I am self taught, so no formal qualifications but I have 3 years of demonstrated professional experience.
If I were to do a small government accredited certificate, or say a series of AWS certificates - would that help get me over the line for an H1-B visa?
How does one turn an H1-B visa into a permanent residence visa?
Another way in is to work for a year or two for an international subsidiary of an American company, which can then bring you to the USA under a different category of visa. That's an L1-B and you get five years in the USA.
Various immigration sites eg https://www.path2usa.com/h1b-visa-petition-requirements tell me you're buggered if you don't have an equivalent formal degree to a USA 4-year Bachelors. AWS, work experience, diplomas, certificates ... don't seem to cut it. For the best info, talk to an American immigration lawyer who deals with this day in and day out. (Ask friends who have done what you want to do for a recommendation, or look back through HN archives for recommendations)
I’m on a H1B currently starting the green card process.
I don’t have formal education, but have been working as a developer for the past 16 years (13 at the time of the VISA application).
If you don’t have a degree, you can make it do with 3 years worth of experience for each year in college you don’t have. In my case, 12 years.
The experience is proved by employer letters and an “equivalence analysis” made by any college in the US where they write a piece of paper saying you have the equivalent knowledge of someone with a bachelors degree.
The challenge, really, for the H1B is the 85k cap (65k if you don’t have an advanced degree) and the application window which closes at April 7th.
Once your application is submitted you need to win the lottery (there are usually around 280k applicants) and wait for the VISA to be processed.
Potential employers are usually discouraged because they have to apply for you in April and you can only start working (if you are lucky) after October.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
H1B: Hard to get, but a FAANG-level company could probably get you in
O1: Apparently some people get into the US this way. If you've built something notable, maybe this is an option?
L1: This seems to be the default - work for a company with an office in the US, and then transfer to the US office.
I have absolutely zero knowledge of the US visa process, as a Brit, but it doesn't seem to be an easy process. Good luck!
The problem now is that the visas seem to be harder to obtain and have a longer delay. I know people who were stuck waiting for multiple months to do a transfer.
> L1:
My understanding is that this doesn't provide a path to a green card.
In this situation, I'm not even going to interview you. If you want to pass the first cut, I recommend thinking more strategically about how you're presenting yourself. Then you can get through the interview process and on to the visa discussion.
Or I could be wrong, and you could be an absolute frickin' genius who made Senior in 3. But the odds say no.