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Comment by arihant | Hacker News Reader

If you have 8 years of experience, wait till you get 9 years. If you do, then even if you have a year of college, you can qualify for H1B. Typically, 3 years of experience equals 1 year of college. As is popular myth, a college degree or education is not a requirement that is set in stone for H1B.

Also, money or not, if you're working in US in capacity that usually someone would get compensated for, even for a company outside the US, you need to have work permit in the country.

If I were you I would look for jobs within Middle East like Qatar, UAE. Jobs related to tech are there, US universities are there, and the requirements with immigration are basically "if employer wants you get in." Rack up a few years of experience, then getting H1B would be viable.

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Thank you for your help and information.

Yeah, I second this. I've never been to the Middle East and I haven't heard the best things about living/working there as a foreigner, but it's absolutely doable - I knew a couple guys in Nepal who would go to Saudi Arabia and Dubai for work (cattle ranches or something), visa and all. Other folks from India and other places who would go for tech work, engineering, etc - all over the Middle East (even Oman) and it's not so bad. There are stable, thriving economies there.

Please do not suggest this unless you know the full story. The conditions are bad, the pay is terrible, and the legal environment is most unpleasant.

And due to cyber security laws, you will notice no one is going to sat more than that in a GCC state.

This fits what I've heard from people who went (having passports confiscated and held against their will, being put in prison until they signed their companies away, things like that).

Both are true. My experience (primarily from UAE and Qatar) is that, if you have skills that are in short supply then you can get excellent, tax-free salaries with fantastic benefits.

If you're there for manual/low skilled work then the pay and conditions (relative to, say, Europe) can be appalling.

Exactly, I can give more detail, but for obvious reasons I will not.

Given what he posted, he is either from Syria or Yemen. And this is why, knowing the breakdown that you summarized, he will most certainly face a tough time.

I work with many people on both sides of this spectrum, and hence my warning.

How do you prove that you have 9 years experience?

You might have to give them contact details for bosses for each of the positions. At least that is what I had to do.

Which can be problematic if some of your 9 years have been spent with the company where you are currently employed.

Or you have run your own business or have been a self-employed freelancer.

Proving experience without employment contracts is really hard to impossible.

If you've been self-employed, you'll have had tons of paperwork, tax returns, invoices, clients to obtain references from, and possibly could get to a prospective employer through your personal network. The key is to plan ahead.

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