For engineers

Your work runs in production. Now put it on paper.

Engineers usually have more evidence than they think and less of it written down. visaworker.ai helps you document adoption, patents, open-source impact and the systems you own, without exposing your employer's confidential material, then drafts the petition around it.

The hard part
Impact hidden in the codebase.

Internal systems and NDAs make good work hard to evidence.

What we do
Evidence into a draft.

Adoption metrics, patents, OSS and letters, mapped to criteria.

What we are not
Not a law firm.

Prepare with confidence. Review with counsel you choose.

01· How to frame it

Document impact without
leaking secrets.

The evidence engineers need most often lives behind an NDA: the system you designed, the traffic it serves, the incident it prevented. The good news is that a petition rarely needs the source. It needs verifiable descriptions of what you built, who relies on it, and what changed because of it.

01

Describe outcomes, not internals.

A letter can say a system you designed handles a stated share of production traffic or cut infrastructure cost by a stated percentage without revealing architecture. Ask for approval on the numbers you cite, and keep proprietary diagrams out of the exhibit pack.

02

Use public artefacts where they exist.

Patents, conference talks, engineering blog posts, open-source repositories, standards contributions and published incident reports are already public. They are the easiest exhibits to build from.

03

Adoption is the strongest technical evidence.

A library used by other companies, a protocol other teams implemented, a feature shipped to millions of users. Download counts, dependents, stars, forks and named adopters turn 'I built it' into 'others rely on it'.

04

Critical role means the org depended on you.

Tech lead of a team, owner of a system the company cannot run without, the person paged when it breaks. Org charts, design review approvals and performance summaries can show this without disclosing product plans.

02· What to gather

Evidence worth collecting first.

You do not need all of this to start. Paste what you have; the agent tells you where the gaps are and which letters or documents would close them.

Open source and public technical work

Work anyone can inspect, with metrics that show others depend on it.

  • Repositories you created or maintain, with stars, forks, downloads and dependents
  • Contributions accepted into widely used projects, and maintainer status
  • Conference talks, engineering blog posts and technical papers
  • Standards or specification contributions with your name on record

Patents and original contributions

Inventions and techniques that are attributable to you and used beyond your team.

  • Granted patents and published applications listing you as inventor
  • Evidence the patented or novel technique is used in a shipped product
  • Letters from engineers at other companies who adopted your approach
  • Internal awards or recognitions with a description of the technical achievement

Critical role at a distinguished organisation

Proof the company is well regarded and that you held a role it depended on.

  • Org chart showing your position and the scope of what you owned
  • Employer letter describing your responsibilities and the systems under your ownership
  • Approved metrics: users served, revenue supported, reliability or cost improvements
  • Evidence of the organisation's standing: size, funding, rankings, notable products

Recognition, judging and salary

Signals that the field treats you as a leading practitioner.

  • Program committee, hackathon judging or code review for external projects
  • Awards from competitions or industry bodies with selection criteria
  • Compensation data compared with published salary surveys for your level and location
  • Invitations to speak, teach or advise on technical topics
03· Evidence to draft

What the agent does with what you paste.

Illustrative example. A staff engineer at a mid-sized technology company who maintains a popular open-source library, holds one granted patent, and led the redesign of a payments system under NDA.

Pasted into the workspace
  1. Ex. 1Link to the open-source repository with download and dependents statistics
  2. Ex. 2PDF of the granted patent from the USPTO database
  3. Ex. 3Employer letter, cleared by legal, stating the redesigned system handles a stated share of transactions
  4. Ex. 4Letter from an engineering manager at another company that adopted the library
Illustrative excerpt: original contributions criterion

The petitioner is the creator and lead maintainer of [Library], an open-source project recorded at Exhibit 7 with more than [N] monthly downloads and [N] dependent packages. [Company B], which has no affiliation with the petitioner, states in Exhibit 9 that it adopted the library in its production stack. The petitioner is also the named inventor on U.S. Patent [No.] (Exhibit 11), and their employer confirms in Exhibit 13 that the payment infrastructure the petitioner redesigned now processes a majority of the company's transaction volume.

This is a fictional, shortened illustration of how the agent ties claims to exhibits. It is not a real client, not a complete criterion, and says nothing about whether any petition would be approved.

04· How it works

From a call to a compiled packet.

The same open-source workspace every applicant uses. Nothing here is specific to your profession except the evidence you bring.

  1. 01

    Free strategy call

    Talk through your background and timing. We discuss which routes are worth exploring. Not legal advice.

  2. 02

    Paste links, upload files

    Articles, profiles, patents, letters and PDFs are captured as exhibits and numbered automatically.

