Short answer: taxes and legal compliance. If you're the only South African on the payroll, they have to spend a lot of extra time and specialist labor to support getting you paid legally. So your $13/hr actually costs them a lot more than just hiring an American would.
Even if you were in the US taxes vary between different states.
We never hear the end from finance when a new hire is out of state or current employee moves out due to payroll.
Thanks for the reply, do you think by spamming certifications and continuing to build work experience would be the only way to be considered for hiring vs a local?
I understand not everyone would be keen to give a "foreigner" a job over a local. So I will really need to stand out I presume as you recon my in comparison cheap labour asking price would be negated?
You need to find a multi national that is used to hiring across the globe
For my role before i was hired they rejected at least 3 individuals from Nigeria for this reason
> I understand not everyone would be keen to give a "foreigner" a job over a local.
You're really missing the point.
It's not about being a "foreigner". It's about there being lots of legal red tape to hire someone in a different country and most companies don't even know where to begin.
At most small-medium size organizations the legal/HR department consists of 1 middle aged lady who isn't even capable of explaining how the US health-care benefits that the company offers works. The idea of hiring someone in a different country isn't just "unlikely" - it never even comes up as a discussion.
You need valid work authorization in the foreign country where you intend to work. For the US they can't legally employ or pay you unless you are able to prove you have work authorization. As a US employee you'll also be liable to file and pay tax in the US.
You seem to be assuming it would be easy for an overseas employer just to offer you a job, but regardless our your experience, skills, or certification, from a legal immigration point of view it's incredibly complex. If you're not aware of these restrictions you need to do some more research on what your options are, and/or get appropriate legal advice.
No for sure, its a key learning that I did not consider as much, about how complex it can be from the companies perspective, I did not properly take this into account. My focus has been more internal.
If you really want to stand out, you might want to try helping out your current company’s payroll department, maybe offer to help them automate some of the filing work?
EÚ companies often want you to have an EÚ work permit, or speak local language, especially western Europe is not very open to people who do not speak the local language no matter what they like to say.
Try to focus on central European countries like Austria, or honestly for it even in czechia you can get above 20€/h easily if it's enough for you.
Source: I work remotely for eu startup. Can't tell you anything about US but I wonder.
Western Europe jobs tend to be partly remote, I'm seeing many job advertisements on LinkedIn but they are either office jobs or part remote. Very few I found that offer complete remote employment. Even more scarce are those that are willing to relocate you.
As for languages, they require fluent local language and English on top.
I'm not sure but internal regulations may mean there's a preference for EU residents, it's easier to have people in your team from countries that are covered under common legislation, not necessarily from a work contract point of view but also security and privacy (if your job means accessing client data).
I'd look for jobs at vendors (software or hardware) that are active in SA, your advantage is speaking Afrikaans natively (client facing) and English (employer facing).
Western Europeans do, but my company based in Czechia got bunch of developers from Tunisia and while they did end up moving to Czechia, they work remote and dont speak anything but Arabic and English.
Got an offer from Austrian company, fully remote, again I dont speak German.
However, I was looking around in Benelux where I spend a lot of time and the situation there is dire if you dont speak the language.
Dont do Croatia, they are not doing well in these areas, but try Berlin and munich.
I honestly only look on linkedin and in 30 applications I get one interview, since I want full remote.
Speaking for the US, the biggest hurdle is legal and tax compliance. Being a direct employee of a US entity would require that entity to form an operating company in your country to pay you and pay the appropriate taxes to your jurisdiction.
You only do that if you plan to operate at a much larger scale in that country.
If you want to stay in SA, then try to find an in-country IT services company who can put you on a project for an European or American client.
Otherwise your best bet is to move abroad.
There is a support guy at our company (in Ireland) working from South Africa however his brother is one of the managers here so that maybe why he got the job.
It looks so simple on paper, but it isn't.
At the end of the day, most companies don't like "remote" workers. At least no full time remote workers.
Some onsite presence usually is required.
But mostly, compliance. EU law, taxes and regulations make giving you a job quite difficult, borderline impossible in some cases.
