I was planning to apply for the global talent visa under the exceptional promise categories as technical applicant in digital field. I am a career switcher from legal professional and work as junior backend engineer in Jan 2022, and get promoted to mid level engineer in Aug 2023, but payrise only reflected in sept 2023 (about 1 year and 8 months). (If you know any website that can consider this is quick promotion please kindly share, I cannot find any from reliable source)I am currently working for a fintech company at london with over 700 employees. Feedback needed for my supporting documents
Thanks a lot.
Letter of Recommendation 1: From a CEO of a Fintech company, who is my ex-CTO at my current company
Letter of Recommendation 2: From a Vice President of Technology Operation at my current company
Letter of Recommendation 3: From a Operation Director at a Edtech company, which I have received sponsored opportunity by my current company to study a 4 months software engineer course with them, and work as a backend engineer upon completion of the course. Following this, I have successfully taught a total of 9 Python and SQL courses with them. Each course last 8 weeks.
Optional Evidence
Letter of Recommendation 4:(I am worry that if any of my letter of recommendation got rejected, so I am going to use 1 place to submit additional letter of recommendation as backup) - but it is from my manager, who is also head of engineering at my current company.
Mandatory Evidence 1: Awards - Been shortlisted for two awards in tech industry. One of the awards, I have been shortlisted for two different categories (there are nearly 1600 nominees, and only 20% make it to finalist, and less than 2.7% shortlisted for two categories), but winner to be announced on Nov 2023, I am not gonna wait. The other award’s winner to be announced end of this month, If I won, then will change it to winner, if not then I am just a finalist (there are over 1300 nominees and around 13% make it to finalist) as I am going to submit the application after the announcement date. Also, I am employee of the month at my company for Aug 2023, and received student of the year award in 2019 at my university for Master in digital business enterprise management course. I did not have other computer science background, but did law degree and BPTC(Bar Professional Training Course), for those who want to become a barrister.
Mandatory B: screenshot of numerous good feedback received from my manager and another immediate colleague during mid year and end of the year performance review, which has mentioned about what did I built, and my achievement. Also, our company use overall performance indicator to rank my performance during end of the year review, and I scored the highest during my overall performance indicator, and this led to the maximum amount of bonus I received. The level of indicator is used to determine the allocation of bonus. Plus letter of reference letter from Vice President of engineering from my company
Mandatory C: Programming Teaching experience. Screenshot of some Linkedin appreciation posts from my students, tagging me and another instructor. Also, showing two of the students received job offer to become software engineer in well known tech companies after the course. Not sure should I use it here or keep it for Optional 2. I have two hackathons can use instead but feel it is weak (my mandatory B seems like cant fix into three pages, I might need use the space here for some of the feedback screenshot)
Optional 2-A: Programming Teaching experience. Screenshot of a mobile application which i use to take student attendance showing me have taught 9 python and sql courses, each course last 8 weeks, and have 30 - 45 enrolled in each course. Plus reference letter from the head of programmes at the edtech company. Plus, screenshot showing SQL and python is in the top demanding coding language in the UK.
Optional 2-B: Programming Teaching experience. Screenshot of slack messages between me and students, fixing their code, answering their questions outside the designated teaching hours, and some short good feedback from them.
Optional 2-C: My personal fintech project that inspire during the covid-19 pandemic, where global restriction is everywhere. I have an innovative fintech idea, which I have built 100 UIs using figma, do web design and build an website. I shared the complete prototype via figma share link. and also a video link to view the mobile prototype. Screenshot tons of emails showing me reaching out to third party, Banking as a service fintech company and open banking fintech company since 2021. Screenshot of me starting conversation at Linkedin for a potential CTO or they have reach out to me. They are from JPMorgan, Citi, and Meta. Showing that the ongoing conversation mean they recognised my idea. (However, I know this evidence is weak as need to show how I advance the industry and it maybe fall in in Mandatory, I am dilemma on where this evidence should use? I am on a working visa so could not start a company, that why this project is not register. If without this evidence, I left teaching experience for this criteria. I have participated in two fintech hackathons in 2021, one made it to Top 5 finalist, but I feel is weak as well. Hackathons experience at the moment just in my cv. What do you all think? or is there aw a way you can think of to make this evidence relevant to this criteria?It is me working on it during my free time)
Optional 3-A: Employement docs, showing my salary is increased by 62.5% within 1 year and 8 months. In 13 months, my salary increased by 20%
Optional 3-B: Some charts showing the number of tickets I have completed to build a savings product which is launched in early Q2 this year. This product basically started to build by only me and another backend engineer, so I show the number of tickets for a selected of different functionality of the product (for example onboarding, pay in, interest accrued, etc), and the number showing how many issues/ticket I have completed for each functionality. Also, I have also build another small project by myself when I first join the company, showing all tickets is done by myself. We then join force with another two backend engineer, and I remain the key contributor completed most of the tickets to build more stuff for our team.
Optional 3-C: Git profile showing I continuously contribute heavily in the company, and the lines of code from different main repo showing I am the top contributor at first place. Also, showing link for different news to demonstrate that the product I built and launched are always at the top rate/ best buy position in the UK market.
I feel not confident with my application, particularly on optional 2, but I dont have anything else to share. Also, I have a question about the date of letter of recommendation. If the letter is dated 3 September, will there be any issue if I only submit my application around 1-3 Oct? Is there a time limit on the date of the letter and the date of my application?
Thanks for reading. Please let me know if you have any feedback, and on 1 - 10 scale, how much would you scale? Really appreciated.