Seven years remote: what working for a Japanese company from Tunis taught me

In 2019 I went full-time remote as a software engineer for a Japanese company. I didn't move to Japan and I didn't become a nomad overnight. I stayed in Tunis, opened a laptop, and started working with a team eight time zones away.

Seven years later, it's the single biggest influence on how I build anything — and the reason the next chapter of this journal is about to leave the desk.

The first lesson: write everything down

When your team is a continent away, nothing survives that isn't written. Decisions, context, the reason behind a change — if it isn't in writing, it effectively didn't happen. I write more clearly now than I ever did in an office, and every business I run benefits from it.

The second: the overlap is precious

Tunis is eight hours behind Japan. The hours we share are for decisions; everything else happens asynchronously. Learning to protect those shared hours — and to arrive at them prepared — changed how I think about meetings entirely.

The third: trust is delivered, not declared

Remote work strips away everything except the work. Nobody sees you staying late. What builds trust is shipping what you said you'd ship, when you said you'd ship it, and flagging problems early. That's the whole reputation.

Running ventures alongside

My Tunisian businesses kept running through all of it, with a local team. Remote work didn't take me away from them; it taught me how to run them without being in the room. That is exactly the skill the road will test.

Why it leads to the road

For years "remote" meant a desk in Tunis. The work proved it could travel. Now I want to find out how far — first a scouting trip to Asia, then a rebuilt Nissan Patrol and the whole of Tunisia, and eventually the road south into Africa.

The plans are on the next adventure page. The log starts here.