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Ask HN: Anyone working remotely for a US company internationally?
110 points by anonymous2324 on Oct 22, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 91 comments
I've been working for small(ish) startups based in the US internationally and have had no issues. (I work as a contractor essentially)

I was wondering if anyone's got an arrangement like this going with a larger organization? I'm looking to switch jobs and try working somewhere a tad bigger.




Maybe try Automattic if you don't mind working with WordPress, PHP and JS. 1500+ people, lots of autonomy, hiring for a lot of roles.

https://automattic.com/work-with-us/

https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-tc1/


I do this, in NZ, for a 15ish person company. I 'contract' but my contract says I get a monthly rate not hourly, and I get holidays, a couple other benefits. I pay taxes myself. My work sends me my 'salary' with transferwise every month.

That said I read about Pilot which lets you be an actual employee. They provide the tax presence that so many companies want to avoid. https://pilot.co/


I’m based in NZ too, how do you go with time zones?

I’ve noticed many US companies hiring remote still specify employees to live within a range of time zones. And I haven’t seen those include NZ (+13, yes the edge of tomorrow)

In practice, I’ve found collaborating with US colleagues fine. There’s a 3-4 hour overlap (our morning, their end of day).


Sorry for the late reply. I'm lucky to work for a company that runs after school coding classes, so the whole company is around US afternoon/evening hours. As a result I work a little earlier than most kiwis but not much, and really like the schedule now.


Kiwi here, I work for a large US company, full time remote, nearly all of my team is in Europe - UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Czechia, but I often collaborate with staff in Australia and their NZ sales teams also.

I'm employed by their NZ subsidiary so tax and employment law is all straightforward.

My initial salary offering was above local market, but definitely not SV levels.

In terms of timezone alignment, most communication is async, but there are some evening video calls, but 1 - 2 a week at most.

If you've got a way I can contact you - a reddit account would be fine, can see if my company might be up your alley.


Hey man, I'm a Kiwi as well and have been considering an arrangement like this as I'd like my next job to be full remote and unfortunately this hasn't yet been a thing in NZ (Don't see many full remote jobs on Seek)

Any chance you'd be keen to share some details?

hn at maha dot nz


a bit of a tangent here - I have been looking for such opportunities but most of those are restricted to US remote - would you be able to share any pointer where to find such opportunities? I am a backend dev with Java/Python/Clojure experience. Thanks!


If you have a way I contact you, I will.


I would love to learn more about details.

You can contact me at [redacted]


I am, but also on a small startup. I think any larger organization will be more worried about the risks mentioned in the comments of this Ask HN that I posted recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28898198

My experience is that the sweet spot is a small organization that embraces global remote and don’t care much about hiring contractors full time, but not actively look for outside of US candidates.

Medium to large companies neither want to establish presence in other countries nor hire contractors full time.

Very large companies do not hire contractors full time but might establish presence in a few selected countries (paying local rates mostly). Stripe seems an exception that created that “remote hub” that would hire anywhere.

Small startups that actively look for full time contractors outside the US usually pay just slightly above the local market rate (they are hoping to get the margin of the salary arbitrage for themselves).

So,small startups that explicitly hire remote, but mostly advertise they jobs to American audience, but are open to hire remote globally. “Who is hiring” thread seems a good place to find those (by filtering out all the ”Remote(US)” ones)


Looking into Stripe haha. But you're right smaller companies are much more flexible. I don't think I'll have much trouble getting a job at one of the smaller ones. Just wondering if I should try bigger ones too.

Like you say the ones that cater to American audiences are good. Even if it says Remote(US) if it's a smaller company then you can still get a job there if you can sell yourself well. You may need to be flexible with your working hours if you're in a different timezone though. (I don't mind working US hours but for some people this may be a dealbreaker)


We have a few people working as contractors internationally but it's a bit painful for both the US company and the international contractors. We're just starting to try a new approach using Deel https://www.letsdeel.com/

It's too early to give a full endorsement of them as we're just going through the process for the first couple of employees but it seems promising so far and simplifies things for both the US company (a 100+ employee 5 year old startup) and the employees who have a simpler tax situation typically under this arrangement.


From what I can see, their guide for contractors to set up in Serbia (https://www.letsdeel.com/blog/how-to-set-up-as-an-entreprene...) is outdated (2019 law changes are not taken into account) and even incorrect (VAT taxation limit of 8M RSD is not the same as fixed-taxation-if-total-revenue-of-less-than-6M-RSD), even though it says it was written on Oct 18th 2021.

