[halfdan]

I've worked for US based companies in the past from Germany and that was the setup at the time because it was a legal and bureaucratic hassle to set up proper employment. That said, both times I received equity - that's, at least to my understanding, straightforward to set up.

Given that job security is almost non-existent in the US it never bothered me to not be an employee - I just always assumed that today could be my last day (well, in theory at least). You do miss out on the usual health benefits, 401k, etc. and will have to cover that yourself in your country.

[fy20]

Yeah for smaller companies this is the norm. Even within Europe, if you work for a company in another country it will usually be as a contractor on paper, as it's a lot of work to setup payroll etc for one person (it needs to be done in each country). A lot of the time you can end up paying less taxes that way compared to an employee though, so it might actually be in OPs advantage.