Hi Patick
Wouldn't that mean that Tom stopped to see that job as stopgap measure as soon as better one came up?

Could we say "would come up"?

Hi brauchinet

Thanks for your question.

I think the imperfect subjunctive "came" fits best in this sentence and, in my opinion, a native speaker would be unlikely to use the conditional "would come up" in this sentence.

The conditional "would come up" is used in a construction containing "if" "whether" etc. For example "Tom was waiting to see if/whether something better would come up."

I hope this answers your query.

Thank you for your answer.
I just asked because I noticed that a translation of 'came' as 'past tense' would make a slightly unnatural German sentence.
The reason is probably that the until-clause doesn't seem to refer to a certain event in the past (as in "He worked as p.a. until he found a better job") but to an event in the relative future ("a measure until").
So 'came' is "imperfect subjunctive" here and expresses the same idea? (Wow, I did not even know that English had such at thing ☺)