Ask HN: Startup promised me a job, then backed out after the internship
In August I began an internship at a New York startup. Since I’m European, I had no expectations that it would have led to a full-time job, given the hassle of getting an H1B visa (in fact, I was already surprised that the company sponsored my J-1 for the length of the internship).
After just a few weeks, the company was impressed with my performance (they told me I had already accomplished more than they expected from the whole three months) and they gave me a full-time offer. Compensation, option, benefits, visa paperwork, all there. I took some time to decide, as I was considering other opportunities, and eventually accepted.
My girlfriend is American (we met in the UK, where we both did our master’s), and this was the best opportunity to keep living with her, with a nice, well-payed job in a cool town in the US. She stopped arranging for a post-study work visa in the UK. I refused opportunities with Google, Bing, and two startups. I told all those people I wasn’t able to consider any offer, since I had already accepted one (so I thought).
The last day of my internship we made the last arrangements for my return. I had a conversation with the main engineer, who also mentioned that the company could request a green card for me after a few years on the H1B. I received greetings and “see you soon” from everyone, including the founder.
Yesterday I received a phone call from the founder, saying that they "changed their mind", and they are stopping the visa application. He mentioned that, for that position, they want someone more experienced with web development and UX. He added that they expected something more from the last part of my internship.
I’m shocked.
No one ever gave me a hint that I was doing something wrong. The founder himself had called me several times to show the prototype I was developing to investors.
I cannot stress how unfortunate this is for me. I was making plans to live in the US with my girlfriend. I left some of my stuff in the city. I even lost the opportunity to apply to the green card lottery, since it closed yesterday. If I didn’t know I had a job, I would have spent the past two months looking for one, preparing for interviews, moving forward with the other possibilities I had. My girlfriend would have applied for a visa in the UK, since I was more likely to get a job there.
I am now in the US for a couple of weeks, using the grace period included in my J-1 visa to travel with my girlfriend. At the end of November I will have to leave the country.
I’m a Mathematics graduate, with good programming skills, knowledge of CS, experience with machine learning and information retrieval. I need to find a job in the US. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a startup, I will go for a big corporation if that makes it easier to obtain a visa. I’m also interested in any subtleties regarding visas: is there a way I can come back as a tourist and apply for jobs? Can my girlfriend do the same in the UK (or even just move there with me until she can apply and obtain a work permit)?
Any advice? Similar experiences?
90 comments
[ 200 ms ] story [ 1540 ms ] threadAs you had opportunities with Google etc - why not recontacting them? Turns out the initial plan didn't work out.
Welcome to America.
In the case of a traditional 'offer letter', the envisioned employment is usually ongoing at-will employment. So that 'writing' doesn't create much protection against changing-minds or changing business situations. Either party can end the relationship at any time. ("Welcome to your first morning at work! I regret to inform you we will no longer be needing your services. Good bye.")
You can ask for anything, but in general there's no piece of paper you can get (outside of executive recruiting) in the US that is really going mitigate the risk that the employer can change their mind. You might be able to cover any expenses you incur getting ready to take the new job. If you negotiate that.
It's generally a good thing, too.
In contract law, there's a doctrine called "promissory estoppel" (see http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/promissory_estoppel) that basically says, "if somebody promises you X, and as a reasonable result of that promise, you do Y, and Y is very bad for you if promise X is revoked, you can sue for damages." The OP's case is a classic example where promissory estoppel can be applied.
Alas, New York does not recognize promissory estoppel (see Marino v. Oakwood Care Center http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ny-supreme-court/1371955.html), but many states do.
A loophole exists however. You can open a business in the UK that does consulting for the US job so technically you are employed in the UK and are staying in the US on an extended business trip. These can legally last up to something like 6 months (I think). This should give you enough time to come up with a proper solution.
The consulting thing is how developers are usually employed in my neck of Europe because it enables a lot of tax tricks and is generally easier for people. And while this scenario is battle tested for remote work, I am not sure how it actually goes over when you also relocate to the US.
