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Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

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Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#171

Post by indymike »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #108
fxtentacle wrote: post #11

Leverage. If your work improves the productivity of 100+ other people, you're surely worth the price. If your work saves $500k+ in annual costs, you're surely worth the price. If hiring you cripples key competitors, you're surely worth the price. If you can enable new revenues streams through knowledge that only you have, you're surely worth the price. If hiring you does not increase productivity, reduce costs, fend…

> if you're outside of the US, set up a local LLC so that US-based companies can treat you like an independent contracting business. That'll make it much easier to hire you across borders. And at that price, you can surely afford the $1000 annually for a tax advisor retainer. In my experience you shouldn't need to do this. In fact, I suspect doing this creates both a taxation and legal nightmare. You should have a re…

> In my experience you shouldn't need to do this. In fact, I suspect doing this creates both a taxation and legal nightmare.

Have worked with both arrangements. Much easier to deal with a US based LLC than anything that is managing payroll. For the contractor the LLC arrangement may end up being better, too because at least in the US corporations pay tax in arrears, and individuals have money withheld in advance.

> Except then you create legal issues, since there are likely legal issues with a company you run hiring another company you run.

For a simple business, this is actually simple (at least the US part of it). Revenue - Cost yields a very modest profit in the US so there's probably not going to be a lot of tax liability. Not sure what the nightmare is. For the group I used, their books were super simple in the US, and equally simple at home.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#172

Post by cj »

hermannj314 wrote: post #89
codegeek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did your father work both jobs at the same time? I m sure answer is No. GP is talking abput a remote dev who was fooling 3 companies. A full time job means you are available for that company at that time. Not concurrently.

The original suggestion was to work 2 jobs. The post I replied to projected that (for some reason) into being a bad idea because of some story deceptive, poor-performing, contracting violating, three concurrent jobs. I stand by my statement. It is not wrong to work two jobs. That was the original claim despite what this other guy wanted to make it about.

I'm "this other guy" you reference above. For what it's worth, even if he were working only 2 jobs rather than 3, that would have still broken our ability to trust him with any meaningful work. From an HR perspective, if someone lies about having a 2nd job, what else are the capable of lying about?

> It is not wrong to work two jobs.

2 jobs vs. 3 jobs doesn't make much of a difference. It is wrong to work 2 jobs if you explicitly tell each company that you are their sole employer.

The thing I don't understand is if someone really wants to work 2 or 3 jobs... why not do it by looking for 1099 contract work rather than chasing W2 roles?

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#173

Post by wpietri »

zibzab wrote: post #125
cushychicken wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run a job board for FPGA people and hoo WEE do the HFT firms compensate amply. Talking two to three times the salary of a comparable position at a defense or chip company. That's not to say you won't be earning it. The corporate culture sounds absolutely savage: https://www.reddit.com/r/FPGA/comments/pj43ar/my_experience_...

Wow, that was an interesting read. Not sure I'm up for working in such a toxic environment, but the technical challenges seem very interesting.

I worked in financial trading for a few years in the 1990s. It was the same deal then: pay was great, industry was a boys club run by assholes, work environment was toxic. After a few years I was very much burnt out and had to change careers from sysadmin work to software development as my internal reaction to being asked to do sysadmin had become waves of nausea and hostility. Took me years to get over it.

So if you are tempted to do financial industry work, make sure to price in the risk of lost work time, years of therapy, etc. It was a fascinating experience and I learned a ton, but financially it was not a net win for me in the long term.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#174

Post by yosito »

pembrook wrote: post #167

If you're inside the US, just apply to any private unicorn or public tech company (the ones that get media coverage). Anecdotally, roughly 50% of them are now cool with full remote and virtually all will pay 250k or more in total comp. If you're outside the US, forget about salaried roles. I've found that a vast majority of companies mentioned above will have blanket policies against hiring non-US workers (most HR de…

> any private unicorn or public tech company (the ones that get media coverage)

Can you give some example companies?

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#175

Post by wpietri »

rco8786 wrote: post #63
johnebgd wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until said startup fails..

If it’s overfunded they probably have cash to burn for a few years at least

If you spend more time at something doomed to fail, is that better or worse?

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#176

Post by jollofricepeas »

rco8786 wrote: post #48

You just need to apply for roles with public companies that offer liquid equity. Very few of us are getting 250k+ on base salary alone. Most of us have the salary bands you’re already in, but have additional equity pay on top. It doesn’t have to be a FAANG either. There are loads of public companies out there hiring engineers at 250k total comp .

