I’m having trouble finding legitimate remote AI jobs. Most listings seem outdated or require relocation. I need advice on where to look for up-to-date remote artificial intelligence job openings with trusted companies.
Yeah, finding legit remote AI jobs these days feels like trying to score the last PS5 on Black Friday. Everyone claims they’re hiring, but when you click, surprise! “Remote… but you’ll need to work onsite after training in Timbuktu.” Or, “posted 8 months ago,” or even better, “Position no longer available.” Pure joy.
My saga with this started when I got laid off and the only commute I was willing to do was from my bed to my desk. You’d think with all the ChatGPT hype, remote AI gigs would be everywhere, right? Nope. Most wanna see your passport getting new stamps or hope you live within 30 miles of the office for the occasional “team sync.” Like, are you allergic to Zoom, corporate overlords?
Here’s what actually worked for me:
- AngelList (now Wellfound): legit startups with investors, lots of remote stuff. Narrow by ‘remote’ and ‘AI’ tags, but yeah, still gotta weed out the fakes.
- AI-specific remote boards: ai-jobs.net, Remotive’s AI section, Himalayas—they actually update! Bonus: filters for “fully remote.”
- LinkedIn (hear me out): set remote as your preference, disable locations, and spam “AI, ML, Data Scientist, NLP” in search. But filter by “posted in last 7 days” so you don’t read expired listings and start yelling at your screen.
- Company websites: Mid-size and big players (like HuggingFace, DeepMind, Cohere, DataRobot, Scale AI) list “remote” as a valid location. Skip Indeed and Monster unless you enjoy spam.
- AI communities: discord servers (mlcollective, PapersWithCode), subreddits (r/MachineLearning, r/remotework), and Slack groups for data professionals sometimes post decent leads people heard through the grapevine.
A lot of “remote” jobs come with tax/employment restrictions–“must reside in US/EU/JP”. Not ideal if you’re global, but hey, at least you know before you waste an hour tweaking your resume. Also, 1099/freelance is way more common than full-time, unless you’re grad-school level PhD. Try not to rage quit.
Final pro tip: If you see “full remote” in small print at the bottom or in a way-too-plain PDF upload, that’s your unicorn. Screenshot it. Save it. Maybe pray a little. But they ARE out there, I swear. Don’t let the outdated listings gaslight you.
So, real talk: if I had a dollar for every time I landed on a “remote AI role” that turned out to be “remote until our boss’s trust issues flare up,” I’d probably be browsing used Teslas by now. I see where @jeff is coming from with the job board grind—AngelList (whatever they’re calling it now), ai-jobs.net, etc—but honestly, half of my friends gave up on those after scrolling through copy/paste listings from last fiscal year.
Here’s how I’d actually approach this mess (with a little less hope in humanity): skip ALL the aggregator boards for a week and try sliding into conference DMs. Go look at speaker lists from NeurIPS, ICML, or even OpenAI’s blog contributors. These folks are ALWAYS working on something weird and, contrary to stereotypes, often need to hire because their startup just got surprise Series A money. Reach out directly—yes, cold emailing actual researchers—because “we need a remote NLP wizard for our startup’s new project” happens more than you’d think.
Also, recruiters. Yeah, they’re mostly the worst—LinkedIn will fill your inbox with insurance sales, not AI gigs. But, boutique tech recruiters who focus on AI (think Maverick, True Search, Fifth Talent) can sometimes get you in way before that job even hits the site. You’d be shocked what slides across their desk that never goes public. Just skip Indeed and Monster—agree 100% w/@jeff there.
Major disagreement: Discord and Slack? Meh. You’ll get community, but rarely exclusive jobs. Fwiw, what did work for me once was joining paid mastermind groups (expensive, but tight networks). The “hey does anyone know a remote vision engineer?” DMs actually hit different there.
And please, if it has “remote possible” or “remote for the right unicorn,” just run. Never seen a “possible” turn into an offer that didn’t ask me to move by Q4.
Honestly, half the time the job isn’t posted anywhere and you have to manufacture your luck. If someone’s innovating in open source, contribute to their repo. That got me two freelance contracts this year alone—no board, no recruiter, no HR hoops. Just, “saw your PR, wanna talk?”
TL;DR: direct connections > stale job boards. And if a job post still has “TensorFlow 1.0 proficiency required,” just close the tab and move on before you lose all hope.
Not gonna sugarcoat it: remote AI job hunting is a pain, but there’s a method to the madness nobody talks about. Everyone loves name-dropping AngelList/Wellfound or ai-jobs.net, which—sure—can be solid, but you still spend way too much time doomscrolling outdated “anywhere” jobs that want you at HQ for QBRs in Nebraska. My go-to approach: tap into open-source project collaboration. Contribute code or docs to buzzy repos in your AI wheelhouse. You’ll get eyes on you from founders who actually value distributed work and care about async workflows, not badge-ins. Plus, you skip the endless recruiter ping-pong and land gigs before they’re even public.
Don’t sleep on Twitter (okay… X) for this, either. Hit up threads under emerging AI hashtags, follow industry personalities, and reply to deep-dive technical conversations—these are low-key job boards in disguise. You’d be surprised at the DMs that follow technical banter in a niche thread. Sure, it’s a slower burn than stalk-and-click on job boards, but the connections run deeper.
On the downside, you’re not gonna get that neat, tidy “Apply here” funnel, and more legwork means more ghosting before you hit pay dirt. It’s not for those who like one-click resumes and waiting for HR to call.
Seems like @caminantenocturno’s “conference DM” advice is more hustle-y than I’m willing to stomach, and @jeff’s community stuff skews a little self-selecting, but both underscore: don’t just rely on job boards.
If you want a one-stop dashboard, though, check out the product ’ – centralizes recent AI job posts, flags “remote-first,” and lets you filter by visa/geo restrictions. Pro: Actually up-to-date posts, handy search tools. Con: Occasionally pulls in “remote hybrid” stuff, so vet carefully. Worth using as a baseline, maybe alongside a few of the more hands-on methods above. Competitors like those mentioned can feel more like “luck of the scroll” than smart targeting.
Bottom line: open-source contribution plus savvy scraping with tools like ’ nets you better leads than old-fashioned mass-apply. Less rage, more results.