Remote work for foreign firms raises pay by 66% - Valor International

After running his family’s business for about five years following his father’s death, Alexandre Dieterle decided to change fields and move into digital marketing. “I saw an opportunity to turn knowledge into products and sell them online,” he said. He trained and began working as a digital strategist.

After spending some time in the industry, Dieterle considered what set him apart from others in the same field. He soon realized it was his command of English. So why not pursue jobs outside Brazil that could be done remotely? The strategy worked. In 2021, he joined Canadian digital-marketing company Wishpond, where he remained for about five years. He joined as a manager and left as a director.

In July of this year, he joined another digital-marketing company, this time in the United States. Dieterle said the key to advancing in this type of work—where there are no in-person meetings and teams span different cultures—is listening. “‘Read the room,’ as we say in English,” he advised. “Take a ‘chameleon approach,’” he added, referring to the ability to adapt to an organization’s and team’s culture and working methods.

A Rio de Janeiro native who now lives in São Paulo, Dieterle said the geographic freedom this type of work provides is one of its most valuable features. “I have often worked from Búzios, in Rio de Janeiro state, where I go with my family,” he said. Earning a strong currency—in his case, the dollar—is another important consideration. “You earn more, but you do not receive benefits under Brazil’s Consolidated Labor Laws (CLT),” he said, recommending that professionals determine what makes the most sense for them.

Being paid in dollars or euros is undoubtedly a major attraction of working remotely for a foreign company. A new survey by Higlobe, a U.S. fintech that facilitates payments to professionals hired by international companies, shows the extent of the pay difference.

“The Global Contractor Insights” report found that Latin American professionals serving U.S. clients earn an average of 66% more than they would working for local companies. Their average monthly income in Latin America is $4,822, or about R$25,700. Brazil leads the region at $5,329, or R$28,400, driven largely by a high concentration of specialized software engineers. Data engineers earn as much as $6,296 a month, or R$33,600.

Teymour H. Farman-Farmaian, Higlobe’s CEO and co-founder, said the survey was sent to the fintech’s entire Latin American database, including both active platform users currently receiving international payments and potential users who have yet to land U.S. clients.

“This allowed us to compare directly the income gap between professionals currently billing U.S. companies in dollars and those working with domestic companies,” he said.

The survey covered 1,197 professionals in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia. Among professionals hired in Latin America, 41.9% have more than 11 years of experience, and nearly 30% already hold people-management positions. In addition, 82.5% landed their jobs through LinkedIn or referrals. “This is not networking in the traditional sense of attending events,” Farman-Farmaian said. “It comes down to two factors: a strong, visible LinkedIn profile with real work in the portfolio, and staying in touch with clients and former colleagues, because their referrals carry the most weight.”

Pamela Santos, an artificial-intelligence engineer at U.S. consulting firm Insight Global, is one of the professionals who landed a job through a LinkedIn contact. “I never went looking for a position,” said Santos, who has a degree in information systems from the Federal University of Lavras, an MBA in machine learning and AI from FIAP, and is pursuing another in data science, AI, and analytics at USP/Esalq. She said she is not very active on LinkedIn when it comes to posting content, but she keeps her profile updated and participates in groups for women in technology.

Educated in public schools, Santos became fluent in English during a college exchange program. After graduating, she worked on-site in Venezuela, Spain, England, and Scotland. She later worked on-site in São Paulo at Santander and Itaú.

In 2021, Santos received a LinkedIn message from the CEO of Branch Energy, a renewable-energy company in Texas. “It was a different kind of interview,” she said. He invited her to do a freelance project and said she would be hired if there was a good fit. She stayed at the company for about a year and a half, then worked for two Canadian companies before starting her current job in August of this year, where she serves paint company Sherwin-Williams. “Today, what attracts me to a position is no longer the salary. It is the challenge, the team, the company, and what it does,” she said. Santos is using AI to modernize the client’s data operations. She works from Lavras, in southern Minas Gerais, where she lives. “My quality of life has improved with remote work. I have my own home and a vegetable garden. I can step outside into the sunshine in the middle of the day and pick jabuticabas from the tree. I do not have to commute, and I am close to my parents,” she said.

