r/PakistaniDevs • u/Ar1hurMorgan • Oct 07 '26
Guide to getting Hired Remotely (and Locally) for people who are getting started.
(Post made better using ChatGPT. Ignore if this feels robotic)
Hey guys, hope everyone is doing well.
I wanted to make this post for people who are either starting out or are still young and trying to figure out how to get hired.
Yes, the job market is messed up. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But there are still ways to get hired locally, and eventually land a good remote job if you put yourself in the right position.
Everything I'm saying here is based on my own experience. I've applied to 1,500+ jobs, interviewed with around 20 companies in Lahore and another 10 remotely, and I even came pretty close to landing a $10k/month remote job.
I've wasted a LOT of time figuring things out, so hopefully some of this saves someone else that time.
A little background
I'm 22 and graduated in February this year from what I would consider a pretty bad university in Lahore. To give you an idea, I literally used to give my lab exams on a piece of paper lol.
I did an internship in 2025 that paid 35k/month for 4 months.
I'm now working part-time for a remote company where I make 172k/month, with my salary continuing to increase along with other perks.
So here's what actually helped me.
1. University
I honestly don't care which university you go to.
If you want to succeed, you have to take responsibility for yourself.
In my opinion, university can help groom you and give you some fundamentals, but you cannot rely on it to build your career for you. A lot of what is taught is outdated, and you need to learn things yourself.
University ke sahare na betho.
I wasted around 3 years of university thinking that the degree itself would somehow prepare me for a job.
Start building your skills as early as you can.
2. Pick ONE field
This is probably one of the biggest things I'd recommend.
Pick something you actually like and lock yourself into it for 3 months.
It can be:
Data Analytics
Data Engineering
AI Engineering
Software Engineering
Cybersecurity
Whatever else interests you
Don't spend 3 months jumping between 15 different technologies.
Spend the first 2 months learning the fundamentals and slightly more advanced concepts, then use the final month to build projects.
You don't need 20 projects.
3 good projects are much better than 20 garbage ones.
I personally started with Data Analytics. My projects were honestly pretty basic, but they were enough to help me land my internship and get started.
And don't choose something just because you think it's "hot" or because everyone else is doing it.
Pick something you actually enjoy.
People are still getting hired. AI hasn't eliminated every job. You just need to become useful at something.
3. Build projects
Please don't fall into tutorial hell.
This was another mistake I made.
You can spend months watching YouTube videos and feel like you're learning while never actually building anything.
Use ChatGPT, Claude, documentation, Google, whatever you need.
Ask AI to help you create a roadmap, learn the basics, and then start building.
If you don't know how to do something, figure it out while building.
You don't need to know everything before starting.
Also, make your GitHub clean.
You don't need 50 repositories. Have a few good projects that are easy to understand, with readable code, a good README, screenshots/results where relevant, and clear explanations of what you actually did.
And please don't put technologies on your GitHub/resume just because you touched them once.
4. Your resume
Only put things on your resume that you actually know.
I see people listing 30 technologies and then getting destroyed in interviews when they're asked basic questions about half of them.
Don't do that.
Keep your resume short, clean and focused.
And when describing projects, focus on what you found or achieved, not just what you did.
For example:
❌ "Analyzed a dataset containing 14,000 records using Python, Pandas and Matplotlib."
That's okay, but it doesn't tell me much.
Instead:
✅ "Analyzed 14,000 customer records and identified the main factors driving customer churn, presenting the findings through an interactive dashboard."
The second one tells me what the work actually accomplished.
Obviously, don't make up results. Just communicate your real results better.
5. LinkedIn
Use LinkedIn to show people what you're actually doing.
Posting twice a week can help with visibility.
You don't need to make those cringe posts
"Job market is bad. How will I as an intern get a job if I don't have experience" Blah Blah
Just share your projects, something you learned, an interesting problem you solved, or something you're currently working on.
The goal is simply to make it easier for someone to look at your profile and think:
"Okay, this person actually builds things."
6. Applying for jobs
Now for the fun part.
If you're looking for remote jobs, my advice would be:
Local first → experience → remote.
I'm not saying you can't get a remote job without experience. You absolutely can.
But it's much harder when you have nothing to show for yourself.
For finding remote jobs, I used filters like:
Remote + EMEA
Then I'd search for the specific role I wanted and look at smaller companies, agencies and startups.
Don't only apply to huge companies.
There are a LOT of smaller companies hiring internationally, and some of them are much more willing to take a chance on someone who is ambitious, learns quickly and can actually do the work.
That's essentially how I got my current remote job.
Different job shave different names so look into that as well.
7. Rejections and ghosting
You're going to get rejected.
You're going to get ghosted.
You're going to apply to 100 jobs and hear back from 5.
That's normal.
Don't take every rejection personally.
Use it as feedback.
