So, a few years ago, I moved to Canada. For reasons involving a failing marriage, and a lack of a degree, I didn’t qualify under Skilled Labour (although my now-estranged wife did). For this reason and that, we wound up getting work permits by purchasing a bar, which gave me an open permit.
I spent the next 3 years working, just over 2 of them at the same small software company. Further separation ensures, years go by, and it’s time to renew my work permit.
So, I find a lawyer; allegedly one of the of top immigration lawyers in Toronto. I give him the facts, he thinks about it for a few minutes, says, well, this is a moderately difficult case (I was under tight time lines), and tells me I don’t qualify as a software developer* under NAFTA (I knew that), so we need to do a LMA.
So, how stringent are these things? I’ve been with my current company for 2 years. They love me. While they don’t really need the full 15 years of experience I have, they need someone with at least 8 to 10, and as varied as my experience is. The project I head up (as technical lead) has a $2,000,000 a year budget, most of it in the programmers who report to me, and the other projects I advise on (also as tech lead, but with a different lead programmer) have about $1mil in budgets. It’s all the usual nightmare you see as a lead in a small project based shop: 6 or 10 different technologies, good communication skills required, direct communications with the client, tight time frames, mentoring developers, familiarity with all of software development life cycle and tools, creative problem solving under pressure, ability to laise with all departments, etc, etc, etc. I would be legitimately difficult to replace.
Frankly, I’m one of the people who conducts interviews, and we probably see 5 candidates a month, and seldom make an offer. While we snatch the promising new grad, or new immigrant to the country, we aren’t a low-budget sweatshop either. Pay across the board is competitive. There is a lot of emphasis on training, but you need that if you want to keep developers.
I’m not asking for legal advice, because I have a good lawyer. I’m asking if anyone has any actual experience with these things. I’m waiting for the paperwork to come back, and just a little stressed in the mean time.
So, how stringent are these things? Is this an “omg, dude, you are so screwed, they never grant exemptions for anyone”? Is it an “well, they tend to be fairly liberal giving these out, but fair, and in your case [you’re totally in | it’s hard to tell | you’re screwed]”. Or a “If you did the paper work, and aren’t lying, it’s pretty easy”?
Anybody know anything about this? I’m still counting down the days until I hear something.
- I know the degree vs. non-degreed software developer thing is contentious here (and, well, in the industry). I got lucky; I was mentored by incredibly top notch software developers, and I started at a time when it was hard to get a decent education in PC programming. Let it go in this case.