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How I got an O-1 visa as a software engineer
- RustyRussell 3y agoFor those who don't know the jargon: an O(1) Visa gives you constant-time access to the US.
- anandvc 3y agoThank you! This made me laugh out loud!
- otoburb 3y agoAppreciate sharing this specific immigration journey so far. The biggest positive factor seems to be that the poster was already in the US on an L-1B which also counted towards one out of four of the O-1 eligibility criteria (specialized knowledge).
- kulor 3y agoThank you for sharing. It's useful to know that an O-1 is a theoretically viable route. Some serious creativity in using fundraising under the category of "Nationally or internationally recognized awards"
- elevatedastalt 3y agoUnfortunately a lot of people show VC funds for their startup to clear that bullet point for O-1 or EB-1a I think the USCIS will wisen up to it pretty soon and plug that hole.
- returningfory2 3y agoI suspect USCIS is consciously allowing it. They have large amounts of discretion and the President can generally get USCIS to exercise this discretion to fit some policy goal. Under Trump it was making it harder to be an immigrant; under Biden it’s making it easier to be an entrepreneur specifically.
- j7ake 3y agoDoes O-1 bypass the country by birth quota for green cards? Or is this just a visa not permanent residency?
- otoburb 3y agoThe O-1 is a nonimmigrant visa[1], but my understanding is that it's also one of the few nonimmigrant visas that USCIS allows for dual-intent consideration. Eventually, you have to go through additional steps to convert to an immigrant visa (e.g. be sponsored by your (own) company, or marrying an American, etc.). [1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/o-1-visa-individuals-with-extraordinary-ability-or-achievement https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...
- CobrastanJorji 3y agoRight. The O-1, the "extraordinary ability" visa, is easily confused with the EB-1, sometimes called the "Einstein visa." The latter is for those seeking permanent residency, and the former is not. The EB-1 became notorious a few years back in some circles when it was pointed out that the first lady had gotten one for modeling, but like this article points out, the criteria to get one is not as insurmountable as it might seem from the official examples, which will suggest things like Olympic medals, Pulitzer prizes, etc. Being on magazine covers and making a lot of money makes for a pretty solid case to acquire one.
- x86x87 3y agoEB-1 is not a visa. It's a category for permanent residence application. It's not an Einstein "visa" by any means. https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/green-card-for-employment-based-immigrants https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/gree... You can have extraordinary abilities or you can be a manager at bigcorp. Yes, being a manager will most times qualify you for an EB-1 bracket.
- CobrastanJorji 3y ago
- beaeglebeached 3y agoI have a dumb question but how often do tourist visa overstayers get deported while running their own business under an incorporated ITIN? There's not even an I-9 check for non-employee income. There's got to be millions of people doing something like this or as 'independent contractors' considering how trivial it is and the obvious completely broken immigration system that demands these kinds of hacks.
- wil421 3y agoWhy would you go through the trouble? Most people I worked with in restaurants would just find someone’s name/ssn to use, put they had 10 children, and never ever file taxes. I think there was a shady underground way to match illegal immigrants with SSNs. Or they just networked heavily in their communities.
- 101008 3y agoI can imagine this being true but at the same time it's so weird. I tried to open an account with Chase and Bank of America and they ask me for SSN, and I can't get one because I am from outside the US (I just want to get one to have my freelance money in an actual bank and not Paypal/Payoneer/an app). There are companies that provide a LLC with a SSN for just a fix payment of $400, but I am sure it comes with a lot of taxes issues that I don't want to care for now. So, how can the financial system rely on SSN if they can be sold for inmigrants?
- ceejayoz 3y agoThey won't use a Chase account. They'll get paid cash or a physical check they can take to a check cashing place.
- 101008 3y agoYes but my question was not about how they open a Chase account, but why Chase requires a SSN if SSN are sold in a black market (according to the previous comment)
- scottydog51834 3y agoSlightly off-topic, but I am curious how difficult it is in general to receive an entrepreneurial visa to the US? I chatted with a potential co-founder, here now for a masters, who would seek out this visa if we were to start a company together.
