The most useful places to find remote developer jobs are a handful of remote-first job boards (We Work Remotely, Remote OK, Himalayas), startup platforms like Wellfound, LinkedIn with the remote filter switched on, company career pages, and developer communities such as the monthly Hacker News hiring thread. None of them is a hidden source of beginner roles. What separates a productive search from a frustrating one is how you filter: by level, by stack, and above all by where the company can legally hire you.
This guide covers each source honestly, including which ones are realistic at entry level, then gives you a search routine and a scam checklist. If you have no professional experience yet, read how to get a remote job with no experience alongside this one. That article covers the routes in; this one covers where the listings are.
Read the location line before anything else
“Remote” on a job post rarely means “anyone, anywhere.” Most remote roles are remote within a country or region, because hiring someone abroad brings payroll, tax, and employment-law work the company may not be set up for. If you live outside the US or Western Europe, this one line decides whether an application is worth your time.
You’ll see four common patterns:
- Country-restricted: “Remote (US)” or “Remote, Canada.” The company hires only residents of that country, sometimes only people already authorized to work there. Treat these as closed unless the post says otherwise.
- Region-restricted: “EMEA,” “Americas,” “APAC only.” Open to a list of countries that may or may not include yours. The full post or the company’s careers FAQ usually spells it out.
- Time-zone-restricted: “UTC-3 to UTC+3” or “must overlap four hours with US Eastern.” Your location is flexible, your working hours are not. From Jakarta (UTC+7), a role that needs US Pacific overlap means working late every night.
- Worldwide: “Anywhere in the World” or “Worldwide.” Open to everyone, which also makes these the most competitive listings. Companies hiring this way usually engage you as an independent contractor or through an employer of record, a third-party company that legally employs you on their behalf.
Two habits save a lot of wasted effort. First, never assume a bare “Remote” means worldwide; check the full description, the careers page, or the company’s public handbook if it has one. Second, look for companies that already employ people in your country. A team that has solved the legal side once is far more likely to do it again.
Remote-first job boards
These sites list only remote roles, and most let you filter by region. They’re the best snapshot of who is hiring remotely right now, but entry-level listings are a small slice of each, so expect to filter hard.
We Work Remotely
One of the longest-running remote boards, with separate categories for full-stack, back-end, front-end, and DevOps work. Each listing carries a region tag such as “Anywhere in the World” or “North America Only,” or a country flag, plus a separate line for the company’s headquarters. Don’t confuse the two: HQ tells you where the company is based, not where it hires. Open a category like remote full-stack programming jobs and you’ll see how much eligibility varies between listings on the same page.
Remote OK
Remote OK (remoteok.com) is built for fast scanning, with filters for region (including Worldwide), country, minimum salary, and tags. Its junior jobs tag is a sensible starting filter. Still read each listing: “junior” tags are applied loosely on every board, and some tagged roles quietly ask for several years of experience.
Himalayas
Himalayas (himalayas.app) lets you filter by time zone, location, and salary, and has country pages such as “Remote jobs in Indonesia.” The site says most listings include a salary range, and its company profiles show tech stack and benefits, which speeds up research. Job search and the built-in application tracker are free; the paid plan adds AI writing and mock-interview tools you don’t need. One caution about the country pages: a job appearing under your country doesn’t guarantee it’s open to you. Some listings are limited to that country, some list a set of eligible countries, and some carry no label at all.
Remotive
Remotive (remotive.com) covers remote jobs across many fields, with software development as one category. Its location filter can show jobs available from your country, including Worldwide and wider-region listings, which is exactly the filter you want. The catch: as of October 2026, free visitors see only a fraction of the listings, and full access, custom alerts, and advanced location filters require a paid plan. Use the free view for a few weeks before deciding whether it adds anything over the free boards.
Startup and tech platforms
Wellfound
Wellfound (wellfound.com) is a startup hiring marketplace where you apply directly to founders and hiring managers, and creating a profile and applying is free. Many listings show a salary range and equity up front, and remote listings carry labels like “Remote only, United States,” so the location check takes seconds. A large share of remote roles there are limited to the US, but early-stage startups occasionally hire juniors who can ship on their own, which makes it worth a weekly look.
Welcome to the Jungle (formerly Otta)
Otta, a tech job platform that was popular in the UK, is now Welcome to the Jungle, and otta.com redirects there. It focuses on the UK, continental Europe, and the US, with detailed company profiles and salary insights. It’s most useful if you’re in or near Europe or targeting companies that hire there. Remote roles still come with location limits, so apply the same eligibility check.
