Elkelk in 
Software Engineer
Software Engineer VISA in US
Hello everyone,
I am currently a Software engineer with more than 4 years of experience in Spain and I would like to move to the United States to work in the same field since, as I have seen, the work of an engineer is valued more there. The problem is that I signed up for many offers and in all of them I have been rejected for not having a work permit (they don't say it directly, but it's obvious). Have you had experiences with immigrant workers who obtained a VISA to be SWE in the US thanks to your company? How weird is this? Should I rule out US to work or should I try again later with more experience? Is the SWE job there not in enough demand to rule out foreign candidates?
Thank you.
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planatf3iSoftware Engineer
There are not many options as you can see. It's very difficult to obtain visas for the US.
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I took first route so I can expand more on it. You will need to work for company that has office/open positions in US but from other office than US for a year, after it you can do internal transfer which is a guaranteed pretty much path to employer sponsored visa that could later down the path lead to the green card. Although not perfect that you need to stay within the company for a year before you can relocate it is slow and steady path while still working rather than going to study. And obviously marriage is highly circumstantial.
For your particular situation, if I were you. I would go ahead and apply for US big tech companies in Europe, preferably in Switzerland as salaries tend to be highest there. However Netherlands and UK + Ireland would work as well. Why big tech? They got resources and have done these transfer numerous times, so you will be provided with structured process to go to US from European office. During your first year sniff around internal transfers process and talk to teams in US to get a grasp of what would be needed for US team to hire you. You will still need to go through some sort of toned down interview by other team inside the company.
Also from my experience applying directly to US companies without US work permit pretty much means you get denied. I've talked with Uber, Google, Amazon and Facebook. In one way or another indirectly I was told no visa = no hire. That makes sense as getting just a work permit which is H1-B visa is a lottery with limited amount of grants per year, also it is once a year. First of all it is not guaranteed plus might be far away from your application date, which means that if companies goes with you, the might not get you into US with this route regardless of how good you are as it's a lottery and there are a lot of people applying for it that are already inside the US. Like people from student paths like other suggests in the comments.
Hope this sheds some light on the process. US is hands down hardest place to relocate for me and I've worked in a several different continents prior. Good luck!