Help with Appeal - MC, Exceptional Promise Software Engineer

[nabramow]

Hi all,

I recently received a rejection for Exceptional Promise as a Software Engineer. It seems they approved my OC2 and OC3 (with some reservations), but they were not happy with my MC.

I think it’s worth an appeal, as I got 2/3 and the MC seems like misunderstandings where I perhaps didn’t explain the product structures in a way they understood.

If you have successfully appealed, especially if for similar reasons, I’d love advice on strategy as I work on my appeal. I know we can’t provide new evidence so it’s more about clarifying my existing evidence.

Here are my reasons for rejection:

I’ll put my evidence for MC below. My timeline is at the bottom. I won’t include the OCs since I passed them (even if they had some comments) and don’t want to make this more of a novel.

LOR1 - CEO and Founder of Codesmith in US (where I mentor, used in OCs)
LOR2 - CEO of my previous company in Germany - did not use in evidence as it’s a few years ago but explains my impact at the company at the time
LOR3 - Group Product Manager of my company in US (he reports directly to the COO of our 500+ person company and was a founder himself) - this is related to my MC - explains how I did the product POC, helped scale the product and worked on key features.

My MC Evidence is from two companies, one for and one non-profit:

Company 1 led non-profit product growth

• Screenshot of the public team page showing me as Board Member and Lead Frontend Developer.
• GitHub insights screenshot: #2 contributor (703 commits), second only to the cofounder.
• Public blog post and volunteer newsletter screenshots confirming I am one of the most active contributors with my name mentioned, that we have 50k+ users, and key features I completed.
• Screenshots of public weekly dev meeting notes referencing my work on specific features.
• Screenshot of Couchers Grafana dashboard showing user growth over the last year.
• Letter from Couchers Co-founder and President detailing my technical impact and tying it to the growth stats, feature ownership, why I was invited to the Board and linking my work to growth and adoption, affirming our identity as a “global non-profit that builds an open-source digital hospitality platform.”

Company 2 - led growth of product

• Self-Summary for clarity: Describing I was sole engineer for the initial POC of my product; led key features including glossaries that enabled enterprise adoption and product scalability.
• Public case study screenshot highlighting glossaries and their impact.
• Public forum screenshot with customer feature request for glossaries and rationale.
• Two public testimonials praising improvements to localization workflow (my product).
• Product description from company website referencing glossaries feature.
• Proof of high renumeration (they seemed fine with this so I won’t go into detail)

The criticisms for company #1 were “The work with Couchers is not a non-profit organisation or social enterprise with a specific focus on the digital technology sector.”.

The definition in the guide for digital technology sector from TechNation is as follows:

“The “digital technology sector” or “product-led digital technology companies” are defined as businesses that provide a proprietary digital technical service/product/platform/hardware as their primary revenue source. The creation of software, processing/storage of data, or the creation/application of technical computing hardware is often a central aspect of their business model.

I think the confusion for Company #1 is that it’s a couch surfing and meetup platform and maybe that didn’t seem technical enough. I do believe we fit this above definition though. Think of Airbnb (but free) and meetup.com mixed together. Our main product is software that allows people to send host requests, organize meetups, build local communities and search for other users around the world. We have an active engineering team, even algorithms that help show more active and contributing users at the top. This does help facilitate connections in real life but the product itself is digital, same as AirBnb or Meetup.com I applied under “led the growth of a non-profit organisation or social enterprise with a specific focus on the digital technology sector” here so the revenue is irrelevant and they didn’t mention that so I think that’s okay.

I have screenshots of our Github repo showing stars (437) and forks (84), notes from weekly dev meetings talking about features, screenshot of GitHub insights showing me as #2 contributor besides cofounder and my letter of recommendation mentions we are a “global non-profit that builds an open-source digital hospitality platform.” and goes on to describe all my technical contributions.

My evidence is all GitHub and technical except for the grafana growth stats, the Co-founder who wrote the rec is very technical, his CV is showing a technical PhD at Columbia, machine learning research and positions, software engineering experience and he wrote only of my technical contributions and technical leadership. I am the Lead Frontend Developer there. We have 53k+ users which is shown in my MC evidence.

Our entire service is a software product so we definitely meet the “provide a proprietary digital technical service”. All I can think is at first the mention of couch surfing seemed an offline thing? But according to their definition in the guide I think it fits.

How would you go about this? They approved my other Couchers evidence that I contributed to a product-led company in my OCs so I seem to have made my points fine there.

The criticisms for Articulate were “The work with Articulate is not driving a product but product features. Whilst the candidate is recognised as a valued colleague this alone is not enough to show someone who is recognised as a leader and at the forefront of the sector.”

I applied here under the MC criteria, “You led the growth of a product-led digital technology company, product or team inside a digital technology company, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, or as evidenced by news clippings, lines of code from public repos or similar evidence.”

The main question I have here is since I did not apply as a founder, wouldn’t I always be working on/leading features as a software engineer? I focused on showing impact of the features I worked on, explaining why they are important, but they pinged me for driving product features not product itself. My features directly contributed to scaling and growth. My evidence shows testimonials from customers mentioning my glossaries feature. I have a LOR from the Group Product Manager who reports directly to the COO. He is in charge of my product specifically, he mentions I did the product proof of concept, the impact of features I worked on, listing multiple things, then going into detail especially about the glossaries feature.

I think my problem here was perhaps harping too much on the glossaries feature I worked on in my MC evidence and confusion with the product structure. We offer a localization product, that localizes content from our corporate training software product. I think perhaps that’s why they think it’s just features, as it’s a product on top of another product.

