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Standing Out as a Remote Worker Takes a Different Strategy
My first experience as a remote worker was a disaster.
Before I joined a San Francisco-based team with a lead developer in Connecticut, I had worked in person, five days a week. I thought success was simple: write good code, solve hard problems, deliver results. So I put my head down and worked harder than ever.
Twelve-hour days became normal as the boundary between work and personal life disappeared. My kitchen table became my office.
I rarely asked for help because I didn’t want to seem incompetent. I stayed quiet in team Slack channels because I wasn’t sure what to say.
Despite working some of the longest hours of my career, I made the slowest progress. I felt disconnected from the team. I had no idea if my work mattered or if anyone noticed what I was doing. I was burning out.
Eventually, I realized the real problem: I was invisible.
The Office Advantage You Lose When Remote
In an office, visibility happens naturally. Colleagues see you arrive early or stay late. They notice when you are stuck on a problem. They hear about your work in hallway conversations and over lunch. Physical presence creates recognition with almost no effort.
Remote work removes those signals. Your manager cannot see you at your desk. Your teammates don’t know you’ve hit a roadblock unless you say so. You can work long days and still appear less engaged than someone in the office.
That is the shift many people miss: Remote work requires execution plus deliberate communication.
What Actually Works
By my second remote role, I knew I had to change to protect my sanity and still succeed.
Here are five things I did that made a real difference.
1. Over-communicating
I began sharing updates in team channels regularly, not just when asked. “Working on the payment integration today; ready for review tomorrow.” “Hit a blocker with API rate limits; investigating options.” These took seconds but made my work visible and invited help sooner.
2. Setting limits
When your home is also your office, overwork becomes the default. I started ending most days at 5 p.m. and transitioning out of work mode with a walk or gym session. That ritual helped prevent burnout.
3. Volunteering for presentations
Presenting remotely felt less intimidating than standing in front of a room. I started volunteering for demos and lunch-and-learns. This increased my visibility beyond my immediate team and improved my communication skills.
4. Promoting others publicly
When someone helped me, I thanked them in a public channel. When a teammate shipped something impressive, I called it out. This builds goodwill and signals collaboration. In remote environments, gratitude is visible and memorable.
5. Building relationships deliberately
In an office, relationships form naturally. Remotely, you have to create those moments. I started an engineering book club that met every other week to discuss a technical book. It became a low-pressure way to connect with people across the organization.
The Counterintuitive Reality
With these habits, I got promoted faster in this remote job than I ever did in an office. I moved from senior engineer to engineering manager in under two years, while maintaining a better work-life balance.
Remote work offers flexibility and freedom, but it comes with a tax. You are easier to overlook and more likely to burn out unless you are intentional in your actions.
So, succeeding remotely takes deliberate effort in communication, relationships, and boundaries. If you do that well, remote work can unlock more opportunities than you might expect.
—Brian
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