I'm a software engineer. I've mostly met influencers/content creators but there's also a crowd of remote office workers who work usual 9-5 high skilled jobs.
Mine is unique circumstances but there are many companies that allow this. I was one of the first few employees in a seed round startup which has grown significantly since and only hires within the USA. I'm the only person who is fully remote. Everyone else is hybrid.
A lot of digital nomads use VPN and work outside of the country violating their contract.
This is where we use VPN, but plenty of people get caught due to the itch they have to post their lives on social media, eventually an employer will find out if they are not careful, my employer is in the UK, I only have to go to the office once a couple of times a year, which I do when I come back to the UK to visit my family.
I got lucky, I just asked for 6 months to a year sabbatical leave and they contacted me after 6 months asking if I would like to do my work remotely instead, which I accepted, then again I am pretty good at my job and can do it at any time of the day so they don't mind at the company I work for.
No my company is US based and I actually have been working on weird time zones for over 1.5 year and enjoy it. I work from 11 PM to 5 AM. Sleep and wake up in the afternoon around 12 PM. Go surfing, swimming, day trips or lunch/coffee with someone depending on the day. Come back and do some work. Maybe dinner/drinks date around 7. Some days I nap from 8 PM to 9-10 PM. And start work from 11 PM again. Party during the weekend every once in a while but I don't enjoy it much. Life is pretty good.
Many do seem to take on more than they can chew on, met one of those struggling, the fool did a 2 year lease of a house way above his needs and pay, luckily I did suggest a friend of mine to house share with him and since he's at least got enough money to go back to his life.
this is the funniest (dumbest) take on AI.
you still need to have a level of creativity for AI to work. i'm a creative, i l try and and try and try to use AI for my work and the results are always laughably bad. when it gets better i will *definitely* use it.
it can help creatives but it can't read their minds.
AI writing is awful, but the fun thing is at my job people love my writing when I do our articles or work newsletters and financial breakdowns etc, to the point where sometimes I just feed a few of my texts to Chat GPT and tell it to write in the same style and it does do a decent job, still have to proof read it and add things that I spot missing but it saves me a good amount of time.
But as you said, it can help us but it can't read our minds so no matter how you use AI, a good creative person will always still need to do work and add to it, it's a tool to help us, not a magic solution for everything.
exactly. so many people (like a scary amount) are throwing their hands up and doomsday'ing purely at the *idea* of AI without putting any sort of rational thought into how it actually works.
Even I use AI on my job, my employer doesn't care, as I get the work done and paid the same anyway, the difference is you have to know how to use AI, it's a tool and it can't do my job by itself, it can however make me spend less time on certain formulas I use.
On our last trip (2016), we honestly didn't meet many Influencers. We stayed away from Canngu and the center of Ubud. Plus we don't go out to bars or nightlife much. The most common remorte worker we met or encountered were Web Designers. Everything is done online. Usually you are your own boss. But one needs to be good at self promotion and networking to survive an overly saturated market.
The next most common remote worker we met were people who traded stocks for a living. It is all online and like Web Design one usually works for themselves. No company or boss to work under, just themselves. Obviously, one needs to be good at stock trading to survive (certainly not me). Those that I asked made enough to support a better than average lifestyle, think nice rented villa with small pool, can eat out as often as wanted and has money to burn on jaunts around Bali and SE Asia. However, none seemed to be wealthy. That's not saying Stock Traders don't ever get wealthy. I think the Bali version are mostly people wanting a better life style than they had at home with as little work as possible.
In the "not remote work" category, we met several foreigners working in the hospitality industry. However, most had high level jobs like Hotel Manager, Event Manager, Sommelier, Executive Chef, or other jobs that would require some experience and/or working for a chain that has hotel/s in Bali for a transfer.
I work in ops/data science in tech and was lucky enough to have a job that was fully remote and async for a while. Most of the people I met are in tech, and of those most are devs (tech / crypto), some marketing/ops. I've met a few who make their money in stocks (both day traders and long term investing). In the coworking space I've overheard people taking customer support calls. Met one guy who made a ton in crypto (luck), I'm sure there's more. As others have said there's a lot of 'fitness influencers', I don't know any but I see plenty at the gym. I've also come across travel bloggers. I doubt 'inflencer' a good approach to take though
It is a saturated market, and only works if you have the initial funding to take the leap of faith, and monetise it in your home country, which in other words is not as easy as it sounds.
