Ask HN: Remote-Friendly for International Timezones?

[washedupsysadm]

Hi! I'm a DevOps/Sysadmin/whatever from the USA (California). I accidentally got married (in Turkiye, not the EU) while on vacation 8 years ago and never really came back.

Since I moved, I've only been able to find work about 50% of the time. Getting a work permit in Europe basically isn't possible without a degree.

I've been unemployed since Covid began. It was quite humbling going from complaining about recruiters to spending my days staring blankly at job sites for 10 hours per day.

Going back to the USA is out of the question, but nobody in Europe will do a work permit for somebody without a college degree.

Finding consulting has proven impossible due to the timezone difference. Upwork and other similar sites are worthless, unless you're a guy with 30 years experience (I am) who is willing to work for $10/hour (I am not).

I'm done with working in this part of tech. Which other realms might be more conducive to remote work with minimal interaction? Maybe it's time to give up and become a landlord instead?

EDIT: Clarified that I do not live in the EU.

[tkfu]

I'm a bit skeptical of your claim that "getting a work permit in Europe basically isn't possible without a degree".

Is it an EU country? In every European country I've had direct experience with (DK, DE, IT, PT, FR, BE), you can get a residence permit with the right to work by applying as an accompanying spouse, or under a family reunification scheme. Of course, in some countries this can take time, but certainly not 8 years.

Additionally, under the 'Directive on the status of non-EU nationals who are long-term residents'[1], you have the right to obtain permanent residence in any EU country you have lived in legally for 5 years. Unless you've been living in the EU illegally (e.g. on a tourist visa for 8 years) or not reporting your income/paying social contributions, you should be eligible for that. As with all/most EU directives, the specific implementation can vary between countries, but the immigration authorities are obliged to have some kind of process for implementation.

[1] https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asy...

[kwanbix]

Yes. I don't understand what he is talking about. Not only can a software engineer who finds a job easily get a visa in Europe, but if he is married to an EU partner, or a person living in EU who has a visa, he can easily stay and work in the EU.

Now, about the time zone's thing, I personally find that anything more than 2 hours difference is very problematic. I have worked in the past with 4 and 12 hours of difference and it is just not practical. At least for me.

[chrismeller]

I would also add that every EU country I've looked at also has an "or equivalent work experience" clause for their tech/skilled-path work permits that would void the education requirement.

[mattkrause]

Keep in mind that some HR folks may not know too much about various forms of work permits.

I work for a university that's a short drive from the US border, and yet had to harangue HR into applying for a NAFTA/USMCA work permit (which is easier) instead doing the "standard" thing.

It's worth spending some time figuring out what you are eligible for so you can at least try to put them on the happy path.

[washedupsysadm]

Sadly, it is not an EU country I live in, or the issue would have solved itself, and I'd have citizenship by now.

I can't actually get a work permit in the country I live (turkiye) through marriage, but need to get sponsored. At this point I could get citizenship, if I improved my language skills, but it's more hassle than it's worth. I have more freedoms as a foreigner.

[shafyy]

I'm confused, how have you been staying and working legally for the past 8 years in Turkey?

[washedupsysadm]

As long as I'm working remotely for a company that doesn't have a presence in Turkiye (unless that presence is in one of the international development zones) then there's nothing for me to worry about. At least that's what my lawyer says when I ask him every year to see if the law has changed.

[netsharc]

This isn't relevant to the question, but Turkey's tourist visa rules say you're allowed to stay 90 days within a 180 day period, how did you go around that? Or have you basically lived 90 days in the for example EU and 90 days in Turkey?

[washedupsysadm]

I am married to a Turk and am here on a residential permit that I renew every 3 years.

[shafyy]

Ok, so why not find a job as a contractor for a European company?

[devoutsalsa]

I see three paths here:

1. Get a degree. Sign up for something like Western Governor's University or anything you can complete at quickly as possible. Burn the the curriculum by working your ass off to get that degree. This path makes sense if getting a degree is, as you state, the only thing from preventing you from working locally.

