Currently, remote work is becoming more mainstream than ever, especially for software engineers who actually only need a computer and a stable inte...
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Ideally, what the company is prepared to pay for an employee should be the same regardless of where they live. If someone lives in an expensive part of the world, gets a job, then moves somewhere cheaper, how much cheaper does it have to be before the company gives them a pay cut? Just outside the city limits? Across the country? Another continent?
Capitalism gonna capitalise.
My real complaint comes from companies who say things like, "fully remote in London". Believe me, they say this. I can literally never have to go into an office but if I live 40 miles away in the same country then I need not apply. That's not a tax issue, it's a company being the kind of place I don't want to touch.
That would be a red flag for me as well 🤓
City restrictions are ridiculous. I've never come across them personally, but I have seen people getting rejected by not living close enough to HQ, which obviously deserves all our eye rolls 🙄
All companies I've worked with have given the same to all their remote devs. However, I do not think it's unreasonable to have some type of normalization based on the country. They will be supplying the same standard of living so to speak.
I think pay should be based on how much value the company is getting from the work rather than some pseudo-moral decision the company makes about the employee's home life. I know it's not that straightforward, but maybe if it was there'd be a better world.
I agree with that 🙂
On the other side let's say a company finds a great engineer from Nigeria (there are many) where the yearly seems to top out at 17M NGN (Lagos salaries) that's 11k USD/year. That engineer is not going to be unhappy with 30k 🤷♂️ But 30k is way too little for any other country in the west. Effectively, raising salaries for all in the cheaper country while raising competition.
most issues that you after described are solved by having an umbrella company as the middle man
The dev is an employee of the umbrella company in her local country.
The company sends the invoice to the umbrella company
The umbrella company takes care of all the local administrative stuff for a cut like 5%
That's precisely my point. The question is, who owns the local company?
Being able to work from another country is almost always wort it to get to know you local tax regulation and get it sorted out. As a developer (my assumption based on this post being on this content plattform) you have to understand complex things and deal with them -> it's you main value proposition in being a problem solver.
Health package & Benefits - is pure marketing BS. If the pay is good it covers everything. Living in in a cheaper country doubly so.
The biggest reason I see why company are hesitant hiring oversees is because of trust and prosecution - because you can't get the law of your country imposed if your candidate/freelancer is residing in another. It's a huge risk for company to expose internal access to people you barely know and you and they know you can't prosecute them if any sort of conflict/dispute happens.
That's a good point! it's hard to run IP theft battles in other countries 👍
I would not say that Health and Benefits are useless unless the candidate lives in a country where that is paid for by taxes. They are also a tax-efficient way of paying more but at the same time not adding more tax pressure on the candidate. In my experience, none of my colleagues looked for remote jobs because they wanted to move to a different country with lower costs. Some moved out of the cities, but it's a big deal to move eg. children who still have to go to school.
To your point though, the most interesting areas for candidates to look at are the hiring company's policies and how much they pay. How many vacation days, public holidays, sick days, and maternal/paternal days are available.
👏 Great insights into the often-overlooked complexities of remote work for software engineers! The detailed breakdown of legal, tax, and benefits challenges provides a clear understanding of why some companies restrict job postings to specific regions. It's refreshing to see a comprehensive explanation that goes beyond the surface-level eye-rolling discussions. As someone exploring remote opportunities, this information is invaluable for navigating the job market effectively.
Thanks!