
Ask HN: How much do you make at a remote job? - throwaway0822
Inspired by threads about Amazon [1] and Google [2], I thought that we would all benefit from some more information about the pay of remote jobs.<p>Some companies seem to highly adjust for location, for example, Buffer is paying $93k for a developer in Hong Kong, $77k in Buenos Aires, and $144k in San Francisco, for the same job.<p>This raises questions about determining &#x27;fair&#x27; salary outside the major cities, where the cost of living is well known and understood, and sources such as Numbeo and similar sometimes miss essential issues.<p>So, dear reader, what&#x27;s your job, where are you based, on what&#x27;s your salary?<p>The more information we have available, the better off we are! :)<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11312984<p>[2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11314449
======
nicolas_t
I've been working remotely for 8 years. I work mostly for 3 different clients
(so not only one company) and I charge by the day.

In total, I earned $210k (before tax) last year. I'm more of a digital nomad
(part of the attraction of having a remote job) than really based in a
specific but mostly alternate between countries in Europe and Asia renting an
apartment for 2-3 months at a time.

Most important thing when working remotely is discipline and communication.
Since you're not with the customers in their office, you need to really
produce results and make sure they see those results.

~~~
kzisme
That lifestyle is very appealing to me. How did you get to that point in your
career? (It seems pretty far off for a recent grad who just started a job -
but pretty awesome)

------
jasonkester
Long ago, when I first went remote, I made a point of quoting half my on-site
rate when working from the beach in the cheap, comfortable part of the world.
It payed for my beer and let me keep my toes in the sand. Life was good.

Then one day I decided to _not_ cut my rate in half when bringing on a new
client. Nobody but me seemed to notice, so now I don't do that anymore. Life
got decidedly gooder.

So the answer to the posed question is that one should always bill out at
their butt-in-seat Bay Area rate. For me, that was... Well, let's just say it
was never less than double your highest number above.

The thing they're buying is _you_. Never cut your rate based on your location.

~~~
artifaxx
Specifically what sort of work did you do that you were able to get those
rates?

~~~
jasonkester
Web stuff. Front-end mostly of late, but full stack as well.

I can point to real products in the wild demonstrating that I can deliver a
shipping app from the idea stage with no hand holding, and I can put together
an entire sentence over the phone. But beyond that, there's nothing special
that I do that other developers can't, except ask to be paid a market rate.

And to head off the inevitable comment about contracting being unsustainable
and feast-or-famine, I recently ended a 5 year, full time remote gig at that
aforementioned Bay Area rate. It's certainly doable, for a regular dev off the
street. You just need to be able to prove that you're good at what you do.

~~~
artifaxx
Interesting. When it comes to rates though, my interpretation of your wording
is a floor of 288k/yr (at least double what was mentioned in the post right?).
From what I have seen you have to do specialty work to command rates that
high.

~~~
jasonkester
There's a lot of existence disproof to that statement. Amazon, Google,
Facebook, etc. have thousands of developers doing better than that, most of
which wouldn't be described as specialists.

~~~
artifaxx
When it comes to disproof of course this is the case, as a single person my
perception is limited. It also helps to be a bit more specific, because that
level of salary is the minority for just the cash component. But once you
include bonuses, perks, etc more people do get compensation like that.

------
maplesyrupbacon
Lead Developer, Canada, $210,000 CAD/year working for a US based company

My general advice would be to ignore companies that play the "Market Card"
against you. Change the conversation to be about the value that you generate.
If they won't budge, find somewhere else. Companies that make people victims
of the market of where they live are generally going to be awful places to
work anyway.

~~~
bung
Did you go through a staffing company for this one?

~~~
maplesyrupbacon
Nope. I would never use a staffing company. They just want to close deals so
they will almost always sell you short to get the deal done. Plus they always
charge fees which the company associates with you and not the staffing
company.

