What job could I get in the computer technology field?

Prospects of a foreigner CS PhD to get a job at U.S.?

• I will be finishing my PhD at the end of this year and I have already decided that academic life is not for me. My goal is to get a job in the software industry at U.S. but almost all jobs requests that I have seen requires several years of experience in some specific field or technology that I have never work with. Jobs that doesn't requires this seems to be looking for a recent young undergraduate student, which I think is not my profile at all. More information about me: - I live outside U.S. so I am worried about number of business who are willing to hire foreigners. - I am finishing a PhD in computer science. My thesis was related to graphs algorithms. I have done it at a university outside U.S. - I have been a regular contestant at several online programming competitions, such as topcoder, ACM, etc. where I learnt to quick code basic algorithms without mistakes and helps me developing problem-solving skills. Nonetheless I have never been among the best competitors, nor win prizes. - I have worked in the industry when I was an undergraduate student. I have approximately two years of experience but in very different projects, therefore I am not expert in any framework/technology/language. I usually use C++ for my small projects but I have not been very actively coding during the last years. My questions: - What kind of jobs are (if any) for people with my profile at U.S.? Where do you think someone with my profile can fit well? I know that some big companies like google/facebook/amazon hires PhD but it seems very tough to get in there. Any suggestion, or experience shared will be very useful. Thanks in advance.

• Answer:

  As far as I know, companies at Silicon Valley care more about your skills rather than your education or your grades or your nationality.  Companies in the Bay Area are known for their openness hiring people from different background and countries. But they are also known of sometimes not much caring about the kind of education you get.  I heard of several stories where PhDs got accepted to the same entry-level engineering position as those with only Bachelor's degrees do, and their salary level is sometimes not much different (that if you choose to work in engineering track). Many companies (Google, Microsoft, etc.) also have research positions which are probably more suitable for academia.  But even not everyone has a PhD in those departments. You simply need to sell your skills and what you can contribute rather that what you've had in the past.  If you're good, you're fine.  Everything else is mostly non-issue.