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# How to Find Remote Software Jobs That Actually Hire From Your Country

Most "remote" software engineering job posts are remote only inside the United States, Canada, or a single European tax jurisdiction. Job seekers outside North America and Western Europe spend hours reading full job descriptions only to hit a final line requiring US work authorization or US time-zone residence. Filtering those posts reliably requires reading the location and eligibility clauses of every listing and judging each one against the applicant's country and time zone before displaying the feed.

By OpenKrill. Published 2026-10-20. Benchmarked against We Work Remotely, Remotive API, and Remote OK.

We benchmarked [OpenKrill Remote Jobs by Country](https://tools.openkrill.app/tools/remote-jobs) (`https://remotejobs.openkrill.app/mcp` and the web board at [`/remote-jobs`](https://tools.openkrill.app/remote-jobs)) against **We Work Remotely**, the **Remotive API**, and **Remote OK** for an engineer searching for remote software roles from **Vietnam** (`country: "Vietnam"`, `family: "software"`), then ran a second live check for customer support roles open to the **Philippines** (`country: "Philippines"`, `family: "support"`, `only_open: true`). OpenKrill judged 150 active software listings for Vietnam (`44 open`, `105 unclear`, `1 closed_by_time_zone`) and 150 support listings for the Philippines (`136 open`, `9 unclear`, `5 closed_by_time_zone`), quoting the exact sentence in each post that proves why the job is open.

## Why generic remote job boards waste international applicants' time

Standard job aggregators treat "Remote" as a boolean tag rather than a geographic eligibility rule:

- **US-only remote posts mixed into global feeds:** Company ATS boards on Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, and Breezy HR frequently set the location header to `Remote` while restricting hiring to specific US states in the body text.
- **Region and time-zone mismatches:** A post tagged `Remote - EMEA` or `UTC-8 to UTC-4` is closed to an engineer living in Ho Chi Minh City (`UTC+7`) or Manila (`UTC+8`), even when the company hires outside the United States.
- **Thin or blocked public APIs:** When our benchmark queried the free Remotive API (`remotive.com/api/remote-jobs?category=software-dev`) in `421 ms`, it returned only 12 jobs in the entire `software-dev` category (9 marked Worldwide or APAC, with writer, sales, and office roles mixed in). Querying `remoteok.com/api?tag=dev` from a non-browser HTTP client hit a `302` redirect loop back to `/` across 2 consecutive attempts.

## Head-to-head benchmark: 4 remote job sources compared

In our October 20, 2026 evaluation, we tested four sources on finding remote software jobs open to an applicant in Vietnam:

| Source | Access method | Response time | What it returned for software jobs from Vietnam | Overall score |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [OpenKrill Remote Jobs by Country](https://tools.openkrill.app/tools/remote-jobs) | MCP JSON-RPC (`find_remote_jobs`) & [web index](https://tools.openkrill.app/remote-jobs) | 1,575 ms | Judged 150 software listings for `VN` (`44 open`, `105 unclear`, `1 closed_by_time_zone`); returned top 10 newest `open` roles with quoted location reasons and direct apply URLs | 8.0 / 10 |
| [We Work Remotely](https://weworkremotely.com/categories/remote-programming-jobs.rss) | Public RSS feed | 714 ms | 25 programming-category items (22 tagged `Anywhere in the World`); includes real global roles alongside non-software posts (Legal Ops, Risk Associate) and listings dating back to August | 8.0 / 10 |
| [Remotive API](https://remotive.com/api/remote-jobs?category=software-dev) | Public JSON API | 421 ms | 12 total `software-dev` jobs (9 Worldwide or APAC); several non-engineering roles mixed in, and the caller must filter country strings manually | 6.6 / 10 |
| [Remote OK API](https://remoteok.com/api?tag=dev) | Public JSON API | Not run (HTTP 302 loop) | 2 calls returned an HTTP 302 redirect loop to `/` for non-browser clients | Not scored |

## How OpenKrill judges country eligibility on every job post

The daily index behind [Remote Jobs by Country](https://tools.openkrill.app/tools/remote-jobs) ingests public company job boards (Greenhouse, Breezy HR, Recruitee) and remote feeds (Jobicy, Himalayas), then evaluates every post against your target country (accepted as a country name such as `"Vietnam"` or `"Philippines"` or an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code such as `"VN"` or `"PH"`):

