Ask HN: How to hire digital nomads nearby? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to hire digital nomads nearby?

20 pointsschtono46 comments

Here's a real problem that no one seems to have solved yet: In my company, we would need temporary help with a certain technology for a few months.

Freelancers in my city are fully booked. Yet I don't want to hire somebody remote because the job requires people to work closely together in the same room on a regular basis.

I know there's a ton of "digital nomads" out there, travelling through cheap countries like Thailand, working from nice beaches.

But my city (Munich, Germany) is also very lovely, especially in summer. I cannot find any "marketplace" where digital nomads hang out, waiting to be attracted by an amazing company like ours. The typical freelancer marketplaces like upwork don't seem to cover my search requirements.

Questions:

- Am I simply missing a marketplace?

- Or is this an opportunity to take?

View on HN

Digital nomads, not remote... Doesn't compute.

Why would any real digital nomad that could spend every month at a different place around the world want to get stuck in Munich in subpar and overpriced housing with only 2-3 months a year of bearable weather and deal with German tax bureaucracy (need to have at least 2 clients in parallel or be forced to register themselves as a single person business with all the increased taxes and no corporate veil), not to mention that it would take years to find just one real German friend for normal social interactions?

Do you have an opinion on life in Germany that you would like to share?

> not to mention that it would take years to find just one real German friend for normal social interactions

That's factually false and incompatible with your previous statement.

> could spend every month at a different place around the world

I don't see any link. You e.g. go to Barcelona or Rio de Janeiro and you get a bunch of friends the moment you walk out of the door of your apartment (figuratively ofc), whereas in Germany it takes years to develop any closer relationship that could be qualified as something more than superficial friendship (i.e. nobody cares, unless you are useful in some way right away), and even those often get abruptly terminated in 15 minutes for whatever silly reason. In other words, for the month or year you spend in Munich, you won't make any friends unless super lucky, it'll be just about work unless you want to surf on a river or watch Bayern in action, etc. and "socialize" that way.

Germany is also the only place I am aware of where two colleagues sharing the same desk at the same company for 20 years still address each other formally in Höflichkeitsform all the time (this is absolutely funny to people from Netherlands).

> go to Barcelona or Rio de Janeiro and you get a bunch of friends the moment you walk out of the door of your apartment

I lived in California for a while, everyone is seemingly your friend, but really no one is it's just the bro culture (for a lack of a better term).

Smiling and sharing a beer isn't being "friends". Now yeah, if your definition of friendship is socialising with random people in the street avoid Munich.

> Germany is also the only place I am aware of where two colleagues sharing the same desk at the same company for 20 years still address each other formally in Höflichkeitsform all the time

Dude, really ... did you work for the Deutsche bahn in 1982 or something similar ?

If anything my social life is better both in and out of work in Berlin than it was in mountain view / LA. I'm not saying it's bad in other places but Germany isn't as you describe it.

> I lived in California for a while, everyone is seemingly your friend

I agree it's not ideal in California (arguably similar to Germany wrt random quality, but without the perpetually angry faces though with fake smiles exposing whitened teeth). Still, it used to be a bit happier place and there is a large choice of (sub)cultures one might fit in better, and one can focus on real bleeding edge work whereas in Germany foreigners aren't really trusted with working on cool things/hit glass ceiling quickly.

> Dude, really ... did you work for the Deutsche bahn in 1982 or something similar ?

I was told that by some Dutch guy who couldn't believe it, but that's what he experienced (I think he mentioned Siemens or a similar large co).

> If anything my social life is better both in and out of work in Berlin

Berlin is a huge outlier ("Arm aber sexy"), and probably the only cosmopolitan city in Germany that attracts young/creative people (Frankfurt is not for the young). Miami on the other hand is IMO way above Berlin/LA when it comes to social life (unless you are super rich, but then your tastes are completely different).

Also, regarding "friendships", they were either based on how useful you were, or how much dominated you could be, e.g. I remember playing tennis/squash/badminton with German players and the friendships lasted only while I allowed them to win; the moment I decided "* it" and played as good as I could, the "friendships" disappeared quickly. The thing is they do it even to each other unconsciously, so it's pointless to discuss this with them, as there is no awareness.

I’m sorry that you obviously had a bad experience but as someone working in Germany I can’t really share your observations.

> You e.g. go to Barcelona or Rio de Janeiro and you get a bunch of friends the moment you walk out of the door of your apartment (figuratively ofc), whereas in Germany it takes years to develop any closer relationship that could be qualified as something more than superficial friendship

Do you consider these people you meet on the streets of Barcelona/Rio to be more than superficial "friends"? For me, a friend is someone who would give me a kidney - that's my definition. Everybody else is just people who are hanging out with me for as long as it mutually more convenient than not.