Customers pay separately and additionally for my product though, it’s a separate revenue stream (in the millions for the company), we have separate product manager/designer, etc. for this product (the lead PM wrote my LOR), but it might not be clear to an outsider and seem like we “just translate the main product” if I understand their criticism correctly. But we have something like 20 engineers working on my product, a separate repo, and I work on the core business logic and internal API for the product. I also did a lot of architecture for it to enable us to scale. The issue is it’s behind an NDA, which is why I only used this as 1/3 of my MC evidence and used Couchers as 2/3rds as it’s all public. I focused on glossaries as there’s public mention of it, but I worked on other things that are mentioned in my LOR.

This is another one where I passed for product-led in my OCs for this company with that evidence but got pinged in the MCs. I can’t provide new evidence so I think this one will have to be mostly clarifying the product structure, explaining I focused on glossaries as it’s the only thing public and directing them to my LOR that explains more? Then really getting my non-profit evidence down since that is more public.

It’s hard as as Exceptional Promise, with just under 5 YOE, I only have so many letters and work experience to go on so I had to spread it out. I would appreciate any suggestions on what you did in similar situations that worked. Thanks for reading this far!

My timeline FYI, I know people will ask ;-):

Submitted on: 11 May 2025 12:25 (PDT)
Last edited: 13 May 2025 08:14 (PDT)
Last edited: 13 May 2025 14:14 (PDT)
Last edited: 23 May 2025 07:15 (PDT)
Last edited: 28 May 2025 03:18 (PDT)
Last edited: 29 May 2025 02:16 (PDT)
Email result: 4 June 2025

[Aman_parmar]

From what I understand, rejection for your MC

The panel found that you did not sufficiently demonstrate recognition, Specifically:

1. Lack of sector-aligned recognition:

While you contributed to a non-profit (Couchers), the panel did not view it as a digital technology organisation with a primary focus on tech.

The commercial role at Articulate was seen as feature development, not leading product innovation, which weakened the argument for future leadership potential.

2. Insufficient evidence of leadership/recognition:

Although you have been valued as a colleague and contributor, the evidence did not sufficiently establish her as a leader or standout talent in the sector.

Letters and documentation referenced contributions, but did not clearly demonstrate recognition at the forefront of the field.

3. Overlap with Optional Criteria 2 (OC2):

The non-profit work was discounted for MC because it was also used under OC2.

The panel noted that dual use of the same evidence weakened the claim under MC, particularly if the non-profit wasn’t clearly distinguished as outside core employment or wasn’t tech-focused.

[nabramow]

Hmm, I’m not sure I agree with connecting the OC criticisms for MC. They didn’t specifically say that what was in my OCs was related to why my MC was rejected. That seemed specifically criticism for that OC, which I passed in the end. I don’t think that comment is related to the MC.

So I am more focused on the criticisms for the MC, which is the first paragraph.

I agree that they did not view the non-profit as a digital technology organisation. I don’t believe that’s accurate according to their definition in the guide though, so I want to address that in my appeal. I think it’s important as that was 2/3rds of my evidence for MC. That’s what I’m asking advice for.

For the insufficient evidence of leadership/recognition, I also agree that’s how they see it. I think this is due to how I worded things though, which is why I also want to address that in my appeal.

They accepted that I led the growth of a product-led company for the same company in my OCs, so I think it’s more about how I presented it rather than my experience itself.

So I am looking for advice on strategies to make this argument based on this situation.

[pahuja]

Hi @nabramow sorry about the outcome and agree you must appeal since you have got 2/3 cleared. It’s very hard to comment fairly on rejections without seeing the original application as a lot depends on the actual content and quality of the application and to tally the feedback without the application isn’t fair.

Ensure you route the assessors to part of your application that answers what they have realised as concerns and share info (more quantified the better wherever applicable) . It looks like your evidences and parts of it have been misunderstood and you should explain this in detail in the appeal.

I think you have a chance to clear basis what you have shared above!

[nabramow]

Thank you @pahuja for taking the time to read through! I’m definitely going to appeal and will report back! Trying to decide if I should hire a lawyer or trust my own judgement.

[Raphael]

Sorry about the outcome. I did my appeal myself and was accepted. However, if your initial application was done by a lawyer, you may need to involve him/her

Keys to note

1. Be polite and respectful
2. Thank them for the ones they acknowledged and admitted met the criteria
3. Talk about the strengths of the one they rejected, reference the Tech Nation guideline section of that evidence, and you can diplomatically make it support it, even if it does not directly.
4. Keep it short, simple and concise.
5. In summation, state briefly why the UK needs you, referencing some of your achievements you are able to replicate here.

I wish you God’s favor.

[Akash_Joshi]

Based on the feedback and your evidence, I suggest focusing your appeal on clarifying the alignment of your work with the criteria. For Company #1, emphasize how the platform meets the definition of a product-led digital technology company. Highlight the technical aspects of the platform, such as algorithms, engineering contributions, and the software’s role in facilitating global connections. Reference the guide’s definition and draw parallels to similar platforms like Airbnb or Meetup.com. Reinforce your technical leadership with evidence like GitHub contributions, meeting notes, and the co-founder’s letter.

For Company #2, address the misunderstanding about product versus features. Clarify the product structure and explain how your work on glossaries and other features directly contributed to scaling and growth. Stress that your product operates as a separate revenue stream with its own team and technical architecture. Use your LOR to support this, ensuring the distinction between the localization product and the main corporate training software is clear. Focus on the broader impact of your contributions beyond glossaries.

Finally, frame your appeal as a clarification rather than a defense. Avoid introducing new evidence (since you’re not allowed to) but ensure your existing evidence is presented in a way that aligns with the criteria.

[nabramow]

Thank you, this was super helpful! I’ve got a draft of the appeal going that addresses most of these points. I’ll submit it soon and let everyone know how it goes!