EB1-A Questions - Githubissues

cs15b047 commented 2 months ago

Hi Razvan,

Just starting out to think a bit about an EB-1 visa. Stumbled on your very helpful and free article somehow. Wanted to get your opinion regarding the general thought process for going about this.

For context- here's what my background looks like-

MS CS from UW-Madison
SWE at Snowflake (for about ~1.5 yrs now)

Here's the criteria that I'm targeting and how I'm thinking about satisfying them from my side-

High Income- I think compensation might satisfy the requirements posted for 90% on the BLS data- levels-fyi v/s BLS data- Please do confirm if I'm looking at the correct data for BLS and doing an accurate comparison.
Critical Role - I'm thinking I could probably get a letter from one of our Principal Engineer/Director at my company for this. Let me know if there are any gotchas for this.
Original Contributions - I have 1 non-first-author paper in ML with around ~80 citations, 1 patent in ML granted, and have another patent in draft/pipeline which I'm trying for currently in Security, with already wide customer usage. Is this enough? If not, how much more do I need (according to you) to satisfy this criterion? I understand that this is very subjective, but would like some estimate from your side to get a rough idea of the effort required here.

Recommendation Letters- I'm thinking of getting one from a Principal Engineer from my workplace, and another from one of my Assistant Professor in UW-Madison CS. Honestly, I don't have an idea how to get beyond this- so would love to hear your thoughts.

I read across multiple blogs of people getting EB-1A visas, that judging is one criterion people consistently use- so thinking about that one, although I don't know how to go about that yet- Can you please provide your input on how I can go about this one?

As an aside, I'm currently in the process of filing for an EB2-NIW through my employer. Does a successful EB2 NIW help the EB-1A application?

Overall, I'm estimating a timeline of ~2 years to gather enough evidence before starting to put in an application for the EB-1A. Correct me if that's wrong in either direction!

Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks a ton for your time!

Thanks, Ajay

razvanmarinescu commented 2 months ago

Sounds good! High income and original contributions look good to me, but the critical role looks weak at first sight. You need to show and make a case that the company couldn't function without you.

Judging is generally done through reviewing for scientific conferences/journals, sittiing on PhD panel committes, grant committees, etc ...

EB2-NIW won't help towards an EB1. Also, since it's NIW you don't need your employer for that, you can self-petition. Although the company's lawyer can definitely help you.

Good luck!

cs15b047 commented 2 months ago

Thanks Razvan for your input! That makes sense. Need to work on satisfying the judging criterion and try to strengthen my case for the critical role one.

Will let you know how it goes. Thanks, Ajay

razvanmarinescu / EB1A

EB1-A Questions #15