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Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

blog.stackoverflow.com

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Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#11

Post by ed209 »

I've worked remotely for 10+ years for various companies. I really appreciate the trust and commitment my employers have for letting me be in this situation.

As a result I always try to go beyond expectations and pay a lot of attention to communication.

Some of the things I do which I think give my employers confidence in me are:

1. Constant communication. Don't leave it to the imagination what I'm up to. I have a weekly work diary where I say what I'll work on, then tick off what I have worked on. I update throughout the week via IM or email.

2. Think about problems no one is working on yet. Kind of "skating-to-where-the-puck-will-be". In my case as a product designer I work on features/ideas we haven't discussed yet (usually not on company time).

3. Flexible with time. Need a presentation done over the weekend? Sure, no problem.

I'm a huge fan of remote working. My ideal scenario is 4 weeks home, 1 week office or something along those lines depending on projects. Although currently I have not been to the office in about 1 year!

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#13

Post by kintamanimatt »

zschallz wrote: post #10
kintamanimatt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they do this? I seem to be having a mental block as to the logistics of this. (On a side note, the pragmatics of having cross border employees when you have no presence in that country would be a very, very interesting blog post, and one I'd read with interest.) From another comment I understand they also have a UK presence. Are you a true-blue employee or a contractor who takes care of their own taxes and aff…

I may be wrong, but if they have a presence in the UK they most likely do not need a presence in Germany. Through EU agreements, Germans are allowed to work legally in the UK.

They are allowed to live, work, and study in the UK without any significant restriction, and the tax issue would be a non-issue if they were domiciled in the UK. The reason it's interesting and complicated is because they're apparently living and working in Germany as an employee, without FogCreek having a German entity. They wouldn't be subject to British taxes and there's no German business entity to register with the German tax office.

A UK company (or a company of any jurisdiction) can establish a subsidiary in another EU state, in much the same way you could register a NY-incorporated company as a foreign company in CA, but this doesn't appear to be what's happened in this case.

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#14

Post by balpha »

kintamanimatt wrote: post #7
balpha wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for Stack Exchange in Germany (where they have no presence except for me), and I'm a regular employee with all German taxes, social security etc. that entails. These things can be made to work.

How do they do this? I seem to be having a mental block as to the logistics of this. (On a side note, the pragmatics of having cross border employees when you have no presence in that country would be a very, very interesting blog post, and one I'd read with interest.) From another comment I understand they also have a UK presence. Are you a true-blue employee or a contractor who takes care of their own taxes and aff…

I'm a regular employee (of the UK presence; it's all EU, so I assume that makes things a bit easier). There's a German tax office that does the wage accounting to make sure that it follows all the rules.

The only difference to a standard German employee is this: While in Germany legally the employee owes the wage taxes, they're usually collected by the employer and passed on to the authorities. But the German tax authorities don't like to do that with foreign companies (basically because they can't hunt after them when they don't pay). So from a legal perspective, I pay the wage taxes myself (but the tax office takes care of that as well).

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#17

Post by kintamanimatt »

balpha wrote: post #14
kintamanimatt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do they do this? I seem to be having a mental block as to the logistics of this. (On a side note, the pragmatics of having cross border employees when you have no presence in that country would be a very, very interesting blog post, and one I'd read with interest.) From another comment I understand they also have a UK presence. Are you a true-blue employee or a contractor who takes care of their own taxes and aff…

I'm a regular employee (of the UK presence; it's all EU, so I assume that makes things a bit easier). There's a German tax office that does the wage accounting to make sure that it follows all the rules. The only difference to a standard German employee is this: While in Germany legally the employee owes the wage taxes, they're usually collected by the employer and passed on to the authorities. But the German tax aut…

I never knew that was possible! I'd have imagined it could have been possible as a contractor, but not with this arrangement. Is there any particular benefit to being an employee in this case as opposed to a contractor?

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#18

Post by hippich »

chris_mahan wrote: post #3

And if someone is in the US on a 6 month tourist visa working for a Japanese company (no US presence, paid by invoice) remotely, is their legal status in the US in jeopardy?

IANAL, but as long as they are paying your company for your work - you should be safe. I.e. you two should not have employer-employee relationship.

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#19

Post by busterarm »

I've been working remotely at my current company for just over 4 years now. I've never met anyone that I work with. I actually work less overtime (none) with this job than any time I worked in an office (usually 60-80 hour weeks). I just get my work done without interruption.

Working remotely has allowed me to move out of New York and have money to pursue other goals. It has been difficult to stay social -- it a 45 minute drive to the nearest small city. The tradeoffs are worth it though.

I'm likely to return to working somewhere on site soon, but working remotely has significantly improved my focus and my work ethic.

Re: Why We Still Believe in Working Remotely

#20

Post by simonsarris »

Thanks to StackOverflow I'm relatively reputed(?) in one teeny niche of the programming world. This leads to a few recruiter emails per week, and almost all of them I reply to with a cheeky way of saying that I'm not going to move[1].

One company to date has said that not-relocating my entire life is OK with them. The rest can be summed up with the reply that ended an email exchange with an SV angel:

> sorry to hear that, and let me know if you ever decide to head west, young man :-)

Alas I'm a person before I'm a programmer. And I always will be. And I have a family and friends and a home in New Hampshire that do not fit on airplanes so neatly.

Even apart from the tangibles, I cannot fly the feelings. I cannot fly the sights and smell of my hometown to the Bay Area. I cannot fly the white mountains, so isolated from the civilized world and yet they feel so familiar to stand atop the notch and look around, as if I've been there a thousand times, as if I've always been there.

Maybe that's dopey. I don't know. There are streets to know intimately and sights and mountains and sunsets in other parts of the world. But I feel like I belong here. Life is peaceful, I live slowly, I walk everywhere. I can be in love with the world on a time-scale, a thing at least partially set by surroundings, that works for me.

[1] http://simonsarris.com/blog/626-why-i-love-recruiters

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