This is true in the Midwest.

I’m seeing two strategies that are friends are using to get to $250k+ right now and much more…

1. Several have left for left/right coast former startups companies that are publicly traded. Their base comp is $160-180k but they are also receiving a large pool of equity that vests in tranches of $75-100k a year.

2. With everything being remote, several senior engineer friends are working two jobs at the same time. Some are telling their employers and others are not.

Companies are desperate for senior engineers and many are unable to compete with the “we’re remote, have free beer and no vacation policy.”

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#177

Post by aiisjustanif »

jerrygoyal wrote: post #124

Many commentators are suggesting exploring a freelance/contract role instead of a full-time job to make $250k. Now, If we do the math you should be charging ~$125/hr working 8hrs 5 days a week to annually make 250k. You need to charge even more if you plan to take leaves. My question is where do you find these generous clients? From what I've heard even the top paying freelancing sites like Toptal don't have clients…

Work in a more of a niche. Development in of itself is not a niche, and web development is but doesn’t pay as much freelance.

Setting up and configuring and managing firewalls and automation around them? $200+/hr. Setting up CI/CD pipelines, build processes, automated notifications, vulnerability scanning, and logging? $200+/hr.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#178

Post by cj »

MathCodeLove wrote: post #161
cj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. His output was horrendous. I would have fired him anyway based just on that, but discovering he had multiple jobs expedited the firing (and clearly explained why his output was so poor).

Fair enough. Just of curiosity, would you have fired him if his performance hadn't suffered?

If I found out about it, yes, he'd be gone immediately even if he were our #1 engineer.

It's impossible to trust someone with AWS production keys and access to customer data when they lie to you about something as simple as who they work for. People secretly working multiple jobs are looking for an easy way to make a lot of money. If it's within their ability to secretly work 2 jobs, is it also in their ability to download proprietary company info and sell it to a competitor?

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#179

Post by nathanfig »

omosubi wrote: post #114
loydb wrote: post #112

If you want a base salary that high, move into Product Management or Sales/Sales Engineering. Maybe Data Analytics/Engineering if you're really good at math and find the right company. Or, as others have said, start your own company.

What exactly is sales engineering? I have never understood this term or what the work these people do is. To be fair I haven't spent much time looking into it but any insight you have is appreciated

It goes by a lot of names (sales consulting, solution engineering, sales engineering, etc) but sales engineer is probably the best literal descriptor: basically your job is to go to prospective customers and engage their engineers/architects and work with them to solve their problems using your company’s software or techniques. If you do a good job, the prospect signs up and you make a commission. Engagements vary- you might just be presenting slides, or you may be writing code to implement proofs of concept. Usually report to sales, which can be good or bad depending on sales culture at your company.

It can be a lot of pressure since it is a customer facing role and requires being able to solve technical problems on your feet (not unlike a whiteboard interview at times). Requires you to learn quickly (may have to consult on software that hasn’t been released yet and has no documentation, better be good at reading code and asking questions). Also often requires a lot of travel, hence remote okay.

If you’re a sociable engineer who likes variety and to travel, it’s definitely a good role to check out. If you meet your commission targets you will probably make significantly more than you would in a strictly salaried engineering role. Can be really flexible since work is largely driven by customer demand, just be prepared for some really intense weeks and late nights preparing for critical engagements.

Re: Ask HN: Strategies to land fully remote $250k+ job

#180

Post by wpietri »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #70
throwawaywork14 wrote: post #43

The easiest way to make a lot more money… Get a job making 120-180 but 4 days a week. It is possible to do this. Make sure it is not an exciting company, but rather a corporate, slow moving one. Now you can pick up a contract making 100+ per hour. 15-20 hours a week. Do 4 hours of the main job. Do 4 hours of the freelance work. You’ll easily be making 250k. Another thing to note, as a developer you can solve a proble…

> The easiest way to make a lot more money… Finding two separate jobs that each pay median developer salaries while requiring only half-time input, working them concurrently, and then constantly finding new contract jobs that fit your criteria is not what I’d call “easy” FWIW, I’ve managed remote teams for a long time. It’s not hard to spot the people who are playing games like this to put in half-time.

It might not be hard for you to spot those people. But as best I can tell, the median software developer has a not-very-good manager. So I suspect quite a lot of people could get away with some sandbagging.

That's a shame, as that's exactly the fear not-very-good managers have of remote work. I expect we'll see a reaction toward proctological monitoring of remote workers, even professional software developers.

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