Ask HN: Remote Work Without Experience?
The following may not be a correct structure for an essay or semblance of paragraphs, so please bear with me. I'm writing this on a phone.

I am 31 with an undergraduate degree in information systems, which focused on software development and network architecture. I've never worked for a tech company (e.g., anything tech-related, not just FAANG), and I live in the middle/southwest where it's more industrial than hip startup types.

This Ask HN boils down to the following TL;DR: I need a remote job, but I don't know who to ask, where to go, or what to search. Many, if not every place seems to ask for extensive knowledge for positions which are supposed to be considered entry level. I have little experience in many of the technologies due to confusion, or lack of resources to operate.

The short question: Am I out of touch with the reality of West/East coast companies, or are they asking for the unicorn?

-----

We've had pets before–I consider them family as well–but I was never there for them early on. I would widdle away the time on my computer, or simply not caring, thinking there's always tomorrow. But they have since gone, and tomorrow has passed, and I can never get back what I've missed. It something I have to live with for the rest of my life. Since then, another dog, and separately, another cat, have walked up to our house out of the woods, presumably dumped. I cannot pass up this opportunity again, to miss out on what I foolishly ignored the first time. I've given them much more attention that they gobble right up. I can't get back the time I missed, but I can seize the time I have now.

My mother and father are not getting younger; they are getting over the hill these days, and I know that I very well will be without them within the next 25 years or so. It may seem like a long time now, but the more time I spend away, or time I spend not interacting with them, is less time I have to enjoy their company. Life is too short, and maybe there is never enough time, but I'd like to get as much time as I can, because I won't be able to someday.

I realize that commuting jobs are part of life, some of you spend over an hour one way to get to your job, where you spent 8-12 hours, then 1± hour back. Maybe it is misplaced self-importance, but I feel like this is all wrong, and given what I could be capable of, I can't keep doing it.

The one _big_ hurdle I have is the dizzying number of frameworks, and the dizzying number of companies using a percentage of them. Where do I start? For whom do I apply? Where should my energy be focused? Back- or front-end? It seems to be hit or miss whether someone has a personal project on libraries or from-scratch frameworks getting hired solely on that, or whether it's needed. Where should all this energy be focused? I've read some comments which state they were hired based on a single conversation. I don't know how any of it works, or how the interview prep works. In essence, I am an individual out of time, and the concept of "whiteboard interviews" is beyond anything I've ever heard of.

I'm not asking for a handout, but I am asking for a direction toward what so many of you are doing already, seemingly through dumb luck. I need something that's stay-at-home, but I need to know where to start. Right now, my only bet is to get back up to speed with a bootcamp or online course. But I wouldn't know who to talk to. If it's not posted on Glassdoor, Monster, or Indeed, I likely don't know about it. The few remote-y sites I've seen are almost always for people who have already done it for 15 years. So where does that leave someone like me where even the physical locations don't exist because of the industrial environment?

Is it really so rare to go from unrelated job experience to remote software/assistant/whatever without needing some kind of 10x certification?