Exception Talent - Strategic Review

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Hi Everyone,
Hope you all had a great weekend. I’m preparing for my GTV and would greatly appreciate your feedback and thought on few questions I have.

I working in IT for 14 years in technical roles and currently working as Software Engineer in UK for the past 3 years.

Personal Statement - focusing on my technical skills, contributions as mentor for years, advisor for startups etc., in Cloud and AI solutions

CV - basic structure highlighting all the roles played so far.

RL:

  1. From Software Engineering Director from my current company - speaking about my current technical skills on projects from past 3 years.
  2. From a friend - GTV Talent candidate - speaking about my outside collaborations and tech skills
  3. Founder of Angel Investing Group - speaking about my leadership skills.

OC2:

  1. Startup founder - a letter confirming my advisory role for their fundraising and other areas.
  2. Startup founder - a letter confirming my technical advisory for their product design
  3. Some additional documents on other mentoring activities in UK - letters from those orgs as evidence.

OC3:

  1. a letter from VP-Product in current company confirming the projects currently working on in the past 3 years
  2. a letter from Software engineering manager - previously my manager and moved to a different company now. His letter is confirming my technical skills and involvements in the projects

Can’t show the git hub links here as these are private. what else would be useful as strong evidence?

MC:
I am adding a letter from a startup founder confirming on a product I helped to build for another startup (Website Design and Product architecture).

Problem here is - I don’t have git hub checkins on my name, product got only 10-20 clients in the past couple of years after launch. So, I’m not sure if these numbers would show it as growth. In this case, how can I enhance the evidence? what kind of evidence would look good?

Any additional improvements/suggestions on other evidence also would be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

@Akash_Joshi @Raphael @pahuja @Francisca_Chiedu

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Your MC evidence needs strengthening beyond just the startup letter. I’ve seen similar cases where private GitHub repositories weakened applications because assessors couldn’t verify the claimed impact. Instead of relying solely on GitHub visibility, focus on demonstrating measurable business outcomes from your technical contributions. Create comprehensive system architecture documents that showcase your specific innovations, and get detailed reference letters that explain exactly how your work advanced the company’s technology capabilities.

Regarding the product that you built, was it built FOR them or was it a SaaS product licensed TO them? It sounds like a product FOR them, which would make it a weak evidence. Having a SaaS product with 10-20 users would be considered weak as well, unless they were high-value Enterprise users.

Your OC2 and OC3 evidence structure looks solid, but strengthen each with concrete technical artifacts rather than just letters. For OC3, include product design documents, technical specifications you authored, or measurable performance improvements your code delivered. Remember that Tech Nation values technical innovation that creates business impact, so connect every technical achievement to tangible outcomes like user growth, system performance, or revenue contribution.

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@Akash_Joshi - your above reply is so valuable. I truly appreciate it.

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Thank you for the feedback.

Regarding MC: It’s a HRTech product built FOR them. reference letter is covering the detailed work done but I feel I should add more as evidence. I’ll create the system architecture diagrams and details of some AI feature we added as a complement to the product. Coming to the client base, It’s a B2B SaaS, paid client are few but they have around 150 small clients on free plan. It would be nice to know how to highlight this as achievement?

Also, This product is closed product, without login external users can’t use it. How can we best demonstrate the internal features to panel?

Along with reference letter, Would it be nice to get attestation of my work from the founder as additional proof?

Once again, Many thanks for your time and inputs. @Akash_Joshi

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Hi @srohini

You have come a long way in tech, that is almost two decades. I hope you get the endorsement to crown your hard work over the years.

Just a quick note on your strategy:

Personal Statement - focusing on my technical skills, contributions as mentor for years, advisor for startups etc., in Cloud and AI solutions.

This works! But beyond these, you want to focus on what the guidance requires for two reasons: reviewers may read it, and expect to see what is stated in guidance, and successful appeals are fact based, so in case an issue comes up with the personal statement, one can refer them to what is clearly stated, though most times issues are not raised about PL, but I can tell you for free, it gives a whole lot of impression about an applicant. So, also talk about:

  1. Explaining the contribution that you will make to the UK digital technology sector.
  2. Why do you want to come to the UK?
  3. What is your planned occupation in the UK?
  4. Which region or city of the UK are you planning to live in?
  5. How will the UK digital technology sector benefit from your work?

“CV - basic structure highlighting all the roles played so far.”

Yes! Being basic as you rightly stated, but with clear career history and publications, if you have any.