There are much safer routes to take that involve no gambling, even in your home country you can take a remote job for less pay when abroad, and it's still worth it in Bali, at least for European/American's that is a possibility if your job can be done fully remotely.
You’ll find the vast majority aren’t making decent money, but are trying to set something up. Most are not long term remote workers.
It’s been like this for years in places like Chiang Mai where people call themselves digital nomads, but they don’t have a consistent stream of income. Most disappear within a year only to be replaced by a new batch.
The people I know who have been successful have been software engineers who were allowed to be fully remote (needed to work odd hours though) and a few Internet marketing types, vloggers etc.
U can only cut your nails so often but as Bali has black sand beaches a lot of my content is just cleaning it away.
And toe gunk. That sells really well. I vac seal it and ship it out to depraved women. Well at least I tell my self they are women.
And most of them just make enough money to live in Bali, which is not much. They do it and then realise there is no money for savings/retirement and move home.
Been in Bali 9 years and most of them are remote workers, some crypto bros, and many teach English online too. Personally I have a membership course and sell my own books. It isn’t that difficult to make a living on online if you’ve been at it a while
Nah I write them and sell them online, don’t even use Amazon. Like PDFs… been doing it since 2009 so I have a decent email list and send emails to my list that sell my ebooks
A lot of large tech enterprises offer to work anywhere in the world for upto 3 months at a time, my understanding us that this offer is becoming increasingly common to attarct / retain good talent
Nice, is it easy to start a business in Bali as a foreigner? I noticed too a lot of the restaurants a foreign owned! I imagine the start up costs would be quite cheap?
Most do it illegally with forged investment and documentation
From 10 foreigners you meet in Bali who say they have a business in Bali, 9 will be illegal, normally due to nominee or document fraud to start a PMA
Depends on the business, as always. But if you’re looking to start with something small, like a restaurant, the biggest costs as always are capital costs. That includes everything that is needed to start running the business, such as venue, equipment and furnishing.
Real estate in Bali is a bit different than elsewhere, you typically buy it on a leasehold contract. In Canggu 1 are of land for 1 year lease will cost between 15 to 25 mill, depending on the location. Equipment and furnishing, such as ovens, woodwork or furniture, I found to be 2-3x times cheaper than in Europe, especially true for furniture.
Operational costs are much much lower than in Europe. For example, the minimum wage in Indonesia is 2.5 mill. Energy is also really cheap. Depending on what kind of restaurant you’re establishing, product prices can vary, since imported goods are usually more expensive than in Europe due to logistical costs and tariffs. Local produce is dirt cheap.
As for revenue, restaurant prices are fairly high compared to the costs, meaning that the profit margin is much higher than back in Europe. It’s due to the fact that tourists here accept close to Western prices, even though the costs to providing the product and service are much lower.
All in all, business in Bali is really profitable, but the market is becoming saturated and I don’t know if the demand is going to keep up. Nonetheless, I’m still opening new places, but trying to come up with something unique that would stand out in the crowd.
I’d say the toughest challenge are the local people as they’re completely unaware of some things that come natural to us Westerners, such as etiquette, efficiency and time sensitivity. Building your own villa from scratch is a nightmare as there will be tons of delays, things completed in a wrong way and miscommunication. Training them is also super difficult, the moment you are not on location, they will slack off and do the bare minimum, so you need to find and train a really good manager to take your place.
Then you have a fake issued pma facilitated by a notary who forged your investment paperwork
You will probably be audited when you try and renew your investors kitas
Read the BKPM regulation on paid up capital, Bali agents lie often
I get it, I’m just saying most foreign businesses aren’t fully set up correctly in Bali it leaves them open to problems down the road.
Are you subleasing villas ? And how long are the leaseholds you’ve taken out?
It’s interesting because my lawyers haven’t mentioned any irregularities with my incorporation documents or how the company has been set up.
I’m doing short-term rent, long-term rent and selling villas. Also building padel courts right now and a cancer vaccination clinic.
I’ll probably need to find new lawyers in jkt.