Arc
Arc (arc.dev) matches remote developers with mostly US-based startups and tech companies for both full-time and freelance work, and it’s free for developers. Everyone takes a communication test, freelance applicants also do a technical interview, and Arc’s own talent page says people with five or more years of experience and excellent English do best. That makes it a platform to bookmark for later rather than a first-job source. As of October 2026, its junior remote jobs page showed no open listings.
LinkedIn and local job boards
Many companies post roles on LinkedIn and recruiters search it for candidates, so it does double duty. Combine the workplace-type filter (on-site, hybrid, remote) with your stack and an experience-level filter, then save the search. You can keep up to 20 job alerts on LinkedIn, delivered daily or weekly by email, app notification, or both.
Two LinkedIn habits matter. The location field changes everything: a remote search with the location set to the United States returns US-only roles, so run separate searches for your country and your region. And plenty of “remote” results turn out to be hybrid, so read the workplace label on each post before you tailor anything.
Don’t skip your own country’s main job boards. Many local and regional companies hire remotely within the country, those roles get far fewer applicants than global listings, and there’s no eligibility problem. A local remote job is still remote experience, and it makes every later global application stronger.
Freelance marketplaces
General freelance marketplaces such as Upwork and Fiverr work differently from job boards. Instead of applying to an employer, you compete on proposals for individual projects, and clients choose largely on reviews and past work. That’s hard with no track record, but small, well-defined jobs (fixing a bug, building a landing page, writing a data-cleanup script) can earn your first reviews and portfolio pieces.
Read each marketplace’s fee pages before you start, because what you pay to bid and what the platform keeps from your earnings differ between platforms and change often. Vetted networks like Toptal, which advertises hiring “the top 3%” of freelance talent, are built for seasoned engineers and aren’t realistic for a first gig. If this route appeals to you, Freelancing 101 covers pricing and landing first clients in more depth.
Company career pages
Job boards are aggregators. The original posting lives on the company’s own careers page, which is often hosted on an applicant tracking system (ATS) such as Greenhouse, Lever, or Ashby. Going direct has three advantages: you see the full eligibility details, you catch roles that never reached the paid boards, and you apply through the channel the hiring team actually reviews.
Build a target list of 20 to 40 companies that are remote-first or already hire in your region. Good signs include a public handbook or remote-work policy, a team page with people in many countries, and engineers in your time zone listed on LinkedIn. Check those careers pages weekly, or follow the companies on LinkedIn so new roles show up in your feed.
You can also search ATS job pages directly. A query like this in Google surfaces postings that may not be on any board yet:
site:job-boards.greenhouse.io OR site:jobs.lever.co OR site:jobs.ashbyhq.com "remote" "junior" (react OR typescript)Swap in your own stack and terms such as “APAC,” “worldwide,” or “graduate.” Results include old and closed postings, so check the date before you get attached to anything.
Developer communities
Communities give you something boards can’t: a direct line to the person doing the hiring.
- Hacker News hiring threads. At the start of each month, an “Ask HN: Who is hiring?” thread collects hundreds of comments from companies, many marked REMOTE with their location limits spelled out. A parallel “Who wants to be hired?” thread lets you post your own short pitch. Both are listed on the whoishiring account page. Use your browser’s find feature to search a thread for “remote” plus your stack.
- Framework and tool communities. Many frameworks, open source tools, and language communities run Discord or Slack servers with a jobs channel. Postings are fewer, but they often come from small teams who value people already active in that ecosystem.
- Company-backed open source. Companies that build products on open source often hire from their contributor base. Steady, useful pull requests to such a project are one of the few ways a junior gets noticed without applying at all.
- Local meetups and developer groups. Even for remote work, developers in your own city are your best source of referrals to companies that already hire in your country.
The rule in every community is to contribute before you ask. Someone who has answered questions and shared their work gets replies; a first message that says “any jobs?” usually doesn’t.