Take all of this with a grain of salt, consult with an immigration lawyer before you do anything.
To this end, we're hiring for someone with a machine learning/information retrieval background so if you're interested, ping me (email is in my profile). We're going through the Visa formalities for another hire so are getting to know the process as well. Of course, that's putting the cart before the horse so reach out if interested and we can at least get the convo going. And we can expedite the conversation/interview process given your predicament.
More on the jobs here - http://www.cbinsights.com/hiring/.
I have no facts but I can ask more questions: How do the H1B rules work? If you had been working for the company for a single week before they fired you, would your legal status be different than it is now? Or would you have had to be there a month? A year? More than a year?
Many startups are on the verge of going broke. ;) It kind of goes with the territory. And it's not as if a company that is about to go broke always sends out clear signals of that. Generally you find out in a big hurry. Like when your employer shocks you by suddenly reneging on a deal that you both spent a lot of time making.
It would seem, then, that startups might be especially risky for visa applicants. Though much depends on the details of the immigration process. I'm sure many people around here know those details very well, however.
Check out what we are building first, and let me know if that's something you would be interested in working on.
http://tarantsov.com/
kind of rubbed me the wrong way. First he states that whitepapers are a 'shitload of crap' and then he has 'NIGGAS' in his most recent tweets. Now imagine you are a black grad student in CS -- not the most warm welcome. You might want to think about endorsing his personal site on your startup page.
I'd agree that whitepapers are often useless. But this site says academic papers are useless. Anti-intellectualism in programmers is a really weird thing, it's like pro athletes telling people that exercise is useless and we should just eat powerbars all day long.
"Academic papers are shitloads of crap. Want to read something? Read some beautiful source code instead."
"Rather than talk about what he does, check out his website."
While I'm sure that post was not on his site at the time the company decided to link to it, they are still currently in the awkward position of endorsing it. I find it ironic that in support of his anti-intellectualism Andrey references an essay by Paul Graham discussing the differences between engineering and science. This essay does not support his point unless you only bother with the most cursory of glances at it.
It is entirely possible that the start-up you were working for is having some issues, and are therefore unable to hire you. Or maybe they are being acquired, and can't talk about it, but also can't hire any more people.
The fact is you don't know the actual situation, only what the founder told you, and it is possible that he can't tell you the real reason. Maybe he is saying what he is saying to make himself feel better about something. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter.
Have you considered going back to the other companies that wanted to interview you and see if they are still interested?
Though it may seem like things have been really screwed up, you never know what will happen. This could turn out better than your original plan.
Best of luck
1. You really did disappoint at the end of your internship. I've seen this happen. People get complacent. Take a good, hard look at what you've done and see if there's any truth to it or that someone could get that impression;
2. The company's situation changed. Funding may have fallen through. There may be a power shift in management. Who knows? or
3. They were lying to you the whole time.
I suspect (2) but, then again, we only have your side of it. I don't mean to sound harsh here. I know nothing about you.
It's time to look on the bright side: you got a three month internship out of this. If you can find someone from the company to get a reference from then that's valuable.
The US operates basically on "at will" employment. With very limited exceptions (eg the Americans With Disabilities Act) they can withdraw that offer and that employment at pretty much any time. If you can demonstrate damages and they can't justify it, you can sue but you'll need to show damages and honestly it's not worth going down that route even if there is a breach of contract, which is a somewhat separate issue.
If you had offers from other companies, go back and contact them. Tell them you'd originally planned to keep working for the company you were interning for as you were really excited about what you were working on and who you were working with but that offer fell through. This is a perfectly acceptable situation and one that won't tarnish you as a potential employee.
If the company was dishonest with you, either from the beginning or at the end, then what happened is a good thing. Better to discover this now than 1-2 years from now when they shaft you out of your options or the like. Integrity and honesty matters. Do not go work for a startup if you don't trust who you're working for. Reputation is everything.
