How did you get your full-time REMOTE job?

Mostly luck of the draw; I was non-remote for most of my career (12+ years) before and one day a recruiter for a fully remote company pinged me with a role matching my skillset and I responded to it and interviewed.

Perhaps the only worthwhile point to mention is that I took a step down in level/title in order to make this jump. In the previous 3 companies I held various titles of Staff / Principal Engineer or Architect (i.e. 1 or 2 levels above Senior) and I took this job with a Senior Engineer title. Being able to move out of the bay area as a result though, makes it well worth it. I'm infinitely happier by not living in the bay area.

Not full-time, but I have done a couple of a days a week remotely on projects for a few years now. It started by working onsite and building trust. All of it comes down to trust really.

I started doing one day offsite, and then totally remote. We built an understanding around communication and clarity (video calls > voice calls > slack > email) and the whole team had a strong vision around what needed to happen week to week.

I imagine it must be easier to turn an onsite job into a remote job instead of trying to find something remote from day one, maybe someone else has some thoughts on this?

I've had 2 remote jobs in the past, i got them both the same way, joined a new company, worked really hard for a year or a year and half, proved myself to be invaluable and basically asked for it. I had an easier time at a startup company i worked at because it is pretty hard to hire good people who are willing to work for belowish market wages and are dependable.

I'm working remotely most of my career. My first programming job was for a software house. Their approach was remote-first but they had an office in my city. They required to be on-site for the first couple of months and after the initial period, I was working 100% remote. Next, I moved to work directly for startups with full-time remote contracts.

Working remotely is not for everyone plus companies prefer to hire people with prior experience. I think the crucial thing is to get some remote exposure before finding a full-time remote job. Probably, the easiest way to do this is with freelance work or negotiating partial remote with current employer.

I believe that online presence helps to find remote job (more than an onsite job). It won't hurt for sure if you can show a nice blog, programming related twitter or side projects.

Definitely luck. I worked as a front-end developer on a team that was part-time remote (1-2 days wfh a week). Then our team got merged with another IT team that was full-time remote. I was at that job for about 6 years. After that I worked at a consultancy for a year and then a startup for another year with no remote work. Then I started my own consulting business, so I got to work full-time remote again. It's been about 2 years now and I'm loving every minute of it. I just bought a standing desk and a new french press :)

Worked on site for several years, and went to two days remote. A couple of years later, moved and became full remote. Same company for 8 years now.