Contractor, in all of the cases. Employment is not possible if the company does not have a legal entity in Poland, and they were all startups with only presence being in the US. I think they also like having foreign contractors, because they pay them less than they would US employes, but the contractors have zero benefits or other rights. (That may be different for late-stage startups BTW when the company wants to get acquired, because I imagine the intellectual rights aspect of the international contracts may raise some eyebrows during the due diligence.)

There are employers of record that will hire employees on a company’s behalf through a local entity when the company doesn’t have their own. I’m currently employed through Deel, for example.

I’m on the other side of Deel as an employer. How do you like working with them as an employee? I want to make sure the experience is great for those I’m paying.

I’m only one week of work in. It’s fine so far: I got paid on time, benefits are okay.

The biggest problem for me were in the on-boarding around ID. I provided a driver’s licence plus SIN, which is sufficient proof of identity and eligibility to work in Canada. A regular employer would only need the SIN, and I understand a company like Deel would also need to verify identity since they hadn’t actually met me.

But, no, apparently they require proof of citizenship (for citizens anyway), which no regular employer needs. For that you need to provide a “passport or national ID”… but Canada has no national ID system, only passports, and my passport is expired (because COVID). They had to make an exception for me to accept an expired passport.

It worked out okay in the end but it was frustrating and confusing for about two weeks, during which I had paused my job search and I was worried I’d have to walk away from a good offer if they couldn’t sort it out.

So in the end I think it’ll be okay, but I’d talk to your own employees, especially new ones, and make sure they don’t get caught up in some bureaucratic snag.

I will hijack the question with another question. I have seen a lot of discussion about Deel and Remote.com but I am not clear how this is initiated.

Did you just advertise the position worldwide and then let Deel sort the details out with candidates abroad? Or did your employee propose to use Deel at some point in the hiring process and you agreed to it?

I use Deel to streamline logistics with folks I have an existing relationship with, and was previously using wires or TransferWise to provide payouts. Have not advertised remote roles using the platform yet.

It's wonderful to see this. I hope your employees appreciate you!

Not the other guy, but for me majority do B2B where you are a contractor (VASTLY, vastly preferential taxation in Poland - 12% flat revenue tax + health insurance), some insist on employer of record (effective tax nearing 30% + you have to pay for retirement you are never getting).