If you can scrounge up the money the best is to go to a conference in a
"major" software country. Try and meet as many people there as possible. Will
it cost a couple thousand dollars? Yup. Will a good paying job replace that
money in a few weeks? Oh yes.

If you can't do that, a lot of people seem to post that they are looking for
developer help on Twitter. Do some crafty searching to try and find these
people. Otherwise you'll have to use remote job boards which aren't bad but
aren't great.

In my experience there are two types of companies looking for remote
developers. One is looking to increase value by paying less and the other is
aware that hiring is hard and having access to a wide pool of talent is where
the value is at.

------
throwawaywawy
I'm based in a low living cost region outside of US, making $155k by working
as a UI engineer for a growing US startup.

$155k base plus a number of stock options (value of ~60k when I first joined
under a year ago, now ~144k) vested over a period 4 years.

I spend ~$24k per year, live comfortably. Love my job!

~~~
tomp
Amazing.

Which part of the world do you live in (Europe (I'd assume Eastern or
Southern), Asia, South America, Africa), if you don't mind sharing?

------
gravypod
> Some companies seem to highly adjust for location, for example, Buffer is
> paying $93k for a developer in Hong Kong, $77k in Buenos Aires, and $144k in
> San Francisco, for the same job.

On a side note, how would they know if I lied? What would happen if I had a
SanFran address, bank account, and everything but I lived in the middle of no
where?

Also, is it legal to discriminately pay people different amounts based on
where they live? I can't see a valid way to say, for most positions, that the
people are more or less valuable to the company based on location.

If you're doing defense contracting or other such marketable services and you
are hiring people who live in DC then yes I can see it but for run of the mill
product development I cannot.

~~~
jypepin
That's a very interesting point. I don't think we even need to get into the
"legal" talks. I love how buffer is so transparent with everyone, but at the
same time I'm not sure how I like (or dislike) how they discriminate with
locations. I think both sides have very valid points right.

If I'm a native from buenos aires for example, for me the ideal might to stay
there, so ok, maybe it's fair that's my salary is adjusted with my cost of
living.

but at the same time, it's the same labor and same output for the company,
just cheaper. So you can also see that as a way for the company to get cheaper
labor... If you are so much into having a remote team, then why would you
discriminate against location right?

It can be seen as "we love remote, but actually just because it allows us to
get the same labor for cheaper!".

~~~
csallen
I think getting the same labor for cheaper is a totally valid goal for any
business. It's similar to a developer shopping around at various companies to
do (roughly) the same job but for better pay and benefits.

~~~
nkantar
Or choosing to live in cheaper places to keep more of their pay.

------
taternuts
I'll just add my data point.

I joined a company as a remote Senior Full Stack Engineer at 95k a year. It
was a jump up from my previous company where I just negotiated up to 80k from
65k. This was in Northern Virginia, where 95k was pretty decent - though
toward the end of my 1.5 years there I was expecting a major jump to 110, 120k
based on the work. When I started asking for my raise, I learned it's a lot
harder to negotiate as a remote employee and was laid off.

I picked up a contracting type gig where I negotiated a decent pay for where I
moved (SoCal), but at the end of the month they decided I wasn't worth paying
almost 2x as much as their devs in Poland/Brazil and such.

I then took a nice paying, stable in-office job and couldn't be happier :)

------
wjg
Wow. This thread is blowing my mind. I'm a js fullstacker who is moving to
Europe within two weeks and and I'm having trouble even getting replies to job
postings when I offer a rate of $60/hr (I'm wondering now if that's too
"cheap"?)! I feel like I'm missing something big on my resume, my approach,
something (if curious, github is on my profile)...

How did you all find your jobs? My blindly applying online doesn't seem to be
working out well.

~~~
vemv
Just keep in mind that European companies don't pay US rates!

London is bit of an exception, but lifestyle there is crazy expensive
obviously

If you want a US rate you have to compete globally, which is quite
discouraging to me.

So as a freelancer I'm happy to have a theoretically 'low' rate but which in
practice lets me live more than well in Spain.

