One of the things I always dreamed of when I began working in User Experience was being able to do my work from anywhere in the world and not be tied to an office, nor limited by the economic or political conditions of the country where I was living. I wanted to avoid traffic, be able to take a nap after lunch, or work from a beach if I wanted to without that being a problem; but at that time the offer of remote jobs was very low and there were not even portals dedicated to the search for remote jobs. Luckily, all of this has gradually changed and was significantly accelerated due to the Covid pandemic.

I was fortunate to be among the first who could work 100% remotely, enjoying all the benefits that implies for over 10 years, and I’ve loved it from day one until now.
That’s why I can give a very objective and broad vision, based on having worked with many companies remotely and thus being able to talk with foundation about the benefits and drawbacks of remote work.

I can tell you in advance that not everything is rosy when you work remotely; but, if you are like me, the advantages will more than compensate for the few disadvantages it has.

The good

Let’s go point by point and clarify my perspective on each one:

• 1. Work at your own pace: You don’t have a boss, supervisor, or annoying colleague who never fails to check on your progress or micro-manage every time they pass by your desk. You simply indicate the time you will take on a specific task or set a delivery date and then just ensure you deliver on time.
• 2. Flexible hours: Most remote jobs evaluate you based on results and not on whether you fulfill a specific schedule. While it is true that many companies use time control systems to supervise you and in some cases to bill their clients based on the time invested in specific tasks, in practice this means that if you want to stop in the middle of the morning to rest or run an errand, you can do so without a problem, as you can later compensate for that time the same day by staying a bit longer or starting a bit earlier the next day.
• 3. Work wherever you want: You can work from your home, but you can also work from a coffee shop, the beach, or a park if you wish.
• 4. Avoid traffic: The few times I worked in an office, I wasted between 1 and 3 hours a day in traffic, which averages about 40 hours per month or 480 hours per year of your life thrown away that you can’t recover.
• Avoid going to the office: This implies that you don’t have to dress up to go to work, you can work in your pajamas if you want, you don’t have to prepare your lunch to bring with you or spend money on eating out.
• 5. Sleep more: You no longer need to get up early to get to work on time, getting up 20 or 30 minutes before is more than enough.
• 6. You can focus without interruptions: If you set boundaries with your immediate environment, for example with your spouse if you’re married, your children, parents, roommates, or anyone who lives with you and also people you constantly talk to, you can work undisturbed and perform at your best during your working hours. This may mean that you need a space in your house to work without distractions, like a room or office in your home where you can lock the door or wear headphones that isolate noise and remind the people you live with that you’re working and can’t chat with them.
• 7. 100% personalized workspace: By working from home, you can create your space as you prefer, you can have multiple monitors, the chair you prefer, the desk size you need, you can be near a window with a beautiful view, you can adjust your space to your needs and budget.
• 8. Good salaries: Many times, companies that hire remote staff are from countries where it’s more expensive to hire, but even if they pay less than in their country, it often is a salary much higher than the average of the country where you live -unless you live in Luxembourg or Switzerland, of course. On the other hand, the remote work market has become so competitive that companies offer very good salaries to get the best professionals in each area.
• 9. Almost immediate wage or labor improvements: Linked to the previous point, if you’re not happy with your salary or the work environment, the world of remote work moves very quickly and there are always vacancies to fill, often with better salaries than your current one. So, if you’re not comfortable in a remote job for whatever reason, you just need to look at the remote offers on the portals and very quickly you can start working with another company.
• 10. Unlimited days off and vacations: In most cases, you can take as many vacations as you want, as long as you keep in mind that most companies that work remotely will not pay you for those days off. There are companies where they have a limit for the number of vacations you can take or when to do it, but in general, you can take as many as you want.

The Bad

1. You must be very disciplined: The downside of working at your own pace appears when you tend to procrastinate, leave things to the last minute, and start missing deadlines. Just like with flexible hours, everything depends on you and your discipline. If you spend too much time on personal errands and paperwork, if you take more breaks than you need, if you wake up late and leave early, if you let others interrupt you constantly, then it becomes a problem.

2. You must be prepared to work outside an office: Working wherever you want is wonderful, but it implies that you work wherever you want except in an office (unless you have a hybrid job or go to a co-working space). This means that your home must be equipped for you to work from there. You must have good internet, a good chair and a desk to work at, a good laptop, and mobile internet if you’re going to work outside your home, or you must go to a co-working space where they already have everything at your disposal.

