Kruti Shah

When decisions are made without direct, ongoing input from customers, product innovation can stagnate. Instead of top-down decisions, customer involvement through feedback loops, usability testing, and co-creation activities often leads to fresher, more relevant ideas that drive product innovation and better customer satisfaction.

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The job market in 2024 has been like navigating a storm—one that’s not following usual patterns. Despite a "good" economic environment (the stock market booming, companies making record profits) - hiring seems to be scarce, and the average job search is stretching to nearly 14 months. What’s causing this bizarre situation? 🌐 Legacy Things Crashing and Burning Legacy bits are finally reaching the end of their lifespans. Many companies have delayed upgrading for decades, but now have no choice (because things either have stopped working or upgrading {with "AI"} is the only way to prevent competition from crushing them). Higher interest rates mean money put into these necessary capital expenditures has to come at the expense of operational expansion. Instead of hiring new talent, companies are restructuring and laying off staff, further burdening already skeletal crews (all the while keeping job posts they aren't going to fill open). ⚔️ Too Many Seekers, Too Few Roles Too many job seekers are now fighting for too few non-ghost roles. Layoffs and restructuring have increased the number of qualified professionals hunting for jobs at the same time. With fewer companies expanding, the imbalance between job seekers and openings is at an all-time high, making competition fiercer than ever (even with 4x the number of job postings to job seekers). Not to mention the AI-Resume-ATS battles raging on in the recruiting world. 🧱 People Aren't Leaving Their Jobs People aren’t leaving their current roles as frequently as they did in the past. Job hopping has slowed significantly, whether due to economic uncertainty, job security, or fear of not finding another role (due to current job market conditions). This stagnation means fewer positions are opening up, bottlenecking the job market. 🌄 The Silver Lining: Relief Is Coming It’s not all doom and gloom—there’s a silver lining on the horizon. Once the Federal Reserve reduces interest rates, capital will be available for companies to start hiring again. The current strain on the bare-bone-marrow workforce has led to increased burnout. Without support, employees will start leaving (even if the market is bad), opening up more vacancies. Over the next few months, we can expect the number of open positions to increase as companies hire again (because they have money or to prevent more people leaving) or as people leave their jobs, creating more opportunities - which will then spur others to leave their roles accelerating this process. 🌟 The Light at the End of the Tunnel As the market rebalances itself again, the number of job applications per role should drop, finding that next position will become easier. The storm will pass, and the job market will begin to normalize. Until then, hang tight; this imbalance is hopefully a phase—one that will eventually clear, making way for brighter days ahead. #Jobpocalypse2024 #OpenToWork

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I had tried to train Parler-TTS for one of the Indic languages, and it was a super expensive effort. I came across Indic Parler-TTS, a multilingual Indic extension of Parler-TTS Mini today. (fine tuned by https://lnkd.in/gtmyje2S) Here is an example of #Kannada text-to-speech using Indic Parler-TTS. Check out my notebook -> https://lnkd.in/gq3rhjQZ #AI #LLM

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From Astrologer's Whispers to Real Connections: Reclaiming Belonging in a Lonely Age Have you ever consulted an astrologer, their predictions swirling in your head, only to feel empty when your day takes a different turn? The emptiness might not be about the details themselves, but about seeking outside approval for your happiness. This same feeling can creep in even when you achieve success. Remember climbing the career ladder, landing that dream apartment, only to find yourself lost in a quiet emptiness? In India's bustling cities, it's a familiar, painful emotion. We're surrounded by people, yet there's a little loneliness at the edges of our lives. Thinking back to Mrs. Deshmukh, your friendly neighbour with the legendary Til Gur Barfi's, who brought the whole neighbourhood together with tea and friendly chats. Those evenings of shared stories and laughter, a web woven by simple human connection, feel like a distant memory in our super-connected yet broken world. We chase success with thumbs glued to screens, building online bridges that leave us feeling more alone than ever. The pressure to create a perfect online self-drowns out the whispers of our own desires. But here's the real deal, that shiny designation and fancy car can't fill the hole left by genuine connection. There's hope, though! We can rewrite this story. Let's ditch the small talk and chase deeper connections. Share your fears and worries, break free from feeling isolated in this sea of ambition. Remember the warmth of family gatherings, the joy of shared childhood games? Revive those small traditions. Pick up the phone for a real heart-to-heart conversation rather than What's Apping. Every act of connection, no matter how ordinary, how small, builds a more satisfying life. Imagine hearing back from an old friend, reliving an old laugh, and being surrounded by people who truly see us, where we belong. Isn't that what life is all about? Together, one conversation, one meal, and one act of kindness at a time, we can tear down the walls of loneliness. We can rewrite the narrative of modern society, where connection becomes the foundation of a life well lived. It's not too late, or is it? #HumanConnections #BelongingMatters #OvercomeLoneliness #RealConversations #MeaningfulRelationships #CommunityOverConnectivity #AuthenticLiving #SocialWellbeing #RedefiningSuccess #TraditionsRewoven #FightIsolation #VulnerableAndReal #KindnessRevolution #SmallActsBigImpact #ReconnectingHumanity #IndianSociety #UrbanLoneliness #DigitalDetox #QualityOverQuantity #ConnectionCures Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

