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Question: would it be possible for me (in Sweden) to get a gig in SV working remotely, and only occasionally, if ever, flying in? I would be willing to work fo

• vidarh 15y ago
  > Question: would it be possible for me (in Sweden) to get a gig in SV working remotely, and only occasionally, if ever, flying in? It's possible, but outside of contracting you'd have to expect that most companies who are prepared to outsource will want a bigger cost difference than what you can provide and/or an office with multiple people. If you have or acquire "special" skills that are hard to get, you might be in luck. Flying in regularly can be fun, but the distance sucks. I'm Norwegian, live in London, and spent three years regularly flying in to SV, and it took me 16 hours door to door with a direct flight from London. You'd probably need to tack on another 3 hours or so for a connecting flight most of the time... > I would be willing to work for a hell of a lot less than $100k. Careful. Potential currency risk. If you do, make sure your salary isn't specified in dollars or that it's adjusted up a lot to account for currency risk. > What do you guys think? Should I take my dream and smoke it in a crack pipe, or is there some non-negligible chance of this actually being possible? Doesn't hurt to look for opportunities. In my case I did it because I joined a startup where one founder was British and the other really love it in London and wanted an excuse to move back, but in the end the company ended up in SV due to VC's. I knew one of them from before (we'd worked together) and so got in before the decision to stay in SV was made.
  • itmag 15y ago
    Very interesting! Do tell me more about your experience :)
    • vidarh 15y ago
      It was fun while it lasted, but I flew over about every 6-8 weeks, and it got exhausting long term. I'd usually effectively lose one day to travel each way + one day after I returned where I'd be totally useless. In terms of the work, it was challenging to work remotely. We spent a lot of time on Skype, but the time difference wrecked havoc on my schedule - my coworkers in the valley got in around 5pm-6pm London time, and would usually still be in the office at midnight my time, so I ended up working in the evenings a lot, often while also working a lot during the day. If it hadn't been a startup I might've tried to keep more strictly fixed working hours with evenings some days (to account for meetings etc) and more free time during the day, but that wasn't really an option. I managed a team, which was even trickier because whenever I flew out I'd spend 2-3 days resolving whatever drama had arisen since my last trip. My impression both from that job and others where I dealt with SV engineers is that you're far more likely to find some real primadonnas with huge egos amongst software engineers in SV than in most places in Europe. Most of the guys I worked with were really nice, though, and overall it was a great experience. Trickiest part with the regular visits: Make sure to never, ever say the wrong thing to immigration. If traveling under the visa waiver program, you're not allowed to do normal work while in the US. You can receive instruction and participate in meetings etc., but you can't do "productive work". We had an immigration lawyer instruct me in detail on what I was and was not allowed to do and how to address this with immigrations to mitigate the risk that I might get turned away. This was because I was flying in often enough to get asked extra questions now and again, though - if you fly in a couple of times a year, there's not much scrutiny, but I had about 13-14 stamps from SFO in my passport and none from other locations at one point...