It depend on the economy, but in general yes. This is the annoying role where headhunters can be your inside track.<p>It is a system I hate, but the reality is if you have 2 candidates. Equal in most aspects, with one key exception. Your wife's, cousins, neighbor, mother in-law, whom you have a positive opinion of, because you were both at a party together once. Said candidate 'A' is really good.<p>Whom are you going to hire?
It generally won't hurt. FWIW, as a US citizen working in tech my whole life, only my entry level job was from a connection.<p>Now for the bad news - it's really, really hard to get a job places without living in that city. Much less country.<p>That said, big tech is so hungry for talent they put the resources into relocation, visa support, etc. That would be my suggestion - look at the big tech (Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Netflix, MS, etc.)
Even if it's not related to US. It's really expensive and ineffective to filter strangers. The easiest, safest way to get a great hire is via recommendation.<p>It works the other way too. A lot of top tier talent won't go job hunting or bother with interviews, so inside connection is the best way to poach a star.
Everyone is hired on merit, but going to techy social events will help you get past the HR filter. If you are in a US city then there is probably some social network that publicly schedules monthly open houses at different tech companies. In Austin, TX that would be BuiltInAustin.com, I'm not sure what it is in other cities, but there is also Meetup which can be good.
As a non-US citizen working in the states -yes, you can land a job from merit alone.<p>My 2cents of advice are be upfront about what type of visa you will need when you start the interview process. Don't trust that the HR will know the correct visa and requirements. Do you own research about processing times for the visa, make sure you look at recent data for this!<p>Good luck!
Sorry this isn't an answer as I've never thought of going to the US, but someone posted this earlier today:
<a href="https://hackersurfing.com/2019" rel="nofollow">https://hackersurfing.com/2019</a>
I think meeting people in person will greatly increase your chances of landing a job in the US, because that's definitely how it is down here in NZ.