Just like a large number of people consider moving out of the country after presidential elections. Few are serious about it.
Yea but moving out of country doesn’t normally come with you also getting to work less hours for more pay. Leaving Amazon for a competitive offer does.
High performers can do whatever they want, giving them a reason to leave like this is silly. Treat your employees like they are too immature to balance their work and life and you will end up with immature employees.
At the end of the day the question is do you want results or do you want butts in seats. If you run a factory it’s fair to want butts in seats. If you run a creative endevor you should want results.
What’s the logistics of this? I work remote 3 days as a software dev and I’m hoping to eventually get full WFH.
How does one just move to another country to work from there. Do you need a lot of cash on hand to make the move or can you just be a nomad kind and do it.
I’m not going to touch immigration, work permits etc, because it varies greatly - I’m assuming you figure it out. For skilled workers with work experience there usually is a fairly painless way to get all you need.
Continuing to work:
- your employer has to have presence in the country you are moving to, or
- they have to handle your employment through an intermediary, like deel.com, or
- you have to transition to independent contractor (potentially legally dicey if you are a contractor in name only)
- if your company doesn’t support fully async work don’t move more than 8 time zones away - that way you’ll still be able to join some meetings
Moving is the simplest part:
- Lightweight & cheap option: pack a backpack/suitcase like you were going on long vacation. Buy plane tickets. Rent Airbnb at the location for a week and use that week to rent a place to live. This option is similar in cost to moving to a different city within a country with extra costs being $2000-3000 for travel and initial week at destination.
- Everything and kitchen sink is not much more expensive: 10k gets everything you own professionally packed, stuffed in a 20 feet shipping container, shipped across the ocean, moved through customs, delivered to your new address and unloaded (but not unpacked from boxes). 20 feet container is enough to take everything in a large, packed 2 bedroom condo including furniture.
At destination you will need:
- work permit / work visa
- local equivalent of social security / tax number / sometimes both - file a form, sometimes pay a small fee
- a business (if you are going independent contractor route)
- bank account
Vast majority of the info you need will often be available on the embassy website of your destination country.
Source: over the 20 years of my career I moved across the ocean twice with my family and worked from a total of 4 countries.
Ayyyy I would be there with you if I could bring all my kids with me. I dislike 20-30 flight time to see my kids. And it’s also wasteful.
When my last company said we had to go back 3 days a week I found a new job. I agonized over the decision for days because I had been there 8 years, but knew I would be unhappy going back. Am happy as a lamb now though and work fully remotely for a company who’s nearest office is over 2000 miles away. Best career decision I’ve ever made
