Ask HN: Dev Bootcamp sounds great - but what about visa when finished?
I'm a software developer with almost 5 years of professional experience and both a Bachelor and a Master in Computer Science. In the past year and a half, I've been working as an iOS developer in London. I'm now considering moving to the Bay Area and I would love to apply for the dev bootcamp (http://devbootcamp.com/), where I would learn Ruby On Rails. I think this would be a great complement to my background, assuming I could get a spot, but I have a major problem: getting a visa when the bootcamp is finished! As an european citizen, I need a visa to live/work in the US. As far as I understand, in order to work in the US, I need a H1B visa, but these will probably be exhausted by July 2012. The next bootcamp will be finished in December, so I could only apply for a visa in April 2013, which means I would be unemployed until October 2013! In conclusion, my plan to join the dev bootcamp sounds unrealistic, unless I'm missing something. The only alternative I could see is getting hired now with a sponsored visa and start working in December/January, which is something I doubt a company would agree.
Does anyone have any thoughts/experience with this? Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.
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About the H1 visa, the problem is that, according to what I read on the internet, it's estimated that it will be exhausted by July this year. In the meanwhile, I was also told that J1 visa is a possible alternative, but I haven't investigated that possibility yet.
If a company decides to hire me, but is afraid I might be cheating on a technical video conference, I wouldn't have any problems to go to the US for a face-to-face interview, even if I would have to pay the costs myself, simply because I don't cheat. If they are happy with me on a video conference, I'm sure they would be happy after a face-to-face interview.
If I were in your position, I would go to the source ( http://www.uscis.gov/ ) and examine the visa categories that are available to you. Immigration law is complicated, but not as complicated as, say, the tax code. If you've completed a Masters in CS, you can probably navigate it yourself. Protip: Do not lie or mislead USCIS or USCBP (i.e. customs) as you can be banned from the country easily.
Unfortunately it may be very difficult for you to get a visa to DevBootcamp as it's almost certainly not a SEVP-certified school, so ICE / USCIS won't grant visas to people to attend, and you can't just get a tourist visa if you're intending to study. I would instead learn Rails yourself, start / open source a project, and try to get a job offer here with a company that will help with your visa situation (once you have a job offer, immigration becomes much easier as long as the company is game). I guess my main question becomes, is DevBootcamp the only reason you want to move to the US?
I'm an immigrant from Canada but I'm more familiar with family-based immigration as that's how I came across (fiance visa).
devbootcamp is clearly not an option for you, i suggest you take spoom's advice and open source a project you can be proud of in Rails. Then maybe attend some conferences in the US, and try and network to seek jobs. I believe you can get a B1 visa to attend conferences and you should be legally allowed to interview, although IANAL so double check.