[donky_cong]

If you are preaching something like this, atleast have the decency to go all the way.

Why are all the examples of "remote" in US/UK ? There are 7 billion other people. And I can assure you there are amazing Indian, Japaneese, German, Russian, Finninsh and Australian devs.

Thats the real big pool of talent. (And you can get some prime developers at lower than $100K/year).

[dhh]

Dude, this whole software business thing at 37signals got started with me in Denmark.

Also, we just hired someone from Russia.

What makes it harder is that for this to work, you need timezone overlap. I now live in Spain half the year, but it does require me to work from 1pm to 9pm. I enjoy it like that and it fits well with the Spanish lifestyle, but it doesn't work for everyone.

[hugs]

A few years ago, why did you move from Denmark to the HQ in Chicago? Could you have just stayed in Denmark?

[dhh]

Because I like living in the US better than living in Denmark.

I've recently moved to Spain for part of the year because I like 65F and Sunny better than the Chicago Winter.

Neither moves had anything to do with work per se. (Except that I'm a better worker when I live where I want to live)

[JoeDeveloper]

Except that I'm a better worker when I live where I want to live.

I can't agree with this enough.

The lack of structural violence is also a huge win, being able to hack at 24+ hour stretches without being told that they are locking up now, or obligations to go for a Wed, Thurs, Friday beer etc. can also be conducive to high levels of productivity.

[SingAlong]

Can you throw some light on what kind of agreements remote workers outside the country (US) are hired?

[SingAlong]

>> And I can assure you there are amazing Indian, Japaneese, German, Russian, Finninsh and Australian devs.

>> And you can get some prime developers at lower than $100K/year

Totally agree with that. I work remote from Bangalore for a YC startup.

I can't say if I'm "amazing" or "prime". Before I got hired, I had a bunch of opensource projects which I had passionately crafted for personal use. But I do get paid on the far lower side of $100k. I joined on an independent contractor agreement just the next day after I finished college.

About managing tasks: we do 5-minute meetings every day and discuss what each of us are working on.

I'm curious to know what kind of legal work is required to hire remote workers outside the country (US) and how the hires are compensated.

[spiredigital]

I looked into the requirements when hiring abroad, and the IRS makes it insanely confusing (surprise, surprise). I finally determined that I had no U.S. payroll/withholding responsibility as my foreign employee was outside the U.S. and did all their work out of the U.S.

For payment, I use xoom.com to transfer bank-to-bank. Its worked out well for international payments so far and their fees are reasonable.

[SingAlong]

My pay is being sent via international bank transfers. Costs about $20 (on my end) which is fine with me. It takes about a day but I believe it's reliable.