Working for a company abroad: what to expect and how to thrive
You know what's utterly bizarre? I'm sat in my home office in Manchester, it's 7:30am, and I'm about to join a design review with our Filipino team who are wrapping up their day. Last night, I had a 10pm call with New York. Tomorrow, I'll be up at 5am to catch our Bucharest developers before they get too deep into their day.
This is my normal. Has been for nearly a decade.
My desk has three different time zone clocks. My calendar looks like a game of Tetris gone wrong. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
I've spent nine years building and managing teams spread across the Philippines, India, Romania, Ukraine and Poland for UK and US tech scale-ups. During the recent wave of hiring freezes across the UK, I've watched countless professionals make the leap to working for overseas companies, some thriving, many struggling.
There's more opportunity than ever to work for a company based thousands of miles away. The pandemic normalised it. The 2024-2025 tech industry contraction accelerated it. And now in mid-2026, we're seeing the aftermath: a radically transformed global labour market where your boss might live on the other side of the world.
Let's talk about what that actually means for your day-to-day life. Not the fantasy version where you're answering emails from a beach in Bali, but the reality where you're explaining to your partner why you're taking calls at 10pm on a Tuesday.
The day-to-day reality of working for an overseas employer
First thing to get straight: working remotely for a company abroad is fundamentally different from remote work for a domestic employer. The challenges go beyond just "not being in the office."
Your typical day might involve:
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Awkward meeting times. Someone always draws the short straw with time zones. If you're in the UK working for an Australian company, you'll be doing early mornings. US West Coast? Late evenings. Southeast Asia? Split shifts.
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Communication that's almost entirely asynchronous. Quick questions become overnight emails. Slack becomes less about chat and more like sending letters.
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Cultural misalignments that nobody warns you about. Americans tend to be hyper-positive in feedback. Germans painfully direct. Brits apologetic and indirect. These differences get amplified when filtered through Zoom and Slack.
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A strange sense of isolation from company culture. You'll miss the inside jokes. The casual conversations. The energy of the head office that everyone else seems to share.
I had a developer in Manchester working for a Singapore fintech last year who finally quit after six months because he felt like he was "working in a parallel universe." The company had good intentions, but with 95% of staff in Asia, he never quite felt part of things.
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The time zone dilemma: there's no perfect solution
Time zones are the number one challenge. Full stop.
Most companies handle this in one of three ways:
1. The "overlap" approach
You're expected to be available during a 3-4 hour window that overlaps with the main office hours. For a UK worker reporting to New York, that might mean your afternoons are meeting-heavy but mornings are quiet. For someone working with Singapore, early mornings become your collaboration window.
The upside? You get chunks of deep focus time when nobody's online. The downside? You might end up with split shifts, working 9-12, taking a long break, then back online 4-8pm.
2. The "someone always suffers" approach
The company picks its HQ time zone as sacred and everyone else adjusts. If you're lucky, they rotate who takes the pain. If you're not, it's always you.
I once worked with a London startup that hired three brilliant engineers in Vietnam. Those poor devs were expected to be online from 2-10pm their time, every day. It didn't end well, they all left within eight months.
3. The "fully asynchronous" approach
The rarest but most sustainable approach. Companies like Doist and Buffer have mastered this. Almost no real-time meetings. Everything documented. Decision-making happens in shared docs with clear processes.
This works brilliantly when done properly, but my god it requires discipline. Most companies that claim to work this way actually don't.
What nobody tells you about pay and benefits
There's a massive variation in how overseas employers handle compensation. Some thoughts:
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The "geo-neutral" employers who pay the same regardless of location exist, but they're rare. Mostly early-stage tech with strong values around equality. Basecamp, Airbnb Remote, and a handful of others.
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More common is "geo-adjusted" pay. Same role, different salaries based on your location's cost of living. As a rule of thumb, UK professionals working for US companies might get 70-80% of what their American counterparts make.
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Benefits are a minefield. Your employer's standard package often doesn't work across borders. Private health insurance that's designed for the US system might be useless in the UK. Pension contributions might not get the same tax advantages.
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Tax complications can be severe if not handled properly. Many employers use an Employer of Record (EOR) service like Remote, Deel or Papaya Global to handle this. If they don't, run away. Seriously.
The worst situation? Working as a "contractor" while functionally being a full-time employee. I've seen too many UK professionals get caught in this trap, missing out on employment protections while also carrying tax risks.
The contracting vs employment question
Speaking of which, this distinction matters enormously.
If you're employed properly through a local entity or EOR, you get:
- Normal employment protections under UK law
- Employer handling tax and NI contributions
- Statutory benefits like sick pay, holiday entitlement
- Usually proper pension contributions
As a contractor, you're essentially running a one-person business. You handle your own taxes, buy your own insurance, sort your own pension. The rate might look higher on paper, but factor in all those costs plus the lack of job security.
