I learned about TechNation a year ago and spent the last two months collating evidence for my application. I have about 3+ years of experience as a Software Engineer and would love your feedback.
Application Category: Exceptional Promise
Recommendation Letters:
CEO of a Telecommunications company I have known for over three years and knows my work personally, as we have worked together previously.
Head of Business Transformation at a bank in my country, which I have known for over three years, mentored me and knows my work personally.
CEO at a fintech where I worked previously.
NOTE: My LORs are about 5-7 pages as they are signed using DocuSign and contain my DocuSigns’ certificates, log files & recommender’s CVs.
MCs:
UK EdTech Startup A I currently work at:
It consists of being the #1 contributor at the startup, pictures of a few features I have built at the startup that prestigious schools have used, traction at the company, documentation, and architecture diagrams I created.
YC Fintech Startup I worked, lead the frontend team:
It consists of being the #1 contributor at the startup, pictures of the product’s dashboard I built that show metrics of the product’s success, and the product with a 4.5-star rating on playStore and appStore, my appraisal for that year with a 98% score, backed by LOR 3.
High renumeration:
It consists of a portion of my contract at EdTech, my increment in the past 18 months, equity, and bonuses. It also compares with my country’s average pay of software engineers from Payscale & glassdoor.
The reference letter from the CEO backing the pieces of evidence in MC 1 is in a format similar to my LORs.
OC 2:
Hackathon I competed in and became Top 8 of hundreds of applicants nationwide.
It consists of email threads getting accepted to the hackathon, successfully scaling through the preliminaries, pictures of me presenting my solution on stage, the audiences & judges, and me receiving my certificate from a judge from making the Top 8.
NGO I was part of that taught digital skills to students across universities nationwide.
It consists of pictures of me presenting/teaching students about VR, a picture of myself and the team, an email thread from the NGO regarding the outreach, and student feedback.
The reference letter from the executive director of the NGO confirming my contributions and is in the same format as my LORs.
OC 3:
Another EdTech I worked at:
It consists of being the #1 contributor at the startup, pictures of the product/dashboard, tasks assigned to me while working there (used a snag tracker, linked attached with date created), documentation created with architecture diagrams (dated also, link attached), links to videos I uploaded on youtube years back about the product.
The reference letter from the COO of the EdTech above confirming my contributions and is in the same format as my LORs.
Another fintech I worked at:
It consists of pictures of the repository, figma board, jira board, pictures of the product.
LOR:
Ensure that they were senior in the Digital Tech and know your DETAIL work for more than 12 months. Read more in the TN guideline.
MC: You will need to do some revise/rework on your MC a bit more.
#1 contributor?? Does it mean you were the first one? What was the impact of your work?
High remuneration: You will need to compare it with the same country average salary.
OC 2: I think this is still too weak.
hackathon: Not winning #1 winner is still a weak evidence.
You contribution/presentation needs to be in a famous digital tech event with more than 100 people joined.
OC 3:
I can only see the list of work you did in the past, but not business impact. OC3 is mainly about the impact. The best form of evidence are reports, presentation, figures, graphs, dashboard or anything about numbers. LOR can only support and confirm the authenticity of those.
Overall comments: You are still not meeting the exceptional promise yet. Or you may need to adjust your application evidence and try to build your profile a bit more. I hope this helps @ibrahim
LOR 1: I have worked previously (directly) at a previous startup, and he knows my work. I will make sure that is emphasized.
MC 1: #1 contributor, meaning highest contributor to the codebase with X commits. In my evidence, I spoke about how I was a critical engineer in increasing the valuation from X to Y. I would love to ask what example of picture evidence would be suited for MC aside from images of the products./tasks carried out?
High remuneration was compared with my country’s average salary from Glassdoor and Payscale.
Letters of recommendation:
You need to fit everything into 3 pages or there is a risk. I advise you to use a paper signature or a signature with a pdf reader. There are a lot of problems with docusign (logs, etc.).
MС:
In MS you need to prove leadership in the industry. Contribution to a startup needs to be proven in OS3. If you through working in a startup want to show industry leadership, the startup should be very outstanding in my opinion. Try to reflect those proofs that emphasize you specifically in the context of industry leadership.
High remuneration can validate your leadership, but it needs to be compared to official statistics in the country of receiving it. Subjectively, it should be 2.5-3 times the average among similar professionals to be relevant.
OС2
In this criterion you need to show a contribution outside of work to the development of the industry.
Participation in a hackathon does not develop the industry. If you organize a hackathon - then yes.
Teaching digital skills to students may be suitable, but it is important to emphasize that it was not work. Show the number of students trained and the value. It may be worth breaking this information up into multiple evidences if there is a lot of content.
OС3
Why exactly are you a significant person in this startup(s)? Try to answer the question “why couldn’t the average employee do this” with this evidence.
