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Ask HN: Remote IT workers, are these practices frequent/legal?

5 points by xpto123 ↗ HN
I mean what they demand on this page http://www.toptal.com/developers/requirements

I find it shocking that they expect remote workers on a 7 hour difference timezone to start working extremelly early in the morning and work through the night if needed.

I find it also strange to expect someone to be reachable outside their normal working hours without being on call and properly compensated for their availability.

It sounds like these companies are taking advantage of the desire these engineers have for better projects without leaving their countries to for them to work in less than human conditions.

Amanzingly they only mention european countries where the labour law is said to work better.

In you experience, are these practices common/ legal or is an isolated case ?

If they mention these things on their public web page, what else can be going on.

9 comments

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hakanderyal
They are not expecting to start working early and work through the night. They just want you to adapt to the client's work schedule. So if the client's workday starts at 7 pm in your timezone, you start working at 7 pm, and work normal work-hours (8 hours) through the night.

And they properly compensate for the availability, they pay top money for their developers.

I'm not affiliated with them in any war, nor worked for them, but only heard good things from developers working for them.

xpto123
Hello, and is the work at night all the time, or is it shift based only one week a month? Because that's what happens with people that work at hospitals, night guards etc. to avoid harming the workers health in the long-term.
munimkazia
For remote jobs, these practices are quite common. They aren't making you work for long hours. Working during odd hours is not uncommon for even local jobs for jobs which need it (establishments which remain open during odd hours of the day for example), so I doubt there is any legal issue here.

There is nothing unethical or even shameful about this practice. It is perfectly legit. Personally, I start work in the afternoon and work till late night, because those are the hours my employer works.

xpto123
Hello, and is it work at night all the time, or shift based? How was you experience doing it. Today couldn't do it myself, maybe at an younger age.

I don't think its shameful, I might have done it myself. Its a first world problem clearly.

Still I wonder about the legality, because in most countries there are laws that prevent workers from working at night all the time.

At most you make shifts, and workers do it one week a month, and not all the time for years to prevent long term health consequences for the worker.

mtmail
Is it also shocking and a less human conditions if somebody works in a supermarket or petrol station and the shift is early mornings or late evenings? I'd say it absolutely common in a lot of professions, maybe less with software engineering.
xpto123
No I don't find it shocking, but one thing is early mornings and late evenings, that's different than working through the night. Petrol stations run on 'automatic mode' in most european countries after midnight / 1 o'clock, nobody is there at 4AM.

Exceptions are security guards, hotel receptions, hospitals those are cases where the person being up cannot be avoided, its the nature of the job.

I think its different (from a legal point of view) a job where the person absolutely needs to be up like in a hospital, or a desk job where the person is being asked to completely change its lifestyle just for convenience of the employer.

xpto123
I guess if someone is making a good living out of it and that avoids the person having to shift to another country its their choice and its OK. But I am surprised the law does not protect remote workers more from these things in european countries. I personally think that remote workers should be more protected.

One thing to bear in mind is that we humans beings have evolved to live during the day, and there are health implications for living most of the time at night. This is why petrol workers etc. can only work one week or so a month in the night, and are compensated accordingly.

But an employer can't just say that an employee will work all the time at night for years, its illegal AFIK due to the aforementioned health implications for the worker.

Shift works is one thing, working all the time at night because the employer is in a different timezone? sounds illegal to me and so the question of its it frequent.

There are other problems with working all the time at night: the impact on your social life, if you have kids they go to bed at 8h so if you start working at 6PM and work through the night basically you never see them etc.

This is why I found it very surprising, because this is apparently happening with engineers living in european countries, where the law is supposed to shield them against these things and there is a lack of software developers everywhere.

jasonkester
No, of course not. No professional is going to work a graveyard shift as a matter of course just because his client is overseas. I work remotely for a U.S. Company and simply do my regular schedule regardless of what time that translates to over there.

I split my year between London and Paris time because, well, that's why we work remote in the first place, right? A couple months each winter might find me on a pleasant surfing beach that translates to 'Chicago time' or similar, so if you need to talk to me at four in the afternoon your time, that would be a good time to find me.

But again, no. I'm not going to check my email or respond to your Skype requests late an night. Just like I wouldn't expect them to answer their phone were I to call them at four in the morning.

xpto123
That's the type of things that would make remote work attractive to me, but working at night would basically change everything.

And do you recommend other sites as alternative to them where these things don't happen? Or was it all via contacts.

Because this seems to be one of the top sites for remote software development work and they put this in their welcome page, so I wonder if your case is not the exception.

Thanks.