# Career growth
In the old world of work, you had to choose between flexibility and success. It was rare to find a position where you could work outside the headquarters, set your own hours, and maintain career growth.
The normalization of remote work has completely changed this. Modern tools enable people with a full spectrum of goals to fulfill their version of success without being chained to their company headquarters at a 9-5 desk.
# Individual contributors
Big tech giants like Google pioneered the "IC" (Individual Contributor) career path as a high-paying and senior alternative to becoming a manager. Remote work lends well to this career path, since the tools used by individual contributors are largely asynchronous and built for a deep work mindset.
The individual contributor path at remote startups: Here are 4 remote startups offering a paths to individual contributors: Balsamiq, Close.com, HelpScout, Buffer.
How Individuals Advance at Buffer, Without Becoming Managers: Not everyone can be a manager, especially when the team isn’t expanding. So how does a teammate grow beyond her or his current role?
The recipe for developing your career as a product designer: One career path leads to management: to running teams and projects, to managing people, to creating impact through others. The other path, the one I’ll focus on in this post, continues along the journey of individual contributor.
Not everyone is a manager: A lot of companies (and individuals) understand now that there is a place for engineers to grow as individuals outside of the management track, and every one of us should know about this alternative.
# Management path
There is now a career path for those who want to manage people and work remotely. This career trajectory is going to be more widely accepted at a fully distributed company, but it’s possible on any team that embraces a remote-first culture.
6 People Who Prove You Don’t Have to Sacrifice Your Career to Work Remotely: We talked with six talented people who have moved into leadership positions, become people managers, and increased their seniority as individual contributors—all while working remotely.
Yes, You Can Lead a Team and Work Remotely -- Here's How: Here are some of the best lessons we have learned about what it takes to be a successful remote team leader.
How To Be A Remote Manager (And Not Feel So Remote): I decided I would approach being remote as an experiment where I would test, iterate, test, iterate until I found what worked. Here are my 10 best tips for effectively managing employees as a remote manager.
How to Manage Remote Direct Reports: How do you overcome the challenges of supervising employees in different locations and time zones? What steps should you take to build trust and open lines of communication? How should you establish routines? And how do you help remote workers feel part of a team?
# Learn, grow, teach
Continuing to learn should always be part of your job. If you feel comfortable, it’s probably time to shake things up before your ideas become stale. Find ways to learn new technologies and teach other people based on your experience (both technical and non-technical).
If your company doesn’t have the resources to support your growth, find ways to do it independently.
# Take online classes:
Join a program with teachers and mentors, or just take a few video tutorials to stay relevant. You don't need to go into debt at a traditional University in order to continue your education.
Udemy: Udemy is an online learning and teaching marketplace with over 100000 courses and 24 million students.
Coursera: Learn online and earn credentials from top universities like Yale, Michigan, Stanford, and leading companies like Google and IBM.
edX: Access 2000 free online courses from 140 leading institutions worldwide. Gain new skills and earn a certificate of completion.
General Assembly: Master new skills in design, marketing, technology, and data — online or at our campuses around the world.
Lambda School: Launch your new tech career from anywhere in just 9 months and pay nothing until you land a high-paying job.
Thinkful: Thinkful is a career accelerator that gets graduates careers in tech. Learn data science or learn to code with a bootcamp-style curriculum and 1-on-1 mentorship.
Turing School: Turing is a high quality, 7-month tech program focused on student success. ... how to implement a meaningful academic curriculum and how to write great code.
Egghead: Learn the best JavaScript tools and frameworks from industry pros.
Udacity: Advance your career with online courses in programming, data science, artificial intelligence, digital marketing, and more.
Master Class: MasterClass offers online classes created for students of all skill levels. Our instructors are the best in the world.
# Speak at conferences and meetups:
Research conferences that are relevant to your skillset, and start applying to speak. Conferences are usually looking for a diverse set of speakers - so even if you've never done it before, it's worth reaching out.
Speaking at conferences is a great way to meet people outside your organization, form a stronger opinion on your work, and help others grow. You might even get a free trip out of it!