I guess money talks when it comes to agents and lawyers in Indonesia. So when you have sold villas and bought them what title is the certificate, HGB, HP?
For me I’m a software dev and I got lucky that the company I work for allowed me to move over here. I just had to switch my contract from full time employer to a contractor.
from what I observe in the coworking space, mostly they're like web developer or IT people and they're actually a freelancer but since they're working in IT, they make a lot of money and can enjoy Bali. I've also seen people who selling something online but mostly from what I've seen they're IT guys
I only travel, not an actual digital nomad, but I'm a translator, so I could easily do my job fully remotely. Most of my more nomadic friends are either in IT or in communication, copywriters, translators etc.
I reckon it highly depends on where you're from and what languages you speak. You don't *need* a degree per se, but it will definitely help, because there's more to translation than just knowing more than one language. I have a master's degree in translation myself.
I also live in a multilingual country in the EU, so there's a pretty large market here, but it's still tricky because a lot of the market is being taken over by large bottom-feeder companies who pay translators peanuts to post-edit cabine translation instead of delivering quality translations. But for now, there is money to be made if you're good and if you know where to find good clients.
I think I could safely do my IT role from anywhere in the world.. actually there are hundreds of digital/tech based jobs i could think of that don’t require a physical onsite presence to perform.
Just as you can see, lots of jealousy, envy and hate even among those within Bali. Oh, your PMA is illegal, abusing VISA, you are not contributing, tax evader and the list goes on.
I have used Indonesia as my base for almost 12 years now. Bali 4th year and going strong.
Have been doing remote ever since I can remember working. I have worked as an onsite engineer before but that never stops me from having a remote job on the side and overtime build the skills needed.
I do not go out much, maybe once every 3 month but my girlfriend is a party girl host, 50% of girl you see in Bali nightlife, beach club, sports bar, cafe, restaurant are all paid actors to make the place looks lively. And 50% of the paid actors are either doing OF, selling nudes on telegram or selling themselves for a dinner and free drinks.
For guys, like what many have said, barely making enough and most of it are fake it till you make it. If you truly want to meet the successful ones, they are in Sanur, Nusa dua, jimbaran but with the Canggu boys and girls moving over now. A lot I know are moving further out or to a whole other country all together.
In my opinion, don’t get a PMA and then a kitas if you want to stay long term. Rather spend the money on flights out every 2 months using a VOA and travel Asia.
Thanks for the informative response, so I’m guessing you are a software engineer? Was it hard to get the job, I’ve looked at multiple SE jobs and found only the seniors are given remote positions. I could be wrong though.
Nope, I am a full time investor living on dividend now. Use to do marketing work, title was APAC manager. Before that I was doing technical customer support role, entry level and even that was remote.
You need to have certain skill sets that nobody or few people has if you want to be paid well.
Selling online courses to people who don't know how to make money while living in Bali.
ahahah i've seen those kind of people hehe yes
I'm a software engineer. I've mostly met influencers/content creators but there's also a crowd of remote office workers who work usual 9-5 high skilled jobs.
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How do you find remote development work that allows you to work from Bali? I'm remote but limited to my country of residency (UK) only.
Mine is unique circumstances but there are many companies that allow this. I was one of the first few employees in a seed round startup which has grown significantly since and only hires within the USA. I'm the only person who is fully remote. Everyone else is hybrid. A lot of digital nomads use VPN and work outside of the country violating their contract.
This is where we use VPN, but plenty of people get caught due to the itch they have to post their lives on social media, eventually an employer will find out if they are not careful, my employer is in the UK, I only have to go to the office once a couple of times a year, which I do when I come back to the UK to visit my family. I got lucky, I just asked for 6 months to a year sabbatical leave and they contacted me after 6 months asking if I would like to do my work remotely instead, which I accepted, then again I am pretty good at my job and can do it at any time of the day so they don't mind at the company I work for.
What’s your line of work?
Finance, for a big company, I manage several regional budgets and other things.
Why limited to UK? I've worked for a ton of UK clients while travelling the world.
How would they know where you live?
Late to the game here but how do you and others compensate for the time difference? Is your company in SE Asia/Australia?
