Working a remote job abroad from Brazil usually means higher pay in strong currency, no mandatory daily stand-up meeting, paid overtime, and time-zone friction as the main practical risk. That is what Erick Wendel found working for a United States company from Brazil starting in mid-2022.
What Is Working a Remote Job Abroad From Brazil Actually Like?
Working a remote job abroad from Brazil is a trade. You gain higher pay in strong currency and a healthier overtime culture, and you take on time-zone friction and a long, unscripted hiring process. Erick Wendel, a Brazilian Node.js specialist and founder of EW Academy, worked for a United States company while living in Brazil starting in mid-2022. His account, published in May 2025, describes roughly two years of selection processes before that first offer.
The useful part of his story is not the paycheck. It is the list of cultural differences that Brazilian developers rarely hear about before applying, and the preparation habits that made the difference between failing interviews and passing one.
This article is based on his first-hand account (youtube.com/@ErickWendel). His experience reflects one company and one team; he says so explicitly, and some friends who also worked for foreign companies reported different conditions.
At a glance, here is how the two work cultures compared for him:
| Dimension | Typical Brazilian company | Wendel's US company |
|---|---|---|
| Daily stand-up | 15-minute meeting that stretches to an hour | Discord bot collects status; no meeting |
| Sick days | Medical note often required, plus explanations | No certificate; post in channel and go offline |
| Extra hours | Hours bank or unpaid task forces | Paid overtime, manager approval required |
| Overtime enforcement | Often ignored | Contract enforced; at 8:01 the laptop closes |
| Software quality | Time for refactoring is rare | Reserved time for refactoring and revisiting old code |
How Do Async Daily Stand-ups Replace the Stand-up Meeting?
In his US company, the daily stand-up did not exist as a meeting. A bot on Discord, a chat and voice platform, messaged the team every day and collected three things: what each person did, what they planned to do, and whether anything was blocked.
The mechanism had a second layer. If someone marked an impediment, the bot notified the manager and opened a chat between them automatically. No meeting, no waiting for the next sync, no fifteen-minute ritual that Brazilian teams routinely stretch to an hour.
Wendel found the pattern effective enough to copy it at EW Academy, where his team posts status updates in channels instead of holding a blocking call. He also kept one weekly retrospective-style meeting so the whole company knew how work was progressing. The lesson for teams anywhere: a status meeting that only transfers information is a message thread waiting to happen, and moving it to a bot removes a recurring calendar tax from everyone's day.
Why Are Time Zones the Biggest Practical Risk?
The company did not follow a single time zone. The team included people from the United States, Colombia, Germany and South Korea, and one teammate far ahead of Wendel's zone made collaboration genuinely hard.
The failure mode was slow and frustrating. Wendel would send a message asking whether a task was done or needed help, and get an answer the next day, by which point the teammate had already switched tasks. When the problem ran the other way, Wendel found himself in meetings at 10 p.m.
His advice is concrete: check the time-zone overlap before accepting an offer. He mentions people forced into stand-ups at 5 a.m. Brazil time because of where their team sat. An asynchronous culture helps, but it does not erase the cost of zero overlap with the people you depend on. Ask which specific people you will work with daily and what hours you share with them before signing.
Do You Need a Doctor's Note for Sick Days?
At Wendel's company, there was no medical certificate process. When he needed to see a doctor, he posted in the channel and went offline. The policy ran entirely on trust.
He flags this as peculiar to his company rather than a general rule. Friends working for other foreign companies had a rougher version: no certificate required, but a day at the doctor simply counted as a lost day. That is a meaningfully different policy wearing the same absence-of-paperwork label, and it is worth clarifying during negotiation rather than assuming.
The contrast he draws is with Brazil, where even holding a medical note often meant a round of explanations. The general point for candidates: absence policy varies company by company, and 'no atestado needed' can mean either paid trust or an unpaid lost day.
What Does the Hiring Process for a Job Abroad Look Like?
There is no fixed recipe. Across roughly two years of processes, Wendel hit stages that asked for algorithm and data-structure work, stages about system architecture design, and stages about walking through how to solve a problem. The process he eventually passed was different again.
The panel interview format
Five senior people from the team joined one video call and asked critical questions about their actual daily work. The role was a Node.js performance specialist position, so the questions covered how to diagnose and resolve specific performance problems, step by step.
How he prepared
His preparation system was self-built and repetitive. He spoke to his webcam alone to practice explaining technical topics in English. He read AWS whitepapers, Amazon's published documents explaining architecture solutions (AWS Architecture Center), to absorb how experienced engineers structure an answer. The Node.js performance specialty meant deep platform knowledge was non-negotiable.