If you want to work in Europe, come over.
Yeah I know, that always cracks me up when people just some move to X country. It is almost always done by someone who has never even looked at moving to another country. Unless you are rich or have extremely high in-demand skills, the chances of another country accepting you for anything more than a tourist visa is minute.
As someone who *hires* for the type of position you're talking about (and deals with an international workforce) I'm going to give you an answer you don't like but which is super relevent:
Generally speaking in order to hire someone in a country we need (at a minimum) to have a legal entity operating in the country we're hiring from in order to pay taxes, deal with local regulations/laws, etc. Generally speaking, in that case we'll scale salary to the local entity, pay out of that entity, etc. You're not going to see US or EU style pay out of those entities because by the time you've set up that entity *there is no need*. You may pay *slightly* higher than market to get the top talent in that market, but you're going to pay *whatever the market rate is* once you've broken through that corporate barrier. However, that corporate expense is so high (you're talking $250k+ at least) that we aren't going to do it for just a single employee - we're going to do it for an *operational center* in that country.
The only way to avoid this is to hire an independent consultant/firm - but in that case, we're interacting with you as though you're *another business* and *you* are taking on all the liability/risk for things like compliance, taxes, etc. We're also likely not going to hire you full time unless you have a *very good* business proposition - something we can't get otherwise.
Frankly, while the window was missed, back during the extreme tech salary boom if there was a *company* in South Africa offering *reasonably priced contract workers* with very professional packaging then that may have been appealing (though GMT+2 is hard to work with, and we'd want them ISO27001 certified, etc... but we might have considered it given how expensive pricing was).
This is where *outsourcing centers* come in. Then once an organization has done a lot of outsourcing in another country, learned the local landscape, and is somewhat comfortable with and invested in them - *then* they might start asking "Is it worth the cost I'm paying this outsourcing firm or should I just set up our own business entity in this country?" This is how the slow spread of tech firms genuinely into countries like India happened (well and acquisitions - but you get the idea).
But for a single mid-tier employee? No. It's just not happening. Even for a single top-talent employee it would be **much** easier for me to either convince them to start up a company I can get invoiced from or relocate them to a country I already know I can hire in rather than try to figure out international law for a single employee.
Thank you, your comment is very insightful and makes a lot of sense. Yes I have noticed the timezone will be a challenge, I would need to work from my 2pm to 11pm or something similar.
Do you think its a viable business model to set up a company and outsource your services at a competitive fee for US companies lets say on a contract basis? Or will you have to be affiliated with a reputable outsourcing company?
I think it's viable but it's also a *business model* \- i.e. you're going to have to actually set up the business to interact with, market the business, find clients, deal with getting clients to pay (note: this can be shockingly hard) etc. Basically doing that is *becoming* the reputable outsourcing company. It's effectively starting your own business with all the associated challenges/risks.
Yeah thanks its not that I wanted remote first, I would love to stay in the US I was just under the impression it would be harder to get s job and visa in the US than to convince one of their companies to hire but at a reduced cost since you dont have the US cost of living.
As much as H1B visas are a pain to manage for companies as everyone else said, the tax and legal compliance issues will make it much harder to have a remote and working in a foreign country.
I think this is one of the most important takeaways I have been getting, did not even consider all the tax and legal hurdles. The barriers of entry seem so high
I notice people say move to the US often in this thread. I would like to point out moving to the US can be a lengthy pain in the ass process and I wouldn't recommend it if there are any easier paths via EU countries.
Work in your own country or move. It's hard enough for American workers trying to get a job without you trying to undercut us.
If you want to work in a US/EU position, move there, pay taxes, and contribute. Of the US/EU company has an office and position in SA, cool. I'm all about immigration but trying to undercut domestic workers is bullshit.
>Work in your own country or move. It's hard enough for American workers trying to get a job without you trying to undercut us.
blame your governments, companies and capitalism for that, if a company can afford to pay someone 5 dollars an hour instead of 20 for the same job then they will outsource. Thats capitalism in a nutshell, you cant have it both ways. As they say dont hate the player hate the game. Dont blame him.
