I made a site for 100% location independent jobs | Hacker News Reader

I made a site for 100% location independent jobs

realworkfromanywhere.com

130 pointssaasxyz68 comments

So the plan here was to scrape the job listings off another site (freshremote.work), pretend those people posted on your site, make a show HN and then hope someone is tricked into thinking this site actually gets traffic and pays you $49?

I understand what you are doing but how is this providing any value? Wouldn’t people just be better off going to the site you are scraping from?

That is in fact how every job board gains traction. I've seen it happen multiple times.

Hopefully the fact that we're not doing this for our developer job matching site is not its death knell. We're building up developer preferences first, and then we can ask employers to create job descriptions and potentially match with developers.

Scraping, in our case, wouldn't work anyway because most job advertisements don't have the information we require.

(For the curious, my friend and I are making https://polyfill.work. Developers say what they want -- pay, schedule, etc. -- and polyfill introduces employers and developers when they want the same things)

Welcome to Job boards. It’s not really a secret that this is how many, many, many of them work.

I am not trying to trick people into believing all those postings were posted directly on my site. Anyone clicking around the site will simply find out that it is curated from various sources. And also on the top there is a clause that says "updated daily". Isn't it enough for people to understand this is curated from external services?

> Isn't it enough for people to understand this is curated from external services

Usually "curated" means hand selected and filtered, not just scraped and automatically posted. It's an aggregator of aggregators at this point.

Aggregator of aggregator is a viable business these days, till u get aggregated XD

I'd wager "freshremote.work" is doing exactly the same thing. This is why 90% of job boards on the internet are useless. Just stick to reputed ones (Indeed, LinkedIn) or go directly to the company's careers site.

Seen sites that scrape HN who's hiring

you just learned how most job boards, but also classified advertising works

Just aggregate this dude and you've upped the game!

"100% remote work environment - work from anywhere in the US" is not worldwide...

yeah, that's why I built this to give a space for real work from anywhere jobs.

Do you verify if these jobs are truly location independent? In my experience all such companies really mean "anywhere" as long as it is in a handful of approved countries and time zones, and the rest will get a "sorry we can't hire in this jurisdiction because of compliance/HR/tax issues".

These postings come from various sources where they provide their location as worldwide. Some jobs explicitly say they are bound to a list of specific locations while others say worldwide. I only curate worldwide jobs.

How would you approximate the ratio of jobs posts you scrape to those entered by your 'post a job' feature?

EDIT: Thought about it and i guess it's 100% scraped for now..

> EDIT: Thought about it and i guess it's 100% scraped for now..

That's right. I introduced 'post a job' feature only today.

No one is (legally) hiring truly location independent.

legal limits only apply to hiring in countries where the company has a legal presence. in those places there is a possible limitation on legally hiring fulltime contractors as they may be classified as employees.

everywhere else there is no legal limit to hiring contractors, simply because it doesn't make sense for any country to prevent its citizens from selling their services to a foreign company, nor has the country any legal ability to force that company into establishing a local presence.

Any US entity has restrictions from contracting with entities in some embargoed countries.

https://ofaclawyer.net/prohibited-transactions/ is for the US, but I think most countries have something similar.

yes, but these are a few exceptions and they apply to most countries worldwide. using that as an argument that a truly location independent job is not possible feels a bit pedantic, when the parent comment is about companies that artificially limit their remote hiring to a few specific countries for no discernible reason.

> The Axios Smart Brevity Studio team is looking for talented freelancers to create content on behalf of Axios clients at the local level. Individuals will write copy and capture lifestyle imagery and videos (primarily on smartphones) for use on Axios Local’s social media, websites and newsletters.

> Ideal candidates will embody an entrepreneurial spirit, a passion for Axios Local’s mission and have the following skills: (...) Must be able to secure transportation to shoots. Take note: Assignments may fall during the workweek as well as on weekends.

This doesn't sound very "remote". It also does not sound like a real job.

It sounds like a lot of the 'jobs' that 'digital nomads' claim to be working at when I meet them. I agree that it doesn't sound real.

The first job I looked at stated they were hiring "anywhere across the US", so this doesn't look like a very well curated list.

Please post a link too so that I can take a look and others can trust your claim as well.

Some mistakes happen. I am trying my best to eradicate such postings.

>In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification document form upon hire.

https://www.realworkfromanywhere.com/9281024581

I am not expert in laws but what I understand here is that job position allows employees to work from anywhere but those employees need a work permission in US. In other words, this worldwide position is open only for US citizens. I may be wrong.

Fair enough, then I (slightly) misunderstood what your site is about.

There's no need to have US work permission if you're not on the US soil.

the company may not want to hire a contractor but only have regular employees that just happen to be living outside of the country.

