Job Search Agent / August 2026 9.
An onsite US role should not make a developer look less qualified
One ranking flaw appeared when geographic eligibility and professional fit began leaking into the same score. The system needed to answer those two questions separately.
Situation
A role can be an excellent professional match and still be irrelevant because it requires local work authorization or full-time onsite presence. If that constraint reduces the professional score, the system eventually learns the wrong lesson: that the technology or role itself is a poor fit. That mixes competence with logistical eligibility.
Approach
I added a separate eligibility and confidence layer alongside the professional score. Remote scope, country, visa requirements and working-location constraints became gating or curation signals rather than professional penalties. Regression tests demonstrated that the same professional profile receives the same fit score even when one posting is excluded from Best Match because it is not realistically actionable.
Outcome
The ranking became easier to interpret: the professional score described how well the work matched the profile, while eligibility described whether the role was realistically available to the candidate. Keeping those dimensions separate also made later explanations and curation logic much cleaner.