Lastly, I'm glad (for your sake) that you didn't drag whoever this was into the public by naming and shaming them. As tempting as that might be, don't do it. You seriously undermine your ability to get any reference from someone working there and, honestly, this tends to make whoever is slinging mud look bad as well. Just move on.
Absolutely. If you (the OP) are from Europe you may be used to well-defined hiring windows where a job ad closes on date X and after that it doesn't matter if you are a triple-Nobel-prizewinner, you will not be considered.
The US has a much more fluid model in the commercial sector (in fact it is possibly to apply and be hired where no job has been advertised at all). There is nothing dodgy about directly contacting people you had good leads with and mentioning your circumstances have changed, recap anything positive they have said to you previously, and re-attach your resume.
Standard job-seeking advice applies, for example don't go into any details about the previous employer or the fact that you are desperate for a job in the US. Keep it to the minimum facts.
That's not been my experience at all. I'm in Ireland, an EU member state, and I've worked at several small technology companies, and I've replied to job postings on mailing lists that are 12 months old and they are still hiring.
IMO it's only really big companies / public sector etc. that have these crazy rigid rules. (cf. Yes Minister)
I'm pretty sure that happens everywhere. It's firing, not hiring that's tricky in europe.
But why, then, make arrangements for his return instead of just telling him they couldn't promise anything just yet. The response he got just screams "something went awry on our end / the visa is getting too expensive / we found an equally good candidate here that costs us less, but we don't want to tell you so let's just blame it on you instead."
Put any moderately large company's activities under a microscope and you will find things to get "message- board- upset" about almost every day. People screw up.
By not being honest (or blunt) enough they've basically left this poor guy in total limbo. If you are going to mess with someone's life the minimum required in return is 100% honesty and unambiguous communication. If not now, as soon as possible (in the event that funding has fallen through and they don't want anyone to know right now).
On the bright side, there's lots of hiring of people with your skills right now, in NY and the Bay Area [1]. Though the work-eligibility factor will complicate and slow any processes, you could probably start (and complete) many interviewing processes in the next few weeks, and might have several offers by the end. So I would use your 'grace period' for that, rather than travel, if living/working in the US is your top priority.
Also, because of the arbitrariness of current-era US immigration law, I would make sure you get your visa advice from a specialist, or at the very least a sponsoring-employer, rather than a comment-thread. This seems to me like an area where a single inadvertent admission – "why yes, I did talk about job opportunities with a stranger standing next to me in line at Disneyland" – can lead to a bureaucratic troubles that are almost vindictive in their application.
[1] See for example the recent "Who's Hiring (November 2011" thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3181796
Given your experience it sounds like your best chance is big data style jobs. Off the top of my head try Mozilla Labs, DNAnexus, EpidemicIQ, Twitter.
Worth looking through here too: http://startuply.com/#/machine%20learning/1
You might not agree but it is only a job. You will find something else if you have the attitude that you're marketable and you have excellent skills.
Good luck.
The visa waiver program (VWP) means you can be in the US as a tourist for up to 90 days at a time, with only 180 days in total in any one year period (* I'm 99% sure it's any one year period, though might be worth double checking). So the likelyhood is even if your in the US for that time you'll have to leave before the paperwork goes through. Immigration can get a bit funny though, so don't bank on being able to make loads of trips (they like you "out" as much as you're "in")
Now a word of warning. As a recent grad trying to convince US employers to H1B you and bring you over is hard. You're in a better position than 99.999% of the population though - math and machine learning is hot in any company. The issue the company has to decide is, "Is it worth us spending the money and time trying to get an H1B for this guy, or none of the hassel for a 'home grown' employee". If they can get your for 1-2 years it may well be, and experience with your previous company is a big plus.
Finally, trying to get interviews from the UK to the US is very tough. I wouldn't recommend applying for job boards, but look at contacting CTOs tech leads directly. Maybe my case is unique, but I applied to about 150 job board postings over about 3 months for a jobs in the US. I have an undergrad from Oxford (biochem) and masters in CS from Imperial London (GPA 3.7/4.0 respectively) and I heard nada from anyone except literally the first add I applied to. However, I've had quite a few interviews through just emailing people, so it is possible.