1. **`open` verdict:** The post explicitly names your country (for example, `"Philippines"`), names a region that includes your country (for example, `"Remote - APAC"` for Vietnam), or states that it hires worldwide without location restrictions (for example, `"We hire globally."`, `"Anywhere"`, or `"Fully remote, no location restrictions"`).
2. **`unclear` verdict:** The post is marked remote and does not rule your country out, but names no explicit geographic scope, so you should verify before applying. Passing `only_open: true` hides `unclear` listings.
3. **Excluded (never returned):** Posts restricted to other countries or regions (such as US-only or EU-only) and posts whose required time-zone window excludes your country (counted in `judged.closed_by_time_zone`) are filtered out before the response is returned.

## Live walk-through 1: remote software jobs open to Vietnam

Call `find_remote_jobs` on `https://remotejobs.openkrill.app/mcp` with `country: "Vietnam"` and `family: "software"`:

```
curl -sS https://remotejobs.openkrill.app/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 2,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "find_remote_jobs",
      "arguments": {
        "country": "Vietnam",
        "family": "software"
      }
    }
  }'
```

In `1,575 ms` (snapshot `as_of: 2026-10-18T00:02:02.740Z`), the endpoint reports `judged: { open: 44, unclear: 105, closed_by_time_zone: 1 }` and returns the 10 newest `open` listings. Here are the 7 verified global and APAC roles from those 10 results (the remaining 3 rows: #1 at Unifonic, #7 at Urrly, and #10 at Kimmel & Associates, are boundary or false-positive cases examined under "Honest limitations" below):

| Role & Company | Type & Niche | Posted salary | Quoted eligibility reason from the post |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Staff Software Engineer (SRE)**, Phantom | `full_time` · `crypto` | 200,000 to 250,000 US dollars per year | `The post hires from anywhere: "Anywhere"` (via Jobicy) |
| **Lead Developer / Architect Web3**, GoFasti | `contract` · `crypto` | 2,000 to 3,000 US dollars per month | `The post hires from anywhere: "Anywhere"` (via Jobicy) |
| **Edge Functions Engineer**, Supabase | `full_time` | Not listed | `The post hires from anywhere: "We hire globally."` (via Jobicy) |
| **Software Engineer - Auth**, Supabase | `full_time` | Not listed | `The post hires from anywhere: "We hire globally."` (via Jobicy) |
| **Software engineer**, Sticker Mule | `full_time` | 150,000 to 250,000 US dollars per year | `The post hires from anywhere: "Anywhere"` (via Jobicy) |
| **Senior Full Stack Software Engineer**, Drips | `full_time` | Not listed | `The post hires from anywhere: "Fully remote, no location restrictions; Cleveland, OH"` (direct Breezy HR board) |
| **Field Intelligence Analyst (Tokyo, Singapore, Canberra)**, Sayari | `unspecified` · `government` | Pay Range | `The post includes Vietnam: "Remote - APAC; Field Intelligence Analyst (Tokyo, Singapore, Canberra)"` (direct Greenhouse board) |

## Live walk-through 2: remote support jobs open to the Philippines (`only_open: true`)

When you want zero `unclear` listings and want to target a different job family, pass `only_open: true` alongside `family` (supported values: `software`, `data`, `design`, `product`, `marketing`, `sales`, `support`, `ops`, `finance`, `hr`, `assistant`, `other`):

```
curl -sS https://remotejobs.openkrill.app/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "id": 1,
    "method": "tools/call",
    "params": {
      "name": "find_remote_jobs",
      "arguments": {
        "country": "Philippines",
        "family": "support",
        "only_open": true
      }
    }
  }'
```

In `3,472 ms`, the server evaluates 150 support roles for `PH` (`136 open`, `9 unclear`, `5 closed_by_time_zone`) and returns 10 verified `open` roles, including 4 posts that explicitly name the Philippines (`Level 1.5 Service Desk Technician` at **HireArchi** paying 1,300 US dollars per month, `Virtual Executive (DO - 03052025 - FTVE)` at **Rippedboxstation**, `REMOTE PHI - Telephone Service Representative` at **Always Answer**, and `Player Support Representative / Email Support` at **Pole To Win International**) plus global support roles at **SimX, Inc** (95,000 to 125,000 US dollars per year), **AnywhereWorks** (16 US dollars per hour), and **20four7VA**.