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𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐰 𝐚 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐠𝐠'𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. Like many others, my role at Chegg has been impacted due to restructuring. After taking some time to process and plan my next steps, I’m now exploring new opportunities. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈’𝐦 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫: 👉 𝐌𝐢𝐝-𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬 in 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 or 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 👉 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐟𝐟 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭/𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫 roles 𝐌𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞: 👉 10+ 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 ✅ 7 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 & 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 ➡️ Driving key CX metrics (CSAT, NPS, response/resolution times) ➡️ People management & building teams from the ground up ➡️ Proficiency with tools like Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, and Helpscout ✅ 5 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭/𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 ➡️ Planning, Execution, Stakeholder Management, Change Management and Risk Management ➡️ Agile Practitioner and Scrum Master ➡️ Proficiency with tools like Jira, Confluence, Smartsheets, ClickUp, Trello, and Notion 🚨 𝐓𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤: If you know of relevant opportunities, I’d greatly appreciate your support. Also, if we’ve worked together, your recommendations would mean a lot as I navigate this transition. 🚨 😇 𝐓𝐨 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝: feel free to reach out—happy to support in any way I can.

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🚨 News: FY2025 H-1B Cap Reached – No Additional Lottery Rounds!🚨 The USCIS has officially announced that the H-1B cap for FY 2025 has been reached after two rounds of selection. With over 470,342 registrations this year, the process saw a record number of applicants vying for limited spots. Unfortunately, no additional lottery rounds will be conducted this year. For those marked as "Not Selected", we understand the uncertainty this brings. But don’t lose hope—there are alternative pathways to pursue your dreams of working and living in the U.S. 💡 What Are Your Options? Whether you’re an employer or prospective employee, exploring alternatives like the O1A Visa could be your next step. The O1A Visa is designed for individuals who demonstrate extraordinary ability in their field—technology, engineering, arts, or sciences. At Jinee Green Card, we specialize in building strong profiles to help you qualify for the O1A Visa. Our team is here to guide you through every step, from understanding the requirements to crafting a winning application. ✉️ Take Action Today! Don’t let the H-1B cap stop you from achieving your U.S. career goals. Drop us an email at [email protected] to learn how we can help you turn this setback into an opportunity with the O1A Visa. Let’s make your American Dream a reality! 🌟

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It’s been 1.5+ yrs since I started working at Google and several individuals from my LinkedIn network asked me some common questions - “How are you adjusting to the cultural shock between Amazon vs Google ”? I waited for 1.5 yrs since I needed some data to calibrate my journey and share answer in a professionally responsible manner. Also, the tech industry has endured tremendous turbulence in the last 2 years and I had to adjust my surfing gears more than ever. Let me start with - yes, I had cold feet when I stepped outside my 9 yrs old “Amazon” home. But, I can also assure you this decision was not impromptu and took ~5 months of mental exercise. Here are some things that I practiced to weather the change and get acclimatized.   (1) Set right expectations: This is probably the most important one to avoid mental stress and fatigue. Like any trade, there are risks when stakes are high. I spent nearly 2 months finding the trade offs and compromises of my choices which led me to build the plan to address my own concerns.    (2) Build career strategy: With expectations set, I put a methodical structure to accelerate my journey. First 4 months, I was 100% hands-on with SDE-1 and 2s to understand the builder tools (yes, they know the best!), server frameworks, development and deployment best practices. Then I scheduled 50% of time on project delivery, 30% on identifying top engineering problems and 20% time working on the 3 years vision. (3) Stay original and authentic: My strategy was to fight all of my inner urge to practice Amazonian traits at Google (all though some part of me was screaming inside). That said, I did not throw any Amazon leadership principles and instead moderated the tone in the new world, while embracing the Googlyness. (4) Respect what came before: I put a self note on my desk to fight all urges to be judgmental and opinionated about all prior organizational and engineering decisions. Instead, I scheduled meetings and spent several months absorbing what came before and internalizing the vision. (5)Developed my professional network: “Earn trust” is table stakes if you want to grow in your career. Building trust and network is a huge time investment and takes careful planning. Frequent 1:1 with mentors and leaders in my organization definitely paid off to seed the right network structure at the early stage. (6) Learn and be curious: For a builder, it is not fun to throw away familiar tools. pick up new ones and accelerate.  But, here is one thing that helped. I stopped burdening myself with the idea that I am missing my old tools, instead motivated myself to learn technologies those power planet scaled software. Success metric to share: Today I Am driving ~100+ SDE organization as the tech lead. Achieved code review bar raiser in two programming languages Became chaos testing ambassador in Google Ads.  Led a performance improvement objective in Google (won Bronze tier) Launched 2 critical features.

