R13 · Part 4 · The offer
Working remotely for a company abroad
A remote role for a company abroad is a different job, hired differently, paid in a different currency, and employing you through a structure most candidates have never heard of. Everything else in this book assumes an Indian employer and an Indian offer letter. This round is what changes when neither is true — and if you already have remote work behind you, this is the market where that history stops being an objection and starts being the qualification.
- product
- saas
- agency
- service (less often)
Everything open, top to bottom.
07On this page
| The Indian loop | The global remote loop |
|---|---|
| Live rounds, back to back, often in one day | Spread over weeks, asynchronous, more of it written |
| Whiteboard or shared editor with someone watching | A take-home you do alone, then a call about it |
| Screening on CTC and notice period | Screening on timezone overlap and written English |
| Culture fit judged in a room | Judged on how you write — the application form is the first test |
| Offer in CTC, one number | Offer in USD or EUR, and an employment structure you have to understand |
The written application is the first round.
What they are really testingWhether you can write. In a company where nobody sits near you, writing is the job.
Remote-first companies — GitLab, Automattic, Zapier, Doist, and most of the small SaaS firms hiring from India — screen on a written application before anyone speaks to you. It is three to five questions, answered in a box, and it eliminates most candidates.
What they are reading for:
- Structure. A short answer with a point, not a paragraph that arrives at one.
- Specifics. The same rule as every other round in this book — numbers, names, what you personally did.
- Whether you answered the question asked. A shocking number of applications do not.
Write it in an editor, not in the box. Read it once out loud. Keep each answer under 200 words unless they ask for more.
Pasting your resume summary into a written application. They already have the resume; the form exists to see whether you can think in writing.
If you have already worked remotely, that is the single strongest line you have here, and it is worth stating plainly: you have already done this job in this shape. In an Indian office loop the same fact is an objection to defend (R1, R11). Same fact, opposite sign — which is worth knowing when you decide which market to spend your weeks on.
"What is your timezone overlap?"
What they are really testingThe only hard constraint in remote hiring. Everything else is negotiable; this is not.
Companies advertise a required overlap and mean it. From IST:
- Europe (CET) — 3.5–4.5 hours behind. An IST afternoon and evening covers their morning comfortably. This is the easiest market from India and where most of the realistic roles are.
- UK — 4.5–5.5 hours behind. Same as above, slightly later.
- US East — 9.5–10.5 hours behind. Their 9am is your 6.30pm. Four hours of overlap means working until 10pm.
- US West — 12.5–13.5 hours behind. Real overlap means nights. Companies hiring from India for Pacific hours either want async only, or they want your evenings and should say so.
Answer with a specific window you will actually keep, not the widest one you could survive. The people who burn out of remote roles in six months are the ones who agreed to a window they could not hold.
I am in IST, so I overlap comfortably with European hours — I can hold 2pm to 10pm IST as core hours, which is most of a CET working day. For US Eastern I can do a two to three hour overlap in my evening, and I would want the rest of the collaboration to be async.
Saying "I am flexible with timezones" to a US West company. You are agreeing to permanent night shifts, and both of you will find out in month three.
- Which hours are your core hours?
- Are you comfortable with occasional late calls?
- How do you handle being the only person online?
How they will actually employ you — and why it matters
What they are really testingNothing. But getting this wrong costs you money and occasionally legality.
A foreign company cannot simply put an Indian resident on its payroll. There are three structures, and they are not equivalent:
- Employer of Record (Deel, Remote.com, Velocity, Multiplier). The EOR is your legal employer in India; the company pays the EOR. You get an Indian employment contract, TDS deducted, PF if applicable, paid leave, and Form 16. Cleanest option and increasingly the default. You are an employee, with employee protections.
- Independent contractor. You invoice monthly, they pay into your bank. No TDS deducted, no PF, no paid leave, no notice protection. You handle advance tax quarterly, and if your receipts cross ₹20 lakh you need GST registration — export of services is zero-rated but you still have to file, and you will need a LUT to avoid paying and reclaiming. Your bank will ask for purpose codes and issue FIRCs for inward remittance.
- Indian subsidiary. The company has an Indian entity and you are a normal Indian employee of it. Same as any local job, with a foreign parent.
Accepting "we will just transfer the money each month" with no contract, no EOR and no invoice trail. Nothing about that is enforceable, and the money arriving without a purpose code is a problem you get to explain later.
Ask which one it is on the first call. "Would I be engaged through an EOR, as a contractor, or through an Indian entity?" A company that has not thought about it is a company that will improvise your tax situation.
