Hi, thanks for doing this. Does having a special international tier status visa like a tier1 visa in the UK followed by a British Citizenship, help with getting an O1 visa in the US? Tier1 visa is pretty much the the UK equivalent of the O1 with a pretty comprehensive proof process.
There's no connection between the two - that is, no deference is given to those with a Tier 1 visa - but often those who qualify for a Tier 1 visa also qualify for an O-1 visa and - most importantly from my perspective - the Tier 1 paperwork can be reused to support an O-1 petition.
Background: Mostly startups (10 person, 30 person, 3 person accelerated at Imagine K12) but also large companies (Amazon, Bosch, Oracle)
Pros:
1. Depending on your own personality and the size of the company, regardless of your role you have the opportunity to actually drive direction across the company.
2. While titles aren't important in my opinion, startups do allow you climb the proverbial ladder faster. I became head of engineering 5 years in, that opened doors to skills I didn't think I'd pick up and opportunities I didn't think I'd have until I was 10 years in.
3. It is mighty fun to work in a small team and see results of your work everyday. You care a lot more about customers, product, your team. You learn empathy.
Cons:
1. The stock option sell - lets call it what it is, it is nothing but a justification for a pay cut with the sell of riches in the future. Every time I hear the stock spiel (shpeel?), I nod my head but I forget about it and always try and negotiate a salary that works for me in that I'd be happy to give a lot of my time for that amount of money.
2. If you start your career and remain in a startup for a long time, it is very very difficult to transition to a large company if you want to {political klout, diplomacy, all skills you pick up at a large company are harder to pick up at a small startup}. I found this very hard when I transitioned from startup head of engineering to
management at Amazon and quit within a few months
I had the same experience, very nice people. I had one bad interview which probably cost me, but overall they take good care and leave a very positive impression
I had the opposite experience. First a phone interview, then HackerRank which was much easier than they made it out to be (definitely didn't require any knowledge about algorithms and data structures), then another phone interview with mostly the same content as the first one but more inane questions like "name a project where you made an impact", then I got rejected because they had "no openings in my seniority". Pretty frustrating.
I've tried reaching out to Alex Ehlke, Chris and yourself (these accounts I saw across a few months on HN). Please let me know either way (if there's a fit or there isnt). Thanks!