2. Get a USA job. Update your CV to make it look like you've been doing something over the past two years (which could be going to school). Set your LinkedIn location to an East Coast USA city (e.g. NYC or DC). Interview for remote only positions. Get hired. Don't tell them you're working from Europe. Have them ship work laptop to some place in the USA where you can fly to pick it up. Fly home. Set your laptop timezone to be timezone of local office so you don't have to explain why you're 7 hours ahead all the time. Say you like to work early & simply avoid companies that have a lot of later afternoon meetings. Budget for flying back to get a replacement laptop if you have to. Make sure you pay your taxes in Europe. You don't want to get busted. Hire a tax professional to help you navigate the European tax system.

3. Fight to establish yourself on sites like Upwork & TopTal. Kind of a race to the bottom, but obviously people do it.

I didn't suggest becoming a self employed consultant because if you were wired to do that, you'd have already done it. You can of course develop this skill, but it takes time & isn't for everyone.

[codegeek]

"Don't tell them you're working from Europe."

Please don't do this. Honesty goes along way. It can also have legal, tax and compliance imitations for you and your employer.

[washedupsysadm]

Agreed. At my last job, we offshored all of our development to Belarus and Ukraine. One example we couldn't contractors living in Russia, and a few times we had to chew out our account manager at the offshoring company for being dishonest, and for risking us violating all of our largest customers.

[wittjeff]

> 1. Get a degree

Several of the fully-online Masters programs on edX.org are as low as $10K.

https://www.edx.org/masters

Disclosure: I work for edX.

[dmhmr]

Just want to note that suggestion #2 is easily detected by any org with even a whiff of security tooling in place. Quick way to get terminated.

[eatbitseveryday]

> Don't tell them you're working from Europe.

I’d argue they’d need to know due to income tax withholding for a given state.

[washedupsysadm]

They don't actually. I still own a home back in the states, and still pay local taxes. From the state's point of view, I just work remotely for Californian startups.

[Aspos]

Turkiye is not EU and is not Europe in practical sense.

Consult an attorney in Turkiye. Never heard of university diploma being a requirement for a work permit. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Turkiye which do not have any diplomas.

Join a sweatshop (an agency) in upwork: they take care of finding customers in exchange for a portion of your income. DevOps with fluent English is a limited resource.

You can always create an LLC in the US and work for it remotely. So your employer pays a contractor (your LLC), LLC pays you dividends. Talk to an accountant in Turkiye, but I doubt there will be any taxation difficulties with the foreign income. You can get an LLC in Turkiye as well, by the way.

Search for a job in Dubai: English is the main language there, no taxes, adjacent timezone.

Give a slightly different spin to your story: give employers your US address, say you are a digital nomad which happens to be living in TR temporarily.

[washedupsysadm]

Great suggestions, thanks!

> You can always create an LLC in the US and work for it remotely. So your employer pays a contractor (your LLC), LLC pays you dividends. Talk to an accountant in Turkiye, but I doubt there will be any taxation difficulties with the foreign income. You can get an LLC in Turkiye as well, by the way.

I do already have an LLC, trying to give it more of a web presence now & add more projects to my GitHub account. As an aside, starting up a small solo business in Turkiye as a single foreigner is impossible. The requirements of immediately hiring 3 Turks makes it a non-starter as a solo consultant. It's funnier in that still can't work here legally, even owning a company, until I've hired some # of people. Also my company has to be owned like 50% or 49% by Turks.

Dubai, however, isn't my thing as a bisexual atheist who likes cold wet weather, beer and cannabis :)

Thanks!

[Aspos]

Oh, I meant remote jobs in Dubai. Cannabis is a big no-no there, true, but otherwise it is a cool place!

It is a big surprise to me that TR requires 50% ownership by locals. Unless it is a very new requirement, I think you are misreading it or something. I know quite a few foreigners which had no problems with opening companies in TR, in freezones and outside.

Edit: I just asked, my friend has no idea why you think it is impossible to open a company being a sole founder. It takes just 3 days and it is a straight-forward process. I am genuinely concerned that whoever is advising you there is misleading you.