~~~
passiveincomelg
The rates in London I've seen were pretty much the same as what I make in
Berlin (400-500 GBP/day). These are from job postings by contracting agencies
like Computer Futures. The only exception seems to be finance. Which, I think,
requires domain knowledge.

~~~
vemv
First time I heard of such rates in Berlin!

I guess they pay that in order to compete with London?

Else they don't seem to correspond with Germany's market and cost-of-living...

~~~
passiveincomelg
Where have you been looking? Examples of companies hiring freelancers at those
rates are T-Labs, ImmobilienScout, eBay and HERE. Berlin is actually lower
than other regions that have higher cost of living (Frankfurt, Stuttgart,
München) so it's not about competing with London.

Check out [http://gulp.de/](http://gulp.de/). They have a regular survey among
their users with a good breakdown by location, experience and the type of work
the freelancers do. You can also browse profiles there or project listings on
[http://etengo.de](http://etengo.de).

~~~
vemv
Great to hear!

Answering your question, I've not been looking anywhere - just what I read or
could infer.

500 euros/day/head sounds beyond wasteful to me, at least when not in
SF/London.

I can only imagine there's got to be an awful ASAP culture in those
environments...

~~~
passiveincomelg
Not really. These are big companies, not hysteric startups where everyone
works 12 hours a day, deluding themselves that they get more done that way
(dunno how common that is with Berlin startups TBH).

Personally I am _much_ less stressed out doing corporate contracting than I
was with the shitty freelance work I did before, subcontracting with web
agencies that haggle about every hour.

This is how my rate developed over the years:

* 50 DM/h working for a great agency as a student (that was in 2000) * 15 €/h working for an agency as a student (Yep, I was dense enough to take a paycut. Didn't even occur to me to ask for at least 25. So much facepalming...) * 30 €/h working for the same agency when I decided to do freelancing full-time * 30 €/h, then 40 €/h working for a small software company (First time I got to 40 hours a week of billable time. I was swimming in money! ;) * 45 €/h working for another agency (iOS development) * 50 €/h first contracting gig at $BIGCORP (160 hours a month - 8000€) * 65 €/h second contracting gig at $BIGCORP2 (which is where I still am, 160+ hours a month - > 10k) * 65 €/h working for a friend with a product idea (only a few hours, far from full-time) * a few fixed-price projects in between, most of them were a desaster, one was decent

Regarding "wasteful"; It's supply and demand. For some reason the capitalism
game works much better in contracting than with permanent jobs in Germany. I
think part of it is that employees are so hard to get rid of and the overhead
is high (~40%?).

~~~
passiveincomelg
Since I can't edit it, let me try again to make a bullet list (srsly?):

    
    
      * 50 DM/h working for a great agency as a student (that was in 2000)
      * 15 €/h working for an agency as a student (Yep, I was dense enough to take a paycut. Didn't even occur to me to ask for at least 25. So much facepalming...) 
      * 30 €/h working for the same agency when I decided to do freelancing full-time
      * 30 €/h, then 40 €/h working for a small software company (First time I got to 40 hours a week of billable time. I was swimming in money! ;)
      * 45 €/h working for another agency (iOS development)
      * 50 €/h first contracting gig at $BIGCORP (160 hours a month - 8000€)
      * 65 €/h second contracting gig at $BIGCORP2 (which is where I still am, 160+ hours a month - > 10k)
      * 65 €/h working for a friend with a product idea (only a few hours, far from full-time)
      * a few fixed-price projects in between, most of them were a desaster, one was decent

