remote means that you need to be closeby and in the US.
Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
131–140 of 140 posts
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#132Pole here. $60k/yr is a slighly above average salary for a senior backend engineer in Poland so I think you're looking too far. It's much easier to find an even better offer from DACH countries. I know people from Poland who work remotely for the US. Even though salary is much better ($120k is a starter), you need to assume you will be expected to participate in late night meetings, on-calls and in general assume muc…
> $60k/yr is a slighly above average salary for a senior backend engineer in Poland I don't doubt you, but do you have a link with the source for this? I'd love to have it for a discussion in another forum :)
Not in Poland,but another data point. Ignore the project management and similar jobs and just look at the dev positions:
https://jobs.workinlithuania.lt/?sort=-created_at&page=2
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, that's the way you do it, at least in Poland. You start a sole proprietorship and then just invoice your US-based client monthly. It's very simple for both sides.
It’s simple for now because no one is looking at it. But it will cause a world of problems for employers who are treating contractors as de facto employees when and if someone does start looking.
Within a country - yes, if those kind of laws exist( e.g. IR35 in the UK). Between countries - very very unlikely.
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#134Many US companies hiring people from Europe are treating them as de facto employees but paying them as contractors. This is illegal. It’s not something that the US government has been regularly enforcing. But if the trend continues and ends up on the public’s radar, that will change.
In Switzerland you would have to prove that you work as a consultant, this means: You could switch to a different company if the gig runs out or you could take on a different company as a customer. A way would be to work for two different companies at the same time and subcontract to someone else. Then you would be self-employed and would need to pay the mandatory insurance for age, invalidity, pregnancy, and so on yourself (10.6% of declared revenue), exactly as your employer and you, were you employed in Switzerland.
To get started as self-employed is a bit difficult. You need to bootstrap yourself with at least two customers. You need to show offers, orders, payments, advertisement for your service, and so on. They want to make sure that what you do is not circumvention of factually being an employee. A workaround could be to ask two friends if they could create an order for you, then you are free to offer yourself to a company and switch every three to five years.
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's super easy actually. All one needs is to be a freelancer in the EU and use W-8BEN form in the US. No additional taxes, just EU ones.
As stated, I am only focused on employment, not freelancing. See also parallel discussion with challenges of contractor vs employee and false self-employment.
Disclaimer: IANAL and I am not a tax accountant. This is not tax advice. See a local professional.
Direct employment by a U.S. company is possible and legal in Europe/EU. The company doesn't need to establish a local branch, but needs to get a tax number (so that the tax office can track the tax payments you make every month, because instead of automatic withholding of taxes typically done by a local employer, you will be responsible to do them yourself). Talk to a local tax accountant, they can typically set your U.S. employer up with local social security and the tax office. You will be taxed according to your local tax rates, same for social security contributions. Often that includes "employer contributions", which are charged on top of your "gross" salary. So the cost to your employer is your gross salary plus employer contributions to social security, which includes pension insurance, disability insurance, accident insurance, labor fund, and sickness insurance. According to [1], this can range between 19.21% to 22.41% on top of your gross salary.
Generally, setting up a tax number and getting enrolled in the social security system is a pain and (depending on the country and local government office employees) may require documents signed by high-level people of the company. Therefore, not a lot of U.S. companies are likely willing to go down that road for a single employee.
[1] https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/poland/individual/other-taxes
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#136I worked previously for a US-based company that hired engineers from around the world (Pagely) and they didn't care where anyone worked. I don't have any specific advice other than these employers exist and you just have to find them. These are good sites with ability to filter down to remote-only: https://angel.co/jobs https://remoteok.com/ https://weworkremotely.com/ If you get pushback based on complexity it creat…
https://remote.com/ also handles international payroll/HR/employer of record stuff.
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not illegal. An EU person needs a legal entity in the EU (it can be either freelancer or a company) and then it's just usual B2B relationship where EU person pays their taxes, insurances etc. in the EU. US company still saves, i.e. instead of paying 200k to a fresh graduate they can pay it to a senior dev in the EU.
The illegal bit isn’t the pay structure but the treatment of a contractor as an employee. Both the European and US laws make this distinction with similar criteria. This is to make sure companies aren’t avoiding their obligations to employees. And just from a moral perspective if you’re expecting someone to act like an employee you should treat them in kind.
Contractors have no rights nor protections under employment law, they need to contribute to social system by themselves, they are selling their services and expect they can be released with short notice.
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not if it's properly structured. That usually means employee having some kind of legal entity (consulting firm) and having proper B2B contract.
The structure doesn’t matter. There’s a 20 part test of employee vs contractor. If you are treating the contractor as an employee, they are a de facto employee and you should be withholding income tax, paying payroll tax etc..
Then come to Czechia and your problems are solved. There the test is simple - are you using your own equipment or do you have multiple clients or are you your own boss in terms of working hours and arrangements or could your contract end at any time or are you an exporter? Then you're clearly a contractor. Only one of these rules needs to apply.
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
As stated, I am only focused on employment, not freelancing. See also parallel discussion with challenges of contractor vs employee and false self-employment.
You are out of luck then, there is no legal framework for employment cross-border anywhere. Maybe in Dubai with their remote work visa giving you 0% taxes but that would require a relocation there.
Not true at all! My (EU) tax form has a special field just for this case - income from out-of-EU employment... (and because of tax residency rules that applies only if I live there)
And there definitely is a legal framework - this has very exact rules specified by the bilateral tax/trade agreements, every combination of western countries has them, and many non-western countries too.
Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land remote US job while living in living in EU?
#140To get 60k/y you don't even need to work for a US company - it'll be much easier to find something in Germany or UK because of the time zone. Heck, even Polish companies offer this kind of salaries these days (they also post salary ranges most of the time so you can check it) and they're often very remote-friendly
Heh, you probably haven't read horror stories from TeamBlind where Google Warsaw was paying like $25k/year... My guess is that the op wants to stay in Poland but work for at least $60k instead of moving to Germany/UK where 60k is a poverty line.
A friend of mine was making $150k/year at Google Warsaw 5 years ago. Was at a rather high level though (Senior Staff or whatever it's called).