[ampersandy]

What sort of qualifications/awards/etc. are most compelling for O1 visas as a tech worker that would demonstrate you are at the "very top of your field"? What examples of work do you commonly see for people making these applications?

I'm curious what types of things a regular tech employee could do while employed to demonstrate that they'd meet these criteria.

[proberts]

It's tough and the awards category is a particularly tough one because the awards really need to be significant and student/academic awards generally don't count. I would say that the categories most within an applicant's control and/or easiest to meet (relatively speaking) are journal review or event/hackathon judging, outstanding association membership (such as IEEE senior membership for example), high compensation (geographic and occupation based), press, and publications.