[YourMatt]

> The hard part is finding remote jobs.

I negotiated a full-time work-from-home arrangement with my employer, then moved out of state to a place with no local tech industry. I think that fear of being helpless if I lost my job ultimately helped me to excel. I used time in the morning before work to start a freelance business where I would expand upon my skillset in a way my job didn't offer. Successes in that led me to pitch new technology to my employer. Over time I was promoted several times and am now lead architect.

I've since moved back to the home office where I work on-site 3 days per week (at a slight detriment to my productivity mostly due to our open office plan), but those 10 years of being home 100% of the time were huge for my career. While remote work has gotten more popular, I still think it's the best kept secret in boosting developer productivity.

An interesting aside: Our lease is up in about a year and there's talk that we'll just scatter at that point and all work from home without any home base.