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How has working remotely with OTGS benefited your family? – An interview with Andreas Walter

July 29, 2020

Helena Petridou

My name is Andreas Walter and I originally come from Germany. My family left Germany in 2012 and settled in Lima, my wife’s hometown. We had a significant amount of savings and huge expectations but finding an adequate job was harder than expected. 

How did you find the job market in a country like Peru?

My first jobs in Peru kept me busy for 50-60 hours a week, with only one day off, no vacations and no paid sick leave either. In fact with the national basic income of less than 300 USD monthly, there were actually no benefits at all. 

Luckily, within a year I was able to get my first customer service role, which required English and German. I was only working 40 hours, improved my salary a LOT and finally had more benefits. From there,  I continued doing customer service for a couple of years, learned about SEO and marketing and started doing freelance side jobs – content writing and translating –  until I achieved my first full-time remote job role as a customer service agent.

Working remotely was exactly what I was looking for and I was surprised how fast it worked out. I was working a night shift for 6 months, taking US calls for a payment service.  I was already earning about 5 times more than I did in my first job role in Peru about 3 years earlier. In time, however, I began to feel I was getting stuck and did not want to keep doing that kind of customer service for longer. It was too easy, the same repetitious pattern, on and on, every night.

Family time in Peru – me, my wife, Anny Cecilia and her grandmother Anny.

 What did you do about it?

That was whenI took advantage of my free time to learn HTML, CSS and got my first taste of programming languages like JS and PHP. I do not know how many hours I studied but the topic WebDev inspired me to learn more with the goal to land a technical role.

I cannot remember how many CVs I sent to Tech Firms and Start-Ups all over the web – they were too many to count, but suddenly there was this one company urgently needing a German speaking WordPress Support Agent. Fortunately, I had used WordPress before and had a good intermediate knowledge of HTML and CSS. So, I applied for the position.

How has OnTheGoSystems changed your life?

In one word “completely”! The benefits are unbelievable!  I have been almost two years with the company and, besides a generous monthly compensation, I receive an annual scholarship bonus which I used to achieve a professional certification as a Front-End Web Developer.  I am also very thankful that within my first year at the company I was given an allowance to purchase a new laptop, screen and other external hardware exclusively for work purposes. 

What a difference having a steady income has made to our family! Finally we have been able to move into a new home. Someday we may be able to own it, but for now we are renting a 130 square foot apartment in one of the most exclusive zones of Latin America, close to the green coast and beautiful parks, cafes and restaurants.

Not only have we moved into a new home, but we are now able to send our son to a private bilingual school which teaches mainly English, which we had not been able to do before.

Precious moments with my son, Joshua.

I am very thankful for all that OTGS made possible for my family and that you believed in me from day one! 

Thank you, guys! You rock!

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