[erwan]

A few months ago I took some time off school to hack on a couple projects. Learnt a ton and even got to sell the end result for a decent amount of money. The overall experience is a net positive.

However, be warned that it can get lonely really fast. Even if you have your family around. I usually never mind being alone for extended period of times even though I do enjoy people's company. But that was something else entirely. It is a feeling, not unlike loneliness but more subtle and that can get crippling some of the time.

The thing is that even if you have people around, meet with your friends regularly, see your family etc. No one "gets" what you are doing and so you don't have anyone to celebrate with, share the burden of a task, brainstorm and challenging your status-quo, or licking your wound after things got tough. It's a bit harsh. After some time of independent work, I found myself longing to go back to school, which I did and I'm happier - and stronger - now.

Digressing a bit on startups: I think this experience tipped me off (for the future) that starting a solo company is making it harder on yourself than it has to be.

Granted remote work is different since you are connected to a team. Still, a word of caution feels necessary.

[richardlblair]

This is something that simply isn't talked about enough. We seem to live in a culture that really glorifies remote work. However, the truth is that it's actually really hard.

I made the switch more than a year and a half ago. When I did, I made a rule. See a stranger every day. This addressed the crippling loneliness that comes with the change. I lived in a really friendly neighborhood at the time, so meeting people and having real conversations was pretty easy.

Your other points made me realize how much I have taken my network of engineer friends who work in the industry. I'm going to do better at contributing to those Slack channels.

[Benjammer]

>No one "gets" what you are doing

3 years ago, I shifted from fullstack/framework web development to native mobile development. I have suffered from this exact, specific type of isolation continuously ever since I made the move.

The technical work is the most challenging, interesting, and rewarding stuff I've worked on yet in my (10 yr) career, but I have yet to find a position (across 3 companies) where I am not working in isolation fully owning and maintaining one product app by myself, with (intermittently) maybe, 1/4 of the normal input from a designer and/or a PM.

[amorphic]

Highly recommend joining a makerspace. Our makerspace (sparkcc.org) is quite tech-focussed and attracts a lot of people with a professional or hobbyist interest in tech. I've been working remotely for > 3 years now and always enjoy going along on Tuesday night to talk with my fellow makers about projects I've been working on and technology I've been working with.

[swyea]

I feel that this is not discussed enough, especially how everyone will assume that you are "not really working"