Whatever you do, get this sorted before you sign anything. The company that says "we'll figure out the employment details later" is the company that's going to cause you massive headaches six months down the line.
Cultural nuance: the hidden challenge
We don't talk enough about how much workplace culture varies globally.
I had a British product manager who joined a South Korean tech company last year. Her first performance review nearly broke her, the direct criticism felt brutal and personal. In reality, her Korean manager thought he was being constructively helpful. Neither was wrong exactly, just operating with different cultural scripts.
A few differences I've observed:
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Feedback styles vary enormously. Northern Europeans and Israelis tend to be very direct. Americans sandwich criticism between praise. Brits hint at problems through questions. East Asians often provide feedback indirectly through hierarchy.
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Decision-making processes differ too. Some cultures expect extensive consultation before decisions. Others value quick, decisive leadership. Finding yourself in the wrong expectation can label you as either "rash" or "indecisive."
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Working hours and availability expectations. Some cultures respect strict boundaries around working hours. Others prioritize flexibility and responsiveness. Neither is inherently better, but misalignment causes friction.
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Holiday norms vary wildly. Americans typically get far fewer days than Europeans. Many Asian companies have different expectations around actually using allocated holiday time.
Despite what the "work from anywhere" crowd suggests, these differences matter. A lot.
How to make working for an overseas company actually work
After nine years running distributed teams, I've seen what separates those who thrive from those who struggle:
Over-communicate (but efficiently)
You need to be visible without being annoying. Regular updates about what you're working on, decisions you're making, and blockers you're facing are essential. Nobody can see you working, you have to show your work.
But, and this is crucial, don't just talk more. Talk better. Document decisions. Summarise discussions. Create artifacts others can reference when you're offline.
Master asynchronous work
This means:
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Making your questions answerable while you're offline. "What do you think about X?" is a terrible async question. "I'm considering options A, B and C for X problem. My recommendation is B because... Unless I hear otherwise by Thursday, I'll proceed with this approach."
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Becoming rigorous about documentation. Create decision records. Keep project docs updated. Maintain a personal changelog of your work.
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Learning when to take things offline vs when to wait for input. Not everything needs immediate resolution.
Build relationships deliberately
Water cooler chat doesn't happen naturally in distributed teams. You have to create it.
Schedule virtual coffees with colleagues. Join social Slack channels. Turn your camera on during meetings even when others don't. Share small personal updates where appropriate.
It feels forced at first. Do it anyway.
Protect your boundaries
The most successful remote workers I know are religious about their boundaries. They have clear working hours and stick to them, with reasonable flexibility for international collaboration.
Without this discipline, you'll find yourself working all hours, checking messages at midnight, and burning out within months.
Understand the local context
Read about business culture in your employer's country. Learn about national holidays and cultural events that might affect working patterns. Understand what topics might be sensitive or taboo.
This isn't just cultural sensitivity, it's practical intelligence that will help you navigate daily interactions.
Is this really the future of work?
I'm often asked if I think this distributed, global work model is here to stay. My answer: yes, but with major caveats.
The pandemic forced companies to figure out remote work. The economic challenges of 2024-25 pushed them to look beyond local talent pools. These forces aren't reversing.
But I've also seen enough failed experiments to know that not all work translates well to distributed teams. And not all companies can build the infrastructure, both technical and cultural, to support truly global workforces.
The most sustainable approach I've seen is what I call "distributed clusters", teams concentrated in a few geographic hubs rather than scattered individuals. This creates local community while maintaining global reach.
The hard truth about international remote work
Working for a company abroad can be brilliant. Better pay, exposure to global markets, career opportunities that might not exist locally. I've seen countless careers transformed through these opportunities.
But it's not for everyone.
It requires exceptional communication skills, self-discipline, cultural adaptability, and comfort with ambiguity. The professionals who thrive are those who treat these challenges as part of the job description, not unexpected hurdles.
And the companies that succeed at building truly global teams? They're the ones that invest in making it work, proper employment structures, thoughtful communication protocols, and leadership that understands the complexities involved.
Want to explore remote opportunities with overseas employers? The jobs section on The OHub has a filter specifically for roles open to UK-based professionals working for international companies. You'll find opportunities vetted for proper employment structures and reasonable working arrangements.
The boundary between local and global employment is dissolving. For those prepared to navigate the complexities, that's incredibly exciting.
Just go in with your eyes open.
Priya Nair has spent nine years building and managing distributed teams across the Philippines, India, Eastern Europe, and beyond. She advises UK tech scale-ups on international talent strategy and writes regularly about the realities of global workforce management.