Really weak case so far, hopefully was able to help. But the main thing here is not to give up. If you have this goal - you will achieve it.
I have been able to work on my evidence a lot more. Kindly let me know what you think.
MCs:
Recognition as a talent through leading the growth of a product-led digital technology company A:
Screenshot of GitHub repository with me as the highest contributor and a number my commits
Screenshot of my commit history graph shows I have made over 700 commits
Screenshot of the Stripe Dashboard since I joined showing revenue
Screenshot of the user growth since I joined
The last page is a Reference Letter from the CEO confirming I led the team from inception to over 2.5m pounds valuation.
Recognition as a leading talent through leading the growth of a product-led digital technology company B:
Screenshot of GitHub repository with me as the highest contributor and my commits across 2 products
Screenshot of my commit history across two products
Screenshot of the Dashboard showing total revenue and transactions for product 1
Screenshot of the Dashboard showing total revenue and transactions for product 2
Screenshot of Official Year End 2022 performance review, with a 98% performance
Screenshot of product on both the AppStore and PlayStore
Recognition as a leading talent through high remuneration for my services:
Screenshot of salary range in my country from PayScale
Screenshot of salary range in my country from Glassdoor
Screenshot of my contract that shows I earn over 450% more than the national average, also equity
Screenshot of 15% salary increase just after a few months
Screenshot of salary slip for the last 2 months
Recognition as a leading talent through receiving a nationally recognised award by emerging Top 3 in a nationwide hackathon:
Screenshot of Email Thread when I was accepted to participate in the preliminaries and final
Picture of myself presenting at the preliminaries
Picture of myself presenting on the main stage of the hackathon, pitching my idea
Picture of myself receiving my award/recognition from one of the judges
Picture of the 1000+ audience at the hackathon
**Thinking of getting a reference letter from one of the judges, but that would mean I would take out a few pictures
OC 2:
Evidence of contribution outside my day-to-day job through volunteering for an NGO that taught over 1500 students various digital skills
Picture of myself teaching on VR with a student
Picture of myself among the team that organized the event
Picture of the students being taught digital skills
Picture presenting an award to a student after a quiz was held
Picture of email threads seeking and obtaining sponsorship from organizations on behalf of the organization
Fliers of webinars I organized with industry professionals, due to COVID in 2020, had to shift online
Screenshots of feedback received from students on how impactful the sessions were
Recognition for my work outside of my immediate occupation through active participation in a collaborative project and contributions to open-source: This was divided into two sections: Collaborative Project & Open Source contributions
Screenshot of my GitHub profile with active contributions in the past year
Screenshot of the GitHub repo of the collaborative project that emerged Top 3 in MC 4, showing continuous contributions
Screenshot of the Figma screen that contains over 60 screens
Screenshot of the mobile application and code snippets
Screenshot of the open-source repo I contributed to with 977 stars and 382 forks
Screenshot of te list of contributors with me as a Top 10 contributor
Screenshot of the open-source project itself
Screenshot of my GitHub PR, and email thread when it was merged
Screenshot of another GitHub PR, and email thread when it was also merged
Picture of the open-source project being referenced on the main stage of a sector-leading event with thousands of guests
Recognition for my work outside of my immediate occupation through active participation in organizing interest groups and sector-leading events through GDG and GDSC.
Screenshot of email threads when I joined the GDG and GDSC group In 2022
Picture of the GDSC CareerFest, which I co-organized, fliers and the registration and check-in count on GDSC’s page with 1700+ registrations and 1600+ check-ins
Picture of the 1700 audience at the event
Picture of myself among the organizing team of the event
Picture of my volunteer tag
Picture of the GDG DevFest flier I co-organized
Picture of the 1000+ audience at the venue seated
Group picture of the audience at the event (showing hundreds of individuals)
The last Page is a Reference letter from the GDG lead.
OC 3:
Recognition through significant technical contribution to company A as a key engineer to the start-up
Screenshot of my contract page, equity
Screenshot of an architectural diagram I worked on when I initially joined the company (link to access was attached)
Screenshot of documentation I worked on at the start-up
Screenshot of a few screens/features I worked on
Feedback from a survey carried out on users attributing their great experience to the feature/screen I worked on
Screenshot of the user-growth chart since I joined a few years back to date
Recognition through significant technical contribution to company C as a key engineer to the start-up
Screenshot the repository highlighting me as a top contributor, also showing a few of my commits
Screenshot of my commit history graph
Screenshot of the admin dashboard showing user growth, and revenue
Screenshot of a class (since it is an edtech) with over 1100 students and their reviews
Screenshot of a technology audit I carried out (It shows the date through the version history of the doc) (link included)
Screenshot of email threads when the startup was accepted into two accelerators
2 links to a youtube video I created years back demoing the product
Reference Letter from the previous CTO verifying my contributions to company C