[mcv]

Is your spouse European? Wouldn't that be enough to get naturalised or at least a work permit? If you're allowed to live there permanently, you should be able to work there, right? Or are you still on your vacation visa?

[sokoloff]

We have many EU-based employees, all working remotely. Our working time zones span from Sydney through India, EU, EST, and a couple of outliers in MST and PST.

We do care (and check) that you’re legally allowed to work where you live, but other than that, I’d expect there are high hundreds (likely thousands) of companies hiring remotely who are in a similar boat.

[washedupsysadm]

Where are you based out of?

I'm not in the EU, but rather in Turkiye. I'm a US citizen, and though it's legal to work here for companies who don't have a local presence, the HR departments at American companies tend to get cold feet.

I'm curious how you check? I ended up hiring a lawyer to research legality here. A site that explains all of these for any region would be pretty sweet.

[sokoloff]

I’m personally based in the US, but we have local entities in several EU countries and a “mobility team” (part of HR) that does the research for us, using a mix of in-house expertise and outside counsel. We have a list of countries for which we’ve already done the research (for our own facts and circumstances) to know whether and how we could employ people there and if I want to hire someone in a new place not on the list, they research it and make recommendations.

It’s not something easily amenable to a definitive and simple chart (as I understand it, but that’s coming from the experts we pay a lot to to answer these questions).

[Tade0]

Over here in eastern EU I have friends who work for US companies - just in US time zone hours.

You might want to consider self-employment - no need for a work permit to do that. This is a legitimate case for this and companies appreciate when the only accounting they have to do is a monthly invoice.

At the very least it makes for a decent temporary measure.

[cj]

> conducive to remote work with minimal interaction?

Most places have at least a couple hours of overlap with the US. What time zone are you in?

What is your criteria for remote jobs? Perhaps the criteria is too limiting?

E.g. are you refusing jobs that require joining any meetings whatsoever? (Not saying you are, just speculating what the problem might be)

[washedupsysadm]

> Most places have at least a couple hours of overlap with the US. What time zone are you in?

UTC+3 (Istanbul). Realistically I get 2-4 hours per day overlap with San Francisco and 4-6 with New York.

My criteria has been basically anybody using Terraform in the cloud. Everything else is negotiable.

What happens is the moment companies really where I am, they either get worried about the legality of hiring me (no concerns, unless they have an office here) or don't want to deal with the time zone.

It actually got worse since covid. Before Covid I would be unemployed 2-3 months in-between jobs or contracts.

   This gets complicated by the fact that most company's ops teams tend to work later hours.

[brudgers]

Why not start working on a college degree to solve the work permit problem (wgu.edu comes to mind)?

In the meantime, reaching out the the thirty years of coworkers, bosses, and subordinates might also provide job leads related to your direct experience.

Good luck.

[washedupsysadm]

> Why not start working on a college degree to solve the work permit problem (wgu.edu comes to mind)?

I think about this, considering I'll be retired in the next decade due to declining health, it feels like a huge investment in time I don't have.

> In the meantime, reaching out the the thirty years of coworkers, bosses, and subordinates might also provide job leads related to your direct experience.

Been working through that. I have 6 open job offers if I move home to San Francisco.

[gwbas1c]

I've certainly had where I live decided by family issues; so I can empathize. (I get very insulted when recruiters casually suggest that I can move.)

The main issue that I see is that you don't have a degree. I can't speak much for outside the US, but within the US it's also difficult to have a long-term tech career without a degree. If you stayed in the US, you might also have similar troubles. (And eventually got a degree, perhaps by doing an online degree during COVID.)

Thus, I would suggest figuring out how to get a degree.

Having been on both sides of the table, (job seeker and resume reviewer,) I can tell you that the degree means more than you think. Assuming that any job you're applying for gets 100+ applicants, anyone without a degree will be filtered out without due consideration.

Even something like an online degree will get your resume past the checkbox.

Again, the goal is to get your resume its due consideration. (Because, to repeat myself, when a job opening has 100+ applicants, there are simple filters like "degree required" that get you filtered out before anyone is really reading your resume.)

