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Ask HN: Well paid remote work from central EU?
11 points by anotheryou on April 13, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 9 comments
Hi,

I'm in Germany and I can't find competitive offers for remote jobs and wonder if they exist at all.

Competitive means it compares to a normal job in Germany, including:

- a decent base salary (e.g. just so top 10% in Germany is 3500eur/month after taxes, not unrealistic in the tech sector)

- pays insurances for health, unemployment and some retirement

- 2-3 month notice period (not too crucial if salary is decent) and generally hard to fire soemone

- 28 days of paid leave

- OK to be sick sometimes, no overtime

- legal employment

Now if I try to calculate what I would need to earn for the same benefits and security as a contractor paid in USD I'd have to multiply my base salary by 2 or 3!

And that's just out of proportions with anything I was offered for remote positions ever. And it's not legal for me to be a contractor out of Germany with just one client (they'd have to hire me).



Not to be offensive - but why would an employer pay for top German salaries for you to work from home - when there are many people in the world who will do the same work for much, much less thanks to a lower cost of living?

Construtivly, what do you offer that a person in say Latvia (or Namibia) doesn't offer for a fraction of the cost?

I say this not to be offensive - but you need to be able to answer this in very concrete terms in order to answer your own question.


No offense taken!

And answering my question perfectly: It's not viable if you are in germany.

So such jobs are really not existing unless the pool of candidates including you is especially low. (and either way you compete against the rest of the world or at least rough timezone)


I'm living in Switzerland, and none of the EU countries would offer enough salary to be competitive, so the only country left would be the USA. But the US remote jobs are mostly limited to US citizens.

Maybe look into swiss companies, probably the only market for you in Europe paying enough. Possibly after corona, there will be more remote jobs because before there weren't many.


Thanks, good tip. Totally a 1stest world problem we are having here.


As bruce511 has already said, why would a company hire you instead of a cheaper provider?

This is the thing to consider. You could play on the fact that you have some reputable clients you've worked with in the geography already.

This can be seen as you being a trusted source within Europe perhaps?


> And it's not legal for me to be a contractor out of Germany with just one client (they'd have to hire me).

Are you looking for abroad projects too? What if you setup GmbH and issue 2-3x amount invoices to EU or global customer(s) per monthly/gig. Then pay your benefits/taxes yourself.


Yes, contracting with multiple companies would work. As a product person I don't see this form of freelancing being easy though.


This website might have something, https://remoteok.io/.


There is not indeed. The best shot is getting into some consultancy a la Toptal.




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