[ccashwell_]

Many companies which aren't remote-friendly tend to resist hiring folks without a clear tie to their primary market for obvious reasons. If you're in Anytown, USA and applying to jobs in Metropolis, you look more like a country mouse dreaming about big city livin' than an unattached city mouse whose happenstance brought you back to your humble hometown.

Even if you've historically lived and held down key roles in a major market, the fact that you're not there now may lead an employer to believe that you're not prepared to stick out long-term assignments if the wind blows another direction. Or, worse, you're not actually as good as your résumé purports, and your last employer(s) figured that out and fired you, which led you to crawl back to the nest.

I'd suggest either moving to a major market and shooting from close range, or looking for remote-friendly roles (which would allow you to keep your negligible rent, quite a rare find in any of the top engineering job markets).