HN Explorer

Need job to save my relationship

56 points by mazenne ↗ HN
Dear HNers I have been reading HN for a while and I've never thought I would reach out to this community for this reason. Guess what, I want to save my relationship, and I'm sure you guys can help me. Here's the problem: my girlfriend can't find a job.

She is very smart (not only because I say she is, she is actually really smart) and has all qualities to be doing awesome work in a startup as a multi-hat talent. She has been a product manager in the valley for a couple years and has project management experience, well appreciated by customers. She is also perfectly trilingual and has a real gift for communication.

But, it's not that simple. She is not a US citizen. She needs a visa to work, and the more we try to understand why she doesn't get any traction after the usual first round of interviews, the more we are convinced that doors close automatically when HR people get to know that they will have to transfer her H1-B visa.

I have been trying to help her myself with my network of friends and acquaintances, but since I'm not particularly well connected, I wasn't able to help in promoting her search. So this is my best bet, probably the last one from my side before she has to abandon her job search and leave the SF Bay Area to return to her country, forgetting me, her nerdy boyfriend who thinks he's gonna "save" her by posting on hacker news. Anyways, I can't believe there are no companies around San Francisco who wouldn't benefit from a person like her to manage in an elegant fashion things related to product / project / customer / partner management.

Any piece or help or advice is appreciated. Thanks!

PS: If you guys feel like reaching out privately I have setup this gmail that I'll be monitoring: jean.felkerat@gmail.com

72 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 126 ms ] thread
goldfeld
How does one go about looking for an employer who will be able to arrange such a visa? I'm not from the US neither do I live there, but would like to (I'm a Junior Developer).
anjo
send your resume to work@anametrix.com and i will take a look at it.
goldfeld
Thanks, I'm finishing up a little project where I'm designing on top of developing front and backend, so I'll contact you within a few days when I have it up as it's coming together rather nicely and will serve as a latest work sample.
johnny22
you might want to repost this at a different time. perhaps 8-10 hours from now if you want to get better visibility.
anirugu
I am happy to see this post.

I am from India. I have no work for now and ready to start working on JS,Html,css & PHP kind of work. I am free from last September where last time I worked on a E-Commerce project.

I have previously worked on ASP.NET MVC. Made more then dozen of site and all of them still alive on internet with a great reputation.

These days I focus on Wordpress Administration, JS framework. bootstrap & jQuery development. This is all I love to work with.

I do work from Home (Remotely). I work on low price that's why people love to got better service at great price.

I have many clients that are return with few more. This will make my service game better. But really I want to do something innovative.

Making my own project never paid me something from #1 days. I have no good funding for my own family so I can't rely on my personal project.

Right now, I am looking for someone who love to get developer work Remotely. It's kind of work like tell in Night and got work done in Morning when you come from sleep and see that work is done whatever you want.

Is this not amazing. That's all Why people love it. Please contact me anirugu@gmail.com for get some cool response.

Thanks Gupta Anirudha F1beta

elchief
A guy posts looking for a job and you put up your own ad? C'mon.
jesly
lol... are you kidding ?? This is not freelancer.com
MysticFear
Marry her
punterguy
This is a good idea.
nailer
No it's not. Regardless of how well you establish the ground rules, it's socially unacceptable which puts huge pressure on both people to lie about their relationship every time they're asked in the new country. If you split up, even if its as friends, undoing a marriage is a lot more difficult than undoing a regular unmarked relationship.
kgc
You have options: 1. Marriage 2. She can apply to a large company. The visa issue isn't even a speed bump. 3. Long distance relationship
supo
There is more: 4. Leave the country with her!
polemic
+1 there's lot's of great stuff happening all over the world, don't limit yourself =D
nXqd
+1 yes yes :D
onemorepassword
No joke. Most of the world is more open to immigrants these days. The US seems to have completely forgotten its roots.
troels
Just pray she's not from an EU country then ..
mazenne
ahah that's funny I'm myself from a EU country. Although I agree with the fact that there's plenty to do outside the US, we are not willing to relocate because we come from different countries and we would experience work authorization issues elsewhere as well.
okonomiyaki3000
Agree! I left the US years ago and I ain't never going back. Just get out of there.
ipedrazas
Or just leave the country... The world is pretty big
okonomiyaki3000
Even if you get married, it's not an automatic solution. There still may be more complications.

