I work for a very large FAANG-type tech company. I am also a dual citizen, having US citizenship and a South American citizenship.
A few months after the pandemic began, I relocated from my high CoL work city to a small South American city where my relatives live. I told my manager I was moving to another US state, which is my official address and where I also have relatives.
It has been almost 2 years of this arrangement. In that time I believe exactly 0 people suspect I’m in a different country.
I’m only somewhat careful with my arrangements. In video chats, I use a background blur and try my best to have neutral lighting. My audio setup focuses only on my voice and eliminates background noise.
I don’t take special networking precautions yet. If they check their logs they’d easily see my true location. However, I subscribe to StarVPN and I have a glinet router ready to go should I need to start spoofing my digital location. I have full confidence this will be enough.
I pay ALL US taxes that I owe. Due to tax laws in the SA country I’m in, I have no reason to suspect I’m avoiding any taxes here either, but I’d have to consult with an accountant or expert to be sure.
I’m not at all worried about my situation. I have yet to hear of a single case of someone in a similar position as me having it go south in a bad way. If my employer insists I go back to the US, I can spoof my location with the method I described above. How would they prove where I am otherwise? I’ve also been playing around with the idea of quitting and traveling a while anyway.
I consider myself a very effective and productive engineer, and I subscribe to the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy in this situation. I’m surprised to see so much fear mongering and thinly veiled contempt for this here in HN. The total number of people doing this is likely extremely small anyway.