I've recently obtained my work visa to stay in the US, so I thought I'd write abit about my experiences.

The major routes to getting a green card/work visa in the US are:

  • Green card lottery
  • Investor's green card
  • Work visa
  • Marriage visa
  • Extraordinary Alien visa

I will only talk about getting a work visa, but I have done a fair amount of research into obtaining the others, so feel free to contact me if you want some input on them (except extraordinary alien.. but if you're that special, you probably don't need any help).

Work visa

Assuming you're applying for a new job (i.e. not a transfer), the visa you want is the H1B. If you're Singaporean, Chiliean or Australian, you're in luck. There are separate programmes (and correspondingly, quotas)for nationals of these countries. (Singaporeans: 5400, Australian: 10,500). The Singaporean one is called the H1-B1, and the Australian one is called the E-3. The advantage is not only dramatically lower cost and not having to compete with other foreigners, but also faster processing time. In my case (Singaporean), my application was approved on the day itself, and I collected it 3 business days later.

If you're working for a multi-national company, company transfers are a really easy way to get visas. Also, there's the J-class visas for students (I think). That's worth exploring too.

Obtaining a work visa is a 2-step process:

  1. Getting a job offer (the difficult part)
  2. Applying for the visa

When you actually apply for the visa makes a difference. The visa quotas get renewed on 1st October every year. In other words, its kinda silly to try to apply for a work visa in August or September. Much better to wait a couple months. However, in the case of Singapore at least, I know the quota was NOT reached last year at all. So, better to check with your US embassy regarding quotas.

The city where you look for a job makes a big difference too. From my experience, big cities like New York and San Francisco are very open to helping their potential employees apply for work visas (i.e. it is generally not a disadvantage). In contrast, I had a couple of job possibilities turned down in Boston even though I was a good fit for the job just coz of the visa thing.

The visa interview process should be a fairly simple one. Be prepared to explain why the company needs to bring in foreign talent, i.e. how are you/your skills special that justifies why they need to hire a foreigner.

In general, if you're looking to move to NYC to find work and are in the open-source community, make contact with me and I might be able to do some legwork for you (no promises!)

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