Applying to a large company is not the same as being hired by a large company. Also, I'm sure even large companies would rather avoid visa issues if they can.

Long distance relationship. LOL. I see you've never been in one.

maxcan
if you love it put a ring it. first, get yourself a prenup. communal property laws can be.. interesting.
ScottBurson
"It"? What is this "it"? If you think of your betrothed as an "it" I would suggest you're not ready to marry anyone.

(I know, this meme is out there, but you've given me an opportunity to protest it, so I am.)

einhverfr
I assume from the quoted song lyrics, "it" is "her finger." How is that not appropriate?
qu4z-2
Ah, the ever-catchy "If you love her finger, put a ring on it."
_lex
Sounds like you're speaking from personal experience. My startup is working to solve this problem, and I'd love to chat with you. Drop me a line - lexsebro@stanford.edu
traintefes
Well, good luck with a new job [I'm sure you will get a job for your GF :D)
wakjob
GO HOME JOB ROBBERS.

TITLE 8, SECTION 1182 - INADMISSIBLE ALIENS says you are BOTH illegals and need to go home right now. We have smart US citizens living in tents and smart US citizen PhDs working at Staples.

GO HOME NOW

You people have destroyed 28 million US jobs since 1998 and now there are not enough jobs to go around, are there? In 1998 the USA had FULL EMPLOYMENT. That was before the dark times, before the poojoos. We were here first and built this place and we're citizens so it's you who have to leave.

You were only supposed to be here temporarily anyway and go home in 2002.

Why are you still here?

I hear there is great demand for someone in India to start toilet factories.

goldfeld
And as for all the startups founded by Aliens creating jobs and fueling the economy, including Google?
wakjob
Sergei Brin emigrated at age 3, grew up here, was born here, and educated here. He's more American than foreign. And Larry Page was born here. And it's a well known fact Google was funded by CIA. It wasn't just an accident. Can you name any companies founded ENTIRELY by Indians that are profitable and creating jobs? Didn't think so. And you forgot all the companies they destroyed including Bell Labs and Sun:

Companies ruined or almost ruined by imported Indian labor (US)

        Adaptec - Indian CEO Subramanian Sundaresh fired.
        AIG (signed outsourcing deal in 2007 in Europe with Accenture Indian frauds, collapsed in 2009)
        AirBus (Qantas plane plunged 650 feet injuring passengers when its computer system written by India disengaged the auto-pilot).
        Apple - R&D CLOSED in India in 2006.
        Australia's National Australia Bank (Outsourced jobs to India in 2007, nationwide ATM and account failure in late 2010).
        Bell Labs (Arun Netravalli took over, closed, turned into a shopping mall)
        Boeing Dreamliner ES software (written by HCL, banned by FAA)
        Bristol-Myers-Squibb (Trade Secrets and documents stolen in U.S. by Indian national guest worker)
        Caymas - Startup run by Indian CEO, French director of dev, Chinese tech lead. Closed after 5 years of sucking VC out of America.
        Caterpillar misses earnings a mere 4 months after outsourcing to India, Inc.
        Circuit City - Outsourced all IT to Indian-run IBM and went bankrupt shortly thereafter.
        ComAir crew system run by 100% Indian IT workers caused the 12/25/05 U.S. airport shutdown when they used a short int instead of a long int
        Deloitte - 2010 - this Indian-packed consulting company is being sued under RICO fraud charges by Marin Country, California for a failed solution.
        Dell - call center (closed in India)
        Delta call centers (closed in India)
        Fannie Mae - Hired large numbers of Indians, had to be bailed out. Indian logic bomb creator found guilty.
        GM - Was booming in 2006, signed $300 million outsourcing deal with Wipro that same year, went bankrupt 3 years later
        HSBC ATMs (software taken over by Indians, failed in 2006)
        Intel Whitefield processor project (cancelled, Indian staff canned)
        Lehman (Spectramind software bought by Wipro, ruined, trashed by Indian programmers)
        Medicare - Defrauded by Indian national doctor Arun Sharma & wife in the U.S.
        Microsoft - Employs over 35,000 H-1Bs. Stock used to be $100. Today it's lucky to be over $25. Not to mention that Vista thing.
        MIT Media Lab Asia (canceled)
        PeopleSoft (Taken over by Indians in 2000, collapsed).
        PepsiCo - Slides from #1 to #3 during Indian CEO Indra Nooyi' watch.
        Polycom - Former senior executive Sunil Bhalla charged with insider trading.
        Qantas - See AirBus above
        Quark (Alukah Kamar CEO, fired, lost 60% of its customers to Adobe because Indian-written QuarkExpress 6 was a failure)
        Rolls Royce (Sent aircraft engine work to India in 2006, engines delayed for Boeing 787, and failed on at least 2 Quantas planes in 2010, cost Rolls $500m).
        SAP - Same as Deloitte above in 2010.
        Skype (Madhu Yarlagadda fired)
        State of Indiana $867 million FAILED IBM project, IBM being sued
        State of Texas failed IBM project.
        Sun Micro (Taken over by Indian and Chinese workers in 2001, collapsed, had to be sold off to Oracle).
        UK's NHS outsourced numerous jobs including health records to India in mid-2000 resulting in $26 billion over budget.
        Union Bank of California - Cancelled Finacle project run by India's InfoSys in 2011.
        United - call center (closed in India)
        Victorian Order of Nurses, Canada (Payroll system screwed up by SAP/IBM in mid-2011)
        Virgin Atlantic (software written in India caused cloud IT failure)
        World Bank (Indian fraudsters BANNED for 3 years because they stole data).
awolf
This is pure hateful rubbish. I'm shocked to see it on Hacker News. A sad, new low.
dylangs1030
It's a throwaway account so he can voice his opinions without having to really absorb the -20 karma he's already earned himself.