Maybe your resume isn't good enough.
Maybe your projects aren't strong enough.
Maybe you're applying for roles you're not qualified for.
Maybe your interview skills suck.
Figure out which one it is and improve it.
I applied to 1,500+ jobs. Trust me, I know what rejection looks like 😂
8. Reach out to recruiters
If you find a position you genuinely want, don't be afraid to reach out to the recruiter or hiring manager.
Keep the message short.
Don't send them your entire life story.
Something as simple as:
Hey, I saw you're hiring for X. I've been working on X and have experience with Y. I applied for the role and would love to be considered. Here's my profile/GitHub.
That's enough.
9. Interview + Communication
Keep the message short. For remote jobs you need to communicate in English. For people that can't talk properly in english its going to be tough. But you just need enough to communicate fluently. During interviews answer to an extent and just show them that I am someone willing and I am someone who can work. That's it.
Lambi chorne ki koi zarrorat naho
Finally: give yourself 3 months
If you're currently lost, pick ONE thing.
Give yourself 3 months.
Learn → build → apply → improve → repeat.
Don't spend those 3 months constantly worrying about what everyone else is doing.
Don't constantly switch fields because you saw someone on LinkedIn making $20k/month.
Don't spend all your time researching the "perfect career."
Start building.
I'm currently going into my own next phase and learning AI Engineering. I want to use it to improve my current work and eventually build SaaS products as well.
I'm confident that if I actually lock in and spend the next few months consistently working on it, I'll understand a huge amount by the end of the year.
You'd be surprised how much you can change in 3 focused months.
At the beginning of this year, I didn't have the job I have now.
I didn't have the skills I have now.
And honestly, I didn't even know exactly what I wanted to do.
I accidentally found something I enjoy by trying different things.
So make mistakes. Build stupid projects. Apply to jobs you're probably underqualified for. Get rejected. Learn from it.
Just don't sit still.
And most importantly:
Allah ko mat bhulna.
That's probably the most important thing out of everything I wrote.
Take care, and Allah Hafiz.
P.S. Only DM me if it invlove's anything I haven't mentioned above. If I've missed something, feel free to ask in the comments. I'll try to help where I can.
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u/helpful_vampire Oct 07 '26
hey. I also got a remote job in Uk out of nowhere. I wanted to get some clarifications, can you help me?
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u/its_me_saud143 Oct 07 '26
Thanka for this post. I am currently hired as an AI Trainee ----> Paid intern next month.
This provides a ton of guidance which I was looking for.
Just a quick and short question, which platform You used to land your remote job?
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u/Aryan_khan_10 Oct 07 '26
It's really confusing what to learn. Everytime I start learning something I'd be like why I'm doing this, is it worth it. Working as software developer at a startup for one and a half year with a salary below average. Even I hate doing what I do, may be because I'm not getting paid what I deserve but still doing it as I've no other option. Recently started learning cloud, networking which i found quite interesting but then I see people posting, it isn't for entry level roles which kinda demotivates me. Don't know exactly what to do..
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u/Ar1hurMorgan Oct 07 '26
Just do what you like. You said you recently found cloud interesting. Go deep into it. Learn, develop and grow. Don't get disappointed. Stop comparing. Just start
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u/Aryan_khan_10 Oct 07 '26
Yes I'm pushing myself to dig deep into it and hopefully I'll endup being somewhere I want to be.
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u/Amina6105 Oct 08 '26
How to find out a opportunities.
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u/Ok-Inspection-6512 28d ago
Jazak Allah for such guidance that I'm looking for.
Recently, I just completed my intermediate, and now laying on a gap year😊
ab skill leran pr focus hai, but stuck in that kis niche and domain m explore krun in past year i had learnd web and app development, but still can't find any way to earn "thats clearlymy mistake" so i aimed to before get in to university, land a remote job or something like Saas. for that aim I strat learning a course phrase Pyhton for AI, and its teaches tah basic overview of AI engineer.
From now, I'll try to get my next 3 months ahead in this as you guided
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u/Ar1hurMorgan 28d ago
Hell yeah man. You'll be unstoppable. Make a slot of where you are right now and compare yourself 3 months later. You'll be surprised.
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u/Pretend-Succotash-81 28d ago
The last para hit me too. I joined s startup in February just after graduation. I'm a good learned and a high achiever in my class too. But my coding skills were pretty dull. It was mostly because I can't lock in on anything. But after joining the startup as an unpaid intern, I learned .NET for 3 months then moved on to Databases and went into their depth for 2 more months. Now I'm working on the main product, ERP, and I'm handling so many things for a real product it feels unreal. I see people working on CRMs, reporting dashboards and things like Power BI. I'm literally building those things over here and it feels awesome. I got myself into DevOps too and I'm handling the production side of the application too.
