
Ask HN: Well paid remote work from central EU? - anotheryou
Hi,<p>I&#x27;m in Germany and I can&#x27;t find competitive offers for remote jobs and wonder if they exist at all.<p>Competitive means it compares to a normal job in Germany, including:<p>- a decent base salary (e.g. just so top 10% in Germany is 3500eur&#x2F;month after taxes, not unrealistic in the tech sector)<p>- pays insurances for health, unemployment and some retirement<p>- 2-3 month notice period (not too crucial if salary is decent) and generally hard to fire soemone<p>- 28 days of paid leave<p>- OK to be sick sometimes, no overtime<p>- legal employment<p>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&#x27;d have to multiply my base salary by 2 or 3!<p>And that&#x27;s just out of proportions with anything I was offered for remote positions ever. And it&#x27;s not legal for me to be a contractor out of Germany with just one client (they&#x27;d have to hire me).
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bruce511
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.

~~~
anotheryou
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)

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patatino
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.

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

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aogl
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?

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imhoguy
> 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.

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

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rayhendricks
This website might have something,
[https://remoteok.io/](https://remoteok.io/).

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