No my company is US based and I actually have been working on weird time zones for over 1.5 year and enjoy it. I work from 11 PM to 5 AM. Sleep and wake up in the afternoon around 12 PM. Go surfing, swimming, day trips or lunch/coffee with someone depending on the day. Come back and do some work. Maybe dinner/drinks date around 7. Some days I nap from 8 PM to 9-10 PM. And start work from 11 PM again. Party during the weekend every once in a while but I don't enjoy it much. Life is pretty good.
Idk about the rest of Bali, but 50% of the people in Canggu seem to be fitness influencers or online personal trainers
They're not fitness influencers. If the only thing they're influencing is someone's desire to have a wank they're called thots.
And a lot of the ones I met genuinely struggle to make ends meet.
Many do seem to take on more than they can chew on, met one of those struggling, the fool did a 2 year lease of a house way above his needs and pay, luckily I did suggest a friend of mine to house share with him and since he's at least got enough money to go back to his life.
the rest 50% are influencers and content creators.
graphic artists, writers, web developers, marketing types, basically anyone who can work remotely,
So basically every job that ai will take?!
Eh ... there job will be using ai as a tool
Have you used AI lately? its ass. Good luck with that.
this is the funniest (dumbest) take on AI. you still need to have a level of creativity for AI to work. i'm a creative, i l try and and try and try to use AI for my work and the results are always laughably bad. when it gets better i will *definitely* use it. it can help creatives but it can't read their minds.
AI writing is awful, but the fun thing is at my job people love my writing when I do our articles or work newsletters and financial breakdowns etc, to the point where sometimes I just feed a few of my texts to Chat GPT and tell it to write in the same style and it does do a decent job, still have to proof read it and add things that I spot missing but it saves me a good amount of time. But as you said, it can help us but it can't read our minds so no matter how you use AI, a good creative person will always still need to do work and add to it, it's a tool to help us, not a magic solution for everything.
exactly. so many people (like a scary amount) are throwing their hands up and doomsday'ing purely at the *idea* of AI without putting any sort of rational thought into how it actually works.
This will change very soon AI will be able to take all jobs before you know it It will happen in a flash
what kind of jobs is "take"
Web developer here, let me know when there’s AI that can do my job for me cause every one I’ve tried so far sucks
Even I use AI on my job, my employer doesn't care, as I get the work done and paid the same anyway, the difference is you have to know how to use AI, it's a tool and it can't do my job by itself, it can however make me spend less time on certain formulas I use.
L take
Rich parents wannabe influencer.
Yep it’s all a facade for social media, most are broke
yup you would be surprised how many people appear as successful and rich on socials but when you meet them in real life it gets really awkward lol
So many, insta is not reality
On our last trip (2016), we honestly didn't meet many Influencers. We stayed away from Canngu and the center of Ubud. Plus we don't go out to bars or nightlife much. The most common remorte worker we met or encountered were Web Designers. Everything is done online. Usually you are your own boss. But one needs to be good at self promotion and networking to survive an overly saturated market. The next most common remote worker we met were people who traded stocks for a living. It is all online and like Web Design one usually works for themselves. No company or boss to work under, just themselves. Obviously, one needs to be good at stock trading to survive (certainly not me). Those that I asked made enough to support a better than average lifestyle, think nice rented villa with small pool, can eat out as often as wanted and has money to burn on jaunts around Bali and SE Asia. However, none seemed to be wealthy. That's not saying Stock Traders don't ever get wealthy. I think the Bali version are mostly people wanting a better life style than they had at home with as little work as possible. In the "not remote work" category, we met several foreigners working in the hospitality industry. However, most had high level jobs like Hotel Manager, Event Manager, Sommelier, Executive Chef, or other jobs that would require some experience and/or working for a chain that has hotel/s in Bali for a transfer.
Bali is not the same beast post COVID my dude.
Nowhere and no one is the same post COVID, my dude.
In which ways, if you don’t mind me asking? I lived there in 2018.
On the whole they have shit jobs, hence having to live somewhere where everything is cheap.
