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Ask HN: Cities open to international grads?

10 pointsanmolparashar15 comments

I'm looking for a Jr. UI Designer role at a small or medium startup. However, with the H1B restrictions, USA is definitely off limits. What other cities can I apply to? I'm not looking for large paychecks, just something that'd allow me to live like just another 20-something in a city.

CS grad, founded two small but profitable startups while in college, love designing and have experience working as a freelancer/intern as well.

Edit 1: I'm from India, can speak English and German, have enough coding experience but prefer UI/UX Design

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Hi,

I'm Indian myself and came to America in 1999 on a H1B Visa. I feel your pain, that's why I slaved nights and weekend for almost a year and created http://visaok.in/

Still polishing up the search and few other details, then will do a Show HN soon. I Soft launched it in April. It's a site with curated job listings in Countries and Companies that sponsor * the Work Visa / Work Permit.

You can click "Browse" and filter by Visa, Country, Job Title, Skills etc. Outside of USA, Countries with the largest # of Jobs that are sponsoring work visas are Germany, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain, Australia etc. The Australian work visa is also undergoing some radical changes like the H1B here, but it's still there to stay.

You are exactly the kind of person(s) I am trying to help. So help me help you. Any feedback on the site and content is much appreciated. Tell me what you'd like to see, and I'll build it for you.

You can contact me via email at theblogdoctor @ gmail

[ Other techies / hackers who are in a similar situation as OP, please feel free to provide me with feedback on the site, and what will help you the most. I know ya'll are tired of searching for jobs only to find "Sorry, cannot sponsor visa / H1B at this time." ]

=) Shiva

* = I contact the HR at Companies where I can and verify that they are able to Sponsor specific Visas for the Job.

Nice website, I have bookmarked it. Hopefully, in a few months you'll be able to populate it more.

As far as feedback goes: - I'd work on the UI a bit more (sorry, can't help but see it as a designer) - Your search page (from the navbar) throws an error. - I don't really see the point of user-registration (it's not there yet, but the options are visible)

And a few other UX for marketing improvements. It's a good site and you seem like you have got it covered. Best of luck. I'll check it whenever I can. If you need any help with front-end dev, let me know (shameless, I know but I'm actually good)

Thank you for your honest feedback. I did it all myself, and not really a front end guy. Would love to partner with you. I'll shoot you an email.

Canada welcomes you. We even have a startup-specific Visa program [0]. Toronto has a growing tech scene and is one of the most diverse cities in the world. Montreal and Ottawa are wonderful. Waterloo has a booming tech scene, and the university is becoming very well known.

[0] http://www.canadavisa.com/the-entrepreneur-start-up-visa-pro...

I actually did apply to a pretty popular company in Canada, and they said Visa sponsorship for jr. roles is almost impossible.

Indian who moved to Canada in 2009 - currently Permanent Resident in Montreal.

If you can save a bit of money, going to university here in such a way that it guarantees you two years of continuous full-time education is the easiest way.

In Québec, we also heavily favor people who speak adequate French, often bending over backwards to award them the provicial nominee certificate, which is the fastest way to PR in Canada.

Also, Montreal a great and burgeoning tech hub.

Where are you from? That'll heavily change the answer to your question. For instance, it's trivial for a French person under 35 to get a visa to Canada, but might be harder for other nationalities.

Sorry, didn't mention.

I'm from India, but can converse in both English and German, if that helps.

Barcelona, Spain is in general a beautiful and very welcoming city, especially when it comes to young people. The creative atmosphere is great, and also for engineering in general. It's cheap to live here, and it should be relatively easy to migrate here.

I have a friend who's doing some research there after he did his Masters. He speaks Spanish though, which I'm open to learning. Do you know any companies that might be hiring, or any job portal?

Berlin Germany, Toronto Canada, plus some of the Scandinavian capitals like Copenhagen Denmark and Stockholm Sweden.

I use AngelList to look out for jobs and couldn't find any startup that could sponsor a Visa. Is there any other job portal I should look at?

On Angelist, there are many in Canada that SAY they are willing to sponsor a visa, but I haven't had any luck yet. I guess it depends on the kind of visa required.

I am in the same boat as you, looking for an international position. Try Indeed too.

Copenhagen or Malmö surely deserve a shot! Anyone speaks English and if you want to learn the local language, your knowledge of German comes in handy.

Berlin is an obvious choice.

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