- Agingcoder 3y agoUnless I’ve misunderstood something, a phd holder who has published papers and worked in tech/banking/etc with a high salary can get that kind of visa ?
- neuralengine 3y agoEither conditions are typically sufficient, not necessarily both. Still, O-1s still have significant limitations. You can only work for the employer who sponsored you, for example. That means no additional freelancing.
- nsajko 3y ago> You can only work for the employer who sponsored you, for example. Nice, just like in the good old days with serfs and feudal lords.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoonly in America. in their home country, they're allowed to work freely.
- coherentpony 3y ago> Nice, just like in the good old days with serfs and feudal lords. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. Serfs were largely agricultural workers bound under the feudal system to work on their lord's estate. Foreign workers aren't serfs. They're not bound to a particular estate, nor do they typically execute agricultural work. They have the right to collectively bargain their salary, working conditions, and benefits. They are free to resign their position and leave the country. The O-1 visa is a temporary worker visa. The expectation is that folks on a temporary work visa work temporarily. That is, there is no intent to immigrate. You are also not bound to a particular employer. You're only bound to that employer on that visa instance. You can, if you like, apply for another O-1 visa sponsored by a different employer. There are, in some cases, restrictions on work even for folks that have the right to work and live in the US. For example, if company A contracts out work to company B, it is often not permitted for company A to offer workers at company B full-time positions at company A because of the existence of the contract. If someone freelances for company A they often can't also hold full-time positions at a competitor to company A. Is this feudalism? Of course not. TL;DR: Freedom to work does not imply or mean, "I can do whatever work I want for whoever I want." There are rules, regulations and laws present for a reason. We can debate whether or not those reasons exist in good faith, but equating "I can only work for one specific employer on a temporary work visa" to serfdom is awfully disingenuous, in my opinion.
- dannyw 3y agoO1 isn’t that hard with a good immigration lawyer. It’s about checking boxes, not extraordinary talent.
- jonny_eh 3y agoThey just need the guts to do it.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoif you're not hacking the immigration system, are you really an engineer??
- neuralengine 3y agoIt is a system with a feedback time of months-years. At these time horizons, you can’t do rapid iterations, and you have to be extremely risk-averse. The system is also indeterministic so not conducive to hacking.
- shutupnerd0000 3y agoYou missed the joke
- dannyw 3y agoYou can get an O1 in a couple weeks with premium processing. Pretty sure you also get a rubber stamp if what you’re doing is AI/ML related.
- wslh 3y agoA friend of mine is an actor, not famous at all but was given this visa. Not and engineer at all but has some type of hacker mind: really stubborn and being resourceful in some scenarios.
- skynetv2 3y agoYou are very much mistaken. I have seen someone go through this and it is very hard. You need to prove your contributions to an area of interest to the US, and that it meets the extraordinary qualification. It is ok to not know but maybe dont make such statements.
- nikshepsvn 3y agoIf you don't mind sharing, how much funding did you raise? I can't find any information online
- codeisawesome 3y agoThank you for sharing this openly, the content is personally useful for me.
- drtournier 3y agoGlad you made it OP, congrats! As an immigrant in the US I went through the "Extraordinary Ability" path and the process was a journey of pain and anxiety. Many roundabouts with a lawyer that promised me expertise in the process and it ended up with a NOID (Notice of Intention to Deny - something like that) from USCIS. My wife and I had to study the USCIS manual page by page and re-wrote almost all documentation from the lawyer. It wasn't easy but we made it.
- apapapa 3y agoHow long did the process take? I became a citizen without an attorney and from start to finish it was about 5 years... Different process used though (got married). Got a pile of paper about 2 inch high from all the forms I had to fill, mail that I sent and received, etc... Painful process.
- drtournier 3y agoOur case took around 14 months for the EB-1 from the first call to lawyer to the green card in our mailbox.
- j7ake 3y agoDoes this timeline depend on country of birth?
- swalberg 3y agoYes, you'll want to google for the "Visa Bulletin" to see the current dates for different countries. India and China are currently backlogged.
