"The whole process with Omnipresent is so transparent, I forget I'm not dealing with QuotaPaths' own in-house HR department"

Kiril's remote work story

We met Kiril when he was being employed as a senior software engineer through Omnipresent on behalf of QuotaPath, however this was not Kiril’s first remote job.

A Bulgarian national who had studied in the United States, Kiril had stayed in order to take up his first job with Monetate in 2015. However, the immigration process in the United States was a difficult one which lead to Kiril reconsidering his options after a year:

• US visa lottery - he hadn't been selected as part of the US visa lottery process. While he knew there was the option to keep trying, he had started to feel increasingly uncomfortable with this uncertainty.
• Canada was a practical option - he found that the Canadian immigration process for people with his skillset was much more practical.

"As a Bulgarian, I know I could have gone back to the EU, but I was still working at this start-up and the timezone would have been a problem. One of the reasons I picked Canada was that it had more straightforward and practical immigration laws and processes which made it enjoyable and clear."

Kiril received his permanent Canadian residency by the end of summer 2017 and relocated while continuing to work for Monetate.

Joining QuotaPath as their first fully remote hire

Eric Heydenberk reached out to Kiril when Quotapath were looking to hire their next engineer. Kiril had wanted to work with Eric again ever since their time at Monetate. QuotaPath itself was attractive to Kiril because of the opportunity to work at a smaller startup and it gave him the chance to work on something other than e-commerce.

Kiril has yet to formally meet the QuotaPath team in person. He knew some of the engineers previously, including Eric Heydenberk the technical co-founder that hired him. While it likely helped that he joined during the pandemic when everyone was working remotely, Kiril doesn't feel that being QuotaPath's first remote hire has made a significant difference to his experience.

"It can help to have a familiar face, but as long as you have the basic set-up requirements and communications in place, I would say it's not a major component of onboarding"

For Kiril his remote work experience with QuotaPath was "nothing out of the ordinary" as he was able to get on and start work quickly. His main point of comparison was his experience at Etsy, which had an existing remote culture.

"The important thing for me is that there is good video conferencing software that provides a good latency of conversation. Some kind of textual communication like Slack and ways to share documents."

A new experience with Omnipresent

Prior to being employed through Omnipresent, Kiril was not familiar with the Employer of Record set-up. All his previous remote roles were at companies that had Canadian legal entities.

Despite this being a new arrangement for Kiril, he didn't notice anything different from being employed directly by QuotaPath.

"Honestly, the whole system was transparent. When I deal with Omnipresent, it's like dealing with QuotaPath's own HR department...to the point where I often forget, for example, when updating my bank who my employer is, which company I have to put on."

Remote work has worked in Kiril's favour

For Kiril, while he on occasion misses the change of scenery and social interaction that going into an office provides, being able to work remotely from Canada has provided him with a number of benefits:

• Greater flexibility to deal with life things - Kiril's dog recently required more medical care and attention that he wouldn't have been have able to so easily provide otherwise.
• Personalisation of his work set-up - including getting the equipment and space set up as he prefers.
• Greater choice of companies and work - Kiril feels that working remotely has provided people with more career options. For example, if you want to work for a smaller start up, as long as they're remote friendly, there isn't the need to relocate.