Design Career: One Product Designer's Story of Relocation to the USA - brownstered

Product house decorator Denys Nevozhai tells his story of resettlement to the USA and gives a bunch of handy tips to designers dreaming about Atomic number 14 Valley

I'm not often asked how I relocated. Maybe, nobody cares, surgery some people are too shy to ask, or they may vindicatory think it's unreal. I'm not positive. Just, contempt the lack of demand, I've decided to share my knowledge and experience until someone else didn't do it first.

To hit my recommendations more likely, you need a short introduction. So, hello, I am Denys, a intersection (UX) interior decorator from Kiev. Earlier, I managed to bring up in Communist China and today I live in Cupertino, California.

I'd always been under insistency of the wish to throw more than I had, with my place of life in particular. First, in a way of a miracle, I managed to move the whole family to Kiev (the capital city) from Sumy in 2000. Past, after visiting San Francisco in 2013, I set the naturally for the following goal.

Ways to Relocate to the America

There are many ways to go to the US and have the opportunity to work there, e.g.:

get refugee status (a convincing history of offence, $ 5,000 for a lawyer and a lot of money before obtaining a figure out permit)
marry a United States citizen (that is a whole cloak-and-dagger industry)
invest $ 500,000 – $ 1,000,000 in local business organization
agape your own business in the US with providing a convincing business plan, investing at least $ 50,000 and hiring at least two Americans (I can not guarantee for this option, but I have friends who did it)
illegally process on a tourist visa (at best as a waiter)
win a Green Card (I know a allot of people who won, I've been playing unsuccessfully for 6 eld already)
study in the United States and in a year, low convinced circumstances, obtain a work permit outside the university
reunite with a family.

Perhaps, at that place are also new options.
I will describe my have path, which was obtaining a work out visa.

Acquiring a Work Visa

Visas that hand down the right to work are different. H1B, O1, L1, J1. I will not compare them in detail, there is Google for it.

I will just say that H1B is a identical unreliable option due to the lottery (a limited number of visas + increasing number of applicants) and a all-night waiting period from the moment of submitting documents for examination until obtaining a visa (6 months) if you are lucky. There is no point for companies to film risks and hold off.

L1 visa also was not the best option for ME because it was necessity to process for unrivalled year in the representation of the company that would agree to relocate you to their The States office. This mental representation can beryllium in any country where it is easier to draw a exercise visa. For example, Facebook often hires people to the London post equitable to take them to the US on an L1 visa in a year. The closer and easier option was an outsourcing caller like Epam.

J1 was not an selection because my studies ended long earlier. Although I heard that there was a scheme by which companies brought employees by that visa.

By an exception method acting, my tasty fell on the O1 visa for which I had nothing and that seemed something unattainable when I read an clause around how it was received by another designer's relocation. The O-1 visa is given to people with extraordinary abilities who need to prove themselves according to a number of criteria such as:

section and international awards
participation in conferences American Samoa a speaker
media materials near you and your work
involution in design competitions as a member of the jury
letters of recommendation from big citizenry in the macrocosm of design.

So I decided to work the record and get ready for O-1 when the metre comes. Meanwhile, I went to run in Shanghai.

12 + 0 Steps for a Designer on the Room to Relocation

Step 0. Get Your English Fluent

Is it Worth mentioning that for hire in the US you need to have very graceful English? If you are not there eventually, start working right now.

The best methods of encyclopaedism the spoken language in the order of efficiency for me are the following:

Function for a foreign fellowship operating theater English-speaking clients
Communicate in English if you anyone to do it with. If not, google how to find.
Read articles about design. Fortunately, now there are so many another of them that it is physically impossible to read everything.
Intend in Side. If you practice non have a go at it a word, only look at the displacement and drop a line information technology fallen.
Get a personal dictionary. For example, in the Abbyy Lingvo application, you hindquarters postpone words and afterward check them in the random decree American Samoa card game to in effect memorize the content of the lexicon. I wrote downcast words in a notebook for a long prison term.
Heed to euphony, show and translate lyrics, understand and later confidently babble out along
Find out movies in English, mayhap with English subtitles, pause and read words that are used much 2 times.

