Request for Feedback - GTV Exceptional Talent

1

Hello everyone! I’d love some feedback on how I intend to structure my GTV application (Exceptional Talent).

Background:
I am a Principal Software Engineer at a large, well-known organization (tech org size is ~7000 employees). I have 15 years of development and leadership experience, mainly centered around mobile development.

I’ve worked on and led huge initiatives for mobile dev at 6 well-known American organizations. Several of these apps are ranked #1 in highly popular categories, and their reach is hundreds of millions of monthly worldwide users in sum.

With that said, I am looking for creative ways to most effectively highlight the leadership and initiatives in my application - much of my work is protected by strict IP policy, and I have been unsuccessful in lobbying for open-sourcing many of the tools we’ve developed in-house. My public profile is admittedly lacking, but the innovation we produce in our sector is consistently leading the competition.

Letters of Recommendation:
3-6 LoR from various leaders I have worked with over the years:

  • A VP of software engineering at my current employer
  • 2 directors of engineering at other large tech organizations
  • A product management director/executive in healthcare tech
  • Senior Principal (Distinguished) engineer at current employer
  • … several more potentially

Evidence:
Mandatory Criteria:

  1. A selection of projects I’ve led in my current role (some detailed below)
    • Full release cycles for minor/major releases
    • New industry-leading features
  2. Paystubs, bonus, long-term incentive (RSUs), etc

Optional Criteria:

  • A proven track record for innovation as a founder or senior executive of a product-led digital technology company or as an employee working on a new digital field or concept

    • I’ve been working as a pioneer of AI use in our mature codebases, developing a generalized framework for effective use
      • I plan to show evidence of an internal company panel where I spoke, with 180+ attendees, where I was invited to talk as a thought leader
    • I recently led a team tasked with integrating data between my company, and Company X for user account linking and data sharing
      • Full ecosystem integration - I plan to show architecture documents and E2E system design
    • I’m currently leading a full refactor-in-place for the most critical code path in our application (the Home Screen). I expect it will launch this spring.
      • I plan to show the before and after of the architecture
      • This feature is seen and interacted with by millions of users daily

  • Proof of recognition for work beyond the applicant’s occupation that contributes to the advancement of the field

    • I’ve lobbied my company to allow the start of a tech blog for years. I’m finally making some headway.
      • If successful, due to our industry reach, I hope to add this
    • Speaking engagements
      • I’ve been invited to be a main stage panelist or otherwise a featured speaker to several events - does the invite itself make sense as a piece of evidence?
        • However, I’m not generally able to attend these due to workload / family

  • They have made significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder, senior executive, board member or employee of a product-led digital technology company

    • I helped lead the 0 → 1 launch of a larger brand’s live-shopping application
      • DevOps and CI/CD, rewards system + purchasing, foundational frameworks
    • I co-authored a full mobile platform for launching apps at scale
      • This launched 3 major apps in the span of a year, encompassing millions of users
        • I plan to share general architectures and press releases for launches of the apps
        • Code commits, (redacted) technical documentation

Overall I’m looking for advice. What’s the best way to highlight these? Does redacted documentation and a letter of reference corroborating my leadership, stand as enough evidence? News articles or clippings about our launches generally do not highlight individual developers, so I have to be creative in finding ways to highlight my involvement :slight_smile:

2

@bretongoers

You’ve clearly got a strong background as a Principal Software Engineer, with 15 years in the industry, you are eligible for the Talent route. However, beyond your experience, it’s how much of it you can evidence in a way that Tech Nation accepts.

Letters of Recommendation

Your LOR authors look good, but I still suggest, you double check their LinkedIn profiles.

Mandatory Criteria

For MC, it may be difficult to demonstrate sector wide recognition with things like release cycles, feature launches, or pay evidence alone. Salary helps, but it’s never enough by itself. You still need to show how the sector benefited from your work not just your employer.

Optional Criteria

On OC1, the internal panel talk with 180+ attendees is good, but it only supports innovation if the talk itself was about an innovation you created and even then, it must be backed by evidence of the innovation. Integrating data with Company X is not innovation; it’s a third‑party integration. Architecture docs and E2E designs also don’t demonstrate innovation on their own.

On OC2, a company tech blog is not acceptable, Invitations to speak can be used, but only if the invitation clearly states you were invited as an expert or keynote speaker. And ideally, you need evidence of actually speaking to 100+ people. If you didn’t attend, the invitation alone won’t be enough.

With OC3, this makes your OCs three. You are expected to select two OCs out of four.

Overall, you have a strong professional background, but the evidence you’ve listed so far are not strong or externally validated for an Exceptional Talent application. I would recommend taking some time to gather more evidence before applying.

All the best.

3

Hi Raphael, thank you so much for the feedback. This is great information for framing the narratives.

I believe I may not have given enough information here, so to expand on some of this:

MC:

  • Release cycles coordinate directly with the launch of various industry-first features, including the first direct-to-consumer sales of this product in our line of business. I plan to highlight how my leadership contributed directly to these features.

OC1:

  • I believe the panel talk was a novel method for integrating AI into mature codebases, but I will do more research here before making any claims.
  • The integrating data with company X was more than just consuming a third-party SDK. It was an industry-first coupling between two standalone businesses that required authentication and data linkage between the 2 disparate ecosystems. This was highlighted in several press releases - so I planned to showcase how my work directly contributed to its success.

OC2:

  • I feel this was a stretch anyway, thank you for the feedback. I would cut this unless I actually choose to present at some of these talks.

OC3:

  • I’d just make sure to keep your feedback in mind here around innovation within the industry. Launching the live-shopping app brings a new paradigm to the American market; the mobile platform is highlighted by the speed and success with which these 3 apps were able to publicly launch. These are both highlighted in press releases and tech articles as well.

Again - thank you for the feedback. I hope more clarification here might aid in determining whether these make sense?

Cheers!

4

Yeah, with your strong background, if you work on strong evidence that rightly aligns with the criteria, there are chances.

5

Just to add, I think your evidence do not meet the threshold of evidence to meet the criteria. You can check the group for recent trend of succesful applications.

For Mandatory criteria, you are expected to demonstrate evidence of industry recognition as a leader. You Evidence of leading product is great but you need third party validation. If the article doesn’t mention your name then it counts for nothing. Salary evidence are not weighty, for mandatory criteria. You should show things like evidence of speaking at high profile industry events, industry awards, news clipping about your name, your name should be mentioned in the publication, you need evidence of your thoughts leadership in major media.

Your evidence of speaking is not acceptable for OC1, as an employee working in a new digital field, do you have a patent or did you contribute to a patent, you can show the patent and a letter from the organisation confirming you were instrumental to the innovation.

Beaded in what you have shared, I think you are more likely to demonstrate impact of your work, check the evidence options for OC3.

I don’t think you have sufficient for OC2, company blog doesn’t meet that requirement.

6

Thank you for the feedback.

I was hopeful that being able to link my efforts to the media coverage would be sufficient - generally this would be via references from executives or other leaders involved in the projects. Is that not acceptable?

7

Recent applications suggest it is not enough. They need third party validation. Letters are not sufficient, media mention of your role is stronger