3. You will have no real/physical contact with your co-workers: Not going to the office means you won’t see your work friends in person, you can’t go for coffee with them during breaks or chat in the office kitchen, or tell a joke on the way to a meeting. If you’re an extrovert, you probably enjoy those office breaks and sharing with others.

4. You must get up earlier: Considering that you have to shower, get dressed, prepare the food you’ll take, etc.

5. You will lose part of your life commuting: As you may have already noticed, I am totally against wasting our valuable time in traffic, on the train, or on the road.

6. The discomfort of traveling: In addition to the time you lose, you must add the discomfort of going by train, subway, or bus, if it’s raining, snowing, or very cold or hot that day, if you go by car and can’t find parking, etc.

7. The expense: Whether you go by car or public transport, you will always have to spend money (unless you go by bike or on foot), and in many countries, the cost of gasoline and transportation is very high.

8. You may have friction with your loved ones: When you start working remotely, if you live with people who are around you during your working hours, they will see you so close, so available, that it will be difficult for them not to interrupt you constantly to tell you something, to ask you anything, or to ask you to do something for them. It’s inevitable. You have to “teach them” that even if you’re there, you’re not available, that you have things to deliver and deadlines to meet, which at first will be a little hard for them to understand, but then they’ll get used to it.

9. Hour control systems: Many companies that work remotely or hybrid – though not all – make their employees use hour control systems. These are systems where you must record the hours you spent on each task, for example: 2 hours writing the questionnaire for the interviews, 5 hours designing the wireframes for section x of such project, 1 hour in meetings, etc. At the time I am writing this, the best known are: Harvest, Clockify, Toggl, among others. In the most extreme cases, the system the tool uses may even take random screenshots of your screen during the day to guarantee to the company that you are working on their project, but this is the exception and not the rule. This is not bad per se, but it again implies that you must have a lot of discipline to ensure that what you record matches what you are delivering.

10. Especially in our field, in several projects and companies, when they no longer need you, they simply dispense with you. Many times, these companies do not give importance to User Experience, other times they want to reduce costs and find someone to do your tasks for a lower salary. In other cases, if you were not disciplined and missed your deliveries, they will also look for another person very quickly. In short, you must be prepared to be fired at any time, although this also happens in traditional jobs.

11. You are not paid for vacations or days off: As with everything, there are exceptions, but most do not pay you for the days you take off. You can take as many days as you want, but they will not pay you for those days.

12. No benefits: Most remote jobs work as if you were a contractor/freelancer/self-employed, meaning you have to pay for your own insurance, your social security if you want it, look for a private pension fund. You may in some cases be registered as self-employed (this does not apply in all countries) or even for some clients you must have a registered company, but in most cases, the only thing companies ask you for is an account to deposit your payment and you take care of the rest. They don’t ask you for invoices, or for you to register, or anything of the above, just that you have an account that works internationally (for example, Payoneer or PayPal) or they hire you through a platform like Upwork or Workana. There are exceptions, as there are companies that do give benefits and pay social security, even have pension plans, paid vacations, and stock packages, but they are not the majority.

13. Continuous education: User Experience is an area where techniques, but especially tools, are constantly changing. This means that the programs and tools you use today may change in 3 or 4 years, which implies that you must be constantly learning.

14. Variation of environments: Each company uses a set of tools, software, and methodologies that may vary from each other, so you must learn several systems and methodologies to be able to apply for certain positions in certain companies. It very often happens that there are companies that have all their screens made in Figma, but you are used to using Adobe XD or Sketch, and you have to change tools.

My advice

If you are a disciplined and organized person – or you can commit to being one – this job is for you.
If you can make your environment let you work in peace when you are at home or if you live alone, this job is for you.
If you don’t mind changing face-to-face talking with people for chatting or having video calls, this job is for you.
If you can arrange how to compensate for benefits and build your own retirement plan, pay your insurance, and make the investments you consider to cover your health and your old age, this job is for you.
If you don’t mind not being paid for vacations (in most cases), this job is for you.
If you like to learn constantly and it doesn’t overwhelm you that every so often the tools change or that each company uses certain programs and not others, this job is for you.
If you don’t mind working in “solitude”, this job is for you.
If above all the disadvantages it has, you like the freedom and flexibility that working remotely gives you, this job is for you.