| I just went through the H-1B process and moved to USA in the beginning of this year. I'm not an American citizen obviously and I also studied in a university outside America. My answers to your questions: 1. Where to start? All major tech companies at this point would be willing to sponsor H-1Bs for promising candidates. Very early-stage startups will be hesitant to sponsor them (it's expensive both in terms of money and time). So try interviewing with companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, LinkedIn. 2. Am I being realistic? Well I can't speak to your CS skills but considering that you claim to have an advanced degree from a top school in USA, I don't see why you would have problems interviewing and getting a job. 3. Other advice For the past couple of years (since the financial crisis), the no. of H-1B applicants have reduced drastically and hence there are fewer applicants than the per-year H-1B cap. This is great news - all you've to do is meet the visa requirements, get a job offer from a good company, and let the company sponsor your visa, and you're done. This wasn't the situation a few years back when there used to be a flood of applications within hours after the application process was opened (usually on Apr 1 of every year). But you still have a small issue - applications open in April and the earliest you can travel to USA is in Oct of that year. So you've to think about the timing issues and see if your employer is willing to wait for you for that long. Generally this is not a problem with big companies since they're always hiring and they can always fit you in. It all depends on how good a candidate you are and how desperate the company is for you really. |