Platform comparison at a glance
| Source | Best for | Entry-level friendly? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| We Work Remotely | Browsing remote dev roles by category | Some roles | Region tag on every listing; HQ is not eligibility |
| Remote OK | Fast scanning with region and salary filters | Some roles | Has a junior tag; read requirements anyway |
| Himalayas | Filtering by time zone and country | Some roles | Free search and tracker; paid plan is optional AI tools |
| Remotive | “Available from my location” filtering | Some roles | Free view shows only part of the listings |
| Wellfound | Startup roles with pay and equity shown | Some roles | Free for candidates; many remote roles are US-only |
| Welcome to the Jungle | UK, European, and US tech companies | Few | Formerly Otta; strong company profiles |
| Arc | Vetted remote roles with US startups | No | Free; favors five-plus years of experience |
| Alerts, recruiters, local and global roles | Yes, with filters | Up to 20 alerts; many “remote” posts are hybrid | |
| Local job boards | Remote roles within your own country | Yes | Less competition, no eligibility issues |
| Freelance marketplaces | Small paid projects and first reviews | Yes, for small jobs | Fees vary by platform; reviews drive everything |
| Company career pages | Full details and roles not on boards | Depends on company | Use ATS search queries to find them |
| HN “Who is hiring?” | Direct contact with hiring teams | Some roles | Monthly; location limits stated in each post |
A search routine that works on any platform
More platforms rarely means more interviews. Searching the same way on ten sites mostly multiplies duplicates and drains the time you need for tailoring. A focused routine looks like this:
- Pick three sources. One remote board, LinkedIn, and either a community or your company target list is enough. Add a fourth only when the first three stop producing new roles.
- Save searches that combine level, stack, and location. Level terms include junior, associate, graduate, “engineer I,” and “entry level.” Pair them with your main stack. Run one search for worldwide roles and one for your region or country.
- Turn on alerts and check them on a schedule. Daily or every other day is enough. Applying within a few days of a role going up is usually worth more than applying to twice as many stale postings.
- Check eligibility first. Before reading requirements, confirm location and time zone. Thirty seconds here saves an hour of tailoring for a job you can’t take.
- Apply on the company’s site when you can. Use boards for discovery and the employer’s own page for the application.
- Record where each application came from. After a month, compare reply rates by source and drop the ones that never produce a response. This guide to running a long job search like a pipeline shows how to set up the tracking.
Where you apply is only half of it. If well-targeted roles still produce no replies, the problem is usually the application itself; these remote job application mistakes are the place to look next.
How to spot remote job scams
Remote job listings attract scammers, and entry-level candidates are especially exposed because they’re eager and less sure what a normal hiring process looks like. The US Federal Trade Commission’s guide to job scams lists the classic signs, and they apply wherever you live:
- You’re asked to pay for something: training, a starter kit, a certification, or a promise of placement.
- You receive a check to deposit and are told to send part of it back or spend it on something. The check bounces later, and you owe the money.
- You’re asked to buy gift cards.
- The pay is high for very little work, or the offer promises fast, easy money.
- Contact details don’t hold up: disconnected phone numbers, websites that disappear, paychecks that never arrive.
Developer job searches have a few extra warning signs:
- An offer arrives without a real interview, or the whole process happens in a chat app.
- The recruiter writes from a free email address, or from a domain that’s a near-copy of a real company’s.
- You’re asked for ID documents or bank details before you have a written offer.
- A coding test asks you to clone a repository and run it locally, or install software from a link they send, before anyone has spoken to you. Read unfamiliar code before running it, and use a disposable environment if you’re unsure.
- The role doesn’t appear on the company’s own careers page.
When something feels off, do what the FTC recommends: search the company or recruiter name together with words like “scam,” “review,” or “complaint,” and confirm the opening on the company’s official site before you share anything personal.
FAQ
Are paid remote job boards worth it?
Usually not at the start. The free boards, LinkedIn, and company career pages cover most of the same listings. A paid tier might earn its place later if it adds a filter you’d really use, such as strict location eligibility, but test the free version first. Never pay a service that promises to get you hired.
Can I apply to US-only remote jobs from another country?
Generally, no. A US-only restriction usually reflects how the company handles payroll, taxes, and employment law, not a casual preference. The exception is a post or recruiter that explicitly says they’ll consider contractors abroad. If the wording is ambiguous, ask in one sentence before you spend time tailoring.
Which platform has the most entry-level remote jobs?
None has many. LinkedIn and your country’s local job boards tend to have the most beginner-friendly volume because they include remote roles within your own country. On global boards, use junior filters where they exist, then judge each role by its actual requirements rather than its tag.
Set it up this week
Choose your three sources today and create two saved searches on each: one for worldwide roles and one for your region or country, both filtered by your stack and level. Then start a simple spreadsheet with columns for company, source, location eligibility, date applied, and response. Two weeks of data will tell you which sources deserve your time, and every application after that gets more targeted.