His retrospective judgment is direct: the process would have been much easier with real support along the way. The two-year gap between starting to prepare and landing the first offer is the honest baseline, not an exception.
A practical preparation sequence, based on what worked for him:
- Pick the specialty the role demands and study the platform deeply.
- Practice explaining technical topics out loud in English, alone on webcam, until it feels ordinary.
- Read architecture whitepapers, such as the AWS Architecture Center, to learn how experienced engineers structure solutions.
- Rehearse step-by-step problem diagnosis, because panel interviews ask for the reasoning, not just the answer.
- Expect the whole cycle to take months or years, and plan your finances and patience accordingly.
How Does Overtime Work Abroad Compared to a Brazilian Hours Bank?
The Brazilian pattern Wendel describes is the hours bank: work past your shift, accumulate time, take it back as days off, and never see extra money. He calls scenes of sleeping under office desks during unpaid task forces close to labor exploitation, and notes that a team that always does free overtime trains its managers to plan around it.
At the US company, the model was a taximeter. The contract fixed a number of weekly or monthly hours. Eight hours agreed meant that at 8:01 he closed the laptop, partly because foreign companies fear labor lawsuits and police contract overruns. Extra hours existed, were paid as overtime, and required manager approval.
His practical rule follows from this: say no the first time unpaid overtime is asked. A team that refuses free hours forces planning to fit the agreed schedule. A team that always accepts teaches management that the extra capacity is free. He saw the slippery slope up close: the first all-nighter is for the company, and before long 12-hour days have become routine.
He is careful to scope the claim. This was his experience and that of some friends, not a universal law of foreign employment. Life is not that simple, as he puts it, but the default differed sharply from what he had lived through in Brazilian offices. The same team also valued software quality and reserved time for refactoring and revisiting old code, which he counts among the cultural gains.
FAQ
How long does it take to get a remote job abroad as a Brazilian developer?
In Erick Wendel's case, about two years of selection processes before the first offer, starting from dedicated English and interview preparation. There is no standard timeline; the processes varied widely in format and difficulty.
Do international companies require the daily stand-up meeting?
In the company he joined, no. A Discord bot collected daily status updates and escalated blockers to the manager automatically, and the team kept only a weekly retrospective-style meeting.
Is overtime paid when you work for a foreign company from Brazil?
In his experience and that of some friends, yes: contracted hours were fixed, excess hours were paid as overtime with manager approval, and companies often enforced the limit strictly. He stresses this is not universal and varies by company.
What is the best way to prepare for a technical interview in English?
His system was practicing explanations alone on webcam and reading AWS architecture whitepapers to learn how solutions are structured. For a performance-specialist role, expect live panel questions about diagnosing real problems step by step.
Should I worry about time zones before accepting an offer?
Yes. His hardest problem was a teammate in a far-ahead time zone who replied once a day, and he cites people doing 5 a.m. stand-ups. Confirm the daily overlap with the specific people you will work with before signing.
Do you always need an atestado for a sick day abroad?
Not at his company, where trust replaced paperwork entirely. But friends elsewhere lost the day's pay with no certificate required, so ask about the exact policy during negotiation.
Does a higher salary abroad always mean a better deal?
Not automatically. Time-zone overlap, overtime rules, sick-day policy and quality culture all shape the real value of the offer, and one teammate eight zones away can outweigh a pay bump.
What did the panel interview actually ask?
Five senior people joined one call and asked critical questions from their daily routine. For a Node.js performance role, that meant walking through how to diagnose and fix concrete performance problems.
Where can I find more first-hand accounts of working abroad?
Start with Erick Wendel's own video and channel, then look for similar first-hand content from Brazilian creators, such as Gustavo Dev Doido, whose Bootcamp do Dev Doido and Crazystack Typescript course (crazystack.com.br) cover career and technical preparation for developers. First-hand accounts beat generic advice because they name the trade-offs.
Turn Your Own Experience Into a Written Guide
The most valuable part of Wendel's story is not the salary comparison. It is the specific, first-hand detail: how the bot stand-up worked, what the panel interview actually asked, how the overtime rule played out at 8:01. That kind of knowledge usually stays trapped in a video, watched once and hard to cite.
If you have lessons like these sitting in your own YouTube videos, Skala Blog turns them into structured, searchable articles. Paste the video URL, get a transcription, and generate a written piece that readers and search engines can actually find. Skala Blog
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