If you want any more info feel free to contact me (through the various means on my HN profile). For the record, I was in a VERY similar situation to you in terms of the US/UK issues.
[EDIT: Sorry, I totally projected that you're actually from the UK because of your English and what you said about moving there. I think everything still stands though, assuming your country participates in the VWP?]
No doubt. I feel very, very bad for the OP, but I am a little surprised at this:
I refused opportunities with Google, Bing, and two startups. I told all those people I wasn’t able to consider any offer, since I had already accepted one (so I thought).
If the OP had done all the required research (and it certainly looks that way), it must have been clear that the H1-B is nothing to mess with. Turning down opportunities until you have the visa in your hand and you've gone through customs sounds crazy to me.
Getting a visa is very hard. It's not Google/Microsoft's first time at that rodeo. Even better, big companies don't change their minds in a hurry. The startup was always much riskier. Funding might change, a new better candidate might appear, the whole company might pivot away from your skillset.
I realize its easy to point out flaws from the safety of my desk chair, and I have nothing but sympathy for the OP. I've been there when I had to leave the US the first time after my studies ended, and it's really hard. But that experience has what bred my heathy paranoia for these things. Always take the safer bet.
I'd be really interested to hear about the H1B from the employers' perspective; there must be some HN members who've engaged in the process?
Next time sign contract before saying no to others
You have to fly back and forth atleast once every 3 (or 6?) months. But if you're smart you have your client pay for that. (much cheaper then navigating visa-applications) The only thing to watch out for at the customs is if they ask you what your doing here is that your here for either "sales meetings" or "training of people". Don't say your just working here. and always have a recent, written letter from one of your client-companies on you, inviting you to come help em out with trainings or other interim-solution providing. I've avoided any immigration problems like this for years. Worst thing: they will have you explain it, and then they realize its a grey area and they cant really give you any problems for it.
You've made it to Ellis Island. Now it's time for you to hustle.
Take today/tonight to make a game plan. Identify companies on that list that you like, map them, and go out and talk to them. If you're "in the area" it's really easy to pickup a few coffee meetings and eventually one of them will lead to something bigger.
When you meet with them be completely up front about your situation in the US, but DO NOT dwell on why the last job offer failed. Talk about their company/products/space- show that you've done your homework. That should lead to discussions on your passions/experience and if you've researched them and they have a position open, great! If not it's perfectly ok to ask them about other companies looking for someone with your talents.
Edit Xtify is hiring in NYC and they're pretty awesome! http://www.xtify.com/jobs
1) You CAN come on tourist visa and try to look for a job -- it will give you about 90 days with a max of 180 days at a stretch. Super strictly speaking, tourists are not supposed to look for jobs, but I know people who have done this.
2) H1B visa allows premium processing so you can get it approved in 14 days, if you or your future employer can pay $1225 premium processing fees. You can get more information from uscis.gov -> forms -> premium processing. Let me say this again: H1B process does not have to take several months.
As others have mentioned before, I would suggest you to contact companies that offered you jobs but you declined.
BTW, that's best sort of marriage when love and business interests align.
Well, welcome to the US (I'm an immigrant too) the place where you can, indeed, get fired when they want (even first day). I've got promises like that too, trial periods that end suddenly, "Hey this is temporally, we gonna start working normal hours in a month when we launch" (and get fired after we launch, since the product was working).
You might think that there's no ethics in US businesses, but that's just the way here works.
If I were you, I would call out that startup. Ever since I got fucked up by an US company, you can expect 0 loyalty from me (something that you take for granted overseas), I've had 4 jobs this year, and switched only because the next one offered me more money... only if you are a co-founder of the startup you should be attached to it. The company I work with today offerred me a good salary and options and they treat me well, so I'm happy.
What happened to the OP sucks, but this truthfully sounds like a dating story. She's just not that into you.