[brokenkebab]

In most countries to hire a remote foreigner requires to jump over some legal, and accounting complications. So yes, they do it because they want to find a cheaper deal abroad. It's pretty much the only reason why it makes sense for them, besides searching for very rare skills. And there's nothing wrong with it. Nobody is prohibited to try to negotiate the same rate as in an expensive city in US, and good for you if your qualifications allow you to have success with it, but in most cases it means a company would be better hiring a US employee instead of outsourcing.

[notsag-hn]

Sometimes it's not just about finding people that work for less money, it's because they know there's also talent out there. Even for companies that pay good salaries it's very hard to hire local senior-ish engineers, most of them already have a job, so they have to hire somewhere else.