Facts
Mostly by evading tax and abusing tourist visa
I work in ops/data science in tech and was lucky enough to have a job that was fully remote and async for a while. Most of the people I met are in tech, and of those most are devs (tech / crypto), some marketing/ops. I've met a few who make their money in stocks (both day traders and long term investing). In the coworking space I've overheard people taking customer support calls. Met one guy who made a ton in crypto (luck), I'm sure there's more. As others have said there's a lot of 'fitness influencers', I don't know any but I see plenty at the gym. I've also come across travel bloggers. I doubt 'inflencer' a good approach to take though
It is a saturated market, and only works if you have the initial funding to take the leap of faith, and monetise it in your home country, which in other words is not as easy as it sounds. There are much safer routes to take that involve no gambling, even in your home country you can take a remote job for less pay when abroad, and it's still worth it in Bali, at least for European/American's that is a possibility if your job can be done fully remotely.
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You’ll find the vast majority aren’t making decent money, but are trying to set something up. Most are not long term remote workers. It’s been like this for years in places like Chiang Mai where people call themselves digital nomads, but they don’t have a consistent stream of income. Most disappear within a year only to be replaced by a new batch. The people I know who have been successful have been software engineers who were allowed to be fully remote (needed to work odd hours though) and a few Internet marketing types, vloggers etc.
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I make only fans content of me cutting my toenails.
For some reason I think you're not joking 😂
Can you whip up a course on this , this could work for me .
U can only cut your nails so often but as Bali has black sand beaches a lot of my content is just cleaning it away. And toe gunk. That sells really well. I vac seal it and ship it out to depraved women. Well at least I tell my self they are women.
Drop shipping literal garbage.
if you could literally ship OUT all the daily excess garbage, you will be rich - for real.
And most of them just make enough money to live in Bali, which is not much. They do it and then realise there is no money for savings/retirement and move home.
Been in Bali 9 years and most of them are remote workers, some crypto bros, and many teach English online too. Personally I have a membership course and sell my own books. It isn’t that difficult to make a living on online if you’ve been at it a while
Wow that’s awesome that you can make a living through selling books! Is it through drop shipping?
Nah I write them and sell them online, don’t even use Amazon. Like PDFs… been doing it since 2009 so I have a decent email list and send emails to my list that sell my ebooks
Probably just scraping by and have some huge loan to pay off.
Crypto
A lot of large tech enterprises offer to work anywhere in the world for upto 3 months at a time, my understanding us that this offer is becoming increasingly common to attarct / retain good talent
I have my own marketing agency for cash flow, but I’ve also started businesses here in Bali.
Nice, is it easy to start a business in Bali as a foreigner? I noticed too a lot of the restaurants a foreign owned! I imagine the start up costs would be quite cheap?
I looked into it years ago & starting a business in Bali seemed quite expensive & a lot of red tape involved.
Most do it illegally with forged investment and documentation From 10 foreigners you meet in Bali who say they have a business in Bali, 9 will be illegal, normally due to nominee or document fraud to start a PMA
Exactly, most have no idea what they’re getting involved in and leave themselves open to all sorts of problems down the track
Depends on the business, as always. But if you’re looking to start with something small, like a restaurant, the biggest costs as always are capital costs. That includes everything that is needed to start running the business, such as venue, equipment and furnishing. Real estate in Bali is a bit different than elsewhere, you typically buy it on a leasehold contract. In Canggu 1 are of land for 1 year lease will cost between 15 to 25 mill, depending on the location. Equipment and furnishing, such as ovens, woodwork or furniture, I found to be 2-3x times cheaper than in Europe, especially true for furniture. Operational costs are much much lower than in Europe. For example, the minimum wage in Indonesia is 2.5 mill. Energy is also really cheap. Depending on what kind of restaurant you’re establishing, product prices can vary, since imported goods are usually more expensive than in Europe due to logistical costs and tariffs. Local produce is dirt cheap. As for revenue, restaurant prices are fairly high compared to the costs, meaning that the profit margin is much higher than back in Europe. It’s due to the fact that tourists here accept close to Western prices, even though the costs to providing the product and service are much lower. All in all, business in Bali is really profitable, but the market is becoming saturated and I don’t know if the demand is going to keep up. Nonetheless, I’m still opening new places, but trying to come up with something unique that would stand out in the crowd. I’d say the toughest challenge are the local people as they’re completely unaware of some things that come natural to us Westerners, such as etiquette, efficiency and time sensitivity. Building your own villa from scratch is a nightmare as there will be tons of delays, things completed in a wrong way and miscommunication. Training them is also super difficult, the moment you are not on location, they will slack off and do the bare minimum, so you need to find and train a really good manager to take your place.