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Like many other LinkedIn users, I'm going to dump on Intuit for their layoffs now. But I'm also going to point out that this isn't the first time they've done this exact thing. Intuit, in case you hadn't heard, recently laid off over 1,800 people and cited "poor performance" as the reason for many of those affected. This was announced in a letter that CEO Sasan Goodarzi sent to his employees. He also announced that they would be hiring about 1,800 workers to replace those let go. In 2020, the Intuit CEO announced layoffs of 715 employees and said they would hire approximately 700 more. Here's what he said in 2020—yes, 2020. → In 2018, Intuit "refreshed [its] strategy" to become an AI-driven platform. → In 2020, they faced a "fundamental shift" in the market and believed that "speed matters more than ever" in their pivot to AI. → Sasan Goodarzi saw it as his job to "set Intuit up for success." → He said he was "taking these actions to ... ensure that we're able to deliver for our customers..." Fast forward to 2024, where he said: → "AI is one of the most significant technology shifts of our lifetime" and that "companies that aren't prepared to take advantage of this AI revolution will fall behind..." → Intuit is at a "critical moment" in its history, and they're "in a position of strength," as this is ."the beginning of the AI revolution." → The changes Intuit is making are to "support our customers and drive growth." The main difference between the two letters are the numbers of employees affected and the fact that he threw one thousand and fifty people under the bus in the latter. My takeaway from this: → Intuit's layoffs aren't about poor performers or a shift to AI. They shifted to AI in 2020 but couldn't get their strategy right. → They couldn't figure out what skills to hire for because they couldn't get their strategy right. → They lacked adequate management or culture to support the people they'd hired to upskill them or get them into roles more suited to their skills. → Their management sucks. To let 1,800 people go just to hire another 1,800 when you've already done the same thing less than four years prior just means that you're bad at leading a company. You've created a dysfunctional system that won't ever be successful. Sasan Goodarzi should be laying himself off, not the 1,800 people whose lives he just upended. Obligatory pitch for my services: If you want to avoid the problems of hiring that Intuit faced, I can help you design a hiring process that will match your strategy and ensure you get people with the skills they need to succeed in their roles. DM me for more info.

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Just wanted to share the latest blog from my colleague Vikas Shetty, VP of products. He dives into how we're outpacing evolving security challenges in this thought-provoking write up about tackling AI-based bots with AI-resistant challenges. #BotMitigation #AccountSecurity #AI #GenerativeAI #cybersecurity #security #cyberattacks