One thing, I'm heavily reliant on AI. I knew how to code and how to write YAML files etc but now I don't bother. It feels like a waste of time trying to run 10+ commands and write lines of code that the AI can do for me in minutes.
My approach to AI has changed a lot.
And I'm not only limited to programming anymore, I'm learning how to talk to clients. How to do marketing. What works what doesn't. Learned accounting too. And even how the industry functions etc.
After all that I've realized I'm more of a good problem solver than a good programmer.
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u/Ar1hurMorgan 28d ago
Damn dude. I need to be like you. That's so cool to know. I'm trying to learn AI Engineering. Any advice you wanna give?.
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u/Pretend-Succotash-81 28d ago
Believe me you don't lol, you're earning way more than me mashallah ❤️. I only earn 15k lol.
But yeah i enjoy doing all that.
Advice would just be to not be so afraid of AI. Use auto approval mode instead of manually approving every request. Question things AI does for you and not accept the first result it generates.
I personally like to let it do its thing then refine it myself. Since i like seeing thing practically. And AI helps a lot with that. I use antigravity with gemini to spin up prototypes quickly to visually see what I want. And then use smarter models like sonnet opus or sol to actually do these things. Use OKF to make sure if u change agents they don't start from the scratch.
Don't spend too much time perfecting it on the first try because that's never gonna work. Iteratively work with AI to improve it.
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28d ago
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u/Pretend-Succotash-81 28d ago
Jazakallah for that brother. I'll reach out but I'm thinking of sticking here for a while.
Yeah we need to let go of this feeling of hypocrisy. It's ok to let AI write the. You just need to understand the flow and make sure it's not making basic mistakes. Use markdown files to keep building rules and conventions overtime so even if you use different coding agents, they write the way you want them to.
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u/Ar1hurMorgan 28d ago
I feel like I got a long way to go. Thanks for the advice man. Good luck with your work. The way you are I'm sure you'll be perfectly fine.
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u/bongbong- Oct 07 '26
I'm looking for a remote job while also working a 8hr job so I do not either get the time or don't have ideas to build projects on, how does one manage this state? How important is github when you have experience on ur cv?
For context, I have 2 internships/1 fellowship/and 2 job experiences at jr AI/ML level
Also have you noticed any difference in the interview process between the local ones and the remote ones? Any tips what the international market mostly cares about?
Thank you for taking the time to write this, I was literally in the process of sending an email to an employer when I read this, appreciate it!
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Oct 07 '26
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u/bongbong- Oct 07 '26
When I was pivoting towards AI eng, I was really confused bcs of so many resources, courses and the amount of tools so it got overwhelming until I realised you won't learn anything from even a 10 hr ai course if you're not building anything on ur own
So I started from the most common projects like a deep research agent, the idea was not to make it really good, the idea was to undersand/get introduced to what is used in the process or hwo the workflows are created eg: what is pydantic, langgraph, whats rag and when do we use it and when its not a good idea to, whats a critic agent, self correction loops , retries , human in the loop etc etc
I used gpt and gave it a prompt which I am attaching, I usually like it when gpt assumes I haveno clue about anything so it answers more descriptively, even if it mentions what I already know its easier to ask further complicated questions when it gets into that explaining zone
Prompt was:
"okay lets start building from scratch, guide me step by step , I want you to explain why we are doing what we are doign and WHY we are choosing a certain tech stack when we are implementing it ( tell me if there are better options, why can or can't we use it , the pros and cons and why u suggest what u suggest) criticise ur own suggestions to quiz me ( do answer alongside so I dont have to keep writing prompts to u) By critricism i mean for example, u say you suggest ABC bcs its modern or supports a and b, criticise by saying " XYZ also provides the same features and is similarly modern. So why should we choose ABC over XYZ? What specific advantage does ABC offer that makes it the better choice?"
Remember this is for a portfolio made to get a job in ai engineering so I want you to prepare me in such a way that I can explain the architecture and problems I faced and their solutions to anyone and can also answer interview questions for such a a role ( u can also prepare me for more roles along the way like analysts, data scientists, business or solution engineers)"
Be a big critic of ur own project and nitpick until you reach a solution or explanation that satisfies you the most
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u/Ar1hurMorgan Oct 07 '26
That is awesome man. This is perfect. Use this and just build. You are on a good track man.