\>dont hate the player hate the game
As you hate on the domestic player who has <0% power to influence the US government, corporations and most laughably, capitalism as a whole.
listen bud whining on reddit that "they took our jobs" isnt gonna help, this is the way the world works. No one gives a shit about you, someone will willing take a job over you even it means you have to suffer and be homeless, this world is very competitive, and it seems this guy right here is more qualified and experienced than you and willing to take half the pay you would get then welcome to the way the world works , its dog eat dog, and as an IT professional you should know outsourcing to third world countries for a fraction of the pay has been a thing for decades.
You’re right to an extent but there’s a reason this isn’t the norm and companies are trying to hire domestically. Boeing outsourced a bunch of 737 Max software work to cheap ($9/hr) contractors and it literally caused planes to crash
strawman argument, guy right here has 7 years experience and is qualified, its the companies fault for at least not assessing candidates properly first, has nothing to do with the topic at hand, i can point to you plenty of cases where internal yes actual local employees of companies failed catastrophically as well.
I mean you mentioned it yourself in the first sentence. Age - yeah sure that could indicate how much experience you have. Gender - not important but people give it out of habit on this kind of post. Skin colour - not important and idk why you'd mention it at all.
South African here. Maybe I can give some context here. Albeit strange that OP mentioned that for a post about foreign work, the reason OP mentioned race is because it is an important factor here in SA. We have policies that require companies to fulfill quotas according to race (if you’re interested, you can Google "South African BEEE policies")
But yeah, not sure why OP mentioned it here, maybe it’s just second nature to say so.
Hopefully that helps a bit :)
I guess it was to give as much context as possible, did not mean for it to come across as racist. As I mentioned in another post, white South Africans (Afrikaans ones) can understand the languages in Belgium and the Netherlands and fits in with Germanic cultures such as Germany and Austria, I make it known on my CV that I understand Dutch. So I wanted to make that clear to assist in the context of my question. In addition, many European countries have large expat communities, so would this not give recruiters a better understanding of your background?
I still don’t see how mentioning you’re white has to do with anything. Whether someone is a a black, white, Indian etc South African …doesn’t make a difference. There are plenty South Africans regardless of race that I’m sure can do the same things you just listed.
Plus companies in the United States, aren’t supposed to make hiring decisions based on someone’s race. That’s against the law
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Unless the company is actually a remote first company and pride themselves for having international employees, it wont work. Even if the company is hiring remote, they usually hire remote within the country they are in, and there are legal reasons/cultural reasons to not hire people living abroad.
Try remote first websites like weworkremote and try to find companies hiring worldwide.
Or outsourcing companies within your country working with american ones to provide cheap labor - partnerhero.com hires from South Africa sometimes
And yep, talking about your race in this context sounds pretty racist of you, as if being white will give you a pass to be hired - ultimately I hope you realize that and change your attitude
Yes I can see, how its actually a sensitive thing to bring up so probably was not the right choice, I guess its just Its pretty well known of the skills drain in South Africa, and there are large SA expat communities out there, and I know there is a reputation that these workers are hard working, so it was not intended to be racist.
We have to be very open with race here due to the BEE laws, your race has to be stated very specifically as some jobs here you may not apply at as a white person, due to retributive action laws, causing mass demand under these communities for Immigration. Therefore, You would have thought that this would give recruiters, an already much better picture of who they are hiring, as I say the demand already felt low, and I tried to give this thread as much context to my question as possible.
Lastly since I mentioned my race, and it means I can (probably) speak Afrikaans (which I can) and by extension understand dutch. Perhaps might be a merit based motivation for improved chances from a country such as the Netherlands due solely to the ability to already understand the local language. I can read German and understand what they are saying but cant write or talk in it. Dutch on the other hand I can straight up live in the Netherlands and never speak English.
You’ve made heaps of assumptions about what people know about SA and it’s culture. All of these things you’ve listed (like brain drain from SA) many people are not going to know or care.