Even regular employment is OK. Tested that myself. It actually is better from taxation view for the employee compared to working for EU native companies - might not apply to all EU states though - but it does in my country of residence, thanks to the bilateral double taxation avoidance deal.

how does that work? does your remote employer pay their part of the taxes for you as employee? do they honor your local employment laws with regards to holidays, and what not? can you sue them if they violate your countries labor laws? what is the company reporting about you in their country?

i'd really be curious to learn more details about the arrangement. my guess is that it looked like employment but legally it was contracting.

No, your guess is wrong as I had no business license at the time and the local tax/insurance agency would come after me immediately (because nobody would've been paying my mandatory insurance).

I had 25 days of vacation (standard here, 5 days over minimum). The US company had to register with the local tax agency - there is a standard procedure for this situation. Applicable labor law is based on physical location specified in contract so my local law had to be followed.

You don't usually sue companies for violation of labor laws here - you go to the labor agency and complain, then they sort it out. I didn't have any problems though, so I don't know much about this.

in germany/austria i don't need a business license to be a sole proprietor. i just need to report my income and pay the relevant income taxes.

suing was meant to be a stand in for any way to sort out complaints. how does your labor agency force a remote company to comply with your laws? in particular how would they deal with wrongful termination?

maybe we are talking about the same thing, and there is just a difference of what you or me consider a contract vs employment.

may i ask what is your country? the US company registering with your tax agency is interesting. that may make all the difference. i'd like to know more about that.

I'm in Czechia.

I really don't know more about resolving complaints as I haven't had any problems. I guess at some point things would go to courts.

Employment is the thing that's defined as employment by the labor law, where the employer signs an employment contract with you and then pays you salary and sorts out your taxes/insurance... Contracting is having a business licence and sending invoices to a customer - with zero relation to labor law. In particular, no concept of vacation, and you pay your own taxes and insurance.

employment for me is what gives me the right to holidays, employer contributions to insurance, overtime pay and protection against unlawful termination.

this is why i consider any remote employment a contract:

you have to pay all taxes yourself, there are no employer contributions (you just have to negotiate a higher salary).

you have no legal means to force the remote company to follow local employment laws, other than an international contract dispute.

it is possible that some countries make it easier to treat a remote job as employment by simplifying taxes or easier access to unemployment benefits, compared to a truly self-employed person.

it may be that czechia offers that. given that it is part of the EU it would actually be interesting to know if other countries offer that as well, or if it is even based on some EU wide regulation.

there may also be specific treaties between countries that support this.

I immediately found this one that favours candidates with a proximity to Austin and seemingly requires a deep knowledge of US taxes: https://www.realworkfromanywhere.com/9143906857 . I suspect they’re not going to be interested in someone 10 time zones away.

https://www.realworkfromanywhere.com/2179261410 100% remote work environment - work from anywhere in the US

https://www.realworkfromanywhere.com/1165562271 Remote based, US only.

https://www.realworkfromanywhere.com/6398528378 Because we're looking for teammates who overlap with our clients' teams working hours, this is a remote position available to anyone throughout the Americas (UTC-3 through UTC-10).

Removed. Thank you so much.

I would love to hear your honest opinion OP. How do you plan to source the jobs? How do you plan to attract job seekers to your site?

Remote job boards represents the majority of the spam emails I got since I started posting on Whoishiring. The irony is that, that is a job thread itself and people think that the people posting there are "leads" to their job sites. At first I even posted on a couple, but I got sick of being treated like a beta user with job zero proposals. Job boards is hard to grow just like social media sites.

I would love to hear your plan. In the world of tech projects the rule of success is being lucky, be first, be lucky or offer something different. When an aggregration-type pops up for an industry, it is darn freaking hard to grow a new business there. And there are dozens of job aggregrator sites that sit on top other sites. And all has filter by location.

I am not dismissing you at all, I am geniunely curious. I hope you take no offense.

Click on apply on any of those job listings, get redirected to some other site.

This is just a basic SEO/referral play. Flag the shit out of this, IMO.

Btw: Is there a way to legally employ or be imploded in a 100% location independent way? I mean, technically I can dream up some crypto stuff to do so. But do you think it is possible to make it possible with regard to taxes, health insurance etc.?

For US-based jobs one could work on W-8BEN form as a contractor from abroad responsible for their own taxes, health insurance etc. Of course that requires a freelancer/business entity at the place of residence/tax domicile.

I’m not an expert but my understanding is that the answer is “No.” For a company to employ someone legally in a country on a salary basis, the company and employee need to follow local tax and employment law. As you can imagine, these vary significantly from country to country. The only way around this to my knowledge is if the company sets up a legal operation in the country or hires via a third party “professional employment organization” (PEO). The company contracts with the PEO and the PEO hires the individual. The primary function of the PEO is to follows all of the local tax and employment laws. From my experience, PEOs increase employment cost by ~50% or more.

Usually in cases like that where the company doesn't have a local entity you will be employed through a EoR (Employer of Record) like Remote, Deel and many others.

