4 ms·

> Being in Europe, I think fully remote is getting embraced. It‘s the third company where I get US level salary plus all the benefits. But this is as an actual

> Being in Europe, I think fully remote is getting embraced. It‘s the third company where I get US level salary plus all the benefits. But this is as an actual employee not as a contractor? Most of the US roles I've seen, that would consider EU ppl, the expect contractor arrangements where you deal with your own taxes.

drakonka 4y ago
Some places provide the opportunity to choose between being a contractor and an employee through a third party local company. In my country, my accountant and financial advisor strongly recommended I stay a contractor through my own company for tax reasons, so that's what I'm doing, but the other option also sounds very nice.
milosmns 4y ago
Side note: being an employee in Europe comes with a degree of job security (being a contractor doesn't unless you somehow insure yourself privately). But, employment benefits come with massive paperwork complications for remote people (like who pays if you fall from your chair during work). Pros and cons, as always.
recvonline 4y ago
Twice it was a US based company (San Francisco), who are used to SF salaries, and found out the the "same quality" engineers in Germany can be hired for much cheaper (cost of living much cheaper etc.). So for both sides, its a win-win. I see many more companies doing this. It's not really good for the local economy, since you leverage the (back then) super liquid SF bay area market from within Germany. They usually have a European/German office for the paper work, just pay much better but have to obviously comply to German labour laws. I am happy this works so well so far, but don't count on it being like this forever. From what I heard from these two companies, that they stopped hiring SF engineers (because too expensive) and looked for other places in the US with the same timezone.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  Yeah I suppose my follow up question is how does it work for you w/ async comms for companies with HQ in Pacific Standard Time? Or are you just working with a completely separate CET team, and there is no Pacific time interaction?
  - recvonline 4y ago
    One was with an EMEA team, the other one truly async. Sometimes I waited until 10pm my time to get an answer, some meetings where at 5pm to fit the whole team well. It was doable. Weird to go through the day and nobody is on Slack, and then after you wake up to 20+ new messages all over.

drakonka 4y ago

Some places provide the opportunity to choose between being a contractor and an employee through a third party local company. In my country, my accountant and financial advisor strongly recommended I stay a contractor through my own company for tax reasons, so that's what I'm doing, but the other option also sounds very nice.

milosmns 4y ago

Side note: being an employee in Europe comes with a degree of job security (being a contractor doesn't unless you somehow insure yourself privately). But, employment benefits come with massive paperwork complications for remote people (like who pays if you fall from your chair during work). Pros and cons, as always.

recvonline 4y ago

Twice it was a US based company (San Francisco), who are used to SF salaries, and found out the the "same quality" engineers in Germany can be hired for much cheaper (cost of living much cheaper etc.). So for both sides, its a win-win. I see many more companies doing this. It's not really good for the local economy, since you leverage the (back then) super liquid SF bay area market from within Germany. They usually have a European/German office for the paper work, just pay much better but have to obviously comply to German labour laws. I am happy this works so well so far, but don't count on it being like this forever. From what I heard from these two companies, that they stopped hiring SF engineers (because too expensive) and looked for other places in the US with the same timezone.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
Yeah I suppose my follow up question is how does it work for you w/ async comms for companies with HQ in Pacific Standard Time? Or are you just working with a completely separate CET team, and there is no Pacific time interaction?
- recvonline 4y ago
  One was with an EMEA team, the other one truly async. Sometimes I waited until 10pm my time to get an answer, some meetings where at 5pm to fit the whole team well. It was doable. Weird to go through the day and nobody is on Slack, and then after you wake up to 20+ new messages all over.