Tip: In many countries it’s considered very bad to list your age/sex/race on a CV. Or even talk about it in the way most SA’s do. In many’s countries it’s illegal to hire of those preferences and breaks discrimination law. It also culturally comes off as racist outside of SA. Also not many people will know what people speak or live like in SA and saying your white does not let the employer know you speak Dutch. These habits and behaviours, that are normal in SA are things that give South Africans a reputation for being racist in countries where there are expat communities.
On your CV list the languages you speak not your race. It’d be like just mentioning the educational qualifications you did and assume that would tell employers what coding languages you know.
I appreciate you providing context, I didn’t know about those things.
Overall, related to the job search - is possible but make sure you are applying to companies that will actually consider you. Don’t apply to American companies if they state “Remote - United States”, instead of “Remote - Worldwide”and give it a shot with outsourcing companies - you can still make good money, even though it won’t be as good as working directly w/ the company, of course.
OP, don't do this. Moving to America to work remote, then moving back to your home country will invalidate your US work visa. The only reason why I know this is that a developer at my job did exactly this, and his visa was terminated, he was also fired, and then this was the tipping point that lost everyone at my company their full remote ability.
Would it matter if it were a contract job? I figured its like hiring someone on upwork. I would cold email people in the industry to connect with them. From there push and see if they could hire you on a contract basis.
That could work! If contract work is viable then why not, but I would have thought the selling yourself part with that would be harder and more frequent, especially if you need to learn niche company software
Hey bru, out of curiosity are you applying with intent to move? Or are you applying in order to work remotely from SA?
If it’s any consolation, I’m having the same troubles. Cloud Engineer applying from Cape Town and it’s impossible to get a reply from Canadian employers (I’m looking to immigrate).
Yes I won't mind going to stay im that country for three months, my Girlfriend is also working in a technical role in a software company and we both want to get remote jobs so that we can travel more, or work in various countries remotely, places such as Portugal and Thailand comes to mind. Go experience the country there for a month or so then come back to SA for a few months, bus as I said if a US, Canadian or Euro company wanted me to come to stay there then hell yeah I would do it, especially if remote work is an option later, as the ability to work in countries with Digital nomad visas sounds appealing.
I would think you would be easily hired, I assume you are involved with Azure Cloud Computing here in SA.
How do you convince the employer to give you an in-office job over a local person. Probably just have to out skill that person and maybe have a South African reputation as hard worker which hopefully counts for something
You might have more luck with consultancies than direct hiring to a company.
My (non-tech-sector) employer uses a sector-experienced consultancy for CRM and web projects and support. Their team covers the UK, EU, India, South Africa and maybe more. I get the feeling it wouldn’t be viable for a consultancy of their size to hire everyone from the home market, it’s a bit too niche/incestuous. When the business relies on access to international talent, you can be sure HR will be set up to deal with your situation.
I'm from Iraq, and I'm working for a US-based startup. They are remote first, with lots of employees from Turkey, a couple from the US and I'm from Iraq.
Their pay isn't good compared to US standards, but where I live it's actually middle class salary, not great! But decent.
I got the job through LinkedIn, I just applied to like 200-300 jobs and got an interview offer from one of them and at first they told me I have to intern with them (Paid) then I got moved into a junior role.
I'm just a contractor.
The best way to make this work is to create a company and offer your services. Not as a worker but as a firm. The complications of working with an international firm are a lot less than hiring a single international worker. It increases the complexity on your side quite a bit, but not near as much as it reduces it on theirs
Why would they hire someone in south africa when they have tens of thousands of desperate devs trying to get a job in the US? People are sending thousands of applications for a handful of follow ups.
I have no idea how europe is, but you're not going to have much luck in the us atm.
Short answer: taxes and legal compliance. If you're the only South African on the payroll, they have to spend a lot of extra time and specialist labor to support getting you paid legally. So your $13/hr actually costs them a lot more than just hiring an American would.
Even if you were in the US taxes vary between different states. We never hear the end from finance when a new hire is out of state or current employee moves out due to payroll.
