How to work remotely while earning in dollars
The subject of this publication may seem an impossible or very difficult reality to achieve, right? It did for me too. Today I will share how I became an international developer and give some golden tips that would have helped me absurdly if I had received them while working in my home country.
Remote work became a strong reality for us programmers a while ago because of this difficult time we are going through in history, however along with it came some problems, such as:
- Separating personal and professional life; and
- Face-to-face contact with friends and colleagues; and
- Among others;
With these challenges coming all at once, we need to be careful and keep a close eye on things, so we don't develop burnout from overwork, for example. But what is the relationship between the problems that the pandemic has brought to us and remote work? A company has to know how to deal with remote work to energize its community and achieve incredible milestones without putting its employees through delicate and bad situations. I started following X-Team a little over 1 year ago in this relationship.
What is the X-Team?
X-Team is a 100% remote company that has been improving its community for 15 years. X-Team hires people worldwide to form high-quality engineering teams and allocates these teams to large companies like FOX, Riot Games, Coinbase, Twitter, Dell, etc. X-Team could stop at the part about assigning teams to their customers, but they go much further than that, following their philosophy:
"Live your life like a great adventure again because when you can work from anywhere and you commit to using that flexibility to do more of what energizes you." - Ryan Chartrand, CEO of X-Team.
How does X-Team energize you?
The company invests heavily in the employee community to ensure everyone works happily, is energized, and is motivated. It is a fact that when someone works happy, energized, and motivated; consequently that person will deliver the best version of their work. But how do I feel energized? Let's talk about some of the X-Team's key incentive methods.
Unleash+
Unleash+ is a $2,500 credit that X-Team gives you once you join the team to spend on a variety of categories, whether it's buying equipment for a podcast, buying an accessory for your bike, paying for therapy sessions, buying a course, or even building your own smart home. You use this credit to spend on things that will energize you and make you evolve more and more as a person.
This credit renews every year, so as long as you are an X-Teamer, you can use this credit to energize yourself and evolve.
The Vault
The Vault is the X-Team's store for exclusive and collectible items. You can exchange coins for exclusive items such as t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, backpacks, and hats. The most amazing thing about it is that these items are so whimsical that you always want to buy as many as possible.
But how to get coins? There are some "challenges" called bounties on the X-Team's collaborator platform. They are very diverse, ranging from "Eat a pizza on a Saturday" to "Cycle 100km". When you complete a challenge, take a picture or screenshot and share it on the company's Slack server, and you will be rewarded with some coins directly in your balance to spend in The Vault.
Best of all, the items are renewed following a theme of seasons that last around 3 months. In other words, every 3 months, there are new exclusive, and amazing collectibles.
X-Outposts
X-Outposts are the most famous events of the X-Team community. They organize monthly hacker houses worldwide so X-Teamers can meet, share experiences, and see new places worldwide. These events have occurred in some amazing places like Costa Rica, Austria, Bali, Mexico, Japan, and South Africa.
Who are X-Team's clients?
X-Team has several clients that can place you in their internal team, like Riot Games, FOX, Coinbase, Twitter, Dell, etc.
Besides large companies as clients, the opportunities to work with technologies on the rise in the market, such as React Native, ReactJS, VueJS, NodeJS, Python, Go, Scala, Serverless, and various other technologies.
How to join X-Team?
X-Team is a rapidly growing company, which also makes the demand for new developers within the community great. In other words, the company is constantly hiring programmers for various positions.
The company has a platform where you can create an account, fill in some data about your career, and apply for any available position. However, as said before, X-Team is growing a lot and consequently receives thousands of applications weekly, making it difficult for the recruiting team to see them. Because of this, in this part of this post, I will explain how the X-Team recruitment process works and also give you some tips on how to become a top candidate for the X-Team recruitment team.
Recruitment process
First contact
Once you have created an account on the X-Team vacancy platform, filled out your profile, and applied for a vacancy, the process starts with an introductory meeting where the X-Team recruitment team will talk to you by video call to understand more about your career moment, your plans and your projects. They will also introduce how the "X-Team world" works and answer any questions you might have.
Here are some tips:
- If you have any open-source collaborations, personal projects, or anything that could be community-driven, don't hesitate to comment about it! X-Team loves to hear about side projects and their collaborations;;
- Communication is essential. Most applications that do not follow the process are because of a lack of English proficiency or a lack of a cultural match between the company and the candidate;
- If English is not your native language, I recommend practicing and warming up your English before starting the process; this will help you express yourself better and convey more reliability to the recruiting team;
It is also very important to know how to present yourself to avoid mistakes that can make you fail to move on to the next stage, such as bad lighting, bad audio, and improper dress.
Technical interview
After passing the first screening and X-Team identifying that you have a cultural fit with the company, a second stage will be scheduled, defined by a technical interview, but rest assured; there is usually no live coding, but usually, some technical questions focused on the technologies of the position you applied for.
Getting to know the clients
Going through the technical interview, X-Team will present your profile to their clients, and you may have some technical meetings with some clients, as they usually want to get to know you and ask more targeted questions for their work stack.
Final step
Suppose any client wants you on their team; congratulations! X-Team will contact you to finalize some contractual processes, and you will have a start date lined up with the recruitment team.
If no client is sure they want you on their team, don't worry; if X-Team feels confident in you and feels there is a good cultural match between you and X-Team, you may receive an offer to work on the company's internal team. In contrast, searching for a client for you continues in the background, and you will follow the same contractual process.
If none of the above scenarios occur, there is nothing to worry about! You can work on some issues to increase your chances of receiving an X-Team invitation and improve the information you provided when creating your account on the X-Team job platform. Always update your profile; it will help you find an opportunity that is right for you!
I'm applying for a vacancy but have doubts
Remember that you can contact X-Team anytime with your questions or even ask them during a video call. However, X-Team has already prepared the main questions about the company; this can help you understand more about the company before you even start an interview.
Wrapping up
I hope this post has answered most of the questions of the people who have contacted me asking for help. The fact that there is now a post about how I joined X-Team and giving some tips for getting ahead doesn't mean that you can't contact me via social media (at the bottom of this platform) for any questions. I'll be happy to talk to you 🙂 I'll be glad to talk to you.
In case this post has helped you in any way, I strongly urge you to share it with a friend who desires to work remotely, earning in dollars but doesn't know how or has some doubts; it would be of great help.