Hello,

I am am currently an IT professional working the regular 9-5 hours at the office, working for a company since it's start-up phase. I've been working here for seven years now. I would like to transition to a location independent position, possibly as a contractor, so that I can travel and volunteer around the world.

I know that I can do my work remotely and would be willing to take a pay-cut. Would also like it if i worked fewer hours or possibly had a modified schedule based on deliverables and not so much based on hours.

I was thinking that I would write up a letter to my superiors with a proposal for my new position. It's not really a promotion, but not a demotion either. In this letter I would explain that I would continue to providing value as an employee, but my hours would be less, my pay would be less and would do everything remotely. Timezones and the like would be something I would deal with and they would not have to worry about it.

I am just curious if anyone has gone through this and if anyone has any tips and recommendations. I would like this transition to be as smooth as possible as my current financial situation makes it so I really need to keep my current job in some form.

I can’t help you with a letter, but I’d make sure when you go to your employer you have answers for everything I mention below.

Anyway, for starters there are some things that would likely make it easier. So, if you haven’t already

1. Get yourself working for a manager that will be open to you working abroad. I’ve found there are a couple of type of managers that are ideal for this.

- Managers who don’t micro-manage, only care about the final results, and who really don’t care about how it gets done
- Shite Managers who no one wants to work for.
- Managers that have shite people working for them.

As far as the last two, working as a contractor this is fairly common occurrence anyway. Obviously if a company had both good managers and good employees, they wouldn’t really need a contractor now would they.

2. Get yourself supporting a different office. If you work for a large enough company with multiple locations, then getting yourself involved with projects that are managed/supported in other locations will go a long way to demonstrate that you can support work from a different location.
3. Get yourself assignments that can largely be done individually and that have well defined tasks and deliverables.
4. Get yourself telecommuting with the office at least a few days a week
5. Get yourself setup as a contractor (ideally this also include working remotely from within the same city)

Now, if someone who hadn’t already done those steps came up to me and told me they wanted to go straight from a 40 hour employee to a contractor working abroad, I’d laugh uncontrollably. I’d laugh even harder if they were single, young, and with no kids because quite frankly there would be no incentive (or more frankly a lack of responsibilities/commitments) for them to do good work.

Now, if I was an employer I’d be interested to know:

Which country are you going to live? What’s your address? Phone number? How long are you going to live there?
Are you renting an apartment? Will it have an office? Computer equipment? A way to backup data?
Is your company going to be US based? Do you have a company already setup and the necessary insurance?
How are you going to deal with the time change? What hours will you support?
If we need you onsite are you going to fly back?

Anyway, to avoid those questions, my personal recommendation is to make a push to get setup as a Contractor within the general area first. Then after a while slowly make voyages abroad while continuing to support the office and be very low key about it. It looks like you originally from Brazil, so maybe go back to Brazil for a month or two to visit family (well at least a convenient story). If you can do it seamlessly, then you can provide an argument for a more permanent relocation.

Now, on the other side of things, you also really need to ask yourself if you even have what it takes to be an independent contractor?
1. Do you have the discipline and motivation to work from home over the long term? (It is not as simple as it seems)
2. Are you willing to deal with the headaches of setting up a company, taking care of your tax issues, handling medical insurance, invoicing, etc?
3. Do you have the necessary office equipment, computer software and computer hardware? Including a method to backup your data.
4. Are you willing to work long hours when you have to? (I know you mentioned you were more interested in more part-time work, but it often doesn't work out that way)
5. Can you consistently provide a service they can't get from an on location employee (quicker/better/cheaper)

And then if you want to do it abroad
1. Will you be able to maintain your effectiveness while moving to a new country every 3-6 months due to visa constraints? Or are you eligible for a more permanent visa?
2. Can you work effectively while using a laptop on the sofa or will you need a good desk, chair, multiple monitors, etc. Can you work in the cold, in the heat, in cramped spaces, possibly at coffee shops?
3. Do you mind dealing with bureaucracy (every country has some headache non-residents have to deal with)?
4. Are you prepared to have less time to travel and volunteer than you anticipate?

Anyway, these are just a few things of the top of my head and to give you a heads up on some of the issues you will face. Good luck…

Thank you very much! I find this very helpful and you were able to put it all in a more realistic frame of mind for me.

I will still strive to get this done, but now I think I will be more realistic about it all. thanks again!

As an IT professional myself I was considering working with recruiters to get 6-9 month contract positions and then travel for anywhere from 1 to 3 months after that. It allows you to save money for travel (as well as expenses and retirement), keep a house or apartment, and look like you haven't lost all your technical knowledge because you weren't gone for so long.
This would give you a good chance to immerse yourself in a place. And this way you could be a w-2 or 1099 contractor. If you do consistent good work on projects this would also be a good way to start your own contracting business based on the contacts and previous contracts you have worked on.

Read "4 Hour Workweek", if you haven't already.

I have heard a lot of Tim Ferris and even read the first chapter of his book. I am not a big fan of Tim Ferris... while I appreciate all that he has been able to accomplish, I am not sure I really like how he goes about things in his life, but i digress. I will take your advice and give "4 hour workweek" another shot.

thank you

I have personally found some location independent blogs to be the most helpful in making my transition into a more location independent job opportunity. While Tim Ferris' work is interesting, I find that there's some more practical information out there. There's some blogs that are focused primarily toward work at home women and entrepreneurs. But what you might want to read through is

http://locationindependent.com/blog/

It's just a thought.