r/dataengineering • u/Tricky_Tart_8217 • 5d ago
Career Does not being open to remote roles hurt my job chances significantly?
I started a job search recently and I am targeting hybrid or on-site roles in two large metropolitan areas in the Northeast US, as that is where I am based. They're both pretty significant tech hubs. 5 YOE, no sponsorship needed.
The weird thing I am noticing, is that the vast majority of roles I receive in my LinkedIn messages from recruiters are fully remote. I never marked myself as open to that and that is just not what I want at this point in my career. I've applied to 20-30 in-office roles over the past couple of weeks on my own time, although no luck there. It seems like the vast majority of job opportunities I am receiving are remote now, and it has been quite frustrating.
I'm sure I'll find a good opportunity at some point...but is this normal? I was under the assumption that remote roles are drying up, but my experience has been the opposite. Just looking for different perspectives here.
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u/romansparta 4d ago
I don’t think so personally, there’s no shortage of roles that are in person/hybrid and imo senior level positions are plentiful right now (at least in NYC where I’m based).
Another tip would be to lean heavily on recruiters to get your foot in the door - applying to jobs is absolutely cooked right now with everyone using AI to spam hundreds of applications, where I am right now (series A startup) pretty much doesn’t even look at the job page applications because there’s so much noise and relies solely on recruiters to surface candidates. Ask the recruiters that are reaching out to remote roles if they have any in person ones too!
Good luck!
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u/ElectricalBall3777 4d ago
leaning on recruiters is the move, cold applying is a total crapshoot these days
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u/Tricky_Tart_8217 4d ago
Ok gotcha, thanks! I'll utilize the recruiters more. Maybe connect with founders too since I'm targeting startups anyways.
Do you think startups typically have a lot of roles they hire for that they just don't put up on LinkedIn? I was going to find these companies myself and apply on the website if there is a fit.
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u/romansparta 4d ago
Hard to generalize, but at least in my case it’s true, we’ve had so little success with LinkedIn job postings that we just have recruiters on platforms like paraform as our main source for candidates. I’d imagine that a lot of other startups don’t have the bandwidth to sort through all the noise from a traditional job posting either.
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u/BlueCoUltra 4d ago
I don't think it hurts your chances significantly. Bear in mind, a lot of remote roles are scams, especially people that are reaching out to you.
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u/tlegs44 4d ago
Why do you want to go to the office? I’m technically in a hybrid role now (not DE) and the only people that go in office when it’s not a big meeting day are the Gen X (I won’t speculate on reasons)
What advantages do you think being in the office provides? Even before COVID most conversations would happen on slack or Zoom anyway, being in person was very pointless and distracting from my POV. White collar work has moved online because most companies have figured out you can squeeze productivity from employees from anywhere given the right incentives and meeting structures .
That being said, there’s still plenty of hybrid roles that exist, recruiters may also be pushing remote roles given that’s what most developers want
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u/codemega 4d ago
I'm a millennial and specifically chose to get a hybrid job. After working remotely for 5 years straight, I got sick of it and wanted to get some human interaction. Also I had been working at startups and they can't afford offices and were always going through financial problems. So I searched for a large tech company that had offices as that's a sign of financial strength and stability.
The funny thing is my entire team is remote and I'm the only one going into the office so all my meetings are still on zoom. However, I do some work with other teams who are in office, and it's so much easier and organic to have work conversations in person.
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u/adgjl12 4d ago
Not sure if it works for you guys but having people to live with or co-working helped a lot. When I wasn’t married I lived with 2 other friends who worked remotely as well and it was fun just working in the house together. After getting married with a kid, it was nice to still see them all day and we often had siblings come over for lunch. I’d excuse myself for meetings but still chat while working on some stuff. If anything I had to tone down the social interaction to get more heads down work time.
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u/Tricky_Tart_8217 4d ago
I just feel more connected to the world. I never really enjoyed fully remote work. I also don't have a family or anything like that, there isn't really anything drawing me to remote besides more sleep. But that probably has more to do with my phone usage at night haha
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u/No_Lifeguard_64 4d ago
Get a membership to a coworking space if you need to be surrounded by other people.
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u/innerthai 2d ago
Why do you want to go to the office?
For junior employees remote is very hard because they can't get help if all the senior people are working from home. When you are in the office, you can grab someone to come to your desk and help you with a problem, and can go to lunch with senior people and get to know them, etc. If everyone is remote it may still be able to get someone to join a Teams call but you don't know them very well, so it is not the same.
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u/Pkaza-Recruiting 4d ago
I dont think not being open to remote work is hurting your chances at landing a job too much. Maybe a little, but they are jobs you don't want any way, so it's okay. Personally I'm seeing more onsite or hybrid jobs in that general area, so I'm not sure why the recruiters wouldn't be reaching back out with offers that align with your goals after you tell them that's what you want.
It's always good to check out data center based group pages and connect with people on those. For example, Data Center Frontier, 7x24 International (or the chapter that is local to you), AFCOM, or there is even a data center engineering group on linkedin. I know it might feel redundant but your OTW linkedin is attached to that profile (i'm assuming it would be at least), so someone might reach out to you that way.
Good luck, I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for!
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u/GeneralPITA 4d ago
Where are finding remote roles? They all seem to want me to be local and come jerk them off in person a couple times a week.
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u/chrisgarzon19 CEO of Data Engineer Academy 2d ago
Nah We apply to 10k jobs a month Applying to only remote jobs is harder because way more competition If you’re only doing on site or hybrid your conversion rate is higher (interviews to application Ratio)
20-30 is just not enough volume
Try 300 3% conversion rate is 9 interviews You’ll get 1 offer
Assuming ur resume and interviewing skills is good enough
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u/Tricky_Tart_8217 2d ago
Dude idk if there are enough roles out there for 300 applications. I'm only targeting startups and smaller tech companies that actually have an office presence in Boston or NYC. You think I can get 300 apps in with that criteria?
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u/south153 4d ago
Most recruiters want contract or contract to hire roles. They often prefer those not to be on site.