The wide range of remote salaries
Hey,
I'm Sergio Pereira, and this is the Remote Work newsletter
Last week, I shared my thoughts that Return-to-Office mandates from companies are often a disguised (and cheaper) way to do layoffs. And especially, I told you all how to avoid being in such a fragile position with your employer.
Today let's talk about how remote salaries differ around the world, especially for Software Engineers. Every time I write about this topic it goes quite viral on social media, such as Linkedin.
The main attention grabber is the obvious fact that a Software Engineer in the US earns more than a similar Software Engineer anywhere else on Earth. A US Engineer earns, roughly:
• 2.5x more than one in France
• 4x more than one in Brazil
• 7x more than one in India
• 10x more than one in Nigeria
• 20x more than one in Pakistan
And similar distributions are to expect in other digital roles that can be done across the internet, beyond Software Development. It's no wonder that most digital workers want to work remotely for a US company, and reap such a high salary themselves.
However, there's always intense debate about this key question:
• If most US companies try to lowball candidates overseas, how can people in those countries negotiate up and earn those high US salaries?
Let me start by stating that I've done exactly that. Since 2016 I've worked remotely for US startup earning US salaries. Of course I started with a "low salary" for US standards (that was my entry way), and I grew from there. All while working remote from Portugal, my home country.
So let me give you some key tips to increase your value perception towards US companies, so you move up in the pay scale:
1/ Write online about your knowledge
I can't say this enough. I hosted a couple sessions about this this exact topic at the Remote Jobs Braintrust community, since this is my main source of opportunities as a Fractional CTO.
If you want to move away from your local low wages, you must make your location irrelevant for future employers. This is very tough to do when you apply to a job, because you'll be competing with other candidates and it's a race to the bottom.
By writing your knowledge online, future employers start following you, learning from you, and eventually they'll reach out to hire "you". This is a situation where you have very little competition, your local cost of living is irrelevant, and you have high negotiation leverage.
In fact, most inbound messages I get from clients that want to hire me as their Fractional CTO start with something like "I've been following you for several months...".
2/ Become world class at a your niche job/stack
This is obviously easier said than done. Many companies pay location-indexed salaries, and that means life-changing salaries for 99% of the people around the world.
If you're applying to these roles, you should be prepared for fierce competition. Technical rounds can be quite drilling, and you must bring solid experience plus some interview-specific preparation.
If you see companies like Gumroad, who pay over $200k/year to Software Engineers. They got 2000+ applicants in 48 hours, and 100 moved on to technical rounds. This type of role if for the absolute best talent in the world, and if you check Gumroad's employees they are indeed spread around the world working remotely and earning these high salaries. So, again, please know that it's possible.
3/ Explore pockets of low competition
Apply for jobs that pay well but for some reason don't get so much interest or visibility.
Some heuristics:
• Jobs that aren't published on job boards will get only the few applicants that visit the company's careers page. JobsCopilot.ai is great for these.
• Jobs mentioned in private communities or social posts with low engagement. These haven't yet been published anywhere, so they'll have very few applicants.
• Jobs in niche job boards, such as vertical "tech stack" job boards, or niche industry job boards. These will have only the applicants that visit those niche websites.
• Jobs in popular job boards that have "low salaries" in popular job boards, don't get as many applicants from US/UK/etc. Still a $60k or $80k/year job is already amazing for many applicants around the world.
• "Gigs" posted on freelance websites that mention full time availability get mostly "freelancer" applicants who aren't available for full time commitment. It's easier to standout.
I've built my career working for early stage startups, and I see these opportunities very often. Founders who don't know better will have the budget to pay, but might not know the channels where to find such hundreds or thousands of applicants. As a candidate, if you learn how to spot those, and you'll be in luck.
If you're struggling with finding such high paying remote jobs, reply this email with your questions and I'll try to help you out.
If you're an active customer of JobsCopilot, keep an eye on your email. I'll send you all an exclusive email in the next few days with early access to the Auto Apply functionality. We'll finally get to the vision of "getting job interviews scheduled while you sleep", and I'm very excited to get us there. I'll continue dog-fooding myself, and be a power user of my own product.
Thanks for reading this newsletter until the end. You can read all past editions here. Make sure to share it with your friends and colleagues so they can read it too.
If you're interested in sponsoring this newsletter, send me an email or DM.
See you next Friday,
Sergio Pereira,
Startup CTO & Remote Work Lover