~~~
zerr
How did you get gigs at BIGCORPs?

~~~
passiveincomelg
The first one through a contracting agency/recruiter (aka pimp), namely Hays.
The second one through my personal network. For that I am still going through
a consulting company as a subcontractor, just because that was the quickest
way to do it.

There are tons more pimps like Computer Futures and in Germany Gulp and
Etengo. Just sign up on their website, upload your CV and expect to get
spammed with every contract they have to fill.

Searching for them in GMail, I just noticed that many project descriptions are
in German, even if the job itself only requires English. They are very
formulaic so it shouldn't be too much of a problem if you don't speak German.

Here's an example of one in English:

I am looking for a Frontend Developer for a very well-known exciting client of
mine .

Location: Berlin

Start: 01.09.2016

Lengths: 3 Months ++

Technical skills (please also reply, even if some technologies are not part of
your skillset):

    
    
      * Advanced JavaScript knowledge including modern JS libraries such as React and jQuery
      * Interacting with REST API backends via Ajax or WebSockets
      * Template engines, such as JSX or Closure Templates
      * Automated testing, unit tests with Jasmine & Karma, UI tests with Selenium Webdriver
      * HTML 5, including HTML 5 APIs such as Local Storage & History
      * CSS3, including pre-processors like LESS or SASS Experience with responsive web design
      * Experience with package managers like npm and Bower Build pipelines with Grunt, Gulp or webpack
      * Ideally ext.js experience
      * Team-based collaboration, including pair programing & code reviews
      * Agile software development with techniques such as Kanban
      * Working co-located within an integrated, cross-functional team
      * Close collaboration with user experience & product management experts
      * Distributed version control, Git or Mercurial
      * Lean & data-driven mindset, including analytics review & A/B testing
      * Familiar with tools & systems like Jira, Jenkins, Confluence, GitHub, Gitorious, Gerrit
      * Optional: Performance optimization tactics at build-time, run-time, & server-side
     

Sounds interesting? Please send your CV and your hourly rate to
redacted@example.com. If you know anybody who wants to do this role, please
forward the project description.

~~~
zerr
Interesting. I thought those corporate gigs are onsite only. But I guess in
web dev you have more options. I'm particularly interested in C++ jobs.

~~~
passiveincomelg
For the most part they are onsite only, yes. I guess this thread is a bit off
topic. Sorry for perpetuating it. We somehow got here when vemv mentioned
London in reply to wjg saying he* is moving to Europe. Of course, when it
comes to remote jobs, it shouldn't matter where he is moving to. If US
companies pay the most and he wants to get a high rate, he should apply at US
companies.

Having said that, some project descriptions mention a number of days per week
that one can work remote or "remote negotiable". And then I've seen a few that
were 100% remote, where the recruiters where really excited about it. For them
it's still very rare I guess.

I have a bit of a middle ground with my current team. I'm onsite most of the
time. But since I've been there multiple times and earned their trust, I can
work remotely as long as I don't stray away too far wrt to time zones. I'll
probably make use of that in the fall/winter. Thinking of Barcelona, Tarifa,
Canary Islands, maybe Malta.

Regarding C++ jobs: The ones I see are usually Qt or embedded Linux stuff
(often automotive). There is definitely a lot of C++ contracting work
available and I can imagine the rates are at least on par, probably higher
than web dev.

* I assume he is male from seeing his first name and profile picture on github

edit: Example C++ project mail with "remote possible"

für meinen Berliner Kunden suche ich einen erfahrenen C++ Entwickler, der Lust
auf ein sehr spannendes und langfristiges Projekt hat:

Start: 01.02.15

Dauer: >1 Jahr (50% Auslastung)

Remote: Nach Absprache möglich

    
    
      * Intensive C++ Erfahrungen 
      * Verarbeitung von Sensoren 
      * Linux und Cmake
    

Bei Interesse senden Sie mir Ihren CV (in Word-Format) unter Angabe Ihrer
Verfügbarkeit und aktuellem Stundensatz (All-In).

~~~
zerr
Thanks for the detailed replies, very interesting!

~~~
passiveincomelg
My pleasure! I love sharing what I learned about this stuff. Had I known about
it earlier, I'd have started doing this kind of freelancing five years sooner.

------
ThrowCatchElse
Position: Senior Backend Developer (7 years of professional experience)

Pay: $140 USD/hour (before taxes)

Working for a US company. I'm based in Romania.

