This is The Nonlinear Project, a newsletter featuring hand-curated remote roles, interviews with hiring managers, career tips on getting ahead & being productive, and thoughts on the future of work. Many roles in the round up aren’t featured on other job boards. If you enjoy the content, please give it a like and share it with friends.
Putting out content is hard. Doing so when you have a full-time job is very hard. I’ve struggled to get out an edition of the newsletter out over the past couple months as I got my feet under me in a new role. But The Nonlinear Project is still here.
In my current role, we’ve talked about connecting with others, external to the company, who can help us level-up. And so I intend to feature interviews with interesting people, at mostly remote companies, who can help me, and hopefully you, level-up, get better at work, navigate the macro uncertainty of your career, and the micro uncertainty of day-to-day decisions.
The next edition of this newsletter will feature an interview with Kevan Lee, formerly VP Marketing at Buffer, and who is now at Polly.
IRL+
I’m reading INSPIRED by Marty Cagan and I came across this line:
"All other things being equal, a co-located team is going to substantially outperform a dispersed team. That's just the way it is.”
I suspect this view to is going to become more popular as we head back to normal, post-Covid life.
While I don’t believe that remote work is infallible, I think the question is really about trade-offs, not absolutes.
Some thoughts on this view:
If we’re working 50-60+ hours per week, another 5-10 hours is time that could be used more effectively. Startups are about speed, so more time equals longer runway. That commute time also cuts into time that employees could be using to exercise. Employees that spend more time working out are probably more productive, which contributes to the long-term success of the company.
Remote offers the possibility of designing work environments that get the best out of multiple personality types. e.g. introverts can turn off their camera during a meeting and feel more engaged.
The goal for most startups is acquisition or IPO. I think the question is which approach, in-office or remote, helps you get to that goal more efficiently? To me, more time and the possibility of work environments that get the best out of different personality types tilts the advantage towards remote.
Both of these points for remote work are examples of how remote can be better than real life. How it can be what Phil Libin, Co-Founder and CEO of mmhmm, calls IRL+.
Thoughts on leading
I’m a first time manager at Shakepay. I lead our small but growing Comms team and my overarching goal is to develop organic digital content strategies that help move our customers, and folks hanging on the periphery, closer to the brand.
One of the things that I’ve been thinking about over the past few months is how to lead within a company that’s growing, and changing, quickly. Leading within a company breaks down to two different things, in my mind:
How do you motivate, inspire, and get the best out of the people that you oversee?
How can you affect change across the organization?
These are some own incomplete thoughts, inspired by High Output Management and some other readings:
How to get the best out of your team:
My approach to this question is servant leadership. When someone joins my team the first thing I like to tell them is that I’m invested in their success beyond the role that they’re in now. My goal is to try to find ways to make them better.
Affecting change across the org:
This, to me, is the area that seems much more difficult. Part of this is in investing in relationships. Admittedly much more difficult in a remote work environment but I think it’s important to schedule time with people from across the company regularly. Get face time with as many people as you can. Build relationships.
Build social capital.
Get early wins.
Tell the story of your wins but also what you’re learning.
The Job Board
This is the best remote job round-up you’re going to find. What you’re looking at when you click the Notion link is a cohort of companies that recently raised Venture Capital and some of the most recent openings made public by those companies. No one is paying for these jobs to be here. They aren’t thoughtlessly aggregated from other job boards. When I had been looking for a role, this is the job round up that I wish existed. Job board with 138+ remote roles.
Links:
Unplanned time, or slack, as catalytic ingredient for change and reinvention.
From Web 2.0 to Web 3.0: “For the first time, we have the reason and the ability to tear down the feudal castles that control our online experience.”
“[S]ocial media is just one piece of an interconnected game that spans online and offline spaces. The way you play in one area unlocks opportunities in others. Sharing ideas on Twitter might get you invited to a Discord, your participation in that Discord might get you invited to work on a new project, and that new project might make you rich.”
The pandemic has made a strong professional network more important than ever.
“[I]t's about identifying what comes most naturally to you, and then capitalizing on that, rather than identifying what has come naturally to other people, and trying to teach yourself those skills in order to mimic and recreate their genius.
“Questions are your best weapon against inertia.”
Who am I?
I lead Comms at Shakepay. We’re a platform for Canadians to buy and sell Bitcoin. We recently passed 600k customers and $3B in lifetime transaction volume. The Comms team is expanding and I’m hiring a Copywriter and Comms Manager, Twitter. Both roles are open to remote within Canada.
Chris
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