How to be hired in US company remotely

Question

I'm a software developer living in Eastern Europe. I would like to find a job remotely working for a US company and to be paid an average US salary because in my country I currently get around 3-4 times less for the same amount of work due to my location.

Can you advise me how I can convince a US based company to hire me? One advantage that I have is to work while US employees sleep due to time zone. And the usual of course is to work for less money.

One idea is to contact HR agency in USA and ask them to advertise my skills to companies.

Can you give me some ideas, please?

Answer 1

First of all, salaries not really paid for amount of work. You get different pay in different locations because of cost of labor at a location (which usually but not always, depends on cost of life). This is important because companies that hire in locations where labor costs less actually expect to pay lower salaries in that area which will make your goal more difficult to reach.

More critically, you would like to be employed at the same cost for the company while not being able to provide some of the capabilities that local (US-based) employees have while also adding additional legal and logistical burden for the company. In other words, they pay the same price, don't get some of the advantages and get a bunch of disadvantages by hiring you. For example (the list no by all means exhaustive):

• Since you're not in the same timezone, collaborating with your team will be much harder. This also complicates training and onboarding.
• If the company has no presence in your region or country, they need to hire additional legal advice to prepare your contract and arrange salary payments. The latter requires permanent contract with an accounting/payroll company that will handle your country's income tax obligations.
• Any perks have to be separately scrutinized to make sure they are compatible with your country's laws or if they can be provided at all (medical insurance is a prime suspect here)
• Software companies in particular are very sensitive about their intellectual property. Being outside of their home region and jurisdiction makes it harder (if not impossible) for the employer to have recourse against any of your actions they don't agree with beside terminating your employment. That won't help them if you decide to steal and sell their source code - which is a risk they have to consider anyway!

Now that you know what the potential employers might consider, you'll have a better idea how to help with their concerns. For example, you can make it easier for the potential employer by offering your services as an independent contractor: this frees the company from a bunch of legal requirements related to employment law although they'll still need to vet you - which might not be easy without an established base of happy clients who can vouch for you (and brings some downsides for you).

Answer 2

Can you give me some idea, please?

Just apply and see what happens, there are plenty of questions here around how to best to write your cv, what to learn about the company etc, have a search. But there is something I feel the need to mention that's not usual in your situation:

One advantage that I have is to work while US employees sleep due to time zone.

This will almost never be seen as an advantage for an us-based company.

By living in a different time zone you are automatically not aligned with everyone else in the team. This means by default you are not around for the meetings, standups, casual chats and normal during-work-time communications. And then the "upside" of being up through the night is something that is easily hireable within the same time zone when it's needed, without any of the extra hassle.

So instead of focusing on this point and trying to sell it as an advantage, either apply to companies who truly have teams around the globe as they are set to work in mostly asynchronous way, or figure out a way to explain to them how you are going to work through the night to align yourself with the team.

On another note:

payed average US salary because into my county I currently get around 3-4 less for the same amount of work due to my location.

Keep in mind that you are likely looking at what is being paid for your position on average person living in the US. Working remotely tends to come with a salary discount, and in your case of possibly being the only person living in different time zone, and coming from another culture there are also managerial overheads to consider. So take your salary expectations with a grain of salt, and expect the competition for the available job to be fierce.