## Honest limitations: why the quoted `reason` field matters

Automated text extraction from company job posts can still be tripped up by contradictory employer wording, which is exactly why [Remote Jobs by Country](https://tools.openkrill.app/tools/remote-jobs) prints the verbatim `reason` quote on every row so you can spot false positives in two seconds:

- **Work-from-anywhere travel perks vs full-time residence:** In our Vietnam run, job #1 (`AI Engineering Manager: Marketing & Personalization AI` at **Unifonic**) was marked `open` because the post contained the bullet `"- Spend up to 25 days per year working from anywhere in the world!"`. Seeing that quote immediately tells you the line is a 25-day travel perk rather than permanent global hiring.
- **Contradictory location headers vs body tags:** Job #7 (`AI Automation Engineer (Remote - U.S.)` at **Urrly**, 120,000 to 150,000 US dollars per year) carried the Breezy HR metadata tag `"Fully remote, no location restrictions; Beverly Hills, CA"` while its title said `(Remote - U.S.)`.
- **Job-family boundary cases:** Two of the 10 Vietnam `software` results (`Field Intelligence Analyst` at Sayari and `Building Automations Engineer-Mechanical Construction` at Kimmel & Associates) matched engineering/analyst keywords in the index despite not being pure software development roles, and two of the 10 Philippines `support` results were remote Malay and Soninke medical/court interpreter listings at **Language Services Associates**. Adding `keywords` (for example, `"typescript"`, `"rust"`, or `"customer support"`) narrows the family filter to exact roles.

## Frequently asked questions

### What remote software jobs can I apply for while living in Vietnam?

In our October 2026 benchmark query for Vietnam (country: "Vietnam", family: "software"), OpenKrill Remote Jobs by Country identified 44 open software listings and 105 unclear listings after excluding time-zone-incompatible and country-restricted posts. Verified open roles included Staff Software Engineer (SRE) at Phantom (200,000 to 250,000 US dollars per year), Edge Functions Engineer and Software Engineer - Auth at Supabase ("We hire globally."), Software Engineer at Sticker Mule (150,000 to 250,000 US dollars per year), Lead Developer / Architect Web3 at GoFasti, and Senior Full Stack Software Engineer at Drips.

### Which job boards list remote jobs open to workers in Southeast Asia?

OpenKrill Remote Jobs by Country (https://tools.openkrill.app/remote-jobs and MCP endpoint https://remotejobs.openkrill.app/mcp) aggregates public company ATS boards (Greenhouse, Breezy HR, Recruitee) alongside remote feeds (Jobicy, Himalayas) and filters every listing for your exact Southeast Asian country (such as Vietnam or the Philippines) and UTC+7 / UTC+8 time-zone window. We Work Remotely's RSS feed is a strong secondary source (22 of 25 programming posts tagged Anywhere in the World in our test), whereas Remotive's free API returned only 12 software-dev listings.

### How do I find remote jobs that really hire from my country and not only the US?

Call find_remote_jobs with your country name or ISO code (for example, country: "VN" or country: "PH"), set only_open: true to hide posts with unspecified geographic rules, and read the returned reason field on each match. OpenKrill quotes the exact sentence from the employer's post (such as "We hire globally.", "Remote - APAC", or "Philippines") so you can confirm whether the company hires residents in your country before clicking the application link.

## Sources

- [OpenKrill Remote Jobs by Country Live Web Index](https://tools.openkrill.app/remote-jobs)
- [OpenKrill Remote Jobs by Country MCP Tool Specification](https://tools.openkrill.app/tools/remote-jobs)
- [We Work Remotely: Remote Programming Jobs RSS Feed](https://weworkremotely.com/categories/remote-programming-jobs.rss)
- [Remotive Public API: Software Development Category](https://remotive.com/api/remote-jobs?category=software-dev)