For Santos, as for Dieterle, good communication when working with professionals from other countries involves more than speaking English. “You have to understand the other person’s context,” she said. “I, for example, like to explain things in minute detail, and not everyone likes that less-direct approach. Adapting the conversation is difficult. The key is to understand and respect the other person’s culture and make yourself heard.”

Gustavo Sèngès, author of “Global Workers,” published by Gente, offers similar advice to people working remotely for foreign companies. “Active listening is very important,” he said. “Learn from others before hijacking a meeting to state your position. Have a global mindset and understand that Brazilian culture is our own. And be more discreet, for example, about your personal life and political views.”

Sèngès, who began recruiting professionals for remote jobs abroad in 2010, recommends preparing a narrative for the job interview itself. “Brazilians see a résumé as a matter of copying and pasting past activities, but it is about knowing how to tell your story—it is storytelling,” he said. “You have to know how to make the case for who you are.”

English proficiency is the “second-biggest stumbling block for Brazilians,” after the résumé, Sèngès said. For most positions, however, what is needed is “functional English that is adequate for the job.” “The required level of English varies according to seniority and field,” he said, noting that an executive, for example, will need stronger English skills.

Designer Gabriel Bortolote, founder of the Job na Gringa community, which has about 12,000 members, has worked remotely for foreign companies for seven years and shares the same view of language requirements. “In the community, I try to dispel myths about English. People think they need sophisticated English, but most of the time what they need is solid technical English, and the English required for everyday communication,” he said, noting that language certification is generally unnecessary. “Management positions, however, require stronger English.”

Bortolote, who currently lives in Argentina, began seeking clients outside Brazil after realizing that overseas pay is better for Brazilians, while foreign employers view hiring in Brazil as less expensive—mainly because of exchange-rate differences. Foreign companies pay U.S. programmers about $80 an hour, for example, while offering Brazilians $50 an hour, he said. Over a month, based on an eight-hour workday, that amounts to about R$40,000. He noted that what may be low pay for an American is good pay for a Brazilian.

Most remote jobs abroad are in technology—about 80%, in Bortolote’s estimation—but there is also substantial demand in other fields. Sèngès shares that view and emphasizes one point: previous experience in the field is essential to landing a position. “An employer hiring someone remotely in another country rarely wants a person starting from scratch,” he said. “They want someone ready.”

Fariel André Minozzo, also a designer and a graduate of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, discovered the possibility of remote work while spending time in Portugal with his girlfriend, who had gone there to study. After holding on-site jobs in Florianópolis, where he lived, he began looking for work in Portugal but found salaries below his expectations. An acquaintance who already worked remotely for a U.S. company saw a position matching his profile and referred him. Since 2022, Minozzo has worked for Superside, which produces AI-assisted creative assets. Although he returned to Brazil in 2023, he continues working for the U.S. company from Florianópolis.

Minozzo has already been promoted twice. “What helps most when seeking a promotion in remote work is self-management, the quality of your work, how you communicate, whether you are kind, and whether you are proactive,” he said. “Because time-zone differences mean we do not know when the team will be online, it is essential to communicate clearly and keep everyone informed about the status of projects.”

Igor Cruz Lucio also began working with foreign companies in 2022. A chemical-engineering graduate of São Paulo State University, he worked for a multinational company in Campinas before specializing in Microsoft environments. He now provides consulting services to organizations in countries including the United States, Ireland, and Brazil. “We began seeking clients abroad because of the strong-currency pay and to expand our market,” said Lucio, who lives in Araraquara, in the São Paulo countryside.

Bortolote noted that most overseas remote jobs are at smaller companies rather than the best-known multinationals. He also said professionals need to think like consultants or business owners. “There is little legal protection under contracts with these companies,” he said. “Professionals need to understand that the contract can end at any time and that they will not take the matter to an international court because it would be too expensive.”

To make the relationship lasting and successful for both sides, Bortolote recommends that Brazilian professionals view it as something that must continually be built. “There is no unemployment-insurance safety net, for example. You have to build relationships and deliver results without relying on legal remedies to secure your job,” he said.