Then you are not directly employed at the company but employed through another company which then grants you the benefits for the local country that were negotiated. The other alternative is a regular freelancer / contractor relationship.

Every country on earth demands some form of payroll tax, social security tax, unemployment insurance in the form of self-employment tax, or a combination of the above. It is dependent on your "tax residence" which is a very complex topic you should research because governments WILL go after you for that cash.

We use a company called "Deel" as an intermediary third party that has locations in many countries. These types of companies act as your "employer" in the sense that they pay you and you're legally their employee.

I wonder if there's an opportunity for these third party companies like Deel to put up a job board for remote work positions? This would mesh well with their product as they can say "hey we can help find you qualified candidates and we will deal with the legalities of it"

Perfect, I'm wondering how are you sourcing the jobs. Do you source the jobs manually or automatically?

I'm working on the Remote Jobs API service[1] for the job board developers. Each and every job is manually vetted and carefully curated from 40+ sources. If you think it will be useful, let me know. Happy to set up an account for you.

[1] - https://remoteleaf.com/remote-jobs-api (Founder here)

Is there any difference to https://remoteok.com/?location=Worldwide?

That's also one source and accounts for 5% of postings available on my site. So, in a way it makes a difference.

I’ve been looking for a new remote job recently, and I’ve heard the following from a couple of companies: “We are a truly remote company - you can work from anywhere in the world! (Except Russia and Belarus)”. Just curious, does the companies from your list allow remote work from these countries?

Courtesy of OFAC, these places are generally off limits:

Belarus, Burma, as well as Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe

You can't touch these people or companies either no matter what:

https://www.treasury.gov/ofac/downloads/consolidated/consoli...

The amount of stuff you are prohibited from doing business with is huge: https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/office-of-foreign-as...

That’s only for US companies though.

Nope. If you violate OFAC as a foreigner you are shit-listed by the US government. You become radioactive and anybody with even the most remote ties to the United States can't do business with you safely. The US government can find a random rule from their massive trove to use to throw the book at you at that point. You're in their crosshairs both literally and figuratively since there is a decades long precedent of US extrajudicial killings of even its own citizens. They will go to immense lengths to shut you down if they hate you enough. The extradition of Kim Dotcom has been going on for a decade and they tried to put him in prison for life because he once had a server in the United States. That's the entire legal basis for the extradition. If they fail he is bankrupted, if they succeed he will be in an American prison until he dies.

OFAC violations can have numerous painful impacts on a foreign company’s business beyond mere payment of fines, including triggering red flags during due diligence by prospective partners, investors, acquirors, and financiers, putting companies in breach of contractual obligations to their banks, creating a disadvantage or disqualification in bidding for contracts, and attracting additional scrutiny from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) when attempting to acquire or invest in U.S. businesses.

From: https://www.wiggin.com/publication/the-aggressive-extraterri...

US government overreach is hard to overstate. If things get bad enough the FBI/CIA will attempt to abduct you (Viktor Bout, Assange, Snowden) or suicide you in a foreign prison (John McAfee). Most likely nobody will learn about your story after your unfortunate "suicide."

One thing all these remote job boards are missing as far as I could tell when I was checking them is a timezone filter.

Many jobs are "fully remote" but within a specific timezone or +- an hour.

I was thinking of making a site like this for the opposite ;p. "we work in person". Tired of this scam of remote working. (I understand it works well for some people and companies)

I think you should probably do that -- niche job boards seem to do well, (or, at least, I've convinced myself that that is the case). I should also mention you can do this with the developer job matching tool my friend and I are making:

https://polyfill.work

If you hit "onsite" as a developer or employer you'll only be matched with in-person employers/developers. It's very much a work in progress at the moment.

The quality of the posted jobs is a bit questionable. Still laughing from this: www.realworkfromanywhere.com/7369835152

That’s hilarious.

There is an empty bullet point in the "what you get" section.

It requires psychic abilities to uncover this hidden goodie.

The Apply button doesn't work for me on any of the job listings I've tried. I'm on Firefox for Android

Just tried on firefox for android and it is working for me. Can you try again or from any other browser?

Nice site! If I could request a feature, it would be the ability to filter by country, job and perhaps time model.

What's the difference between this and the pre-pandemic remoteok.io?

I don't think there is any chance gitlab will let you work from DPRK

Gitlab's list of where they have professional employment operations is https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/employment-so... - along with the "who they work with."

It is a much shorter list than "anywhere" and many of those employers of record will have their own constraints on if you can work in another country while using them as a service. For example, if you're working out of Brazil, then the hiring partner is Remote.com but then if one heads over to Chile, then its Global Upside. If its Spain, then its Remote.com again, but its questionable if you could head over to Portugal to work.

The "work anywhere" becomes complicated once a company is on the hook for taxes and work visas.

neat site, how do you plan to get traffic to it?

By making the front page of HN.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com