Ask HN: How did you get your first remote job?

I was out of work at the time. I was calling everyone I knew to talk. <side note: you cannot ask for a job, just let them know you are looking. If they have a job they will tell you. If you ask they will often clam up.>

I called someone whom had worked for me 7 years before, and he needed help. He now worked 9 hours away, but was happy to have me work remotely.

1990 being the world expert in some field, being contacted from the US to build some stuff for them. No interview as I remember, never saw the guy, but he was very nice and competent. No other challenges than the 6 hrs time difference to the east coast. The west coast work was harder, this was 9 hrs difference. But still no problem as we had 2 hrs overlap.