US expats/nomads, how do you find remote-out-of-US jobs in US?

You don't, you find a US company with a local entity that hires you on a local contract in that country. That way you're compliant with taxes, and the company is compliant with employment law in your country.

The alternative to that is starting a sole-trader company in the country you're in, and contracting directly with the US company through it (or a remote-employees-as-a-service company that basically does this on the company's behalf for a fat fee).

I imagine it's a very crowded and competitive market to work remotely for US companies (and not through a sweat shop agency). The fact that a candidate has emigrated from US shouldn't typically be a big factor.

Go on Linkedin and search for small companies with less than 50 employees that have been in business for 3-5 years minimum. Figure out what they do, what they sell and if you would be interested in their company. Don't worry about whether they have a job listing or not.

Approach their founder(s) directly and sell yourself.

Think of it this way - if they’d hire you, why wouldn’t they hire someone much cheaper.

You can’t identify them from the outside, but your network can. If you want to try, try companies with heavy worldwide presence.

I can share my experience as a canadian who's been working remotely for US companies since 2016.

Typically I would either find a warm intro from a past colleague, or I would specifically find someone involved in the hiring pipeline at the company on Linkedin and say "Hey im so and so, and blah blah blah, im thinking of applying but would love if you could tell me more about the role and the culture before I commit"

From here, so long as you baseline can stand out as a solid engineer and communicator those US only barriers fall down.

This is why to someone elses point > if they’d hire you, why wouldn’t they hire someone much cheaper.

They'd hire someone cheaper certainly, provided they could find a person with identical quality, similar culture, and near PST timezones. Which is a fairly tall order in reality.

Its also why its not too uncommon to find Canadians pulling in near SF salaries while not having to relocate