~~~
ThePawnBreak
Do you have any advice on how to get that sort of position? I'm a Romanian guy
who just graduated (Automatica si Calculatoare), I've done several internships
at big companies (Microsoft, Google) and I'm sure I can get full time offers
at top tech companies in the US or London. Still, I tried to apply for remote
positions and nobody even looks at me. Any tips?

~~~
ThrowCatchElse
I got here because I spent several _years_ doing non-paid work on a very
popular open-source project (writing code, but also spending a lot of time
answering questions on the mailing list, on the support forums and on
StackOverflow). Eventually I got a reputation as a good dev and I started
getting job offers, some of which were remote. *

I guess my point is that you have to give them a reason to look at you, even
if it's just "Hey, I remember that guy/girl from that blog/mailing
list/conference. They seem decent."

____

* Most of that activity was driven by enthusiasm. I'm not sure I'd have the determination to invest that much time into an activity just as a career move.

------
pipio21
77Ks in Buenos Aires is way higher than 93Ks is Hong Kong, in terms of quality
of life.

In fact if you work remote I would go to other places in Argentina to work in
which over a k per month will give you amazing lifestyle,like Bariloche, or
Mendoza, without the safety problems of Buenos Aires. I would hold a server in
Buenos Aires and work there eating first class meat and riding horses all day.

~~~
doozy
Not only that, it is also higher than $144k in SF. And by quite a margin.

Buenos Aires is actually one of the cheapest, if not the cheapest, of all
Latin American capitals. I haven't been there in a few years, but the
difference between official and black market exchange rate alone made a
massive difference.

I don't know how the exchange rate is these days, but back then you could rent
a luxury 3 bedroom condo in Buenos Aires poshest neighbourhood for $1k a month
or less.

~~~
wprapido
there is no more black:official exchange spread and buenos aires became quite
expensive. there are cheaper capitals/major cities in south america though.
lima, bogota, medellin, santa cruz, la paz. santa cruz is highly overlooked. a
lot cheaper than baires and a lot safer. obviously, it's not as advanced and
as fun. if you are in santa cruz, the internet is much better than elsewhere
in bolivia. tigo's 4G connection is as fast as 50mb, while ADSL/cable/wifi is
between 2mb and 10mb. unless you stream a lot, you don't need more than that.
you can rent a pimped up condo in an awesome area for under 600 bucks. if you
go local in terms of housing, you can get a studio for as little as 100 bucks.
public transport is not great, but cabs are pretty cheap. no ride is more
expensive than 5 bucks

~~~
doozy
As I said, it's been a few years. But Santa Cruz is a dump, and not comparable
in any way to Buenos Aires.

Lima has both very good areas, where the cost of living is very high, and
horrendous areas (most of the city, actually).

The only places I know in Latin America with a cost of living as high as
Bogota are Sao Paulo and Rio. So I'm astonished to hear Buenos Aires is in
that range now, since the last time I was around there the cost of living was
easily half of what you see in Brazil and Colombia.

~~~
wprapido
santa cruz is lagging behind buenos aires, but it's much cheaper and much
safer. inflation in argentina skyrocketed

bogota i much cheaper than rio and sao paulo and rio and sao paulo are not as
expensive as they used to be since brazil was hit hard by recession

~~~
doozy
No, I'm in Bogota right now, and I was living in Sao Paulo last year. If
anything prices are higher in Bogota.

Have prices in Argentina, converted to dollars actually increased?

I was also in Santa Cruz earlier this year, it's not really comparable to any
of the major cities in Latin America, of course it is cheaper, but you get
what you pay for.

~~~
wprapido
well, there is no more black exchange rate for dollar in argentina and
inflation is kind of getting out of control, so yeah dollar prices increased a
lit. of course, SCZ is not comparable with BOG and BA or RJ/SP

------
throwaway747474
Base salary of: $300K, client in NYC. Through other income streams from other
clients I should make roughly 500K (before taxes) this year.

