3 ms·

I am a developer and I want to immigrate to US. Do companies hire immigrants?

4 points by webjockey6 16y ago

I am currently living in Europe, and although I have a pretty good life here, I want to relocate. I am in my early 20s, my experience is pretty vast, my latest job was as an Senior Web Developer at an local (country wise) web agency doing almost all the programming (from PHP to Ruby/Python), as for now I am doing freelance work although I've been accepted everywhere I've sent my resume. I am self-thought and so I didn't attended any CS or similar because I felt it would be a waste of time and I don't regret it. I've been reading a lot lately about how to get an US Worker Visa/Green Card so I can say that I have a good idea on how this will work but there's only one thing that keeps me going to the next step, the employer ("invitation"). Do US companies hire "outsiders"? If so, how many? In what proportions? A solution is to find it by myself, sending my resume to every jobs@company ,then see what response I get, but ATM this looks like shooting in dark, so I prefer to be a little bit more informed before going alone in dark. Any advice will be appreciated. Thanks

jgoewert 16y ago
Yes, they do. My previous employer (a Fortune 400 company) was picking up H1B workers like there was no tomorrow. But, I believe it was more to get lower paid employees with more direct oversight than outsourcing while paying less than what an standard middle class American IT employee would expect. Over half of my dept that did web development alone, about 60 people, were H1B's from India. When the company had its first layoffs ever a few years ago, 99% of those laid off were not the H1Bs. They are all still there to this day. From the H1B guys that I knew, they agreed that this was pretty much the standard than an abberation. However, understand right now that there is a glut of jobless tech workers that has led to an undercutting of wages for quality talent and a reduction of companies that can pull the H1B card to get cheap labor. Keep trying, but why not try to flip the idea upside down and do remote contract work?
- webjockey6 16y ago
  Interesting, as you said I suppose they better have the workers over their sight. This looks promising and sounds that I might have a shoot and get to travel the Atlantic. Regarding remote contract work, yes, I've tried that (no US) but it went the boring way and as I said, I am in my early 20s and I kind of succeed on all places here, there's no competition, nothing that can keep a developer entertained. No startups no nothing. So that's why I want to move to US. The money won't really be a problem, as I am covered up by the freelance work and personal projects although I expect the minimal salary based on my experience not the country I come from. I think I will just have to try my luck on several job boards around the w3 and see what I can get :) Thanks