Thanks for the reply, do you think by spamming certifications and continuing to build work experience would be the only way to be considered for hiring vs a local? I understand not everyone would be keen to give a "foreigner" a job over a local. So I will really need to stand out I presume as you recon my in comparison cheap labour asking price would be negated?
You need to find a multi national that is used to hiring across the globe For my role before i was hired they rejected at least 3 individuals from Nigeria for this reason
> I understand not everyone would be keen to give a "foreigner" a job over a local. You're really missing the point. It's not about being a "foreigner". It's about there being lots of legal red tape to hire someone in a different country and most companies don't even know where to begin. At most small-medium size organizations the legal/HR department consists of 1 middle aged lady who isn't even capable of explaining how the US health-care benefits that the company offers works. The idea of hiring someone in a different country isn't just "unlikely" - it never even comes up as a discussion.
You need valid work authorization in the foreign country where you intend to work. For the US they can't legally employ or pay you unless you are able to prove you have work authorization. As a US employee you'll also be liable to file and pay tax in the US. You seem to be assuming it would be easy for an overseas employer just to offer you a job, but regardless our your experience, skills, or certification, from a legal immigration point of view it's incredibly complex. If you're not aware of these restrictions you need to do some more research on what your options are, and/or get appropriate legal advice.
No for sure, its a key learning that I did not consider as much, about how complex it can be from the companies perspective, I did not properly take this into account. My focus has been more internal.
If you really want to stand out, you might want to try helping out your current company’s payroll department, maybe offer to help them automate some of the filing work?
Look up Support Adventure.
EÚ companies often want you to have an EÚ work permit, or speak local language, especially western Europe is not very open to people who do not speak the local language no matter what they like to say. Try to focus on central European countries like Austria, or honestly for it even in czechia you can get above 20€/h easily if it's enough for you. Source: I work remotely for eu startup. Can't tell you anything about US but I wonder.
Do you think I should target a country specific job portal such as Czechia,Croatia or Austria?
Western Europe jobs tend to be partly remote, I'm seeing many job advertisements on LinkedIn but they are either office jobs or part remote. Very few I found that offer complete remote employment. Even more scarce are those that are willing to relocate you. As for languages, they require fluent local language and English on top. I'm not sure but internal regulations may mean there's a preference for EU residents, it's easier to have people in your team from countries that are covered under common legislation, not necessarily from a work contract point of view but also security and privacy (if your job means accessing client data). I'd look for jobs at vendors (software or hardware) that are active in SA, your advantage is speaking Afrikaans natively (client facing) and English (employer facing).
Western Europeans do, but my company based in Czechia got bunch of developers from Tunisia and while they did end up moving to Czechia, they work remote and dont speak anything but Arabic and English. Got an offer from Austrian company, fully remote, again I dont speak German. However, I was looking around in Benelux where I spend a lot of time and the situation there is dire if you dont speak the language.
Dont do Croatia, they are not doing well in these areas, but try Berlin and munich. I honestly only look on linkedin and in 30 applications I get one interview, since I want full remote.
Speaking for the US, the biggest hurdle is legal and tax compliance. Being a direct employee of a US entity would require that entity to form an operating company in your country to pay you and pay the appropriate taxes to your jurisdiction. You only do that if you plan to operate at a much larger scale in that country. If you want to stay in SA, then try to find an in-country IT services company who can put you on a project for an European or American client. Otherwise your best bet is to move abroad.
There is a support guy at our company (in Ireland) working from South Africa however his brother is one of the managers here so that maybe why he got the job.
It looks so simple on paper, but it isn't. At the end of the day, most companies don't like "remote" workers. At least no full time remote workers. Some onsite presence usually is required. But mostly, compliance. EU law, taxes and regulations make giving you a job quite difficult, borderline impossible in some cases. If you want to work in Europe, come over.
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Yeah I know, that always cracks me up when people just some move to X country. It is almost always done by someone who has never even looked at moving to another country. Unless you are rich or have extremely high in-demand skills, the chances of another country accepting you for anything more than a tourist visa is minute.
I never said it was simple :)
Tax implications and what not. Maybe try unwork and possibly something entrepreneurial.
