[keyle]

There are some serious problem with the immigration laws in Australia that would make such ecosystem very fragile.

For example, we tried to hire a remote friend to move inland and work with us - and he is over qualified - yet because he's over 30, his chances of making it after 2 years of struggle with immigration are next to none.

So as long as this happen, startups will be dead in the water. Australia has a lot of smart people, but that's not enough. The US west coast attracts all the smarts and doesn't block them in.

[bartonfink]

Keyle -

As someone who's just on the cusp of 30 and is actively planning a move down under, do you mind expounding a little further on what happened? I'd love to avoid the same pitfall if possible.

[kqr2]

It looks like Australia uses a point system to determine visa eligibility.

http://www.visabureau.com/australia/immigration-points-test....

For example, you get points for age. Applicants who are 25-32 years old get 30 points. As you get older, you get fewer points. Applicants who are older than 45 get 0 points.

Since you need at least 65 points for a visa, it seems difficult once you are over the age of 45.

[bartonfink]

That's right, and unless someone uses a ridiculously strict determination for some of the criteria (e.g. how fluent am I in English?), I should have plenty of points. I'm more worried about some additional gotcha.

[fingerprinter]

Can you describe the problems you've seen? Wife and I were over 30 when we moved to AU from the US. Certainly quite a bit of paperwork, but wasn't all that tough in reality.

[beilabs]

It took me 12 months from start of my residency application, 4 years total to get permanent residency in Australia. I was working for an Australian company for those 4 years.

I have a MSc in Software Engineering (on the critical skill list), experience on 4 continents and it was nothing short of a nightmare.

The immigration process over here is in a state of change at the moment for residency, hopefully this means it will be a much better process than what I experienced.

[fingerprinter]

As someone else noted, 3-4 years for perm residency is rather common. And just so you know, I was annoyed by that as well hoping it would be faster, but it isn't. And, yes, I do think the paperwork and runaround can be crazy in AU. My wife is a GP and I'm a MS in Comp. Sci.. There was no way for us to "hurry along" the process. To get perm residency, we needed to live in the country for 2 years before we could apply. 2 more years for citizenship. Even so, 4 years to citizenship isn't a bad deal.

I hear there is reform coming around July 2012 to expedite certain skills shortage list candidates, so hopefully that helps.

The crazier thing is the amount of paperwork my wife needed to do to prove that she was competent to practice medicine in the country. In the US, she went to a great med school, had MCATS off the charts, went to one of the best residency programs in the country and worked for the best hospital in the world for 5 years. In that regard, it was frustrating.

[beilabs]

Interesting, I have the exact experience as you.

My wife trained as a doctor in China, the effort to get the qualifications recognised over here is nothing short of crazy.

Don't get me started on the Australian Computer Society. It took them 6 months to recognise my own qualifications.

[sanswork]

3-4 years for permanent residency is pretty common when you're moving into a country on a work visa. It's the same for the 3 commonwealth countries I've lived in and I believe the US as well.

[beilabs]

Having to be forced to re-apply the week before my wedding was the thing that annoyed me most.

Not only did the original application fee need to be paid but the entire lot of paperwork had to be re-submitted.

All because the business number had changed due to an acquisition, right bang in the middle of my residency application.

[vacri]

... and?

Trouble immigrating or getting work visas when over 30 is rife across Europe, and as for migrating to the US, we're all pretty well aware of just how difficult it is, skills or otherwise. It's really not all that different here to other western nations, though you do have a point about the 'critical mass' of Silicon Valley.