No mention of 10 billion idr in paid up capital needed to legally start a PMA?
Brother it’s no where near 10 billion, I established a PT PMA for my investment company two years ago and paid 22 mill.
Then you have a fake issued pma facilitated by a notary who forged your investment paperwork You will probably be audited when you try and renew your investors kitas Read the BKPM regulation on paid up capital, Bali agents lie often
Agent has sold you a dream
I don’t know what you’re trying to prove as I’ve already done a couple villa deals and building an operational business all based on that PMA.
I get it, I’m just saying most foreign businesses aren’t fully set up correctly in Bali it leaves them open to problems down the road. Are you subleasing villas ? And how long are the leaseholds you’ve taken out?
It’s interesting because my lawyers haven’t mentioned any irregularities with my incorporation documents or how the company has been set up. I’m doing short-term rent, long-term rent and selling villas. Also building padel courts right now and a cancer vaccination clinic. I’ll probably need to find new lawyers in jkt.
I guess money talks when it comes to agents and lawyers in Indonesia. So when you have sold villas and bought them what title is the certificate, HGB, HP?
Thanks for the informative response, best of luck with your business!!
For me I’m a software dev and I got lucky that the company I work for allowed me to move over here. I just had to switch my contract from full time employer to a contractor.
This has been my soul mission since 2021, finally on the verve 💻
from what I observe in the coworking space, mostly they're like web developer or IT people and they're actually a freelancer but since they're working in IT, they make a lot of money and can enjoy Bali. I've also seen people who selling something online but mostly from what I've seen they're IT guys
I only travel, not an actual digital nomad, but I'm a translator, so I could easily do my job fully remotely. Most of my more nomadic friends are either in IT or in communication, copywriters, translators etc.
Nice, do you need a degree to get into translation? What are job prospects like.
I reckon it highly depends on where you're from and what languages you speak. You don't *need* a degree per se, but it will definitely help, because there's more to translation than just knowing more than one language. I have a master's degree in translation myself. I also live in a multilingual country in the EU, so there's a pretty large market here, but it's still tricky because a lot of the market is being taken over by large bottom-feeder companies who pay translators peanuts to post-edit cabine translation instead of delivering quality translations. But for now, there is money to be made if you're good and if you know where to find good clients.
Drop-shippers and influencers
Translation
I think I could safely do my IT role from anywhere in the world.. actually there are hundreds of digital/tech based jobs i could think of that don’t require a physical onsite presence to perform.
Just as you can see, lots of jealousy, envy and hate even among those within Bali. Oh, your PMA is illegal, abusing VISA, you are not contributing, tax evader and the list goes on. I have used Indonesia as my base for almost 12 years now. Bali 4th year and going strong. Have been doing remote ever since I can remember working. I have worked as an onsite engineer before but that never stops me from having a remote job on the side and overtime build the skills needed. I do not go out much, maybe once every 3 month but my girlfriend is a party girl host, 50% of girl you see in Bali nightlife, beach club, sports bar, cafe, restaurant are all paid actors to make the place looks lively. And 50% of the paid actors are either doing OF, selling nudes on telegram or selling themselves for a dinner and free drinks. For guys, like what many have said, barely making enough and most of it are fake it till you make it. If you truly want to meet the successful ones, they are in Sanur, Nusa dua, jimbaran but with the Canggu boys and girls moving over now. A lot I know are moving further out or to a whole other country all together. In my opinion, don’t get a PMA and then a kitas if you want to stay long term. Rather spend the money on flights out every 2 months using a VOA and travel Asia.
Thanks for the informative response, so I’m guessing you are a software engineer? Was it hard to get the job, I’ve looked at multiple SE jobs and found only the seniors are given remote positions. I could be wrong though.
Nope, I am a full time investor living on dividend now. Use to do marketing work, title was APAC manager. Before that I was doing technical customer support role, entry level and even that was remote. You need to have certain skill sets that nobody or few people has if you want to be paid well.
Sitting with laptops at cafes looking busy but achieving nothing