I have a very specialized set of degrees/knowledge/experience (Actual high level software engineering on real projects and also an IP/patent lawyer who specializes in open source lawyering) that can be hard to find.
Also, there was an office at least moderately nearby (within 2 hours).
I eventually became officially part of the DC office, and started a small eng team there.
Note that hiring remotees required very high level approval, even back then, and some areas of Google simply won't do it. 7 years ago, Google was also a little more lenient. :)
Nowadays I would expect that they grandfathered in most of the earlier remotees, and that there are no real remotee hires anymore, they have enough small sales/whatever offices that they just make them part of those offices, or don't hire them.
You can leverage JD/eng into a job at most good tech companies.
You just have to contact the right folks there, instead of applying through recruiters that are doing keyword scanning.
You won't be able to get work at a large law firm doing anything but lawyering, of course.
Open source lawyering = I specialize in open source related issues (be they licensing, compliance in general, whatever).
If you want to work more on the law side, pretty much any sufficiently big software company is going to need someone like you. If you want to stick more to the developer stuff, try something in a more heavily regulated industry like healthcare or finance.
My employer won't take a new hire as a remote worker, but if you've worked on site for several years and have to move for family reasons they'd rather you work remotely than leave the company.
