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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

#81

Post by biztos »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #62
jacknews wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EDIT: And 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. By local, do you mean a US-based company (eg delaware), or local to where you are?

I believe he do mean a US LLC, most defaults to Delaware or Nevada. It has become much easier for NON-US residents to form such entities these days. Doola (formerly StartPack, a YC Company) is a good option. Not affiliated with Doola but the founder is a nice guy. https://www.doola.com

IANAL but I was looking into starting a US consulting company recently, and one of the tricky things is you have to "foreign-qualify" (IIRC) your Delaware/Nevada LLC in California if you are going to do any business there, which for a tech consultancy is quite likely. Then your tax situation suddenly becomes complex and (relatively) expensive, in case that is related to your interest in Delaware or especially Nevada.

Now, whether you can get around this by being fully remote and effectively saying "no, CaliCorp came to Nevada to do business with me, not the other way around" -- that's an interesting question.

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

#82

Post by revorad »

In my experience, the easiest way to earn more is to work as a contractor. You can charge more, have more control over your time, get raises more often and go on holiday more often (every 6 months).

I made a whole video series about getting into contracting. This first one lays out my take on why you should consider it - https://learnetto.com/tutorials/why-should-you-become-a-cont...

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

#83

Post by yob28 »

cushychicken wrote: post #69
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…

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_...

Not to mention the fact that your job would be less than meaningless

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

#84

Post by kortilla »

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’s not hard to spot the people who are playing games like this to put in half-time.

Only if they suck.

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

#85

Post by throwawaywork14 »

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.

Not every place is a startup first off, there’s many companies that hire separate frontend, backend, every little thing is a separate team. I’ve found these places to be the easiest workplace to get work done in less time.

Finding the second, part time contract is incredibly easy right now.

There’s 2-3 recruiters per day that email all of us on linked in. All you have to do is say “I’m only open to part time contracts at this time” and every other day you’ll have a request to interview and they don’t mind a part time commitment.

People make this seem so much harder than it is. It’s just networking well, and becoming an expert at your chosen language / field. Then you can easily produce enough output to keep everyone happy.

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

#86

Post by tyingq »

cj wrote: post #21
xwdv wrote: post #4

Here’s a cheap and easier trick: find two easy remote jobs each paying $125k. There’s your $250k a year. You don’t need any particularly distinguished resume. With the right job responsibilities, this is doable for a software engineer. If you can offset the two jobs a bit by time zone it’s even better. But you better hurry, once people catch on that this is possible the supply of developers can quickly increase overn…

I recently fired an engineer who was working 3 full time jobs all paying $130k+. He ended up getting busted by all 3 companies at once, and all 3 fired him. Hopefully he can find a new job that doesn’t check references. If you care about your reputation, or if you have the slightest moral compass, don’t do this.

Three jobs is definitely pushing past what's realistic. 120 of 168 available hours in a week, hah!

But, the sort of industry pearl-clutching about holding 2 jobs is interesting, when employers think nothing of making you work extra hours without comp, or be "on call" without comp, intellectual property clauses for stuff done on personal time, non-compete clauses, etc.

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

#87

Post by throwawaywork14 »

kortilla wrote: post #84
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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’s not hard to spot the people who are playing games like this to put in half-time. Only if they suck.

Exactly, if they’re doing a good job, how will you know.

You are biased because you’ve found people out, you don’t know how many others are doing extra work on the side, that you don’t ever catch.

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

#88

Post by mdm12 »

sgt wrote: post #42
brobinson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$600,000/year compensation for programmers

Is this for real? I thought $400k was sort the max for regular high end engineers.

Oh, it's for real alright: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...

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

#89

Post by hermannj314 »

codegeek wrote: post #77
hermannj314 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 100% disagree. You are allowed to maintain multiple full-time jobs in the United States unless you have entered into a contract that says otherwise. My father worked two full-time jobs to raise my siblings and his reputation and moral compass is just fine. Many middle class families do it for survival. There is no shame in working hard.

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.

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

#90

Post by kortilla »

cj wrote: post #65
MathCodeLove wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was his work performance suffering as a result? If not, what is the actual issue here?

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).

Why did it expedite the firing? Was he working for a competitor?
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