

Ask HN: Programmer in San Francisco on H4 visa, what can I do with my time? - bdiap001

I just moved to San Francisco with an H4 visa for personal reasons. Back home I was a freelancer, but here the H4 visa doesn't allow me to work, not even for myself, so legally I can't get a job or continue working with my clients. I can volunteer as long as I don't make any money and don't take a job from someone else.<p>I have a few years of experience working on Ruby, C# and Java, though I've been mostly interested in Rails the last couple of years.<p>Here are the options that I think I have:
- Donate my time. I would love to do that for a non profit. 
- Get a job. I can't just get a job though, I would need to find a sponsor and apply for an H1B visa. It is December and H1B applications don't start until April next year. Even if approved I wouldn't be able to start working until October next year. That's 10 months. I would like to keep myself busy in the meantime.
- Work on a personal project. I wish I had one that I was passionate about, since this would be a good time to work on it, but I don't.
- Contribute to Open Source.<p>In an ideal world I would be able to volunteer and work with a smart group of people that would allow me meet some developers in the city, keep my skills up to date, contribute something valuable and have something to show for this time when I start looking for that H1B sponsor.<p>Actually, in an ideal world I wouldn't be in this situation. The H4 visa wouldn't be so restrictive and I could just continue with my freelancing work since I did it before I came here and there is no difference where in the world I am to do it. I wouldn't be taking any "American jobs"... But that is another discussion.<p>Any advice you have? Any better options I'm not seeing?
Any ideas about organizations/projects I could help out?
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mzine2
You could check out Taproot Foundation in the Bay Area -- a non-profit
dedicated to helping great organizations that are underserved through the
general work of tech/marketing/design volunteers.

Another idea would be to enroll in coursework at an American university. Upon
graduating, you'd be granted an EAD for up to two years so you can work for
anyone (if you wanted to). Good luck!