Step 1. Leave Your Native Language Beyond Professional Goals

Forget most your public network life in Russian/Ukrainian Oregon any opposite not-English language. Now everything is only in English people. You can use your native language in social networks that are non available to foreign HRs, but I would advise you to consider if it's very worth spending time on such networks.

Step 2. Do an Awesome Job

Do a good job. But if you are not the guy of lucky stars at every step, a good job won't be enough: you'll have to aspire at an awesome job. You motivation to be the brightest crayon in the box.

If you are a product designer, you should act as a "user exponent" for the merchandise you are impermanent on. You want to be unwaveringly and solid with other teams who ever try to sacrifice design in favou their scrimpy goals. Only we know that the major point of any product and its success is the user's needs.

Pace 3. Become a Perfectionist

You must be passing detail-oriented, i.e. to be a perfectionist. E.g., if you think that pixel beau ideal in iconography is a fate of geeks, I must disappoint you: high management and designers in Facebook or Google do not think so.

Make sure there are no grammar errors not only in LinkedIn and the resume but too in your designs. That is an excellent indicator of attention to detail, which bottom immediately post you to the basket.

Step 4. Exercise for US Food market

Work only on projects that are oriented to the American commercialise, even if for some reason they are paying less at the moment. If you design products with interfaces in Russian and for local companies, the chances that you will be noticed by your dream company in the Silicon Valley are quickly approach zero.

Do non battle for those projects that bring more money – fight for those that bring more customers, future figure out operating room will get a lot of publicity in the Western media.

Footfall 5. Create Your Personal Brand

Develop your personal brand so that the worldwide of design could take heed close to you as soon as possible.

Open accounts along popular platforms to showing your work (Behance.net and Dribbble.com). Written report the work of the near in designers, draw the correct conclusions and on a regular basis post your best designs.
Depart Moderate and try to write something smart about design, such as case studies, some findings, tutorials and the like-minded.
Start victimization Chirrup, twirp and retweet only the stuff which will not be a pity to show to the pipe dream accompany's recruiter. Information technology has to make them understand that design is the near part of your life. Surveil the leaders of the industry, participate in discussions.
Compile occupation communications, visit the design of meetups and conferences and get to know people, make friends with designers in social networks.
Take part in the innovation Lax profession, much as Spec.frequency modulation and Designer Hangout.
Participate in design competitions, send your live designs to the websites care awwwards.com or cssdesignawards.com, there are many of them. These awards will be your outflank batting order in the O-1 request.
When you stimulate achievements, try to become a panel member for at least a local competition.

Self-portrayal dribbble shot aside Denys

Step 6. Work Well on Your Portfolio

Information technology happens that everything you have worked on for the last-place few age is a ignominy to show up (as I worked for 4 years in the Paymentwall). In this case, you will make to snatch up and work on something worthwhile (which is time-consuming and unreliable) or create a portfolio from scratch with unrequested or concept projects that solve specific problems (quickly, efficaciously and profitably). For example, the result of some sore problem of your ain in a well-known product on the world market. It helps to quickly attract attention.

Give your work a bright title (for example Facebook App Redesign) and spot it in the mould of a beautifully designed graphic presentation on Behance.cyberspace, post single pictures with a description in dribbble.com and share is wherever it's achievable. When you share your design, citation the company account statement (or true bettor its design department) of the mathematical product on which you worked, for example, @facebook and @facebookdesign. Do not draw a blank to ask your' friends-designers to do the Sami.

If you claim to be a product designer, the pictures will not equal plenty. Write an article with a detailed verbal description of the problem, telling how you realized that the problem exists (it is useful to conduct user research) and a gradation-by-step solvent to the problem from explore and sketches along paper to information architecture, visual designs and interactive prototypes.

If you post the designing on a popular blog platform like-minded Medium.com, IT wish attract more readers. The article will get even up much attention if it is promulgated in a democratic excogitation issue, for example, UX Design. To do IT, you need to striking the admins of the publication and show them a draft.

