hary_potter

Hello,

my goal is to immigrate to the United States on a H1-B visa (cap-exempt) once i finish my OU studies (BSc Computing & IT and Mathematics) in two years time. I should also have ~ 5.5 years of professional software engineering experience by then.

I don't have A-levels, so WES will have to evaluate my degree on face value without assuming the A-level prerequisite.

Do you think they'll judge it equivalent to a 4 years US bachelors?
Also, does a double major make it more difficult for WES to evaluate and find a suitable equivalent US degree?

Thanks
Mike

tom169

How are you planning to land a cap exempt H1-B job? Regarding the degree, reach out to WES?

hary_potter

I'm planning to look at the list of public US universities that have sponsored H1-B / Perm in the past. I'll try to find jobs on each of their websites that have my skillset in the description. I don't think it'll take less than at least 500 job applications until i land a job.
Here's a neat guide i'm trying to follow reddit(dot)com/r/immigration/comments/d8pt1o/guide_to_getting_a_h1b_capexempt_job/

tom169

I think you're going to have a tougher time without a masters, and even then likely underpaid vs what you could earn on the open market.

What areas of software engineering do you currently have ~3.5 years of work experience in?

hary_potter

Yeah a masters would probably give me better chances. I need to explore that some more.
Regarding software engineering, backend systems / api development mostly, with some elements of vue/angularJS, primarily PHP and its immediate stack, AWS and all that. I've been a contractor for 3 years. Now i'm a permanent employee and senior software engineer. Recently moved onto Python. I'll probably learn some more languages and stack in the next 2 years

tom169

I like your enthusiasm for learning and growing your skill set. In a web oriented development position it's increasingly important to have good knowledge of the full-stack.

I would make this a two pronged approach:

1. By all means try the tactic of applying for H1-B jobs in software engineering, but I think it will be a fruitless endeavor. You're a relatively new developer, it's going to be a tough sell unless you have some specific niche skill they are looking for - I am talking you are a key contributor to an open source technology that they happen to use and would like you to be a consultant. Second to this, the degree path you've mentioned isn't conventional for a US software engineering job - generally an employer is looking for a degree in Computer Science with optional minor in something such as math for the initial foot in the door. Realistically if you didn't need sponsoring the degree requirement goes away if you have a contact on the inside.
2. Research and try land a job with a multi-national company with operations in both the UK and USA. Try scope out what their policies are around movement and sponsoring of visas. This will be a longer time horizon - probably 10 years. In that I would expect you'd need to progress into a management position (either process or personnel).

civilservant

An excellent post there from Tom.

I happen to agree with him regarding the visa too, what is so special about you and your skill-set that a non-profit or educational facility is going to spend thousands of $$$ to get you to the US over someone with a similar skill-set that is a USC and could start tomorrow?

tht

2nd the multinational transfer. As a data point I had a similar goal aged 21. It took me about 10 years to achieve it. That was comprised of work experience / another degree and finally an L1a transfer followed by a Green Card and now USC 10 years later.

I call it the TYP (10 year plan) if your are smart and willing to work hard and keep at it it’s doable. On the flip side I could have married my then USC girl friend (not my now USC born wife, I waited to get my GC before I proposed so my intentions were beyond question) at 21 and been here 6 months later.

petitefrancaise

I worked with a young man from the UK last year who IIRC didn't even have a full degree in IT - he had done some courses and became a full stack web developer, he identified a company that he wanted to work for that had offices in the US and ended up working for them in Spain (their EU HQ) for a year and got a transfer to the USA a year later. He was 23 years old.

civilservant

L1B?

petitefrancaise

probably.

tht

Agreed it can be done much quicker if they have a desirable skill or work experience, in my own an and direct connections experience L1's have more experience, I have seen more H1b's for more junior staff and also some other outliers, like a O in her mid 20's who worked in marketing.

hary_potter

Thank you all for the advice!

I'll be looking into possible jobs with L1B progression in case i can't get my H1-B, or move to Canada on Express Entry and find a position with L1B possibility there.

On the topic of why would any university sponsor me when they can get local candidates - the skillset i possess is sought after by many universities and i think will be even more so as many of them are starting to implement online courses and establish a good presence on the internet in general. i also have skills in devops, cloud architecture, workflows and so on by working in the web hosting industry for a few years. So i could theoretically position myself on the Software Engineer/Solution Architect side.

Also i'm willing to go to the flyover part, places where the pool of candidates isn't as vast as in California & NY. So that's another of my reasonings, the scarcity of candidates essentially.