Yes it can be done, but its extremely tough if it is your first visa application (much easier to do a transfer). In that case you'd want the company to petition

Yes it can be done, but its extremely tough if it is your first visa application (much easier to do a transfer). In that case you'd want the company to petition for you while you were interning (h1-b cap opens in April if I remember correctly) so that after your internship you could get approved and start in October (thats when you're allowed to start working). The trick is to know all the ins and outs of the process (or get an experienced immigration attorney to advise you), so that if any issues come up you (preferably your attorney) can walk them through the process. It really isn't that hard, but not a lot of people bother to sit down and learn how to do it correctly. The other thing is that if you can pay the associated costs on your own, then you can insulate the company from the process to a large degree ... I'm not sure that option is still available though, as I think it has been changed to require the company to pay all the fees on their own.