LOR
Software Engineering Director - yes, this can suffice. But a letter from a friend, no, this is not accepted. And the Founder of Angel Investing Group - is he a tech person? I mean a big one, for that matter? You may need to check these two.

OC2
These are more of letters. You see, letters only are the weakest form of evidence. You need to work on this. You are to demonstrate that you have been recognised for your work outside of your immediate occupation that contributed to the advancement of the digital technology sector. As you can see, the evidence you provided, except for the last one, is not sector focused. You need to be clear and show how the mentoring activities contribute to the sector’s advancement.

OC3
The first thing you want to establish with your evidence here is that you are a founder, senior executive, board member, or employee of a product led digital technology company that has contributed significantly, technically, commercially, or entrepreneurially to the tech field.

The letter from your VP-Product should confirm that the projects you are currently working on, and have worked on in the past 3 years, have contributed to the field. Beyond your technical skills and involvement in the projects, your previous manager’s letter should also mention how the projects contribute to the field.

Yes, if you don’t have access or can’t share any private protected evidence, like the GitHub you mentioned, you can show screenshots of what you have on therein to your evidence page. But remember, anything you are showing has to be significant.

MC
Only a letter from a founder for the mandatory criterion is very, very weak. Maybe as supporting evidence along with 1 or 2 strong ones, yes.

Overall, you will need to work on your evidence. Also, be mindful of what you include, some evidence could conflict with your role and raise concerns about self authorship. For instance, as a Software Engineer, a product design document typically would not be something you personally own. PRDs, product specs, roadmaps, etc are usually owned by Product Managers, Product Owners, or UX Designers, except your are a Full Stack Developer and you need to make it clear.

Are you able to share a screenshot of your GitHub profile or if you can the link? Could be via DM

All the best.

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Thank you for the detailed feedback. This is really helpful.
LOR - I might have understated the letter 2 and 3, A friend is a startup founder and tech person, where we did worked on few small projects in the past few years. another letter is from well established person in startup industry, I would say he falls under top management roles, advisor for tech startups category. Hope these people confirming the work I did with them helps in recommendation letters.

OC2 - Additional to the letters, Could you please give some examples on what kind of evidence add more weight especially when I worked with mostly accelerators in UK and done mentorship through their platforms.

MC - Unfortunately, I can’t share the GitHub here as it’s also a private repo. But, I can add screenshots and probably demo video etc., I can add as evidence.
Other than Product-Led Growth, what else from my profile can be used as additional supporting document for MC to strengthen this area? Any example would be helpful.

Thank you so much for your inputs and time.@Raphael

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I’m still confused about the products you mentioned. Which ones are you talking about? Who are the clients? You should be the primary business owner/founder/employee and the 150 clients should be your direct customers. If there are intermediaries involved, this becomes a weak evidence unfortunately - especially for a Talent application.

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After lot of thinking, I have decided to drop the MC mentioned earlier.
Planning to go with a different product from the current company I’m working. This product definitely sold contract 1.2 to 4 million over the past 2 years itself. Multiple clients contract are signed over the past 5 years.

My question for this is: As I’m working for a multi-national company, Sales team is the one majorly credited for these contract in public articles, I had to use internal appreciation, employee news articles as evidence. Would this be sufficient?

Also, adding community contributions like speaking activities, blog articles, podcast I have done…

Would this strong enough for MC? any advices to improve it?

Thanks in advance.

@Raphael @Akash_Joshi

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I think a strong reference letter from someone high up in the leadership team is going to be the key for this evidence. They need to be able to speak to your contributions, the impact it had, and how recognised you are within and outside the company.

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Thank you. Can this be someone from my current company? Does this person need to from outside the company like a client? @Akash_Joshi

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@srohini

My answer is no, because the MC is intended to show recognition of what you have personally done as a talent or promising talent in the digital technology sector in the last 5 years

To meet the MC, you must demonstrate that you have been recognized - or are recognized as having the potential to be a leading talent in the digital technology sector within the past five years, depending on the path you are applying through(Talent or Promise)

In your message, you focused on what the product has achieved:

“This product definitely sold contracts worth 1.2 to 4 million over the past 2 years. Multiple client contracts have been signed over the past 5 years.”

You also mentioned:

“The sales team is primarily credited for these contracts in public articles.”

If you are not publicly recognized or credited for these achievements, and you can not show evidence that can attribute the credit or recognize you as the person that led or did it, then unfortunately, it’s a no for MC.

Also, note letters of reference alone are not sufficient to meet this criterion. You must provide corresponding evidence that supports the claims made in a letter.

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Thank you for the feedback.