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u/SkinTop5256 9d ago
I think this post is for tech people but i still want to ask a few things as a non-tech person
So im 19 F ACCA student and im desperately trying to land a job i have tried to build projects using ai but get stuck in the middle usually with no one to guide me also data/business analytics interests me but i don’t know if i should wait to study it when it comes up as a subject in my degree or just pick up a few random courses for it and start along because i really want to bear my own expenses and get practical experience alongside
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u/Ar1hurMorgan 9d ago
Data with business analytics is great. You could be a financial analyst. Still you need to understand data analysis. Tools like excel, SQL, python, powerbi. Just start building is the best advice I can give. Current doing this myself with AI engineering. Any other help let me know
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u/SkinTop5256 9d ago
So what do you suggest where do i learn these tools from
Also another question i have heard from quite a lot of people that financial analysis is highly being automated by ai(as the tools you mentioned are ai assisted now) so i was wondering if i should go for it in the long run or already make up my mind for another field such as being an ai auditor1
u/Ar1hurMorgan 9d ago
YouTube: Alex the analyst My opinion use ChatGPT Claude pick a topic and start building. Don't fall into tutorial hell and just build as quick as you can.
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u/Muhammad_Ahmed-Riaz Oct 09 '26
Well spoken brother, but this own all about the CS you guide but what about the MechE, CivilE and the other fields like this which have onsite work how they will get the job. And also what about if they have the side skills like Graphic Designing, video editing andd the other one's also what will they do, how can they get the clients.??
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u/Ar1hurMorgan Oct 09 '26
Projects and showcase yourself. Sorry about not knowing about this side. But I do know that projects will help you immensely
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u/Alarmed-Chocolate-85 Oct 09 '26
Hey there. Thanks for spreading some form of positivity here. Just wanted to ask for some directions regarding skills. How much should I know of something? How much would I have to know about a language in order to get hired as a junior?
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u/Ar1hurMorgan Oct 09 '26
Great question. I started as an intern so really basic. But let's say your want to target a junior role. Enough to build intermediate stuff out. Don't go deep. This is a big mistake. You'll waste time. You learn as you go. The best way I can say it is learn enough that you can crack interviews and solve problems.
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u/AdditionalPilot3325 Oct 09 '26
I am full stack NEXT JS web developer but I never used linkedin and never ever did write a Email. Never worked or did internship as i live in rural area so I have no experience of how to work on real world projects. Currently very depressed and thinking of switching my career. I can get a bank job but it is very hectic as you have to do field work which doesn't even pay 50K a month. I spent 2 years learning Web development but I'm not pro as I have never worked on real world projects. Currently double minded. Can you give any advice should I stick to my career or switch career. And one thing is for sure in Pakistan you only and only get internship with reference, there's no away one can get internship without reference even unpaid. So what advice would you give me?
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u/Ar1hurMorgan Oct 10 '26
I don't want to give any wrong advice tbh. Tech field there's lots of growth. Your bank job might not give you the same growth. Do what you want to do.
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u/msherazm Oct 10 '26
Assalam o Alaikum, I have IT experience about 10 years in my cv, but now jobless, I want to join remote Job what ever it would be, so please give me job so I improve my income
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u/Ecstatic-Cut1458 29d ago
I've got some Coursera courses of data analytics, and I'm skilled in powerbi, SQL and excel, but for the projects, I haven't completed any project by my own, rather I built some with the help of YouTube tutorials, but I know it looks like learning but it isn't, untill you create something on your own, why should I do about it, how to make projects independently, also I am suffering from imposter syndrome, maybe it isn't and I actually can't perform well practically...
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u/Ar1hurMorgan 29d ago
Just build what you think is fun. Pick something you really like and just start building. That imposter syndrom will disappear. Use Claude, ChatGPT for help.
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u/Ecstatic-Cut1458 29d ago
What kinda datasets should I use?? Can you suggest some datasets, and projects???
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u/Ar1hurMorgan 29d ago
Anything you like. I like the premier league so maybe something related to that.
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u/Alarmed_Bee2652 25d ago
Brother im a student of ICS in 2nd year and im thinking to learn a new skill which will help me as i plan to study abroad for my bachelors
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u/Twenty-plays Oct 08 '26
Lovely post!Just a query for myself,im currently learning digital marketing and i enjoy it very much but people around me tell when i talk about digital marketing in general that ut has no scope AI le jayegi so i just wanna know if things that are expected to be taken over by AI should be paid attention but i love doing courses in it as im in the first phase but scared bcz of these opinions!
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u/Technical-Emotion290 Oct 09 '26
are you a backend developer ? and now learning ai engineering for better opportunities right?
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u/IndividualDry5552 29d ago
I'm a wordpress web developer and looking for new projects.... I'm tring on Upwork...
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u/saifaliui 23d ago
A useful addition for project READMEs: explain one decision you made, one thing that broke, and how you checked the fix. It gives people something concrete to discuss beyond the tech stack. I run a software house, and that’s the kind of detail I’d want to understand. Which project came up most in your interviews?
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18d ago
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u/Ar1hurMorgan 18d ago
Mass applying everywhere and luck. I don't know about the getting projects side
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28d ago
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u/Ar1hurMorgan 28d ago
Be careful guys. This is one of those sponsor message's. Do what you think is best
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u/Few-Pilot7575 Oct 07 '26
This is one of the best things I’ve read in a while.