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Ask HN: Is it possible to work at a big tech company without a degree?
I'm from outside the US and I recently started looking into the possibility of working in one of the big tech companies (Amazon, Google, Apple, etc), but when I started looking into the visa process I saw that a bachelor's degree is required for H1B, unless you find a way to get an O1. Also, most job descriptions require a degree "or equivalent".
I started CS and studied for 3 years. Then I started working at startups with mobile app development. Quitted, worked as a consultant for several companies and stated my own company. Finally, got acquired recently and now I work as a PM at a huge web company in my country. I've also won prizes for my apps and have stellar reviews in the app store.
Do you think I would be qualified to get a job a big tech company without a degree, or any tips to make this happen?
- dsl 13y agoTo get an H1B the company must show that its needs cannot be met by the domestic workforce. The simplest requirement they apply is a specific degree. If they relax the hiring requirements and accept people without degrees, they lose the justification to the government to bring in H1Bs. As a result highly qualified candidates just like yourself without degrees (domestic and international) get shut out of hiring. Where are you based currently? Your best bet is to work for a remote office of a large company and then try to get transferred to the US. I'll happily put in a good word for you.
- loveslife 13y agoI'm currently in Brazil. Could you give me your email address/twitter/anything so I can send you my info?
- patio11 13y agoIf you were an American, having no degree would not bar you from AmaGooBookSoft. There exists some variation between them to my understanding, but you can find many people at all of them who have no formal degree, or no degree relevant to the thing they are doing right now. If you can convince AmaGooBookSoft to hire you, then getting around the visa requirements is just a matter of them throwing fairly small amounts of money at the problem. They're pretty experienced with doing it. In brief, they hire expensive immigration lawyers who know the legal requirements cold, identify which visa category you most closely fit into, then produce exactly the documentation showing that proper application of US immigration law compels issuing you a visa. The going rate is less than your first month's salary. Optimize for the job offer, rather than worrying about the visa, in the short run. (And yeah, this situation certainly sucks for folks who aspire to e.g. work at startups for whom writing a $10,000 check is not below the care floor.)
- dennisgorelik 13y agoYou are overly optimistic with describing situation here. Having no degree makes it much harder to get H1b and employment based green card for you. In additional to that, from corporation perspective, candidates with no degree are riskier, because they did not finish what they were told (did not finish their degree). So in order to compensate for these two difficulties, foreign candidates with no degree must be not just good, but outstanding.