~~~
hn_username
Wow! Care to share what type of work you do and how you get your clients?

------
unit91
Current remote: non-tech company, with a few customer-facing web apps. Full-
stack Clojure/ClojureScript developer, $125K per year, living in Texas.
Company is in another state.

Last job, also remote: SaaS startup, $95K per year + options. I was a full-
stack Rails/Ember dev. Also not a Texas-based company.

On-again-off-again Rails/Ember contracting, always remote: $90/hour. Unrelated
to the SaaS startup above.

------
salaryacct
I'm a (young) consultant in a high demand and specialized subfield.

Based in one of the top-10 COL cities in the US.

$150k / yr plus 2% of profits.

I tend to only spend about 50% of my time in my home-city.

TBH I think I'm being underpaid by about $75k; if I were able to live
somewhere cheap I would find my compensation about right, but I have a lot of
ties to the place I'm currently living. There are other things I find
frustrating (e.g., few resources, sometimes precarious whether we'll make
payroll, not enough mentorship). I am currently negotiating with some of the
really big employers in the field, to see if I can get up to around $250.

~~~
ddorian43
Please explain subfield.

~~~
salaryacct
Way too specific, it'd be very easy to identify me.

------
gremlinsinc
I just got my first team/jr dev position @ $22/hour so far my highest paying
perm position, and likely if I do decent work i'll be at $26 by end of first
year. I'm happy w/ that for now. Mostly worked on solo projects in Laravel
past few years for between $15-25/hour depending on the company/owner/project
and what they had budgeted.

I'm loving working from home, it has some challenges--staying focused is
rough. I log time using Hubstaff and as long as I can stay off
reddit/hackernews I'm golden for time management lol.

~~~
adrianmacneil
Depends how much experience & skills you have, but after a year I would look
to find a job paying twice that (even if you are relatively junior).

~~~
gremlinsinc
Thanks - I don't have a lot of testunit/git/agile/scrum(team workflow)
experience was wanting to get some of that from the opp, and might shop around
in a year or so. But I like the team, and working from home's a perk.

------
Drome
1500 Euros month (- taxes), RoR Developer, 3 years experience, Italy

drome@protonmail.com

~~~
gbrindisi
you have all my sympathy

~~~
pastullo
welcome to Italy

~~~
doozy
Hey Italians, don't take this the wrong way, but maybe the problem is not
Italy, because I've done consulting for Italian companies at much higher rates
than that.

Granted, this was in 2009, but I was billing back then over 1500€ a week for
web development (Python) to a couple of Italian companies. Tax-free too.
Remotely. And I'm only semi-fluent in the language.

I also know quite a few Italians working remotely for American companies.
Heck, I'm currently working with a guy from Bari and I know for a fact the
American company we're both working with pays him six figures.

------
csallen
I spent 2 years working remote and making $125/hour as a front-end developer
not too long ago. My schedule fluctuated widely, but I almost always worked
between 20 and 60 hours per week.

I was the only remote employee, the only contractor, and the only web
developer. The rest of the team consisted of designers, marketers, and iOS
engineers working full-time from the office.

I've since quit that job, but I saved up enough money to take time off and
work on my own projects (e.g. www.IndieHackers.com).

