Pure Remote Jobs from “HN: Who Is Hiring”

So what if you screw them over, which jurisdiction can they turn to? Plus, the tax burden may be that you do more than "your own taxes" but to have an accountant, and probably a company, registered in the relevant country anyway.

> What difference does it make if I live in your particular country

Because the laws governing contracts for employment, either as a contractor or a “regular" employee (including the conditions under which either form is allowed) very from country to country, as do laws on taxation, including who is legally responsible for taxation, what contracts are permitted at all, etc.

And some of those laws are, for some jurisdictions, criminal laws with extraterritorial application. The individual hiring you may not wish to risk being arrested when travelling for, say, violating a sanctions regime in your country by hiring you, and may not wish to incur the expense of local counsel to advise on and rule out such risks just so they can hire one worker.

I worked at such a place, and the core issue was that lots of enterprise customers want guarantees that their data never leaves the US, ever, for any reason. As a company, we didn't care where you lived. If you were outside the US, though, it drastically limited what kind of work you could do with us, to the point it just wasn't worth supporting it.

Some labor laws are pretty strict, where if you treat them like an employee, they are an employee. This is common in the US and companies have to be really careful, otherwise a contractor can come after them and impose a pretty big financial burden.

I worked at a startup that did that. It was a good deal; Canadians got US rates as well, which is something that never happens. But, we got acquired and I imagine we will lose all of our non-US contractors because they are min/max-ing the cost of living or whatever. (A software engineer that lives in Wisconsin is less valuable than one that lives in New York, dontchasee?)

I stayed in New York during the pandemic, so I don't really care. Living 10 minutes from Manhattan will likely never be career-limiting.

Complicated why?

The market is currently on the side of tech employers and those who want things to go back to the way they were are taking advantage of the situation. The pendulum pretty much always swings back and when things are in the favor of employees again, the companies that are now busy fostering bad will are going to have a much more difficult time attracting talent than those who are structuring their work environment for the new reality.

That's so frustrating. I'm in the Bay Area, but strongly prefer remote jobs. First, I've enjoying having 90 minutes a day not spent commuting added back to my life. Second, I'd been with a remote-only company for several years, and it went swimmingly once we all adjusted to it. Finally, there's a big world out there. My wife's brought up checking out other places, and if I'm already remote, I can just up and move to wherever without disrupting my job one bit.

And yet, I still get recruiters asking if I'd like to hear about their on-site job in Tampa. No. No, I wouldn't.

Thanks for the information. Maybe the lack of job ads is simply the consequence of what you mentioned. But there's so much articles about how companies are forcing people to come back to office buildings..