It also does not seem to help anyone in Serbia at all: basically, the article, other than being incorrect, suggests the things I had to do on my own (i.e. set up a company, and it has to be at least a Ltd/doo company since the start of 2020). I was hoping they'd incorporate in each of their "supported countries" and simply offer "regular employment".

Basically, what I am saying is that they might be ripping you off :D


I don't know about Serbia but in the countries we're dealing with so far (Canada and the UK) they have local companies in those countries that act as the employer of record and handle compliance with all the local employment, tax and payroll requirements.


Cool, so they are simply falsely advertising a much larger number of really supported countries than they really have.


Thats how it works for me working in Mexico in a US company. There are several PEOs like Globalization Partners or via.work (these last are Ycombinator alumni I think).

I get all the legal benefits from being employed in my country and the advantages of working for a US company.


I’m from Serbia, I’ve been working with US clients for a decade. I’m wondering why you’re not just sending Wire each month and call it a day?

It’s up to the employee to choose their tax status, they can become entrepreneurs, open LLC or simply report wire transfers quarterly as an individual.


Fellow Serbian here. I work with one of the client over Deel. Value is that you can have card connected to your account and you can spend money without withdrawing it to Serbia, also you can choose how much and when to withdraw (useful to get around tax limits).


That's literally tax evasion — I wouldn't brag about it if I were you :)


I was mostly highlighting how LetsDeel service is not really "selling much" for hires in Serbia — I am not sure what's the value add in other countries.

There are many ways to set up in Serbia, but for something resembling actual employment (which the topic is about), you are basically prohibited from using an entreprenuership since 2020, so you can either set up a LLC or take on a huge tax burden by self-reporting taxes.


That’s true, I had to open an LLC because of that. However, tax burden for self reporting is exactly the same as when you’re employed at some company, it’s negative in other ways, like losing a bunch of benefits.


It was not the same last I looked: income tax rate was 20% vs 10% (though with 20% flat deductions, it was effectively 16%), and the gross calculations are done against is smaller even if percentage numbers are the same (taxes that employer pays come out on top of the gross, whereas when you self report they come out of the gross: eg. 20% on 100 is 20, but 20% out of (100+20) is 24). It's not that simple, but it's ultimately the worst way to get taxed.


I have done this from 2015-2020 for two different US based startups. The most recent one got acquired by an entity that has a German HQ and I'm now attached to that.

Both startups were Bay area based, around 50-100 people in size. Comp was about five to ten percent below bay area standards but I was making north of $180k/yr in the end.

Setup was similar to yours. I was treated as a contractor. There were a few things I had to do to make this legal on the German side but not overly complicated.

Got to travel a lot (including a round the world trip in 2017 while working remotely) and frequent visits to the US were the norm.


Could you please point to how to make such an arrangement legal in Germany? I thought it’s only allowed for 18 months to work as a contractor only for one company?

Or please send me a brief email, I have been looking for quite a while for a solution to this.

Thank you very much in advance.


Following this. I just started working remotely for a US based company while living in Germany. Thought this was perfectly fine as long as I register as a "freelancer" in Germany?


If you are a "freelancer" that in fact works full time for a single client, especially if the "service" you provide is to personally perform unspecified tasks for a certain number of hours per week, then this is known as "fake self-employment" and is illegal.

A true freelancer generally completes individual work packages for multiple clients, and is free to complete the work any way they like, for instance by subcontracting it to another suitably qualified person.

If it were legal, all employers would declare all their employees "freelancers" and therby evade all employment regulations regarding notice periods, dismissal, vacation, sick pay, parental leave etc.

Your "employer" needs to employ you according to German labor laws either via their own German subsidiary, or an employer of record.


You can work for Disney's DMED, which is a very large IT/software organization. You would have to become a contractor through one of the agencies they work with - "Happiest Minds" or "Globant" were the two I saw used when I was there.

My current employer, Rigetti Computing, has I think 100-200 employees and has a few that are working from the UK, Australia, or Canada. But I think they would have to be especially interested in you to let you work from abroad as a new hire.


Their website doesnt have a list of jobs. Do you know where Disney's DMED posts them? Thank you


https://jobs.disneycareers.com/search-jobs/dmed/391/1/1


Globant was mostly low-paid low-quality folks. Probably not a good fit.


I’m based in Russia, and looks like it’s a big problem for finding a remote job, even for an experienced developers (I have 12+ years experience). I’ve already spent a number of months, looking for remote jobs in EU and US companies. And I got zero interview invites from US companies. As for EU-based, most of them require you to relocate to EU, or, sometimes they work with non-EU citizens, but the salary range will be about €50-70K for Senior level positions (which is less than I have now…) I had only ONE interview with a EU startup, that was hiring outside of EU and offered 100k+ for senior/lead positions, but unfortunately I was not a good match for this position because of the specific technologies. So I’m still continuing my search.