  3. 03

    Agent drafts each criterion

    The agent interviews you, ties every claim to an exhibit, and writes the petition section by section.

  4. 04

    Compile the packet

    One PDF with cover, table of contents, petition letter and exhibits, ready for review.

  5. 05

    Review with counsel

    Prepare with confidence, then share the workspace with a partner lawyer at negotiated partner rates or your own attorney. You keep ownership.

Free
$0

Connect your own AI key and use the full workspace.

One case
$249

We provide the AI. Drafting, revisions and a compiled PDF for one petition.

Not included
Fees

Government filing fees and any attorney fees are separate and paid by you directly.

05· Routes to explore

Three categories, no shortcuts.

Explore your options. These are the categories the workspace drafts for. Feedback from the strategy call and the agent is informational, not a legal determination or a guarantee of qualification; that judgement is for you and your attorney.

O-1A
Extraordinary ability, temporary

Commonly explored by engineers whose current or future employer is willing to petition, or who work through an agent. O-1A is a temporary work classification. It has to be filed by a U.S. employer or an agent acting as petitioner; you cannot file it for yourself. Whether an agent structure fits your situation is a question for your attorney.

O-1A lawyers in our directorySource: USCIS: O-1 Individuals with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement
EB-1A
Extraordinary ability, permanent

Explored by engineers with public, verifiable recognition: widely adopted open source, patents in use, talks, judging and letters from people outside their employer. EB-1A is a permanent-residence category that can be self-petitioned. USCIS applies a two-step review: meeting criteria first, then a final merits determination about sustained acclaim. Meeting three criteria on paper does not decide the outcome.

EB-1A lawyers in our directorySource: USCIS: Employment-Based Immigration, First Preference EB-1
EB-2 NIW
National interest waiver

Discussed by engineers working on areas with a clear national dimension, such as security, infrastructure, health technology or advanced computing, who can show a record of progress in that work. EB-2 NIW is a permanent-residence category that can be self-petitioned. You first have to qualify for EB-2 through an advanced degree or exceptional ability; the waiver itself is then judged under the three-prong Dhanasar framework: substantial merit and national importance, being well positioned to advance the work, and why waiving the job offer and labor certification benefits the United States.

EB-2 NIW lawyers in our directorySource: USCIS: Employment-Based Immigration, Second Preference EB-2
06· Working with a lawyer

A prepared draft. Lower-cost attorney review.

visaworker.ai has negotiated partner rates with independent immigration lawyers who can review and file the prepared draft. Because every sentence already points to a numbered exhibit cleared for disclosure, their job becomes checking and strengthening rather than assembling. You can also bring your own lawyer into the workspace.

Browse the lawyer directory
  • Exhibits are captured from links or uploads and numbered automatically, so nothing needs renumbering later

  • Partner attorneys in our directory review and file at negotiated partner rates; you can also bring your own lawyer; you keep ownership of the case

  • Attorney fees and government filing fees are separate from the visaworker.ai price

07· Questions

Questions engineers ask us.

My best work is under NDA. How do I evidence it?

Ask your employer for a letter that describes outcomes in approved terms: what the system does, its scale, and the improvement it delivered, without architecture or roadmap details. Combine that with public artefacts such as patents, talks and open source. The agent drafts around what can be disclosed and flags where a letter would strengthen a claim.

Is a high GitHub star count enough on its own?

Stars are a signal, not a criterion. Reviewers look for evidence that others depend on the work: downloads, dependents, named adopters, and letters from people outside your employer who use it. The workspace helps you assemble those alongside the repository itself.

Do I need my employer to sponsor me?

For an O-1A, yes: a U.S. employer or agent has to be the petitioner. EB-1A and EB-2 NIW can be self-petitioned, so you can prepare those without involving your employer beyond any letters you request. Which route fits your situation is a conversation for the strategy call and, ultimately, your attorney.

How do letters of support work for engineers?

Strong letters come from people who can speak to specific technical impact: maintainers who merged your work, engineers at other companies who adopted your library, managers who can describe the systems you owned. The workspace helps you list candidate writers and what each should cover; you request and collect the letters yourself.

What does visaworker.ai cost?

Start free by connecting your own AI key, or unlock one case for a flat $249 where we provide the AI. That covers drafting, revisions and a compiled PDF. Government filing fees and any attorney fees are separate and paid by you directly.

Does visaworker.ai tell me if I qualify?

The strategy call and AI agent help you explore potential routes and organize the evidence behind your profile. This feedback is informational, not a legal determination or guarantee of qualification. You can work with an independent immigration attorney to evaluate your options and decide whether to file.

Start with what you have. The draft shows the gaps.

Free to start. No card required. Not legal advice.