The dirty secret of remote working is that unless your company is located in the middle of nowhere, the pool of developers that have the discipline and skills to successfully work remotely on a permanent basis is even smaller than your average local pool of talent.
Right now it's still an opportunity because the number of companies fishing in this pool is still relatively small, but that is changing rapidly.
The scarcity we're dealing with is still mostly a scarcity of mature professionals, and with remote working anything less than that is not an option.
It's not really about scarcity of mature professionals, but of how hard it is to find the ones that are out there, and get them to apply.
Take this large-ish city in middle America. I have worked with a few local developers I would call mature professionals: If I was starting a startup, I know where I'd call. But I only know their skillset through having worked with them over the years. How can someone that doesn't have a network find them?
A few you can find in user groups and meetups. But that gets you one very specific brand of mature developers. Many in my list wouldn't go to one of those: They are often just sausagefests, with 25 to 35 year old males trying to impress others about how good they are. That and recruiters who tend to not know anything. Same thing by going with speakers in conferences: You get a few people, but those are probably not going to make your company their number one priority. It's more likely that you are an excuse to make money between other engagements.
An ad in a recruiting site? The really good ones don't get jobs like that: They mention a friend they are unhappy in their workplace, and they quickly get recruited. I got my last job like that, without even an interview. So and so says you are great and would mesh very well here, so have an offer.
Pestering recruiters? You can talk to those, but they can't tell the good from the bad. Also, the mature professional can't tell if your newfangled startup is good or bad. Will you want insane hours? Do you have a crazy idea, like mandating that all code is organized in tiny web services 100 lines of Clojure or less? Unless they are unhappy in their existing position, you have to find them and prove to them that you are a worthy employment option. And they might not even buy into your pitch. No, They might think that a web of tiny services doesn't really fix all the world's problems, or they might not want to do boring business analytics.
So, more than the scarcity of professionals, the real problem is that you can't even contact them.
If there wasn't a scarcity, the people you describe couldn't afford to make themselves that hard to find.
The fact that they don't bother applying for jobs or, directly or indirectly, publicly soliciting offers is a symptom of that scarcity.
Also, the problem I encounter with calling on the people I worked with and would like to work with again is that most prefer to be self-employed, and can easily make more money that way.
>Also, the mature professional can't tell if your newfangled startup is good or bad.
What? I can tell if an early stage startup is good or bad, by talking to the non-technical cofounders for a few minutes, just like a good programmer can evaluate me by talking to me for a few minutes.
Common red flags:
- no technical co-founder
- hiring an outsourcing company for MVP
- a "technical advisor" who is not a full-time cofounder
If you see any of those, forget it. I wonder why angels are still dumb enough to invest in such things.
As somebody who lives in a non-English speaking country, with not-so-great prospects of well-paid local work, I encounter the opposite problem of not knowing where to look to find people willing to hire professionals.
Also, it seems that a big proportion of people who are looking for "remote" work are actually looking for people who live in the US, and can still go to the office when required. That is going to limit your pool a lot too.
Assuming you are someone who actually looks for these professionals, what sort of process would you go through to actually try and find them?
Right now it's still an opportunity because the number of companies fishing in this pool is still relatively small, but that is changing rapidly.
The scarcity we're dealing with is still mostly a scarcity of mature professionals, and with remote working anything less than that is not an option.