GTV Case – OC2 Awarded, MC & OC3 Refused

Stage 1: Tech Nation Endorsement
1

GTV Case – OC2 Awarded, MC & OC3 Refused

Hi everyone,

I’m posting my case and would really appreciate feedback from people with experience in UK Global Talent Visa applications.

I applied under Exceptional Promise and received:

  • MC – NOT AWARDED

  • OC2 – AWARDED

  • OC3 – NOT AWARDED

I’m trying to understand what was missing or weak in my application.

Core Documents

  • CV

  • Personal Statement

  • 3 main recommendation letters, including recommendations from:

    • Apache Software Foundation / Apache Airflow leader

    • Senior technology/architecture leader

    • Senior Accenture engineering/data leader

  • Additional supporting recommendation letters for specific evidence

MC – Recognition / Thought Leadership

My MC evidence included:

  • HackerNoon – technical publications

  • The New Stack – technical publication

  • DZone – technical publication

  • Apache Airflow Medium – technical publications/editorial involvement

  • UK top leading Bank– technical/product impact and external recognition

  • Independent technical/data engineering work

  • Technical thought leadership and public recognition

  • Evidence of open-source work and industry engagement

OC2 – Contribution Outside Employment

OC2 was awarded based mainly on:

  • Apache Airflow contributions

  • dbt-core contributions

  • GitHub/open-source activity

  • Plug and Play – startup mentoring

  • TiE Hyderabad – startup mentoring and speaking

  • Open Mic for Entrepreneurs – invited speaker

OC3 – Technical Contributions in Employment

OC3 evidence included:

    • UK top leading Bank Bankline Mobile
    • UK top leading Bank International
    • UK top leading Bank Accelerator

  • Accenture Cloud Data Platform Modernisation

  • Oxford Microsoft Data Platform Group – invited technical talks

  • Architecture diagrams, Git history, production evidence and technical documentation

  • Supporting recommendation letters describing my technical ownership and impact

Decision Feedback

For MC, the assessor acknowledged my technical articles, banking/data engineering work and community talks, but concluded that the evidence did not demonstrate sufficient external recognition or recognition at the level expected for a potential leading talent. They also questioned the selectivity/reach of some of the publications and speaking activities.

For OC2, the assessor accepted my open-source contributions and voluntary mentoring as recognised contribution outside employment.

For OC3, the main criticism was that my technical contributions were not sufficiently distinguished from the wider engineering team’s work, and the evidence did not establish me clearly enough as the primary/accountable person for the outcomes.

What I would really appreciate advice on:

  1. MC: With publications such as HackerNoon, The New Stack, DZone and Apache Airflow Medium, plus external recognition and technical work, was the main problem the level/prestige/selectivity of recognition?

  2. OC3: Was the main weakness that I did not provide enough independent evidence proving my individual technical ownership, despite providing Git history, architecture diagrams and recommendation letters?

  3. I had a recommendation from an Apache Airflow/Apache Software Foundation leader supporting my open-source work. Could this have been positioned more strongly for MC rather than primarily OC2?

  4. If reapplying, would you focus more on strengthening MC recognition, OC3 individual ownership, or both?

I’d really appreciate honest feedback from anyone who has successfully obtained endorsement, particularly under Exceptional Promise in data engineering/software engineering.

Thank you.

@Akash_Joshi @Raphael

2

@pradeep_kalluri Sorry to hear about your rejection, it’s disappointing after all the work.

On your listings. It’s difficult to give any meaningful guidance without seeing what you actually submitted, the specific feedback you received, and how both align with the Tech Nation criteria. Evidence descriptions alone won’t help. I need to see everything you submitted and the actual feedback.

Also, getting feedback from someone simply because they were endorsed in your field isn’t always strategic. Unless they understand the criteria, the guidance, and how evidence is assessed, their advice may not be too useful because most likely they applied with different criteria and evidence. The only reliable source is the official guidance. Also, an expert who truly understands how the process works can be of great help.

All the best.

3

The MC problem is exactly what you suspect. Most of the technical publications sit on self-published or low-selectivity channels, and the guidance is explicit that self-published articles are not sufficient and that media recognition needs details about the publication and its audience. There is also a category issue underneath it. The media example under MC is published material about the applicant, so anything you authored yourself is closer to thought leadership than to recognition of you. That is what the assessor meant by insufficient external recognition.

Your OC3 read is right too. The Guide asks you to demonstrate your own contribution rather than the team’s, and architecture diagrams or Git history remain team artefacts until each one points to the specific decision or commit that was yours. An employer letter, written by someone other than your three recommenders and naming you as accountable for a named outcome, usually does more here than a large volume of production evidence.

Repositioning the Apache leader recommendation toward MC only helps if it shows the field regards you as a leading talent, rather than confirming that you contributed. Add an independent metric such as adoption or download numbers and it can speak to the leading-talent bar rather than repeat OC2.

If you reapply, MC is the harder rebuild, so put most of your effort there. Replace the self-published pieces with selective recognition such as a sector award or a main-stage talk at a large event. OC3 gets easier once each piece of evidence ties an outcome to you.

4

@pradeep_kalluri what was the timeline for your application?

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Are you looking to apply as well?

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Based on the information in the post, I would read the refusal as having two separate issues: MC was about the level of recognition, while OC3 was about attribution/significance of the applicant’s individual contribution. Since the actual refusal letter has not been attached, it would be difficult to go further than that without assuming what the assessor said.

For MC, the publications are not necessarily irrelevant. The issue appears to be that the assessor did not consider the combined publications, talks and technical activity sufficient to establish recognition of you personally as potential talent in digital technology. Under the current rules, Exceptional Promise requires recognition by others as potential talent in digital technology within the last five years. So the relevant question is not simply how many publications there are, but their standing/reach, whether they recognise the applicant personally, and whether they demonstrate recognition beyond ordinary professional activity. Without seeing the refusal, I would not conclude that the publications themselves were “too weak”; only that, based on the description, they did not collectively reach the recognition threshold in this application.

For OC3, the feedback is more specific. Git history and architecture diagrams can establish that someone worked on a technical system, but OC3 requires a significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contribution. The assessor therefore appears to have wanted clearer evidence connecting the applicant personally to the resulting impact, rather than evidence of the wider team’s delivery. A recommendation letter can strengthen that attribution, particularly if the author has direct knowledge of the work, but it does not automatically establish the contribution on its own. The underlying evidence should make the applicant’s responsibility and resulting impact clear.

Regarding the Apache Airflow leader, that letter could potentially have supported the overall recognition case as well as OC2, depending on what it actually says. However, if the same evidence is being relied on as evidence for a specific criterion, it cannot be counted towards more than one criterion. The current criteria treat recognition for work outside the applicant’s occupation as an optional criterion, while MC is a separate requirement for recognition as potential talent. If the Apache leader’s evidence primarily confirms the applicant’s open-source contributions, it naturally supports OC2. If it also independently explains why those contributions demonstrate recognition of the applicant within the wider digital-technology community, it could potentially have been relevant to MC. But the same evidence cannot simply be counted twice across criteria; the current guidance says the same piece of evidence cannot be used for more than one criterion.

For a reapplication, based only on the information provided, I would not choose between MC and OC3 as though one automatically fixes the refusal. They failed for different reasons. MC would need stronger evidence of external recognition as a potential leader, while OC3 would need stronger evidence of individual ownership and significant impact. If new evidence can materially address both gaps, strengthening both would be the more directly responsive approach. If you are considering a review instead, remember that a review cannot introduce new evidence; it is for showing that the original evidence was not properly considered or that there was a processing/assessment error.