Yup, I'm doing this. I was living in the US when I interviewed in Feb 2020 but as an Australian citizen on an E-3 visa I had to leave the country to get a new one and then the pandemic happened. So far my employer has been happy to have me work remotely but the timezone offset has been pretty brutal and I'm only doing this because I hope to move back at some point early next year.


Curious question: does that also mean you get US salaries between $100K - $120K?


Yes.

Any company that tries to play games with CoL is a red flag, to be honest.

It basically mean they can't attract the best everywhere (since you know top performers are already working for SF level comp for remote companies) so good luck competing.


Asking for Bay Area level pay gives up a big advantage if you live elsewhere. If the going rate in SF is $200k then if I want the same I have to be better than somebody local.

Whereas if I am working for $100k then that compensates if I'm in a different timezone and perhaps not up to the skill level of a SF local.


> I'm in a different timezone and perhaps not up to the skill level of a SF local.

I don't think time zone has anything to do. Hell, even local devs have a reputation of having biological clocks all over the place. Skills definitively matters however.


Currently I'm making under $100K but I realized I'm getting severely underpaid. I'm currently interviewing at a bunch of places offering salaries ranging between $120K on the low end up to over $170K on the high end. They are all startups hence this question as I was wondering if bigger organizations would be worth looking into as well.


How did you found these opportunities? Some network of friends? Or regular stackoverflow jobs or another portal?


In 2017, I had $132k USD/yr salary working in Vietnam full time. I am sure you can negotiate a lower salary if you don't want to earn more than $120k.


This might be a bit personal but, honestly, what is the QoL like with that level of income?

I've been to a few Asian nations previously and was extremely impressed how well one could eat on such a small amount of money. I had never seriously considered staying long-term, due to complications you may be familiar with, but I would imagine you can live pretty well with that kind of pay.


I have always lived my life frugally (at the cost of QoL) in all of my adventures both domestically and internationally, with that said, in VN to have a more "western" level of comfort, the costs equal or surpass the costs in a western country.

Quality of goods, services, and properties are measurably lower and you need to spend more to keep the life style you want. There are things that we get in the USA insanely cheaply, but over there its really expensive. Items like Motrin, cars, electronics, and good mattresses are difficult to find or measurably more expensive.

Just to throw a few examples, there are no Apple stores in Vietnam and the Apple products sold in official apple stores in Thailand or Singapore are measurably more expensive due to import taxes and higher prices.

The home construction was low quality and always had pests and mold. Even the new apartments were rushed together and often never completed.

I loved my time there and look forward to returning, but you have to compromise in both career development and life style.


Thanks for being so open about all of that! :) There's a lot to consider there that I hadn't thought of previously.


I need to find myself a remote US job then :D


Curious: where can I find those remote opportunities in Vietnam?


I know somebody working in Canada, getting paid the same as other seniors at an SF-based startup. It's quite a bit more than that range. The lease on the startup's SF office came up as the pandemic hit, so they vacated the premises and used the considerable savings to hire more developers.


I'm in Eastern Europe working for a US company earning just over $100k/yr. Been working for this company for 4 years now. Before that I was working as a contractor in the UK earning more, but wanted something remote and more relaxed :-)


It depends. Some companies pay local salaries, others just keep paying whatever they pay at HQ.


can't really do this for very long. the local country will usually want to collect its own business/employment taxes on employed work.


It varies by country and your fiscal status, but as long as you pay taxes on your earnings, you're usually fine.

If HQ salary > local salary, the government just gets more taxes.


Yeah, I'm making above that USD, as a Canadian remotely for a company in the US.


I recently just got an offer from an SF-based startup, I'm so excited about it because I love the product and the fact that it is open-source. My comp is a bit adjusted by my location (Vietnam) but it's still six figures.


Sure, It’s Metabase(https://github.com/metabase). Our stack is Clojure and javascript.

I actually found this startup on GitHub bc I was looking for projects that use Clojure.

But I also got some offers from Angelist as well.


Thank you and congrats on the offer.


Do you mind if I ask which startup is that? How did you find these remote opportunities?


six figures in Vietnam is amazing. Congrats!


I'm working for a smaller US company (hitting 100 people across the whole organisation soon), as a remote employee in the UK.

The arangement is a third party hires me as an employee in the UK, where I receive all the British employment rights (holidays, etc), and I just work for the US company. This is a fairly new thing for them, previously they had only taken on non-US persons through contracting companies.

I would guess that if larger companies were going to hire abroad, they would either have a local setup to manage payroll or do something similar to where I am now. No idea how many are really offering something like that.