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Smoking Cloud May Cause Cancerous Growth = I recently came to know that one of my acquaintances in India discovered large tumor growth. That person was worried about not being able to control weight and on further checking large tumor was discovered. I hope and pray that the person survives the large weight reduction surgery. Many companies do not. The reason is: The Cancerous Tumor Known As Amazon Web Services (AWS) In the rest of the post I will tell the story of a company which survived after a large surgery to remove huge AWS cancerous growth. = When Tony Stubblebine became CEO of Medium in 2022, he was tasked with making the online publishing platform profitable for the first time in the company's decade long history. Stubblebine expects Medium to hit that milestone sometime this year, thanks in part to a somewhat unexpected strategy — scrutinizing the company's budget for cloud storage and services. Stubblebine's mandate to cut costs across the company began when he joined two years ago. He soon realized that cloud computing was the most bloated part of Medium's budget. "What's ended up happening is that probably about half of our path to profitability came from cost-cutting and a quarter of that is in cloud costs," Stubblebine told BI. When he initially directed teams to examine their cloud spending, Stubblebine expected to find instances of inefficient usage that might require the advice of an outside expert before shutting down. Instead, employees found lots of space the company simply wasn't using, and that no one had bothered to check. "These weren't hard costs for the existing team to cut," said Stubblebine. "As soon as we gave them permission to go looking, then they found a ton of stuff immediately and they could fix all of it." It's not just Stubblebine who plans to continue cutting cloud costs. A Barclays survey found that 83% of CIOs plan to "repatriate" or remove certain workloads from the cloud in the first half of 2024, up from 43% four years ago. In Medium's case, the most bloat came from the biggest providers. That's meant cutting back significantly on Amazon Web Services and Snowflake. Savings on AWS, Stubblebine said, is "trending north of $500,000 a month" — nearly half of what Medium used to spend. But Stubblebine thinks that cloud optimization is part of a broader mentality shift sweeping the pre-IPO startup world. With investor money harder to come by, he said, companies are focused on profit — and cost-cutting is part of that. Cutting cloud spend has also allowed Medium to move faster. "To have less is better for development," said Stubblebine. "And that's why people call it tech debt. It's not just a financial cost, it's a cognitive load for the product teams." Amazon Web Services (AWS) took the revenge on a large number of employees by laying them off due to large cuts from millions of medium companies like Medium. Cloud smoking causes cancer - that is the warning from Industry Surgeon General.

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The last couple of days, much has been said about Amazon’s RTO. I have avoided the topic because I generally do not like to speak about things I have not thought deeply about, and I am still forming my thoughts on this – it is a complex problem with no easy solutions.   What I will do in the short term is three things.   1️⃣ I will Lead with Empathy when I interact with co-workers that are disproportionally and negatively impacted by RTO. Whatever your thoughts are, always keep in mind it affects every single person in different ways. 2️⃣ Whenever possible I will provide constructive, actionable and objective feedback to the S-team. Complaining and criticizing is neither. 3️⃣ I will Commit, as it is a critical part of Amazon’s Leadership Principles and always has been. I started at Amazon fifteen years ago and I have been asked to Commit to countless decisions I didn't 100% agree with. Most of them turned out to be correct in the long term. This morning, I just want to share how RTO affects me and how I think about it.   Coming to the office means 90 minutes of my life I need to commute every day. I have a 10m drive to the park’n’ride, some time waiting for the bus, a 30 minute bus ride, and a 15 minute walk. Same process backwards in the afternoon.   This is an inconvenience (I am aware that this is likely just a small inconvenience for me compared to how it affects others). I am personally willing to pay this price for the benefit and privilege to work next to all of you.   I have felt more alive and excited to work in the last 4 months than in the last 4 years. I feel energized by the synergy and camaraderie of four engineers in front of a whiteboard. I treasure the privilege to be able to chat 1:1 with a coworker over coffee. I have traveled thousands of miles to spend f2f time with engineers in other Amazon offices. That was all taken away from me during covid. In fact, I have been coming to the office every single day (with minor exceptions) since the day I rejoined Amazon. I'm making the best of my 90 minute daily commute. I disconnect from the internet and use this time to think deeply about what I want to do that day (in the morning), and things that I learned that day (in the afternoon). I came up with some of my best ideas during my commute. I've come to really value this time to Myself.   Again: today’s post is NOT meant to be a blanket statement about RTO for the entire company. Today I humbly wanted to share how it affects me personally and why this is a price I’m personally willing to pay. I know there’s a lot more nuance to RTO than my thoughts this morning, but that is not today's goal.

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Gave a talk at TLA+ Conference 2024 with Ankur Agrawal. Here we talk about #venicedb and #ambry and how we've used #tla+ at LinkedIn! If you're interested in open source projects, TLA+, database replication, or just in it to hear my calming tenor, take a look! https://lnkd.in/gWwkjNPE

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Insightful explanation of how do go channels work behind the scenes. Its all about yielding the ptocessor for other goroutines. https://lnkd.in/gbyQ4yH9

