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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

#451

Post by ssijak »

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #386
ssijak wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are providing services online which programming is while being a non resident alien through your LLC you are owning 0% taxes to the USA. There are nuances and you should check with proper tax advisors, but that is how it should work.

This is the same in most countries i.e. income = expenses means no profit and therefore no tax. However, you need to pay tax in your country of residence still. You also need to file with the IRS for the corp indicating zero profit. Plus US registration fees. You also need to maintain a legal paper trail i.e. the money coming into the US corp needs to be paid out to an international company anyway.

Yeah, there is overhead, and of-course that you need to pay taxes where you are a tax resident. But, if that overhead enables you to charge much more than it is worth it. I've got stock option to my LLC from one startup recently. It was much much easier than figuring how to do that for one person in other part of the world.

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

#452

Post by Benjamin_Dobell »

ssijak wrote: post #451
Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same in most countries i.e. income = expenses means no profit and therefore no tax. However, you need to pay tax in your country of residence still. You also need to file with the IRS for the corp indicating zero profit. Plus US registration fees. You also need to maintain a legal paper trail i.e. the money coming into the US corp needs to be paid out to an international company anyway.

Yeah, there is overhead, and of-course that you need to pay taxes where you are a tax resident. But, if that overhead enables you to charge much more than it is worth it. I've got stock option to my LLC from one startup recently. It was much much easier than figuring how to do that for one person in other part of the world.

My friends and I have not had issues receiving US stock options either. Carta can assist with this to a degree. NSOs though, not eligible for ISOs.

Admittedly, we're based in Australia, and there are Australia-US tax treaties that make the whole arrangement a bit simpler.

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

#453

Post by p1esk »

moooff wrote: post #274

This is very hard in Germany or not possible at all (beside maybe FAANG). I have a PhD in Machine Learning (including Papers at SIGKDD / ECML / ACL etc.) as well as relevant working experiences and it is just not possible to get this numbers. I tried really hard to get something that pays this well (beside FAANG) that hire here because i can not move (family stuff). I once talked with Google and Amazon Research (befo…

It would have been easier for you if you had papers in NeuroIPS, ICML, ICLR, or CVPR. The ones you mentioned don’t impress anyone.

A few months ago I made a 180k offer to a guy in England who wanted to be fully remote. He rejected it because he got a better offer. He had two papers (ICML and ICLR).

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

#454

Post by mgaunard »

quibono wrote: post #426
mgaunard wrote: post #64

Personally I would just identify a technical niche that is highly valued by certain industries, and specialize in that. For example in high-frequency trading, there is a small niche developing ultra-low-latency FPGAs or ASICs for trading systems. The work in question is fairly straightforward compared to other industries, but most of the people with the right skillset tend to go to aerospace or other big user of soph…

Do you know of any good starting points if one wants to be working in HFT?

You learn everything that is relevant on the job.

It can be useful to have a high-level idea of what people do so that you can show you understand what's asked of you and you can more easily find the right role.

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

#455

Post by _448 »

alasano wrote: post #265
mark_l_watson wrote: post #193

Well, it is a workers market right now. Professionally there is nothing special about me except that I really enjoy working, but for the last two remote jobs, the offer letter I received was more than what I verbally agreed on with HR. Since I am also 70 years old, I take this as good evidence of how pro-worker the job market is right now. I offer free mentoring (see my web site) and always talk about the importance…

You're certainly a very inspiring person! "Professionally there is nothing special about me except that I really enjoy working" I think you may be underselling yourself a touch here ;)

That is a sign of a person who is really good at what they do! In my career I have met few people who are really good professionally, and one common thread between all of them was that they all are really good human beings and humble. Also, all of them are very experienced. This happens because when people have experience and have seen the world, they know that there is lot to learn yet and they don't know everything.

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

#456

Post by baobabKoodaa »

jasonladuke0311 wrote: post #416
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain to me how you can't achieve your desired stock exposure by receiving cash and then buying stock on the public market with that cash?

Kind of irrelevant because you will likely never receive a cash comp package equivalent to your salary + RSU amount. If it were that simple, virtually everyone would take the cash.

This entire thread is discussing the hypothetical where you could exchange your stock comp to cash. People upthread were claiming that the stock is more valuable, even though cash is exchangeable to stock without limitations, and the opposite is not true. You yourself said "virtually everyone would take the cash", so I take it that you agree with me.

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

#457

Post by baobabKoodaa »

seattle_spring wrote: post #427
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> at least as good as getting cash This claim is patently false. If you receive $100k in cash, you can immediately exchange that to $100k in public company stock. The opposite is not true (if you receive stock with a vesting period, you cannot immediately exchange it to cash). Therefore, getting cash is at least as good as getting public company stock, not the other way around.

You're missing the most important benefit: pre-vesting appreciation. Say you are granted $600k that vests over 4 years. Well lucky you, the stock has 1.5x after year 1, doubled at year 2 and tripled by year 3! That means you've cumulatively vested $225k at year 1, $525k at year 2, and $975k at year 3. If you had cash only compensation, you would have received a total of $450k for that same time period.

I feel like this is the most illuminating comment in this thread, so, thank you.

That said, if I can choose between receiving $600k in cash today, and receiving $600k worth of public company stock today with restrictions on when I can sell it, then I will choose the cash, because it is worth AT LEAST AS MUCH as the public company stock (because, again, cash is freely exchangeable to public company stock without restrictions, and the opposite does not hold true in this hypothetical).

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

#458

Post by baobabKoodaa »

pb7 wrote: post #404
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, almost identical, but in the direction where cash is always AT LEAST AS GOOD as stock. Not in the other direction.

It’s not at least as good as stock, it’s worse in most markets. Because your stock is appreciating before you’re allowed to sell it but the cash is depreciating to inflation.

If you receive $100k worth of stock, you receive $100k worth of stock. If you receive X amount of stock that vests in 1 year, and at that time point it happens to be worth $150k, then you didn't receive $100k worth of stock, you received $150k worth of stock. The question wasn't about comparing $150k worth of stock to $100k cash, the question was about comparing $100k worth of stock to $100k cash.

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

#459

Post by clarge1120 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #355
sidcool wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your response. If I may continue to pick your mind, can you elaborate on what you consider new tech? Do you refer to new languages, frameworks, programming paradigms? Also, what is your suggestion for learning algorithms and data structures?

Examples of "new tech": common use of deep learning models in many types of applications and services, higher level web based tools for managing data and infrastructure, mobile devices that can do on-device deep learning model inferencing and sometimes even training, etc. I like and enjoy several programming languages, but I don't consider new languages and frameworks to be paradigm shifting. Still interesting though…

Sounds like you have a good life.

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

#460

Post by clarge1120 »

sizzle wrote: post #420
xupybd wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You touched on something I struggle with. If it's not too personal do you mind if I ask how you navigated that discussion with your wife? I hold great hope that one day I'll be able to spend 5-10 hours a week learning.

Have an honest discussion and don’t make it an argument.

The best thing I’ve done for the family is set expectations that I’ll only be working for 15 minutes to an hour. I call it “plodding”. Then I really try to get something done in that time. Ever since I started plodding, and stuck to the promise, my wife has been supportive. She’s even supportive of late nights and weekends if I will avoid locking myself in a room for hours at a time.
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