If all the likes and shares amassed for a week or two are only from your friends, go back to the step 2.

If your work has acquired some virality (that is, by some miracle, it spread itself over the Internet), start contacting people from companies for which you did your Charles Herbert Best and hint at an interview. Do not bury to organise a touching spread over letter of the alphabet in which you describe how you cannot live without this company and how much you will add to that.

More specifically on my examples.

Example 1. The first thing I did with when I unexpended the Paymentwall was start an account on Behance and making an unsolicited project for GoPro. At that time, I had never even utilised an iPhone and had no idea about its features and UX patterns, so if you look at the throw now, you'll have a lot of questions. Anyway, as soon as I saw that the jut generates relatively some (compared to nonentity) likes, I did everything to interest GoPro in me, namely:

applied for the billet of a designer on the company's website
wrote a letter to Chief operating officer Saint Nicholas Woodsman to all the inboxes that made sense from St. Nicholas.woodworker@gopro.com to nick@gopro.com, one of them did not generate an computer error
paid $ 15 Facebook for sending a individualized message to Nick, which was secure to fall into his Inbox box and Facebook did not deceive me. Nick answered and said that everything is sang-froid and I ask to apply connected the company's website
wrote messages to HRs, designers and intent managers on LinkedIn. As a result, the design film director responded sky-high, merely the talks terminated with the fact that they did not sponsor work visas. Later helium gave ME a enlistment of the GoPro office in Sunnyvale, which was also nice.

Example 2. Due to my unsolicited project of the BMW Dashboard, I was noticed by the design director of Alcatel OneTouch and got a job even without a technical consultation.

Example 3. Thanks to the fairly successful article Car Dashboard UI Collection on Mass medium, I received an offer from a company that exclusively deals with the design of tool clusters for most automotive companies. For a number of reasons, it turned out not to be free-enterprise, sol I refused.

BMW Dashboard project

Step 7. Answer All the Offers

Always resolve the offers for freelancing, even if you are sure that you wish not take it. You never get laid where this person will be tomorrow. Be interested in details, help oneself even free of charge if IT is an stimulating project operating room idea you believe in. That is Thomas More valued than money.

Maltreat 8. Make a Beautiful Website for Yourself

If in that location is atomic number 102 time to fill out the content and register the portfolio, there is nothing shameful in one minimalistic simply chichi page. Incidentall, here is mine dnevozhai.com

Step 9. Mind LinkedIn

Keep your LinkedIn profile fresh, write an introduction that will put you in a good light, download your fresh take up in the form of a PDF file cabinet, project images, links to the social group network and site, tell what you worked on in each company and what you achieved. All the awards, freelance projects, recommendations from customers and employees (in English for sure). Here's my my LinkedIn profile.

In addition to LinkedIn, it will non be libelous to have an account on angel.co.

Step 10. Check the Vacancies of Top Players

Don't be afraid to salary care to the vacancies of top companies, IT will not do worse. It is Thomas More effectual to leak through the recommendation from a company employee, thusly try to find friends or friends of friends in the company and inquire for their recommendation.

Never endeavour to yoke to a portfolio or an attached PDF portfolio.

If none company answers:

return to step 2
make a test to the companies of the second tire.

If you are answered and invited for an interview, keep calm.

The first interview is forever a call operating theatre video call with the design-recruiter or designer. Be waiting to explain the smallest details of projects in your portfolio. Upfield to the question "What would you change?" Never answer "Zero, it is completely cool!" You Crataegus oxycantha also be asked to criticize some famous products on the market or explain how to make a sweet-flavored out of shit. At the second present, you usually have to resolve some specific tasks. You commode read how designers are hired on Facebook here, and present.

I reached the second base stage of the audience happening Facebook and Google when I did not have any true production in the portfolio.

The company Palantir, known for its extra selectivity in hiring employees, after three calls invited me to its office in Palo Alto for the final interview, paying for tickets and all expenses, but I still did not get an offer.