If you go for a shorter stay in a city as a digital nomad (e.g. 1-6 months), then Barcelona/Rio and similar hold a huge advantage comparing to Munich/Frankfurt/Stuttgart/Hamburg, as you could actually have some great social experiences there in a very short time, but stand little to no chance cracking the "legendary" German "coconut personality". It's highly unlikely you'd meet anyone giving you a kidney anyway, but you'd have a higher chance in a less affluent part of the world where friendships operate out of existential necessity and mutual understanding that next time it could be you in troubles, than in developed countries with increasing shift towards "f*k you, got mine" mentality. It's also amusing to observe German tourists in poor African countries penny-pinching and depriving locals of wage for a service their family relies on just to "save a bit of money".

I dunno, maybe I just don’t see that much value in those transient „great social experiences”. BTW, when it comes to noncommital interactions with people, I like to talk to people older than me, as they have perspectives on live not yet available for me, while the „bar scene” is dominated by similar and uninteresting twenty-somethings with relatively little story to tell.

I am not really into typical bar scene; I tend to throw parties at home where I invite people of various backgrounds/age and have evening of fun (having a music & photo/cinematography studio at home is handy). That is way simpler to do in those two cities I mentioned, where interesting people you know for a day or two want you even to attend their own social events; far more difficult when I tried to do it e.g. in Frankfurt. You get to know some very interesting people as locals tend to show off and bring you to some of their "local stars" and you get to soak culture directly (and on steroids). Still remember one guy bringing me to Bip Bip on Copacabana, introduced me to Alfredinho, and we spent evening discussing Brazilian life while having musicians performing various local songs, and you could soak the atmosphere, what makes Brazilians proud, the cracks and insurmountable issues they were facing daily, observe their blind spots my own culture handles better etc. You also get a crash course on what are advantages and disadvantages of their cultures if you are perceptive enough. With Germans, it's way more difficult and IMO not worth it for short-term stays (maybe Ossies are slightly different in this regard). Swiss & Austrians are even one level more opaque due to one more indirection layer.

@bitL

We miss you BRO.

Please present yourself at any Brazilian restaurant or carnival.

Cheers, Brazilian community

What he's saying is true. I live in Germany for 4 years, and even though I can definitely speak German, only the foreigners are generally willing to(it's a generalisation!).

Now, when discussing friendships, the picture is even more bleak. I have loads of foreigner friends, but 0.5 german friend.

How do you have half a German friend?

Is he/she half German, or was he/she involved in some terrible guillotine accident?

Because they aren't a "friend", but more somebody I hang out with.

Yet I don't want to hire somebody remote because the job requires people to work closely together in the same room on a regular basis.

Does it really?

For the sake of everyone involved, I suggest a company is remote either entirely or not at all. So if everyone else is in the office, I would consider being in the same room a requirement.

That doesn't reflect reality at all.

There's no opportunity IMO. Nobody wants to move to high COL place temporary for contract work. That is literal worst-case scenario unless you plan on paying for a year's worth of salary for those few months to justify the added expenses for the consultant.

Don't be cheap. Hire a consulting firm that specializes in your area if you need on-site help. Or, if you want to be cheap, learn how to support remote work.

A lot of digital nomads don't actually have the right to work in the country in which they are located

And this gets far more messy the moment they come to the clients country and start working on a tourist visa.

They have corps registered somewhere where you sign a contract with that corp that satisfy local regulations but the actual guy doing the job may be just sitting in the next local starbucks doing job technically illegally.

You get 1/4-1/2 of ongoing local rate for the same quality.

You be the judge of risk/reward ratio of course.

Ssshhhh. You're killing the good vibes man. Don't let pesky things like laws get in the way of a good time.

Every time "digital nomad" comes up, there's an argument about "well that law is stupid, it deserves to be broken"... by foreigners breaking a law in some country they aren't a resident.

I wonder how many would be happy to also see the US/EU/AU etc also flooded by foreigners who turn up, and work illegally for ridiculously more than the locals do, without paying local taxes?

Create a coworking space, offer space for meetups, promote to digital nomads, offer free/discounted use of coworking space to digital nomads.

I saw this strategy working in Japan. Several IT companies have coworking space that can be used for ¥100 to ¥1,000 per day.

You don't care about digital nomads in ROW, you care about digital nomads visiting your city, you need a way to find and connect with them.

Could you share a few examples of this kind of coworking space in Japan? Very interesting!

Digital nomads are digital nomads because they want a certain amount of freedom. I don't think many of them would be interested in your proposition if it requires them coming into your office. Perhaps reconsider your stance on remote, you might be surprised by the results.