~~~
enraged_camel
$250k salary for a remote position is pretty amazing. I thought such salaries
were pretty much exclusive to senior developers in SV.

~~~
csallen
I was a contractor, so that probably contributed to the higher rate, as
contractors are responsible for their own insurance etc and get taxed at a
slightly higher rate. Also, it helped that I was recruited by said company,
rather than reaching out myself. Gave me more confidence negotiating my rate,
especially since I wasn't really even looking for a job at the time.

------
niix
I've been working remotely for almost 3 years now, and in my experience it
speaks volumes about a company to pay you based on your skill set not based on
your geographical locale.

I lived and worked in SF for few years before my wife and I decide to move
back to our home town to be closer to family. When I first went remote, I
worked for a company who believed in paying people based on their location and
not based on their skill level. This made for a rather unpleasant feeling as
an employee and ultimately lead to me no longer working for them.

Since then I have joined a company who cares about the individual, and
believes in paying people for what they are worth. Overall, my morale is much
higher because of it and my loyalty to the company is greater in return.

To answer the question, I make the same amount as any equally skilled engineer
at my company who lives in SF (or anywhere else in the country for that
matter).

------
nicomfe
From Auckland, NZ working for 50nzd per hour, not sure if its enough, but its
my first remote work

~~~
raquo
Nice location! Do you have timezone issues working from there?

~~~
nicomfe
at the moment working for a company in Australia, so not to much of an issue
there, but wont be that easy working for someone on the us or europe

------
IAmOblivious
Last job as a senior Python dev (central US), $160k/yr. Current job as a
senior RoR dev (west coast), $150k/yr. Both also involve DevOps roles. I live
in Florida. 15 years exp.

------
namenotrequired
Working as developer intern for Dutch startup, from Brazil (I'm Dutch btw). I
get 400eu per month. Nearing the end of the internship and they want to hire
me, curious what I will be offered - hope I'll remember to report back :)

Should I ask for a typical Dutch salary or a typical local salary or somewhere
inbetween?

~~~
lurker_primo
What is the typical rate for internship if you were not a remote worker? I
would guess it is higher than 400eu/month. What if you were a non remote
worker in Brazil itself? It would be lower than 400eu/month, right? So, your
company would want to pay you somewhere in between. I would suggest you start
from a salary closer to a typical Dutch one and allow them to negotiate you
down to what you expect.

------
jefozabuss
Side question: Where do you pay taxes if you live in a different country than
the company you work for is located? e.g: Working for a SF based company from
Thailand.

Same question if you are a digital nomad (let's say switching countries
monthly) ?

~~~
rozap
If you're a US citizen then you file taxes and pay them on income over ~100k,
regardless of your physical location or company's HQ. The US is one of the
only countries that requires expats to pay taxes.

~~~
maxerickson
That doesn't mean you don't have to file and pay taxes in the place where you
are living.

No duh you say, but people have posted in HN threads like this one about how
they just have their income payed into a US bank account, so they aren't
earning any money in the other country.

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anonymous1701d
Marketing guy in Flordia for tech company in northeast US: $100K.

------
umen
Amazing post,now a question is how all of you get the clients ?

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cweagans
Based in Boise, ID. My freelance rate is $100/hr. My full time employer is a
media company in NYC, and I'm at ~$115k/yr + benefits and such.

------
zenbob
I make $15/hr as a software developer intern remotely for a startup. Not the
best pay, but it's great to have this freedom as a lowly intern.

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Quartertotravel
Content strategist in SE Asia.

Full time would be $45k before taxes, but I don't work anywhere near 40 hours
a week. Just don't have to.

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Bahamut
While not me, I know a developer making $100 USD/hour working remote from
Spain for a US company.

~~~
pgcosta
I make ~€9/hour after tax working in Barcelon as a rails dev :s

I'm currently super underpaid trying to switch jobs though.. It sucks here

~~~
vemv
Also RoR/BCN, making 3x that

Feel free to reach me (linkedin: vemv91), we're in need of an extra dev!

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callmeed
Currently in California. I've been a remote employee since selling my own
company 2 years ago.

First job was $90K.

Current is $125K.

------
techie22
I'm a Sr. full Stack Dev for a company in NY. I make 190k working from home
(in FL).

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wprapido
location: madrid, spain - work: freelancing / contracting for two companies in
the states (general web dev) and cyprus (fintech startup) as a full stack
developer - hours per week: 15 - making per hour: ~90USD

