[dakazoo]

I am a 32 year old male with over 8 years of internet design and development experience working with both Bluechip and private sectors with the UK and Spain. I hold a British passport and have been looking into moving to the US around the west coastal area. I am looking for the opportunity to work for a US based company, I am willing to sort out the legals and the move, all I really need to do is find some opportunitites to go over too. Can anyone help or advise me on this matter? I currently live in Spain on the Costa del Sol and would be looking to move in the first quarter of 2009.

 

[Fatbrit]

Unfortunately it just doesn't work like that. Unless you're a US citizen or a permanent resident, you can just "sort out the legals".

 

[Bevdeforges]

The legal sequence of events for moving to the US is normally: first, you find a job offer with an employer willing and able to sponsor you for a visa, then the employer petitions for you to be granted a visa. Only after the petition is granted can you then submit the forms to your local US consulate to apply for a visa.

Unfortunately, given the lengths of the various parts of the process, you are probably far too late to be thinking about moving in the first quarter of 2009 - especially if you are considering an H1B visa. Internet design and development skills are hardly in short supply in the US, and many folk outside the US are content to work remotely on US based projects, which saves the need for jumping through the visa hoops.
Cheers,
Bev

 

[synthia]

If your current employer has offices in the US, you can try for a transfer. That's usually the best route in.

The US has a remarkably high immigration rate (2 million people a year, though not all of them are legal). Most of that comes from being sponsored by a close family member. We already have so many immigrants who still have close family (mothers and fathers, children, siblings) overseas, and are willing to go through the long process of sponsoring them, that we already have a heavy flow of people coming in all the time. Add a high unemployment rate and the outsourcing of technical jobs overseas, and it becomes nearly impossible to get in.

An employer must, first of all, be able to provide evidence that there are no Americans to fill the job. If that is so, which is unlikely, the employer not only has to be willing to sponsor you, but must spend money to do so, wait a long time for you to show up and start working.

If you had some skills in a specialty language or something, you might have a better chance, but internet designers are pretty thick on the ground here.

Consider Australia, where you qualify on a point system for immigration, and you don't have to have a job to move there. Look at the Australia forum stickies for information.