I managed to do it, but it took almost a year of looking, even in a job market supposedly favorable to programmers.
My strategy was to basically scour the job boards, looking for remote jobs, and apply when it looked like a good fit. Some boards I found helpful for remote, non-contract work:
- https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote
- http://www.indeed.com/l-Remote-jobs.html
- https://weworkremotely.com/
- http://www.flexjobs.com/jobs/telecommuting-remote-jobs
Job sites which don't have a specific category for "remote" tended to produce a lot of noise, because searching on "remote" would get hits for things like "remote work not allowed".
Two other things which seemed very helpful in landing a job:
- Experience with using Github
- Having been involved in open-source development.