I think it's a lot of luck and being one of the first people to apply. Once the flood comes in then people start filtering on metrics that don't really matter. "Oh, you only have 10 years of Java? This candidate over here has 11."
I also think there's a weird game going on with remote roles. On my new team everyone is "remote", but of the 10 people 3 are in the bay area and the other 7 are in 6 different cities, but each city has an office. The company has ~8 offices in North America, so the statistics are bothering. This matches with my circle of friends' experience; the only callbacks people get for remote roles are ones where they're already in the same city.
I suspect "remote" really means "remote, but in a city that we have a presence in, just in case we decide to force you to come into an office."
I've hired a bunch of people (well my boss, but I'm on the interview panel so I have a real say though I'm not hiring). We generally agree that living near an office is an advantage. We have hired people from all over, but those closer to an office are more valuable just because sometimes we need someone to go physically look at a failing test setup.
It can for sure. I felt that way interviewing with Google and Facebook. I typically go for "remote first" companies that either don't have an office presence at all, or companies with a significant number of engineers across the nation/world. It's one of the primary questions I tend to ask during the initial interview phases.
I also think there's a weird game going on with remote roles. On my new team everyone is "remote", but of the 10 people 3 are in the bay area and the other 7 are in 6 different cities, but each city has an office. The company has ~8 offices in North America, so the statistics are bothering. This matches with my circle of friends' experience; the only callbacks people get for remote roles are ones where they're already in the same city.
I suspect "remote" really means "remote, but in a city that we have a presence in, just in case we decide to force you to come into an office."