- neuralengine 3y agoIndians applying for EB-2 have a waiting time of 200 years based of the total number of available visas per year and pending cases.
- apapapa 3y ago
- hasty_pudding 3y agoThere should be a series on hacking the American immigration system to work around all of its draconian rules.
- networkchad 3y ago[dead]
- throwaway1507 3y agoYou should try immigrating to one of the EU countries... I tried helping a senior programmer friend. No amount of experience, proof or whatever else could change the government's stance - they don't have an employer so they surely must be looking to exploit the social system - bye.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoit's good in a way, allowing immigrants to leave their country of origin... deprives a country of its talent. instead of making their own country great another country is benefiting from their talent. and it's a self reinforcing system.
- Solvency 3y agoWhen I worked at a digital agency in 2007-2012 they hired MANY Brazilian art directors all who obtained O-1 visas. Literally just designers/creatives with portfolios online. I remember thinking how great they must be. Flash forward to 2024 I can't think of a single person in my network with one. Did the criteria change? Is it easier in certain fields? Easier from certain origin countries?
- angarg12 3y ago> May 2022 - Left my SWE job at Wave and incorporated my own startup called Path (a Delaware C corp) I was permitted to remain in the USA, since I was not employed by Path yet. My understanding is that it is permissible to do exploratory work on a new startup as long as you are not employed by that startup, and your previous visa has not expired. It was during this time that my cofounder and I raised money for Path. Note: If I had left the USA during this time, I would not have been permitted to re-enter on my old L1-B visa. This sounds iffy. I'm in the US on a L1-B visa as well, and my company went through rounds of layoffs, which concerned me. All information I've read, including the immigration team from my company (Big Tech), points out that if I lost my job, I would have had a short time to leave the country with no chance to find other jobs. Unless I'm reading too much into it, it sounds like OP spent some time in the US in an illegal status, until that gap was bridged with the new visa.
- paxys 3y agoYou are allowed to remain in the country for up to 60 days after your employment ends. The author doesn't mention how long they stayed, but it is possible that the "exploratory work" was done within that period.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- elevatedastalt 3y agoA lot of people do questionable things like this with some hand-waved legal reasoning. Most are lucky that it doesn't bite them in the ass. But I know of cases where it did. For eg. someone I know of was banned from entering the US for 10 or so years because he worked on his startup under a B1 visa.
- jacknews 3y agoI mean well done to the OP for getting their visa, but the whole thing reads like they gamed the system, which is clearly intended for people at the top of their fields, talented researchers, innovators, etc. And the 'outstanding ability' in this case is being put towards an 'immigration software' startup, ie helping others game, uh, navigate, the system, so the whole thing seems quite ironic.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoCongrats OP! I'm trying to choose my words carefully, because I don't want to give the wrong impression: 1. I think it's great that OP got the visa, and it's clear (at least to me) that we should be attracting entrepreneurial types like OP to start businesses in the US. I also understand that our immigration system is hopelessly broken, and oftentimes the best one can hope to do is "hack" the system. So I commend you for not just hacking the system, but posting this to Hacker News! 2. It seems pretty apparent that while OP may be able to "check some of these boxes", he, at least to me, doesn't meet the "Extraordinary Ability" intent of this visa. I worry that with more spotlight on these types of applications that various political movements would try to tighten the loopholes for this visa. To expand on number 2, raising 98K from family, friends and seed investors really does not strike me as a "nationally or internationally recognized award". Again, clearly it is by the letter of the law (at least the rules of the USCIS), but that surprised me as a layperson. The section on "Being employed in a ‘critical capacity’ at an organization with a distinguished reputation" seemed even more dubious. Path, OP's startup that is nothing more than a pitch deck and 100k in funding, is "an organization with a distinguished reputation"??? Again, to be 100% clear, I don't fault OP at all for going this route, and on the contrary, I commend him for "playing the game" correctly. I just worry about the downstream consequences of "pulling back the curtain" and showing how the game works to a larger audience.