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A Decade at Amazon - Reflections After a 10-year journey at Amazon, I recently transitioned from a yellow badge to the red corporate employee badge. While there is room for improvement at Amazon, I'm struck by how much I've learned and grown, thanks to Amazon's culture and leaders. In my last 10 years, I've had the opportunity to work across different organizations in stores, AWS, and Alexa as an individual contributor and as a manager in technical program management and engineering disciplines. Some of the most profound lessons that will stick with me include: 1. Following leadership principles unifies a company's culture and boosts productivity. 2. The importance of deep understanding, practice, and insisting on the highest standards. 3. Driving outcomes over empires and being strategically patient yet tactically impatient in pursuing customer obsession. 4. Having an insatiable curiosity and beginner's mindset. 5. Every customer issue represents an upstream process deficiency that needs to be identified and resolved urgently. 6. Prioritizing and tackling the hottest, highest impact items first. 7. Being "green-lighted" doesn't mean risk-free, and transparently calling out risks with projected issue dates. 8. Prioritizing input goals you can control before output goals, and optimizing inputs relentlessly. 9. Goals are directional, not dogmatic, and undershooting or overshooting can be acceptable if customers are delighted. 10. While off-the-shelf solutions can cover 80%, investing in tailored solutions for the remaining 20% is critical. 11. Simplicity, incremental progress, and smart automation are core philosophies. 12. Transparency in prioritization rationale and openness to adjusting the roadmap based on new inputs. 13. Sticking to your strongest points persuades better than attempting to discuss everything. 14. Removing blockers is your responsibility, not someone else's, and committing 100% once a group decision is made. 15. Embracing failures as learning opportunities in complex operations. This enriching decade has been about customer obsession, frugality, ownership, never stopping learning, highest standards, and delivering robust solutions. I'm grateful for the growth I've experienced here.

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How #GenAI is leveraged across SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) and how it improves Developer Experience. #Salesforce #Productivity #DeveloperExperience #AI

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Check out our blog post with Fengyu Zhang and Birjodh Singh Tiwana on how we are incorporating dwell based signals to improve feed experience for LinkedIn members. Thanks to Siddharth Dangi, James Sorenson, Allison Liu, Hailing Cheng, and Yafang Yang for their discussions, data analysis and prior work. https://lnkd.in/gmkSzPWn #linkedin #deeplearning #ai #feed

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How Einstein Immigrated To America = My connection Rudra Roy Choudhury posted the following last week: My BIGGEST CAREER UPDATE for 2024: emotionally thrilled to share that my petition for the US extraordinary ability green card visa, EB-1A (a.k.a. the Einstein visa) has been approved!! = What is Einstein visa? Melania Trump obtained US citizenship on a visa reserved for immigrants with "extraordinary ability" and "sustained national and international acclaim", according to a report in the Washington Post. Nicknamed the "Einstein Visa", the EB-1 is in theory reserved for people who are highly acclaimed in their field - the government cites Pulitzer, Oscar, and Olympic winners as examples - as well as respected academic researchers and multinational executives. Mrs Trump began applying for the visa in 2000, when she was Melania Knauss, a Slovenian model working in New York and dating Donald Trump. She was approved in 2001, one of just five people from Slovenia to win the coveted visa that year, according to the Post. Becoming a citizen in 2006 gave her the right to sponsor her parents, Viktor and Amalija Knavs, who are now in the US and in the process of applying for citizenship. The reports of how Mrs Trump obtained her EB-1 visa will rankle with some, at a time when her husband is railing against immigrants and attempting to scrap the right of new citizens to sponsor family members. And questions have been raised about her suitability for the extraordinary ability category. But just how hard is it to get an EB-1, and should she have made the cut? Mrs Trump came to the US in 1996, first on a tourist visa then later a string of working visas for skilled immigrants, according to her lawyer. She was working as a model in New York when she met Mr Trump at a party in 1998, a relationship that considerably raised her celebrity profile. Before applying for a green card - which grants permanent residency - she had worked as a runway model in Europe and featured to a limited extent in UK and US magazines. She appeared on the cover of British GQ on a fur rug in Mr Trump's private jet, and in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated in the US. She was not a top international model. To obtain an EB-1 for extraordinary ability, an immigrant has to provide evidence of a major award or meet three of 10 criteria proving excellence in their field. The criteria include coverage of the applicant in major publications, original and significant contributions to a field, and work displayed at artistic exhibitions. The government guidance for applicants cites Nobel prizes and international acclaim, but the reality is often more prosaic, said Susan McFadden a specialist US visa lawyer in London. Mrs. Trump is the only American first lady known to have posed naked for publications. This is indeed special. Einstein immigrated to the USA for teaching USCIS how to create a named visa. Now it seems the Green Card game has stopped ... hopefully temporarily.

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