How and why to speak at tech conferences: Before you start speaking at conferences, you should figure out why you want to. Presenting can be a lot of work, and you should make sure that you’re aiming towards what’s most fulfilling for you.
Want to speak at tech conferences? Here's everything you need to know to get on stage: If you’ve ever looked at a conference or meetup speaker lineup and thought, “Hey, I could do that!” and then thought, “but wait…how do I get started?” then this is for you.
What I wish someone told me about speaking at tech conferences: You've been to a couple of tech conferences, saw a number of tech talks and one day you think - "I can probably do that". The good news is that this is true - you CAN do that. The bad news: it's not easy.
# Become a mentor:
Find a way to teach other people your skills. Mentor people who are trying to break into the industry or learn a new coding language. The process of teaching someone else will increase your personal knowledge, give you experience as a leader, and help grow your influence and network.
You can either mentor people who you meet personally, or join a program that will connect you with students looking to learn.
Thinkful: Transform aspiring developers into self-sufficient programmers capable of advancing their careers for years to come by sharing your professional and technical knowledge during 1:1 online meetings.
Built by Girls: WAVE connects young women (Advisees) aged 15-22 years old with professionals (Advisors) in tech as part of a 1:1 Advisor program.
Lambda School: Help the next wave of aspiring developers, data scientists, and designers find the next stop in their careers.
MentorCruise: 1:1 mentorship. Break into tech, amplify your skills, & fast-track your career-growth.
Girls in Tech: The Girls in Tech Mentorship Program focuses on the education and empowerment of women in technology and entrepreneurship.
# Build your network
As a remote worker you need to put more effort in to meet people, but you also get to curate and have more control over who those people are, and how often you engage.
Your network will compound over time, and is one of the most valuable tools as you navigate through various stages of your career. Try setting a goal for yourself - like one meeting with a new person in your network per week.
# Online communities
Join Slack or Forum communities based on technology skills or personal interests. There are tons of them out there, so pick a few to engage with and start building influence and connections.
Join a skill-specific community like the Gopher Slack community, or the Vue Land Discord group.
Ladies Get Paid: Career, salary negotiation and professional development for women. Closing the wage gap and fighting for equal pay one raise at a time.
Nomad List: The best cities to live and work remotely for remote workers, based on cost of living, internet speed, weather and other metrics.
Stripe Atlas: Stripe Atlas takes the guesswork out of setting up a startup. Join thousands of founders who have formed companies using Stripe Atlas—and raised over $2 billion in funding.
Tech Ladies: Tech Ladies is a worldwide community of supportive women in tech. Hire more women in tech for your team.
# In-person
While working remotely, you still want to make sure you have a strong professional local network of people that you can meet face-to-face throughout the work week. Tap into local events, meet people 1:1, or go to small group dinners.
Meetup.com: Find Meetups so you can do more of what matters to you. Or create your own group and meet people near you who share your interests.
Lunch Club: Lunchclub makes curated connections for 1:1 lunch or coffee meetings.
Creative Mornings: Everyone is creative. CreativeMornings is the world's largest face-to-face creative community.
Bumble Bizz: Today, most people find their next job through their network. We created Bumble Bizz so professionals can connect with each other, share, and learn.
Indie Hackers meetups: Find other indie hackers in your area so you can learn, share, and work together.
# Coworking
Working from an office with other people is one of the best ways to meet people in an organic way. Find a local coworking space where you can "go to work" and casually build a group of friends at the same location.
Building a community around your flexible work will help you create a routine, feel connected, and build up your professional network.
Croissant: Croissant makes it easy to find workspaces on the go. Try new coworking spaces or drop by your comfortable favorites. Our membership allows you to be productive wherever your life takes you.
WeWork: Our workspace design features private offices (for teams of 1–100+) with glass walls to maintain privacy without sacrificing transparency or natural light.
The Wing: Welcome to The Wing, a network of work and community spaces designed with you in mind.
Soho Works: Based in cities all over the world, in locations close to or within our Houses, our workspaces combine Soho House design with the tools, technology and equipment to help our members do their best work.
