Programmer in San Francisco on H4 visa. What options do I have to keep programming and make the best use of my time?
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I'm a programmer and just moved to San Francisco for personal reasons. I was a freelancer back home. Here I'm on an H4 visa that doesn't allow me to get a job or continue freelancing. To put it in simple terms, I can't perform any work that would involve me earning an income as a employee or contractor. I can only volunteer as long as it is for a position that is not normally paid, meaning as long as I'm not taking somebody else's job. I have a degree in a Computer Science related field and a few years of programming experience in Ruby, C# and Java, though I've been working mostly with Ruby on Rails for the last couple of years. Ideally I would just be able to continue my freelancing work since I did it before I came here, I wouldn't be taking an "American" job and it is exactly the same no matter where I am in the world, but that is not the way things seem to work in the US. Right now I would just love to be able to volunteer somewhere where I can work with smart people, maintain my skills, get to know the software development community in the city and have something to show for this time when I look for an H1B sponsor next year. These are the options that I think I have: - Get a job. I can't just go out and get a job though. I would need to apply to a work visa like the H1B. Currently it is December and the applications for H1B start on April next year. Even if it was approved, I wouldn't be able to start working until October of next year. That is 10 months from now. - Contribute to Open Source. - Volunteer my time to an organization or project. - Work on a personal project. Unfortunately I don't have one I'm passionate about. If I did, this would be a great time to work on it. Is there something I haven't thought of? Do you know of any organization or project that I could help out? Any advice?
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Answer:
What are your interests and what kind of project would be ideal for you to work on?
Anonymous at Quora Visit the source
Other answers
Contributing to open source projects might be the best use of your talents and time. You can keep your skills and resume current this way, who knows you might find a project that you get so passionate about that you might want to carry it forward as your own start up some day.
Manoj Agarwal
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