It's a hell to be a freelancer software dev in Germany.

People can make much more money by doing that in London, which has proper/more flexible laws.

I think you could hire a consultant. There are some great consultancies in Germany that might be able to have the professional you need.

As tax resident, it's a hell, but someone living and having existing business in Greece or nearby Belgium could actually work in Munich legally for up to half a year and do some nice tricks like paying the rent via the company.

Not exactly... From what I've heard, as long as you're staying in Germany (i.e. it is your primary residence) and you work there, they believe you should pay taxes there. The 183 days rule is more for cases when you have two comparable residences at the time (and you travel back and forth between them).

Of course, people try their luck and contract using their non-German companies, but I've read on some forum that at least one guy was prosecuted (as in criminal charges, not to mention the taxes owed + fines) by Germans for that.

A thing some people I know do is to fly into Germany every week for 3 or 4 days, stay in a hotel/airbnb, and then come back to home country (BTW, talk about carbon footprint of the tax laws...). This way, you have no residence in Germany at all, and also you're there for less than 183 days per year, so they really have no claim to your taxes. Of course, this "bedouin" lifestyle is not for the weak, and the company needs to be open to it (the partially remote work aspect) as well.

"This way, you have no residence in Germany at all, and also you're there for less than 183 days per year, so they really have no claim to your taxes."

Be careful with this. I don't know about Germany in particular, but in many countries tax residency isn't as simple as whether you were present for >=183 days.

Take the UK as an example. The relevant legislation (Finance Act 2013) defines a 'Statutory Residence Test'. It's complicated enough that HMRC (UK equivalent of IRS) created a booklet to help you understand how it applies in your own situation.

That booklet is 105 pages long: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rdr3-statutory-re...

Even if you spend only 3 days/week in the UK, it's possible to become tax resident there, and is more likely if you do it for 2 years in a row.

Thanks. The possibility of being „caught” is quite low in this scenario I think, as HMRC has little chance of even finding out about your existence - you don’t have an UK address or a bank account. You ARE frequently crossing the border, but I don’t know if they have access to this information.

Why do this if you can just move to a country like London?

I personally live in Germany and chosen to work as a normal employee, but I'm aware that the German government doesn't want people to be freelancers/entrepreneurs.

I think almost every other EU country is better than Germany in that regard. Estonia being #1(in legislation) and possibly UK being the best market.

If you ignore taxes, I find that the German market is paying slightly better than the UK. Also, if Brexit does happen, the pound will go down even further, tipping the scales in favor of Germany even more. UK was amazing for contracting before the 20% GBP dip right after Brexit referendum.

If you ignore taxes, you go to jail.

Perhaps the problem is your company can't manage remote workers effectively? It is very rare work must be done with everyone colocated unless physical hardware is involved.

I would expect that most people who are "digital nomads" are doing so because they can do their work from anywhere, not because they're looking for a job. If the lifestyle of "work on a laptop while traveling the world" appeals to someone, they're probably not looking for a job that requires staying put and working in an office for a few months.

It sounds like you're going to have to figure out how to do remote.

Have you had a look at https://nomadlist.com/? I recall seeing something like chat groups by location.

I’m sure a lot of the concerns other people raised re working rights and legal complexities are valid but it’s not fair to assume that no nomad would be willing to take a break and hang around Munich for a few months.

Have you considered incorporating in a digital nomad hot-spot country (Thailand comes to mind), renting an office in a co-working space there, and hiring multiple nomads into it at once?

It would be nice if remote companies provided co-working office space for their employees / contractors. And at that point, you may as well hire two in the same place.

Sounds like a good way to get arrested, fined and/or jailed, deported and barred from re-entering the country.

Edit: before someone complains "s/he said incorporated". Yeah, but are you really going to fuck around getting 4 local Thai staff for every "nomad" you want to sponsor for a business visa and work permit, only for them to fuck off 3 months later?

It defeats the purpose. You may as well just hire local staff - you can pay them less than a foreigner and still be above local wages, no visas, no work permits (well except your own, which having local staff would help)

"Butt-in-seat"-mentality is a big, artifical problem. Anywhere that practices it isn't worth dealing with.

What about platforms like https://remoteok.io or https://nomadlist.com ?

What's stack you're looking for and what problems are you trying to solve? I'm not in Munich, but I wouldn't mind spending a few months there and I'm available.

Not a marketplace, but LinkedIn should give you insights of freelancers in Munich easily.

google (and and the tech key words you like)

site:de.linkedin.com/in "munich area" freelance

What kind of job are you doing "requires people to work closely together in the same room on a regular basis" ? Geniunely curious

[temporary help with a certain technology]

Does this technology have a name? And can you explain why it's not reachable over a network?

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