Priority tier 1 — the only track with a real external deadline. Gets the best hours.
- Role: Hardware Engineer at Quanta Manufacturing, on-site at Meta data centers (Bay Area / New Albany OH), leading a 7-person team on GB300/GB200 NVL rack validation for NVIDIA hardware.
- Visa status: F-1 STEM OPT, extension already filed (I-765/I-983).
- H-1B: Missed the lottery once so far. Limited remaining shots within the OPT runway.
- Backup visa paths: Exploring O-1A and EB-2 NIW as alternatives to H-1B.
- Actively job hunting across hardware validation, AI/software engineering, and solutions engineering roles.
- Using Tsenta for batch applications.
- Tailored resume profiles:
SWE.docx and HWE.docx, both built off master_profile.md.
- Key insight: the market in this space has been brutal — pure-volume cold applications have diminishing returns. Referrals and warm connections matter more right now than adding more cold applications to the pile.
- EY — flagged as a strong known H-1B sponsor.
- Cap-exempt backups: Stanford, UCSF, MIT Lincoln Lab.