Oh wow. I'm the French engineer featured in this story, Theo Negri. Still trying to move back to the US. Hopefully this helps more than it hurts!
I have a new intern offer in San Diego (I love this city) with a very good possibility of being hired after. Hope I will get my HB1 but if not I won't mind cheating like Indians.
Easiest way to get a green card is getting maried. As a french you should have used your French bonus of +5 attractiveness with girls :P
H1B game is fucked up for europeans anyway.
I'm glad this article shows legitimate uses of the H-1B like you.
I made the math, if you don't have an advanced degree from the US, then the chance to get the H-1B is around 30%. With the advanced degree it's around 70%...
Good luck to you!
I did my undergrad in Mechanical Engineering from a small city in India. By 3rd year of Engineering, I realized I wasn't cut out to be a good Mechanical Engineer, as I wasn't enjoying CAD/CAM as much as I enjoyed writing C code. I decided it is in my best interests that I turn to programming as a profession, so I worked hard to get selected in campus placements to TCS (Yes, the same shit job which you said is beneath you). I took the job because none of the top tier companies would even look at my resume and this is best shot to work my way up. I spent close to 3 years of my time at TCS learning the basics of Programming, Web Development. Later based on my experience at TCS, I applied to top schools in US and got admitted into a top tier CS school. I took a massive education loan of 50k$ to pursue my MS in CS. Upon completion, after 13 attempts, I landed in a good start up and have ever since been working up the chain building products. I don't think I am an 10X Engineer, but I am regarded as one of the better Engineers in my company. It took a lot of motivation and courage to take such massive loans and pursue my higher education. I know of several people who have done something very similar to what I have done. So, please don't make these biased statements that just disparage the efforts of 1000's of students who come to US in hopes of a better tomorrow.
http://time.com/3752128/india-bihar-exam-cheating-climbing-w...
People will be more inclined to believe Time I think :)
I don't think this article can hurt your chances in any way but unless the system is revamped in order to remove these shitty outsourcing companies from it, we will have to get lucky next year..