Best just to ignore the trolls, the system weeds them out.

anigbrowl
Guy's a pathetic loon. he's cut and pasted this on over 8000 pages since 2010, at least.
josh2600
OH MY GOD A BUNCH OF PROJECTS THAT FAILED.

You act like no White anglo-saxon male has ever FUBAR'd an IT project or stolen data, or lied. This is ridiculous to single out Indian developers like this.

[dead] wakjob
Can you name the projects White anglo-saxon males have destroyed?
wakjob
I'll repeat what I said before: there has been a net job loss of 28 million jobs since these people began arriving en masse in 1998. That's a net LOSS of 28 million jobs, not net creation. There are no net jobs being created by immigrants. USA is still losing jobs.
goldfeld
USA has been losing and will continue to lose jobs regardless, extending now to middle wage jobs in the service sector, due to automation.
einhverfr
The only real job creators are the self-employed, and many immigrants I have met have been uniquely willing to do this, as hard as self-employment is made by the government in this country (the US).
jdotjdot
Literally 15 seconds of googling: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html

No, America did not have full employment in 1998. Closest was 1.5 unemployment in 1944 (which, to be fair, is really impressive.)

Not to mention the inherent xenophobia and nativism in your post. You should maybe look into labor economics and what Sacco and Vanzetti might have to say about your comments.

Tichy
"Closest was 1.5 unemployment in 1944 (which, to be fair, is really impressive.)"

Could using up surplus workers in a world war have anything to do with that?

jdotjdot
Of course it does. Doesn't make it not impressive.
[dead] wakjob
"Full employment" is a term used by economists. Usually around 5%. You're so brilliant you don't even know that. Maybe US needs more of you.
einhverfr
huh?

> TITLE 8, SECTION 1182 - INADMISSIBLE ALIENS says you are BOTH illegals and need to go home right now.

He said nothing about his citizenship. He could be a citizen for all you know.

Secondly, the fact is that immigration law provides all kinds of extensions in cases for some H1-B's. One overstay a visa when it has been legitimately extended for the relevant period.