- TMWNN 3y ago>I also understand that our immigration system is hopelessly broken, and oftentimes the best one can hope to do is "hack" the system. Just because something is difficult/time-consuming != "hopelessly broken". (No, kids, the Reason magazine "What Part of Legal Immigration Don't You Understand?" flowchart is not ipso facto proof of this, either.) There is no obligation for the US, or any country, to turn something as important as determining whether someone is eligible to enter the country into a one-click online process. One might say that the country would benefit by making the process easier, and that may or may not be correct, but that is not the same argument.
- Tallain 3y agoWhen I read "the immigration system is broken," I don't think of the arduous process of filing paperwork. I highly doubt GP was whining about the difficult and time-consuming process of filling out reams of paperwork, especially considering the context of the rest of their post where they talked about exploiting loopholes and the letter of the law to abuse the system. Context is important! No matter how high your horse is. In any case, the instant you fall just a little outside the prescribed lines is when things start to get hairy. Have a talk with any DACA recipient and you will quickly learn how broken the system can be. Or someone seeking refugee status around the time the annual ceiling is being reached.
- elevatedastalt 3y agoI find it insane that people think it's a good idea to flaunt how they got these things. Good for OP that he gamed the system, I have no ill-will for him. But the smart thing to do would be to keep quiet and enjoy the legal status, not write a blogpost showing how flimsily it was obtained. If I were the USCIS I'd see this as a sign that this whole visa application was made in bad faith.
- dnissley 3y agoWhat seems illegitimate about this application?
- dappermanneke 3y agoprobably the lack of extraordinary ability
- electrondood 3y agoI've sincerely wondered how Melania Trump secured one, for the same reason.
- elevatedastalt 3y agoSince Melania Trump was a reasonably successful model, it's actually not difficult for her since she could probably easily satisfy 3 of the following — Evidence of published material about you in professional or major trade publications or other major media Evidence that you have been asked to judge the work of others, either individually or on a panel Evidence that your work has been displayed at artistic exhibitions or showcases Evidence of your performance of a leading or critical role in distinguished organizations Evidence that you command a high salary or other significantly high remuneration in relation to others in the field Evidence of your commercial successes in the performing arts
- imajoredinecon 3y agoSpeaking personally an American, any smart person building useful stuff is welcome in my country. That alone _is_ extraordinary ability, in my opinion (can’t speak to the intent behind the law).
- tlb 3y agoThanks for talking publicly about this. Thousands of interesting people take this route (also, me) but not many blog about it. My lawyers originally described this category as "for internationally recognized people such as Nobel prize winners". That seemed a bit out of my league. But they issue 13k O-1 visas per year, so it's really the top (in some sense) 13k people who want to immigrate to the US each year. So I applied and got it. The annoying part is that it demands legible recognitions: awards the immigration officers have heard of, and recommendation letters from people with Titles in Organizations they've heard of. But they seem to know something about the STEM world. They know about the International Math/Physics/Chemistry Olympiads, and the ACM Programming Contest, good universities, and reputable tech investors. If I can offer a tip, it's the following. You know what's impressive in the STEM field. The immigration officer also has some experience of what's impressive. Your lawyer has the least idea of the 3 of you. So don't be diffident or self-deprecating with your lawyer! You have to tell them what you've accomplished and how notable each thing is.
- pedalpete 3y agoI was going down a similar route in Australia but we were able to get my permanent residency without having to use the Distinguished Talent Visa. I'm surprised the US requirements would be so low as to accept a $100k investment as an award. For most people, this is probably not the way to go, we were using it as a potential last resort.
- quasarj 3y agoTop 10th percentile of software engineer salaries.. well this is definitely not something easily repeatable haha
- maronato 3y agoIt is repeatable by 10% of people. And honestly, it isn’t that high by big tech standards since you can use both base and stocks in the calculation.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- aiauthoritydev 3y agoFriendly advice: You got it ? Good. please keep quiet and don't tom tom it. There are indeed America First types out there who will report you to USCIS. These people are vicious and will DOXX you. I know this has happened in past.