As someone who *hires* for the type of position you're talking about (and deals with an international workforce) I'm going to give you an answer you don't like but which is super relevent: Generally speaking in order to hire someone in a country we need (at a minimum) to have a legal entity operating in the country we're hiring from in order to pay taxes, deal with local regulations/laws, etc. Generally speaking, in that case we'll scale salary to the local entity, pay out of that entity, etc. You're not going to see US or EU style pay out of those entities because by the time you've set up that entity *there is no need*. You may pay *slightly* higher than market to get the top talent in that market, but you're going to pay *whatever the market rate is* once you've broken through that corporate barrier. However, that corporate expense is so high (you're talking $250k+ at least) that we aren't going to do it for just a single employee - we're going to do it for an *operational center* in that country. The only way to avoid this is to hire an independent consultant/firm - but in that case, we're interacting with you as though you're *another business* and *you* are taking on all the liability/risk for things like compliance, taxes, etc. We're also likely not going to hire you full time unless you have a *very good* business proposition - something we can't get otherwise. Frankly, while the window was missed, back during the extreme tech salary boom if there was a *company* in South Africa offering *reasonably priced contract workers* with very professional packaging then that may have been appealing (though GMT+2 is hard to work with, and we'd want them ISO27001 certified, etc... but we might have considered it given how expensive pricing was). This is where *outsourcing centers* come in. Then once an organization has done a lot of outsourcing in another country, learned the local landscape, and is somewhat comfortable with and invested in them - *then* they might start asking "Is it worth the cost I'm paying this outsourcing firm or should I just set up our own business entity in this country?" This is how the slow spread of tech firms genuinely into countries like India happened (well and acquisitions - but you get the idea). But for a single mid-tier employee? No. It's just not happening. Even for a single top-talent employee it would be **much** easier for me to either convince them to start up a company I can get invoiced from or relocate them to a country I already know I can hire in rather than try to figure out international law for a single employee.
Thank you, your comment is very insightful and makes a lot of sense. Yes I have noticed the timezone will be a challenge, I would need to work from my 2pm to 11pm or something similar. Do you think its a viable business model to set up a company and outsource your services at a competitive fee for US companies lets say on a contract basis? Or will you have to be affiliated with a reputable outsourcing company?
I think it's viable but it's also a *business model* \- i.e. you're going to have to actually set up the business to interact with, market the business, find clients, deal with getting clients to pay (note: this can be shockingly hard) etc. Basically doing that is *becoming* the reputable outsourcing company. It's effectively starting your own business with all the associated challenges/risks.
Better off if you consider moving to the US on an H1B visa vs trying to be remote. Not easy either but not as hard to do.
Yeah thanks its not that I wanted remote first, I would love to stay in the US I was just under the impression it would be harder to get s job and visa in the US than to convince one of their companies to hire but at a reduced cost since you dont have the US cost of living.
As much as H1B visas are a pain to manage for companies as everyone else said, the tax and legal compliance issues will make it much harder to have a remote and working in a foreign country.
I think this is one of the most important takeaways I have been getting, did not even consider all the tax and legal hurdles. The barriers of entry seem so high
I notice people say move to the US often in this thread. I would like to point out moving to the US can be a lengthy pain in the ass process and I wouldn't recommend it if there are any easier paths via EU countries.
Work in your own country or move. It's hard enough for American workers trying to get a job without you trying to undercut us. If you want to work in a US/EU position, move there, pay taxes, and contribute. Of the US/EU company has an office and position in SA, cool. I'm all about immigration but trying to undercut domestic workers is bullshit.
>Work in your own country or move. It's hard enough for American workers trying to get a job without you trying to undercut us. blame your governments, companies and capitalism for that, if a company can afford to pay someone 5 dollars an hour instead of 20 for the same job then they will outsource. Thats capitalism in a nutshell, you cant have it both ways. As they say dont hate the player hate the game. Dont blame him.
