> If your work saves $500k+ in annual costs, you're surely worth the price.
This is only half of the story, though.
The real question is whether or not the company can accomplish the same thing at similar quality in a similar timeframe by hiring someone with a lower compensation request.
The value you produce for a company sets the ceiling for your compensation, but not the floor. The floor is set by market rate compensation that other developers are asking for the same job. Developers also tend to forget that the features they code and ship require input from a lot of other people along the way: Managers to manage it, QA to test it, security team to review it, devops to help monitor it, designers to design it, and so on. If you look at a single feature, estimate the revenue, and then assign 100% of that upside to your own work then an experienced hiring manager is just going to roll their eyes at the hubris.
What you really need is an ability to show that you, specifically, have a track record of accomplishing these things better, faster, and with less headaches than the other people applying for the job. A track record of professionalism, upward movement through notable companies, and references helps greatly.
The key isn’t just to show that you can do these things. It’s to show that the company will benefit significantly by hiring you, at a premium, relative to hiring any one of the tens or hundreds of average developers they can find who will do similar work for less. The ideal highly paid candidate is one who can show a track record of self-managing and big picture thinking as much as possible. If I’m paying someone a premium salary, I expect they will require less hands-on management time and will streamline their interactions with the rest of the team, saving us both time and money. Find a way to show that in the interview.
In short, they save me time and effort because I don't need to babysit them where cheaper and less experienced developers would need my planning and guidance.
If you join a company in a position to impact the productivity of the entire engineering org, then getting $250k base and full-time remote is reality.
Getting an IC position at those comp levels is far more difficult.
In my experience you shouldn't need to do this. In fact, I suspect doing this creates both a taxation and legal nightmare.
You should have a registered company (or any other trading entity) so you can bill as an independent contractor. However, it should be registered in your country of residence. Services like Deel exist specifically to facilitate this sort of arrangement, it's a breeze.
If you register a company in the US, you can't just arbitrarily transfer the money to yourself internationally. You'd need to pay yourself as an international independent contractor anyway. Except then you create legal issues, since there are likely legal issues with a company you run hiring another company you run. Additionally, by operating two companies, you're presumably filing two company tax returns, and paying yearly registration fees for two companies.
Have worked with both arrangements. Much easier to deal with a US based LLC than anything that is managing payroll. For the contractor the LLC arrangement may end up being better, too because at least in the US corporations pay tax in arrears, and individuals have money withheld in advance.
> Except then you create legal issues, since there are likely legal issues with a company you run hiring another company you run.
For a simple business, this is actually simple (at least the US part of it). Revenue - Cost yields a very modest profit in the US so there's probably not going to be a lot of tax liability. Not sure what the nightmare is. For the group I used, their books were super simple in the US, and equally simple at home.
However, you need to pay tax in your country of residence still. You also need to file with the IRS for the corp indicating zero profit. Plus US registration fees.
You also need to maintain a legal paper trail i.e. the money coming into the US corp needs to be paid out to an international company anyway.
Admittedly, we're based in Australia, and there are Australia-US tax treaties that make the whole arrangement a bit simpler.
I've worked for american startups, and the contract/invoicing was through them
remote.com is another such similar service.
By local, do you mean a US-based company (eg delaware), or local to where you are?
Now, whether you can get around this by being fully remote and effectively saying "no, CaliCorp came to Nevada to do business with me, not the other way around" -- that's an interesting question.
The best advice to "what state should I form my LLC in?" is: - IF you live in the US: form in the state you live in (to avoid the foreign qualification in another state). - IF you don't live in the US: you can choose any state. The most popular states we see at doola are Delaware and Wyoming but Wyoming is the most popular due to the lower ongoing annual fees ($50 to WY vs $300 to DE) and Wyoming has demonstrated it's willingness to innovate when it comes to regulation (like the DAO LLC legislation passed on 7/1/21.)
For more on DAOs check out this blog post: https://www.doola.com/blog/what-is-a-dao-llc-your-complete-g...)
And for a complete answer to "Best state to form an LLC in" check out this blog post: https://www.doola.com/blog/what-is-the-best-state-to-form-my...
As long as your corporate residency is in check, you file annual reports and pay taxes you are 100% in the clear.
As to justifying the cost for our plan, if you factor in the cost of having a lawyer/CPA do your IRS filings (there can be heavy fines up to $25K for not filing or incorrectly filing form 5472 https://www.doola.com/blog/filing-requirements-for-foreign-o...) and certain CPAs can charge well upwards of $1000 for this filing alone + your annual report with the state + registered agent, US address, our entire perks and rewards database (https://www.doola.com/rewards), and access to us on a monthly bases for free tax consultations, LLC amendments etc, we've heard there is lots of value BUT we are always on the lookout to add more and as a little sneak peek, stay tuned for some bookkeeping, payroll + banking stuff we have in the works (note we can help with all three of these things now but we do it through partners, we have some ideas to more tightly integrate / embed this in to our offering to provide even more value and a better customer experience).
They take advantage of people that have an initial negative reaction to doing anything that sounds "legal-y" but really all they are doing is submitting 2 forms (certificate of organization with the state, application for EIN with IRS), giving you some template document for an operating agreement, and then once a year filing a one-page form to keep the company in good standing. If you're paying more than $100 for this, you're being taken for a ride.
EIN is free. You can do all above, in less than 30 minutes.
Not to defend, atlas, or this or any other service, but if they act as an agent or offer a virtual address, they may be why the cost is high. You do need a physical office address, even if it's a virtual office, for service, and paperwork.
You should be able to find the agency/agency of incorporation for the state - https://corp.delaware.gov/howtoform/ this is for Delaware, and right there #2 is registered agent.
Depending who you go to for virtual office, it may be $50-200/month.
Now, is it a business idea to offer this service yourself, rent a space, and also have an accountant, - yes.
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But it's pretty cheap in general, other countries in the world, the cost of doing business for this meta/paperwork is double or triple.
In Indonesia, Doing a PT. PMA, sort of similar to a LLC, minimum setup cost is about $4000, but it nets you a visa.
Japan, requires $50,000 fiat, getting a hanko - and while it gets you a visa, is much more complicated.
We work with many different banking and payment partners (https://www.doola.com/rewards) and not only help folks go from 0 -> bank account but also keep the LLC compliant in the background (annual compliance, IRS tax filings, and more!)
edit: They also helped me open a Mercury bank account
To be clear, in the US, that would also limit dealing with any LLC who's beneficial ownership is sanctioned.
I've also talked to a bunch of people who have done contract work for US companies, and they all just have a business registered in their home country.
Noone wants to be subject to US taxation voluntarily.
This has to be one of the top ten best pieces of advice I have seen on HN.
If your work improves the productivity of 100+ other people, you're surely worth the price.
If your work saves $500k+ in annual costs, you're surely worth the price.
If hiring you cripples key competitors, you're surely worth the price.
If you can enable new revenues streams through knowledge that only you have, you're surely worth the price.
If hiring you does not increase productivity, reduce costs, fend off competition, or bring in more revenue, then you'll be fighting an uphill battle to justify that salary. But if you do, talk about it. People gossip and those companies who have the biggest multiplier to benefit off your work will be working hard to reach you.
In my opinion, remote or not is less important than you think. The key decisions will be based on whether hiring you at that price is a net positive for the company or not.
EDIT: And if you're outside of the US, set up a local LLC so that US-based companies can treat you like an independent contracting business. That'll make it much easier to hire you across borders. And at that price, you can surely afford the $1000 annually for a tax advisor retainer.