What is the benefit to this? Why don't you just make your own UK corp? Then you can write off a load of stuff against the company, get VAT back, and decide what dividend you want to get.


I'm surprised people are now discovering Deel, Pilot, etc. The so-called "professional employer organizations" have existed for a long, long time.


I am. Full time US citizen software developer living in Asia for the past 3 years. Get paid to a US bank account. Country I’m in isn’t good at collecting taxes.


This doesn't really apply to me as I'm not a US Citizen or a Green Card holder, but out of curiosity. Are you on a payroll in your home state and pay state + federal taxes or are you paid as a contractor similar to what I do?


Most people do pay taxes in their home country.

You can't be a tax resident of nowhere. In Canada to become a nonresident for tax purposes you need to establish tax residency elsewhere.


Yeah that's what digital nomads do. I live long term in the country I am located in so there's little doubt on where I need to pay my taxes.

Actually for Americans the rules are bit different in that Uncle Sam wants his cut even if they live overseas (over a certain amount IIRC) but for the rest of us it's purely residence based.


From the US IRS site: For tax year 2020, the maximum foreign earned income exclusion is the lesser of the foreign income earned or $107,600 per qualifying person. For tax year 2021, the maximum exclusion is $108,700 per person.


Yep on salary. Pay federal and state taxes but get almost all of it returned with FEIE.


the IRS does though, and your income is in an US bank?


Yeah I file US taxes every year and get it almost all back from the FEIE.


so if you work for an US company but reside overseas, can you claim it?


If the ground beneath your feet is a foreign country for at least 330 days in a year then you can claim it no matter where your money comes from.


I don't know if this counts, but I had to spend two weeks in Juarez Mexico last month for my wife's green card interview, and I spent a majority of that working for a US megacorporation. We're all remote-first anyway, so most of my coworkers didn't know/care about where I was located geographically. Only thing that was a bit irritating for me was having to work in a different time-zone.


Companies usually only care about your fiscal residence. When you were away traveling, that didn't change so it's rarely a problem for getting paid.


Where do you find your contract US startup jobs? All I see is full time jobs on angel list. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place?


All jobs on AngelList are potentially contract if you're outside the US. Unless they want to set up a subsidiary for you (they won't) or use a global PEO (some do want to do this but most are happy with a direct contract in my experience).


I get lucky on slack sometimes.


I'm wondering, how is this kind of contract structured? Do they say "work X hours a week, we'll pay you X" like a normal employee? Or do you bill for variable hours (up to a maximum) where you fill up a log? Or something else? I've only ever experienced full time/part time so I'm curious.


It’s up for negotiations, it can literally be anything.

At one company the payment structure and PTO was exactly as if I was an employee, other one it’s per hour.


Are there non-Americans doing this?


Yes, if you're a contractor your lack of a US passport doesn't seem to matter (in my limited experience).


I'm a non-American :)


The higher the org the lower the chances they would accept such an arrangement. Some allow remote work but expect you to be an employee which becomes impossible if you are from a country where they have no base so they can't legally hire you.


The pandemic created a lot more remote jobs but they often come with strings attached (e.g. US only), exactly because of what you said.

Famous example: GitHub.


I work for a small(ish) US company here in Iceland as a full time employee. And sometime prior to that I worked for Autodesk also as a full time employee for a small satellite office here after a startup was aquired.


We have some employees in Canada, so they're still in North America, but they work internationally.

Actually, for us they are contractors. We only have W-2 employees here in the US.


I work at a2hosting.com and while I’m not international, a few people on my team are outside of the us and large percentage of the rest of the company is as well.


I’m working for a US startup remotely from Eastern Europe. From my experience it is easier to find startup remote jobs and I don’t mind to be honest.


my company has almost 50 full time in the US and 120+ full time internationally. x2-3 in the next 12-18 months. hiring for pretty much every possible role and willing to be creative/flexible. dm me to chat!

apmhelp.com is our core service (think bookkeeping/maintenance coordination for rental properties)

fyxed.com is a fintech product we're launching soon (think pipe but for rental properties)


Hey! I'd like to know more about this. I'm not sure how to get in touch with you.

Would you mind sending me an email at stefan@stefanyas.me?


I work for Microsoft in Redmond USA, and have had team members I work with daily who are outside the US.


I have two people in India working on my team. They are both remote right now.


Doing stuff @ Reddit via this sort of thing.


I might have been an international Reddit employee also had the recruiter not ghosted me when I gave times available for interview!


I was ghosted by a US based famous alt-search recruiter after I asked question about work-life balance and timezone issues. Evidently they were looking for willing-to-be-always-available resources in countries like mine (which is honestly often the case).




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