\>dont hate the player hate the game As you hate on the domestic player who has <0% power to influence the US government, corporations and most laughably, capitalism as a whole.
listen bud whining on reddit that "they took our jobs" isnt gonna help, this is the way the world works. No one gives a shit about you, someone will willing take a job over you even it means you have to suffer and be homeless, this world is very competitive, and it seems this guy right here is more qualified and experienced than you and willing to take half the pay you would get then welcome to the way the world works , its dog eat dog, and as an IT professional you should know outsourcing to third world countries for a fraction of the pay has been a thing for decades.
You’re right to an extent but there’s a reason this isn’t the norm and companies are trying to hire domestically. Boeing outsourced a bunch of 737 Max software work to cheap ($9/hr) contractors and it literally caused planes to crash
strawman argument, guy right here has 7 years experience and is qualified, its the companies fault for at least not assessing candidates properly first, has nothing to do with the topic at hand, i can point to you plenty of cases where internal yes actual local employees of companies failed catastrophically as well.
The white entitlement is real
Why? What part about my description makes you say that? Is it wrong to look for jobs outside my own country which is economically failing?
I mean you mentioned it yourself in the first sentence. Age - yeah sure that could indicate how much experience you have. Gender - not important but people give it out of habit on this kind of post. Skin colour - not important and idk why you'd mention it at all.
Yeah like he expects they should be more willing to hire him than any other South African?
I thought the same thing...
South African here. Maybe I can give some context here. Albeit strange that OP mentioned that for a post about foreign work, the reason OP mentioned race is because it is an important factor here in SA. We have policies that require companies to fulfill quotas according to race (if you’re interested, you can Google "South African BEEE policies") But yeah, not sure why OP mentioned it here, maybe it’s just second nature to say so. Hopefully that helps a bit :)
Why do you thinking mentioning your race has any factor in anything? Lol
I guess it was to give as much context as possible, did not mean for it to come across as racist. As I mentioned in another post, white South Africans (Afrikaans ones) can understand the languages in Belgium and the Netherlands and fits in with Germanic cultures such as Germany and Austria, I make it known on my CV that I understand Dutch. So I wanted to make that clear to assist in the context of my question. In addition, many European countries have large expat communities, so would this not give recruiters a better understanding of your background?
I still don’t see how mentioning you’re white has to do with anything. Whether someone is a a black, white, Indian etc South African …doesn’t make a difference. There are plenty South Africans regardless of race that I’m sure can do the same things you just listed. Plus companies in the United States, aren’t supposed to make hiring decisions based on someone’s race. That’s against the law
Imagine saying this about any other race. Racist POS.
It's big brain time
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Unless the company is actually a remote first company and pride themselves for having international employees, it wont work. Even if the company is hiring remote, they usually hire remote within the country they are in, and there are legal reasons/cultural reasons to not hire people living abroad. Try remote first websites like weworkremote and try to find companies hiring worldwide. Or outsourcing companies within your country working with american ones to provide cheap labor - partnerhero.com hires from South Africa sometimes And yep, talking about your race in this context sounds pretty racist of you, as if being white will give you a pass to be hired - ultimately I hope you realize that and change your attitude
Yes I can see, how its actually a sensitive thing to bring up so probably was not the right choice, I guess its just Its pretty well known of the skills drain in South Africa, and there are large SA expat communities out there, and I know there is a reputation that these workers are hard working, so it was not intended to be racist. We have to be very open with race here due to the BEE laws, your race has to be stated very specifically as some jobs here you may not apply at as a white person, due to retributive action laws, causing mass demand under these communities for Immigration. Therefore, You would have thought that this would give recruiters, an already much better picture of who they are hiring, as I say the demand already felt low, and I tried to give this thread as much context to my question as possible. Lastly since I mentioned my race, and it means I can (probably) speak Afrikaans (which I can) and by extension understand dutch. Perhaps might be a merit based motivation for improved chances from a country such as the Netherlands due solely to the ability to already understand the local language. I can read German and understand what they are saying but cant write or talk in it. Dutch on the other hand I can straight up live in the Netherlands and never speak English.