Being in the States, I did not waste time: I got acquainted with people and got interviews in several start-ups, one of which made an offer, merely later couldn't exist accepted because of the difficulties of obtaining a visa H-1B.

Completely the failures with utilisation in the U.S. in 2014 constrained Pine Tree State to accept an offer from China, which I now act non regret.

Step 11. Study Day in and day out

You have to learn day in and day out, try new design disciplines, new drawing styles, new tools. Accustomed Photoshop? Cross yourself and crack to Sketch, you can always go back, but will you want?
In plus to the spick-and-span skills, it becomes conceivable for you to write an clause with a potentially successful title like "10 things I've noninheritable in the transition from PS to Sketch".

By the bye, along with the search for a fraught-time job and freelance, I also completed the Human-Computer Fundamental interaction course from UC San Diego on Coursera. Nowadays it seems to be renamed to Human-Centered Design and they broke the bighearted course into many little ones. My project was in the top three of the best on a course (an accomplishment for O-1) and moreover, now information technology is shown as a work sample for new students. A trifle, but nice.

Step 12. Don't Give Up

Be persistent. If you decided that all that is worth trying, write a step-by-whole tone design (preferably with indicative dates) for apiece step out, perpetually look at it and update IT as you reach your goals. This helps not to lose focus and retain motivation.

If there is an idea to write or design something that can get the virality, at once put it happening the to-do list sol every bit not to block.

A persona of UI design for Amazfit project

So How Did I Annoy America?

In 2015, I finally launched my possess website, received a package of awards and wrote a pillow slip study about the creation of UX design for Alcatel smartwatches. The article was quite successful and got divided up.

I made a new list of companies I was interested in and started to get into open positions.

Somehow, that time neither Google nor Facebook responded, although my experience grew many multiplication, I had awards, sang-froid projects, work abroad, land site, Dribbble portfolio and even a resume. As well, Apple, Dropbox, Lyft and many others did not answer. I negotiated with Uber, Twitter, Box, WhatsApp, merely I either rested on a visa problem, or layoffs during interviews, or I was in an unsuitable state for the interview and upset the recruiter, or the company was slow to make decisions.

I was in despair when I suddenly detected the post of Mikhail Belstar about how he moved to Empire State with the help of the immigration lawyer Anna Aronova. I contacted Anna and ground out that it was possible to get O-1 even without the sponsorship of the company, but I had to open my company (about $ 1000) + get a attorney for a petition for a visa for around $ 5000.

Arsenic soon as I ventured upon this step, I was contacted @leonovco from Huami with an offer which was impossible to refuse and justified more – mud-beplastered all these expenses. He plant me thanks to my PR bodily function in social networks, namely the article on UX design for Alcatel watches connected Medium and presentations on Behance and Dribbble. Having undisputed the bid, I talked to the lawyer acknowledged to ME, expressed my worries and we transferred the case to Anna.

The preparation of documents from my side took a month, and another month was needed to prepare everything connected the lateral of a lawyer. In accordance with the accelerated procedure (+ $ 1500), we received confirmation of the petition in a week and a half. I just had to come to Capital of the Ukrain to perplex a visa in my passport and go to shining California.

This is how my petition for O-1 looked care

Grand Stopping point

Arriving in the States and having met many other visitors, I had the impression that I had passed the most difficult and twisting route. It has been much easier for many early applicants. Maybe you will succeed.

Operative luck!

Post Scriptum

Call up, the younger you are, the easier IT is to pee-pee a decision and relocate.

Why? Because of:
• more meter and energy to fulfill the insane contrive described to a higher place
• better erudition abilities and openness to the virgin
• historic period matters when hiring
• acquired things (an apartment, a car, etc.) will stir doubts
• aging parents are a serious divisor. The earlier you leave, the earlier you will reunite
• wife + child = extra risk and business enterprise costs in a new location.

About the source: Denys Nevozhay, merchandise designer. He is open for communicating on Chitter .

Style photo: Moose

Source: https://blog.icons8.com/articles/design-career-product-designer-relocation-to-the-usa/

Posted by: brownstered.blogspot.com