Contractor pays more per month and costs more than it looks: no leave, no notice period in your favour, no employer PF, and roughly 30% of the gross needs setting aside for tax you pay yourself. A ₹2,00,000 monthly contract is not twice a ₹1,00,000 salaried job.
- Who is the legal employer?
- Is there a notice period on either side?
- Who covers the EOR fee?
- What happens to leave and holidays?
What the number looks like in USD
What they are really testingWhether you know what you are worth in a market that is not Bangalore.
Global remote pay is not one market. It splits by how the company decides to pay:
- Location-adjusted (most common). They pay a local-plus rate — often 1.3–2× the Indian band for the same role. For your profile that is roughly $35,000–55,000 a year, which is ₹30–47 lakh, and usually meaningfully better than the ₹26 lakh you are asking locally.
- Location-independent (rarer, and the reason people chase remote). One global band, sometimes anchored to a US or European rate. $70,000–110,000 for six years of full-stack, which is ₹60 lakh–₹95 lakh. GitLab, Automattic and a handful of others publish this openly; most do not.
- Agency and contract work from abroad. Often quoted hourly, $25–60. Higher per hour, no stability, and you carry every cost.
The negotiating question is which model they use, and it is fair to ask directly: "Is compensation location-adjusted or is there a single global band?" The answer tells you the ceiling before you name a number, exactly as the band question does in R1.
Before I give a number — is your compensation location-adjusted, or do you pay a single global band for the role? And is this an EOR arrangement or a contract?
Converting your Indian expectation to dollars and quoting that. ₹26 lakh is about $31,000, and quoting $31,000 to a company with a $70,000 band anchors you at less than half of what the role pays. Ask their band first — this is the single most expensive mistake in this round.
- What is the range for this role?
- Is it reviewed annually, and in which currency?
- Is there equity, and can a non-US resident hold it?
The take-home is longer, and it is most of the decision
What they are really testingWhether you can work unsupervised — which is the entire question a remote company is asking.
Remote loops lean on take-homes because they cannot watch you work. Expect a bigger brief than R1·TH describes — often 4–8 hours, sometimes paid — and expect the follow-up call to go deep on your decisions rather than your syntax.
Everything in the take-home round applies, plus two things specific to this context:
- Write more than you would locally. The README is not documentation here, it is the interview. Decisions, trade-offs, what you would do next.
- Show your commits. They are reading how you work over eight hours, because that is the thing they cannot otherwise see.
If the task is unpaid and would take more than about six hours, it is reasonable to say so and ask to scope it down. A remote-first company will usually agree; the ones that will not are telling you how they treat people\'s time.
"How do you work when nobody is online?"
What they are really testingAsync judgement. The failure mode they are screening for is someone who stops and waits.
The answer they want has three parts: you unblock yourself, you write things down so the answer arrives while you sleep, and you know when to stop and escalate rather than guess for six hours.
I work in a way that assumes the answer comes tomorrow. If I hit something ambiguous I write the question with the two options I see and what I would pick, and then carry on with the version I would pick — so if I am wrong it is one commit to undo, and if the answer comes back at 6am it is already unblocked. The things I do not guess on are anything that touches data or money; those wait.
"I message my lead and wait for a reply." In a nine-hour timezone gap that is a day lost, and it is exactly the behaviour that makes a company stop hiring from your timezone.
- Give me an example where you got that wrong.
- How do you handle a disagreement in writing?
- How do you know when something needs a call instead?
The rest of the remote round
What they are really testingNothing. The questions that come up once and matter.
- Notice period. Foreign companies routinely expect two to four weeks and are startled by 60 or 90 days. Raise your real notice early — R1 covers planting the buyout question — because it is one of the more common reasons a remote offer falls through.
- Equipment and internet. Most provide a laptop or a stipend. Ask; it is a normal question and the answer says something about how they treat remote staff.
- Moonlighting. If you are still employed while contracting, check your current contract. Indian employers have terminated over this, and a contract with a foreign company is exactly the shape they look for.
- Time off. "Unlimited leave" in a company with no Indian entity often means no accrual and no payout. Ask what people actually take.
- Equity. A non-resident can usually hold RSUs in a US company, but options in a private company get complicated fast — exercise cost, foreign asset reporting in your ITR, and Schedule FA. Ask before you value it.
- Contract in writing, before you resign. Nothing unusual about a remote process; every part of it should still end in a document.
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