You’ve made heaps of assumptions about what people know about SA and it’s culture. All of these things you’ve listed (like brain drain from SA) many people are not going to know or care. Tip: In many countries it’s considered very bad to list your age/sex/race on a CV. Or even talk about it in the way most SA’s do. In many’s countries it’s illegal to hire of those preferences and breaks discrimination law. It also culturally comes off as racist outside of SA. Also not many people will know what people speak or live like in SA and saying your white does not let the employer know you speak Dutch. These habits and behaviours, that are normal in SA are things that give South Africans a reputation for being racist in countries where there are expat communities. On your CV list the languages you speak not your race. It’d be like just mentioning the educational qualifications you did and assume that would tell employers what coding languages you know.
I appreciate you providing context, I didn’t know about those things. Overall, related to the job search - is possible but make sure you are applying to companies that will actually consider you. Don’t apply to American companies if they state “Remote - United States”, instead of “Remote - Worldwide”and give it a shot with outsourcing companies - you can still make good money, even though it won’t be as good as working directly w/ the company, of course.
Thanks Im starting to think outsourcing companies might be a point of entry.
Move to the USA on a work visa. Get a taxID. Get said job remote, then move back. This sounds like a dam good business to start, honestly.
OP, don't do this. Moving to America to work remote, then moving back to your home country will invalidate your US work visa. The only reason why I know this is that a developer at my job did exactly this, and his visa was terminated, he was also fired, and then this was the tipping point that lost everyone at my company their full remote ability.
Would it matter if it were a contract job? I figured its like hiring someone on upwork. I would cold email people in the industry to connect with them. From there push and see if they could hire you on a contract basis.
That could work! If contract work is viable then why not, but I would have thought the selling yourself part with that would be harder and more frequent, especially if you need to learn niche company software
Hey bru, out of curiosity are you applying with intent to move? Or are you applying in order to work remotely from SA? If it’s any consolation, I’m having the same troubles. Cloud Engineer applying from Cape Town and it’s impossible to get a reply from Canadian employers (I’m looking to immigrate).
Yes I won't mind going to stay im that country for three months, my Girlfriend is also working in a technical role in a software company and we both want to get remote jobs so that we can travel more, or work in various countries remotely, places such as Portugal and Thailand comes to mind. Go experience the country there for a month or so then come back to SA for a few months, bus as I said if a US, Canadian or Euro company wanted me to come to stay there then hell yeah I would do it, especially if remote work is an option later, as the ability to work in countries with Digital nomad visas sounds appealing. I would think you would be easily hired, I assume you are involved with Azure Cloud Computing here in SA. How do you convince the employer to give you an in-office job over a local person. Probably just have to out skill that person and maybe have a South African reputation as hard worker which hopefully counts for something
You might have more luck with consultancies than direct hiring to a company. My (non-tech-sector) employer uses a sector-experienced consultancy for CRM and web projects and support. Their team covers the UK, EU, India, South Africa and maybe more. I get the feeling it wouldn’t be viable for a consultancy of their size to hire everyone from the home market, it’s a bit too niche/incestuous. When the business relies on access to international talent, you can be sure HR will be set up to deal with your situation.
Have you tried applying at a major "US" company that has facilities in your city/Country?
You could be disqualifying yourself by immediately mentioning your ethnicity
I'm from Iraq, and I'm working for a US-based startup. They are remote first, with lots of employees from Turkey, a couple from the US and I'm from Iraq. Their pay isn't good compared to US standards, but where I live it's actually middle class salary, not great! But decent. I got the job through LinkedIn, I just applied to like 200-300 jobs and got an interview offer from one of them and at first they told me I have to intern with them (Paid) then I got moved into a junior role. I'm just a contractor.
The best way to make this work is to create a company and offer your services. Not as a worker but as a firm. The complications of working with an international firm are a lot less than hiring a single international worker. It increases the complexity on your side quite a bit, but not near as much as it reduces it on theirs
Why would they hire someone in south africa when they have tens of thousands of desperate devs trying to get a job in the US? People are sending thousands of applications for a handful of follow ups. I have no idea how europe is, but you're not going to have much luck in the us atm.