as Web Developers, except their solutions are often run on users’ computers and devices instead of the internet. Even so, you can get all the tools you need to build applications on your laptop or within a cloud-native coding environment, making it easy to design apps full-time from home, a co-working space, or anywhere else with an internet connection.
Even when working remotely, you can enjoy an average full-time salary of $102,234, excluding bonuses, as a Software Engineer. Our Front-End Engineer, Back-End Engineer, and Full-Stack Engineer Career Paths can help you build the skills you need to get started.
Contract and freelance jobs you can do remotely
If a full-time role isn’t right for you, there are contract and freelance jobs that can be done from home. Here are a few options.
Cybersecurity Intelligence Analyst
A Cybersecurity Intelligence Analyst uses insights gained from studying cybersecurity threats to protect an organization and its networks. This is an ideal remote contract job because companies often prefer to hire intelligence analysts on a short-term basis, asking them to address a specific set of vulnerabilities instead of committing to a long-term role.
As a remote Cybersecurity Intelligence Analyst, your pay will depend on how many jobs you take, but the tasks will remain relatively uniform, involving:
- Identifying the latest threats on the landscape
- Pinpointing those most likely to impact your client
- Ensuring that they have the protections they need to address any vulnerabilities
Our Introduction to Cybersecurity course can help you get started. It will teach you the essential concepts to build a career as a Cybersecurity Intelligence Analyst.
Network Engineer
A Network Engineer designs, implements, and tests computer networks. You can do this remotely on a contract basis because you just have to log into a company’s on-premise server or cloud environment to analyze, test, and suggest ways to improve their networks.
In this position, you’ll likely have to work with other IT staff, including those that install physical components, like firewalls, routers, access points, and servers. Using videoconferencing technology, communicating with these and other stakeholders is straightforward and in many ways more efficient than trying to do it in person.
We have several courses to support a career as a Network Engineer. Courses such as Learn Node.js and Learn Go help you become familiar with some of the languages Network Engineers encounter as they provide secure, effective ways for companies to connect with web-based apps.
Database Engineer
A Database Engineer designs and implements database solutions to:
- Organize and process a company’s internal data
- Analyze data to improve the experiences of customers
- Provide the back-end database infrastructure that many applications depend on
As a Database Engineer working on a contract basis, you may be hired to design a solution, oversee its rollout, and then address any issues that arise in the future. You may also be charged with assessing the performance of existing databases and finding ways to improve or redesign them. Connecting to a database system remotely is simple with a VPN or a connection to a cloud-hosted solution.
Data analytics plays a pivotal role in the toolbox of a Database Engineer. Check out our Data Analyst Career Path to learn how to collect and analyze data.
Not only has the surge in popularity of remote work opened up more opportunities for professionals in tech to work from anywhere in the world with a reliable internet connection, but it’s also advanced how we work remotely — like improvements in virtual meeting technology and project management tools. If you’re looking to gain the skills and knowledge you’ll need to land a remote full-time role or take on remote freelance work, check out our online courses today.