Third, as someone married to someone of another nationality I have to say that not only are you demonstrably wrong (as I have shown above) but that also when I came to Indonesia with my wife (I am an American), I brought my job with me. International telecommuting is quite possible. Kicking the wrong people out also kicks their jobs out which isn't very productive.... (My wife was not kicked out btw. We came over here on our own initiative.)

r3demon
You're completely wrong. Immigrants and foreign workers are adding to the employment competition, they raise the overall quality of the workforce. There will be a major crisis if they leave, trust me.
wpietri
At my last startup we looked at trying to get H1-B visas for engineers. I forget the details, but the basic answer was: impossible. Or, rather, too expensive, difficult, and slow to be a useful option in a startup context. (FWIW, E3 visas, which are limited to Australians, were supposed to be much easier.)

As others suggest, I think your best option is to find an established company, one for whom getting visas is a well-established process. Good luck!

mazenne
yes we got to the same conclusions. wise advice. thanks !
djt
Some thoughts: 1. Would be good if you had a HN account before now. People are more likely to give help if you have given others help in the past. It gives them confidence that you're legit too.

2. What is your girlfriends name? What companies has she worked for? What jobs titles has she had?

3. If you're a US citizen then consider marriage if you are serious about your relationship or consider going to her country if you're not sure yet.

4. Submit her resume or her HN name so people can check out her past experience.

5. I googled your name and gmail and came up with no hits. This is one of those times when having a blog, github etc would be a good thing.

6. Ask her to talk to her old workmates and managers, they are the best source of leads for a job, especially if they know people in big companies that work with Visa issues all the time.

Good luck!

mazenne
Thanks for your constructive feedback. 1. I had no HN account in the past, I have been following this community for a while but never posted anything. I don't have a blog neither and the email address I added was created for the purpose of this post only so I didn't have to post my regular email address publicly. The name on this address is fake. 2. In the past she has held the titles of Senior Business Analyst and Marketing Manager. 3. I am not a US citizen and marriage for a visa is IMHO a direct way to shoot ourselves in the feet. 5. I'm not a blogger. Just a regular engineer with no blog, and no open source contribs. 6. She did all this. She got some help, obviously not enough to land a job..

Thanks for your suggestions!

[dead] drunky
Asian Massage Parlor?
benzofuran
If she's European, she can likely overstay without too much of an issue and the odds of her getting asked are slim to nil at most smaller companies
thisone
I don't think people should be encouraged to break immigration law.

People would say similar things to me: "such and such group does it and they never get deported, why don't you?" not realising that what they're advising me to do is risk my family and livelihood based on their unfounded (and often slightly racist) assumptions.

[dead] drunky
Asian Massage Parlor?
treyguinn
Don't marry for a visa. As an American with an English wife and having lived as an expat for the past 8 years in expat communities - marring for a visa is a likely to ruin the relationship. One person will always think it is for love and the other for the visa, and this imbalance is hard to overcome.
ignaciogiri
Same happened to me. But in my case I was the non US citizen boyfriend. You know what happened? I'm back to my country, shes got a new guy, I'm still alone. Move on. Life is hard. Nevertheless, I'm still looking for a H1-B job for myself. Good luck anyway, marry her!
xijuan
How much do you love her? How important do you think the relationship is for you? How much do you both value this relationship? Think about those questions..and think about if you should marry her...
[dead] wakjob
How many abortions has she had? That might have something to do with it.
benzesandbetter
I think you need to consider more options, most likely some further outside of your comfort zone.

Are you madly in love with this woman? If so, be willing to consider leaving your job, and going to live in another country where you can both get residency status.

It may also be an option for you two to spend blocks of time in each others countries so that you stay under the visa-free travel requirements. For example, my girlfriend is from a Schengen country and I'm a California native. We can both spend 90 days out of every 6 months in each others' country, and do a bit of travel together in other countries. This has enabled us to let the relationship progress at a natural pace, and not rush into marriage for visa/citizenship reasons. I think that's really important. Some years ago I was dating a woman from New Caledonia whose ability to stay legally in the US was approaching a deadline. She suggested marriage as a workaround, but it really made me doubt the sincerity of her intentions.

If you're totally and completely in love with this woman, then you'll find a way. Asking around on HN can be one part of that, but more likely, you'll need to step your game up, hustle, maybe work some extra projects to cover travel/legal expenses, and possibly make some real sacrifices. If you love her with a real fire inside you, then the most important thing to both of you will be that you two are together and you'll find/make a way.

Sounds like it's time for you to go hard in the paint. Good luck.