A career in remote working

This year I have reached a major milestone in my life, which is getting my bachelor's degree in mathematics. When I made the decision to go back to college, it was solely because my experience working at Zyte, I figured out that having a math background would be a great foundation for getting into ML-related stuff.

Now my life journey has a new beginning and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the opportunity you gave me. I will be always grateful with you.

-- Rolando, our first hire

From the beginning, Zyte has been a fully remote company, and now boasts over 100 employees working from all over the world, either from their homes or local coworking spaces. Our decision to maintain a fully remote workforce has proven to be a very good decision, allowing us to access a much wider range of talent compared to hiring locally.

So what about the career of someone who is considering remote work? It can seem risky to leave your cushy on-site job behind in favour of working for a company located across the globe, but the risk is smaller than you would imagine.

Rolando is a great example of someone who has had a lot of success with working remotely for the past 7 years. Born in Argentina, and raised in Bolivia, Rolando Espinoza at 30 years old has been a very important part of Zyte since the very beginning. Rolando began his journey at Zyte on Pablo’s previous company, Insophia, where he started as a Python developer. By June 2010 he was working on the first version of Zyte’s dashboard.

The only time Rolando has worked on-site since, is as a software developer in Uruguay alongside founders Pablo and Shane at the former headquarters of Insophia, where Zyte’s Uruguay office now resides.

Working at Zyte allowed Rolando to pursue a degree in mathematics, as he was able to fit his work schedule around his studies. At Zyte, we allocate teams who share similar time zones and give each member control over their own schedule. You can work mornings, nights, or during whichever time you feel like. Day-to-day rearrangements can always be made and agreed upon within the team, and this flexibility has shown to be a win-win for all.

Rolando was very happy with his decision to complete a degree in mathematics. In his own words: "being a remote employee, rather than an independent freelancer, gives the opportunity to work in really interesting and challenging large-scale projects along with very smart people."

Rolando worked on a number of machine learning projects here at Zyte, allowing him to make use of the mathematical knowledge he was gaining at university from the outset. He is now looking forward to joining a CS/Math graduate program in the near future.

Rolando comments "regarding to machine learning, now I have a better grasp and can understand most of the notation and mathematical terminology in the algorithms and related papers.”

From web development to large scale web data mining projects, from open source projects to large professional services projects, such as the Memex project, he thinks "this is something very attractive, especially for those who live in cities or countries with a small and narrow software industry."

Rolando believes that working with smart, highly skilled colleagues from such a variety of countries, has been an excellent opportunity to learn from them and push himself further. He’s proud of being able to keep up with the expectations of a company that strives to provide world-class services from top talent from all over the world.

We’re all incredibly grateful here at Zyte for all of Rolando’s excellent work and contributions to the company, which he has brought from the very beginning.

If you’re inspired by Rolando’s story, excited about the prospect of working remotely and looking to join a team of smart, motivated people, check out our open positions.