[badpun]

There are remote-friendly companies which hire people from your timezone and absolutely don't care which country do you live in or what your credentials are (as long as your country is not under some kind of embargo etc.). I'm in similar timezone (in Poland) and got jobs in many such companies. Are you not able to find them, or do you find them but they reject you?

[washedupsysadm]

I'm curious where you find them? One frustration is that only 2 job search sites (angel list and weworkremotely) have any featured to list "will hire from anywhere". Remote generally means "from our country".

Are you working with countries also from the EU or American companies?

I'm actually starting to wonder if I'm rejected / ignored because I'm old (43), and have been working almost 30 years. My last interview began with "Wow, I have to admit, your resume is intimidating".

I had a friend there who told me they rejected me because I was more senior than anyone in the company and the Director I'd be responding to was insecure about that.

I've been thinking about lying and saying I only have 10 years experience.

[saasxyz]

this.

[fishyninja]

We're a US (New York) based team that opened an SWE office in Istanbul this year. We haven't dealt with sponsorship in Turkiye yet. The workday overlap has worked out great; more than sufficient for standup and requirements collaboration. Rest of the work happens async. My wife is also Turkish. Happy to chat if you post a way to contact you.

[ThePowerOfFuet]

> Getting a work permit in Europe basically isn't possible without a degree.

This is not correct; of the Member States which participate in the Blue Card system (almost all of them), almost all of those accept 5 years of relevant experience instead of a degree. One or two exceptions are 10 years.

Some Member States do not apply a labour market test, making the process even simpler.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-blue-card...

[viraptor]

There's lots of visas that don't require degrees. One of the options could be something like https://www.gov.uk/start-up-visa if you can work for others by creating some kind of consulting service. Another would be to aim for corporations which are used to / have a good pipeline for sponsoring relocation+visa.

Otherwise you may want to try contacting - search for a place through an agent and specify full remote only.

[wc1b5ja]

Just to clarify - when you say degree, do you mean a CS degree specifically, or any college degree at all?

And for US devs who have gotten work visas in the EU - does this distinction matter for having your work permit approved? I have lots of work experience but I'm self taught with a BA, wonder if that would hold me back.

[washedupsysadm]

Any college degree. I started working when I was 14, finished high school when I was 16 and went straight into tech instead of uni.

Supposedly there's an exception where they evaluate experience vs credentials, but in my experience it hasn't been true, or it's used as an excuse not to hire.

[moltar]

Honestly, I feel like you haven’t tried and you are just seeking validation.

Most of your claims are false.

And I know plenty of people who are consulting successfully from pretty much any part of the world.

And I know a guy who lives in Turkey and is a massively successful international consultant.

[plantain]

>you're a guy with 30 years experience (I am) who is willing to work for $10/hour (I am not).

I average ~40$/hr spend on Upwork for intermediate to highly skilled engineers, I think you need to market yourself better.

[karimf]

This might be useful: https://github.com/yanirs/established-remote

[kfk]

You could start by adding your email address to your bio on HN. We hire freelancers in Europe for work, so maybe we could talk? We are located in Krakow and Tenerife.

[maxboone]

Would you want to live in the EU (e.g. Netherlands) or rather stay in Turkey?

Our company, and others in the Amsterdam area, often hire from Turkey and take care of immigration afaik.

[washedupsysadm]

We'd love it. I've applied to a few dozen jobs in Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona and Copenhagen. I'm shocked at the low salaries, but still I get tripped up by my lack of a degree.

[dudul]

What nationality is your spouse? I can't believe that you can't get a work permit through marriage if they're a citizen.

[paxys]

Why do you need a work permit if you are married to an EU citizen? 8 years is more than enough to get naturalized anywhere.

[Nextgrid]

Do you need a work permit to open a company? If not, just do that and work as a contractor or consultant.

[washedupsysadm]

I have an American contracting company, but rather the problem is a lack of customers.

To start a company here I have to hire two or three local employees before I am allowed to conduct business. It's a fairly anti-business country.

[Havoc]

Working as contractor is still working

[eatbitseveryday]

What about applying to jobs in other geographies? Any remote gigs from UAE or India or somewhere?