The E-3 is a pretty good deal; indefinitely renewable, spouse can work etc. It's the visa I'd have if I wasn't married to a US citizen.

The biggest problem with an E3 is that it's only 2 years and when you get on the ground in the US its virtually impossible to get a credit card from major banks, and few insurers (health and assets) will touch you. On my second renewal, still no credit, ho hum, it certainly disincentivizes spending any money here or considering any kind of future beyond professional and material. Maybe that's the point tho, go figure. I would certainly like to not send every cent of savings offshore, however.

I'm currently in the US on an E3, and while it is true that it is rather hard to get credit/insurance/a car when you first arrive, it does get easier. The trick is to start building your credit history from day 1: get a couple of secured credit cards and keep them paid. It'll take a few months for your credit history to even show up, and over a year for it to be any good, but it will happen. Credit Karma and Credit Inform (which you get for free with a Capital One secured card) are good tools for tracking your progress.

You should definitely have a decent amount of savings when you move over though, to offset the lack of credit.

This is a little off topic but need to have a whine about secured cards - I had two simultaneously with wells fargo and bank of america for 12 and 6 months respectively and always in the black. When trying to "upgrade", was then bounced for being on a temp E3 visa as part of some magical policy at both banks they failed to enlighten me to in the sales pipeline.

E3 is a nice idea but dealing with some of life's basics can be grueling in the US if you're off the system. It's not difficult to imagine how people on the street here can't get out of the hole.

Credit Unions are the way to go, no doubt, but took a while to figure that out.

Yea, it's not easy. I'm paying far, far too much for a car and insurance (can't wait to move to a city where I can ditch them) and only just got my first "real" credit card after being here for 12 months. It gets very frustrating when you're treated as a total nobody even when you have significant assets back home.

Have you tried Citi? They do all kinds of multi-currency accounts, have seamless overnight inter-country transfer etc. and are reasonably flexible. Only downsides are that they'll include your Australian Citibank accounts when reporting to the IRS, and they're monolithic.

Not Australian so don't know much about the E-3, but it seems Canadians have a similar visa (TN-1) - indefinitely renewable also.

The trick is that it's a non-resident-intent visa, which is to say, while it's indefinitely renewable on paper, at some point USCIS is going to point out that you've been here for an awfully long time and you risk the renewal not going through.

Not sure if the same applies to E-3.

It's relatively new (2005) so I doubt that has come up yet. I believe it's even more relaxed than the TN class visa.

I do know of an E-3 holder who had their residency fast tracked, but there have been so few of them issued that it's probably a bit hard to tell the lay of the land.

Interesting. I had no idea we had a special visa program for Australia. Are there any other countries we have special visa programs for?

The other two countries with special allotments are Chile and Singapore http://immigrating.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/h1-b1s-chile-and...

TN-1 for Canadians would be much more comparable to the E-3 for Australians than the H1-B1 for Chile and Singapore as the H1-B1 doesn't allow dual intent and is only valid for one year.

Do you have any tips for recruiting Australians?

I was recruited from the companies own conference they held in Australia. 'Cletus' was recruited from his StackOverflow iirc.

General rules: Be friendly, polite and sell the positives of being state-side (larger tech community, more user groups, conferences, etc)

Would Australians in general have strong preferences about parts of the US? It would seem like the "stronger tech community" argument works IFF you're in Silicon Valley, not so much if you're in North Dakota....

Yes. Almost all Australians I know have ended up in New York or Silicon Valley. Some have ended up in minor hubs, e.g. Seattle, Boston, Boulder, etc.

Which locations in Australia are the best to visit for recruiting (specifically for network/infrastructure/security types, not so much mobile apps/social media.)

The big cities: Melbourne and Sydney. You might get some joy from one of the other state capitals (Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Darwin, Brisbane), but your best bet would be the big two.

The tech community in Australia, while close knit and growing, has nothing on San Francisco (but honestly, where in the world does?). There is also the lure of other big, well known cities, particularly New York. Australians love to travel, and coming to the US is pretty expensive, so perhaps pitch it as a way of being close to north and south America?

That's why I'm here. I don't plan on returning to Melbourne until I've lived in San Francisco and New York either. It's a hell of an opportunity once you're over here.

Ample supplies of beer, barbies and sheep in the office?

Great to see this as I am graduating soon in Sydney, will definitely check this out!

I study finance in Sydney, am graduating next semester and knows how to code too! Rare to see someone in similar situation on HN! Send me an email (see my profile) maybe we'll have more to talk about. :)

Yeah, currently I am still learning to code, but I have lots of ideas that I want to turn it into reality. Its interesting..how I am graduating soon in UNSW of bachelor of commerce, done some investing and trading, and find out coding is really what turns me on. Add my email and twitter as well, I am sure there is lots of things we could talk about.

Your email isn't public; Can you paste it into the "about" field? (or you can send an email to me instead if you don't want yours public) I don't use twitter so I can't add your twitter name.

Sorry for late reply...busy exam period haha. Hopefully you still watch this thread, I have updated my info. Keep in touch!

I might be potentially getting this one soon too (fingers crossed). One thing though it's a non residency visa, as in you can never use it on the path to become a resident.