Hello everyone,
I’m preparing my Global Talent visa application as a technical applicant, focusing on optional criteria 1 and 3. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated
Quick background: I have founded a company in Data Engineering and Product Development. I’ve worked on mobile apps, audio advertising, and building data pipelines and business intelligence dashboard projects
I’m seeking advice on whether my evidence is sufficient or strong enough.
Thanks in advance for your help!
CV
Experience Over 5 Years Ago
- Venture Capital: Worked globally as a Venture Capital Associate.
Experience Within the Last 5 Years
- Product #0: Until 2019, I was an AI engineer contractor for a product company with about 500 employees. My main responsibility: developing image recognition modules for mobile apps.
- In September 2019, I founded a company, but I still work almost like a full-time contractor. In my company, I’ve worked on these products/projects:
- CompanyA (Weather App Company):
- Product #1: A mobile weather app.
- Contributed as a product manager and data engineer
- Received a share of the revenue from this product through CompanyA
- Product #1: A mobile weather app.
- CompanyB (Audio Advertising Agency):
- Product #2: Advertising Performance Dashboard for Advertisers
- Developed an advertiser-facing management interface for a audio advertisers.
- I was a lead engineer in this project.
- Product #3: Advertising Performance Dashboard for Radio stations
- Visualizes radio data that was previously difficult to capture and analyze (because it wasn’t digitized)
- Product #2: Advertising Performance Dashboard for Advertisers
- CompanyA (Weather App Company):
Personal Statement
I am a Product Manager / Data Engineer. My expertise is equally split between data engineering(50%) and product management(50%). This balanced skill set allows me to make data-driven decisions while growing products, which I believe will enable me to make a significant contribution to the UK.
Recommendation Letters
- CompanyA: COO
- CompanyB: Chief Data Officer (who is also a board member of the AI Association in my country)
- Product #0: CEO
Evidence
Mandatory criteria:
- #1 Competitive remuneration: Since September 2019, I’ve primarily been working through my own company rather than receiving a direct salary. I plan to use the financial statements from this company as evidence.
- #2 Speaking at a specialist event in the data engineering field: I intend to provide evidence of my participation in a large-scale event with 10,000 attendees. This will include photos from the event day and video files from the studio recording (as the event was held virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions).
- #3 Shareholding in the company of Products #2 & #3: Due to my integral role in the company behind Products #2 & #3, I was granted shares. As evidence, I plan to submit the shareholders’ agreement, an excerpt of the company’s shareholder list, and a reference letter from the CEO of this company.
- #4 Serving as a Teaching Assistant for a Data Science course at a National University: To demonstrate work beyond my day-to-day responsibilities, I intend to submit evidence of my role as a Teaching Assistant for a Data Science course at a National University.
Optional Criteria 1:
- #5 Success of Product #0:
- Product #0 was the fastest in its category to reach 1 million downloads domestically.
- Evidence: Screenshots of press releases and external media coverage from that time.
- As my name isn’t mentioned in these materials, I plan to include a reference letter from the project leader at the time, confirming my role in leading this growth.
- #6 New Feature Development for Product #1:
- For the weather app (Product #1), I implemented a feature allowing offline use during disasters when network connectivity is poor. I served as the product manager for this feature.
- Evidence: Screenshots of the feature, documentation of writing specifications, screenshots of ticket management in Notion, screenshots of media coverage, and a reference letter from the interviewed person confirming my role (as I was in a contractor position).
- #7 Visualization Achievement with Product #3:
- As a data engineer, I developed a dashboard that visualizes advertising effectiveness for terrestrial radio broadcasts, which was previously difficult to measure. This allows advertisers to evaluate the impact of their radio ad placements.
- Evidence: Screenshots and explanation of the dashboard, URL of a government publication mentioning this dashboard, and a reference letter from the development lead. (If possible, I’d also like to obtain a letter from the President of the Digital Promotion Division at a radio station.)
Optional Criteria 3:
- #8 Revenue Growth for Product #1:
- Achieved approximately 200% revenue growth after my involvement with the product.
- Evidence: Screenshots from revenue management SaaS, screenshots of specifications that had significant revenue impact, and mentions in Recommendation Letters.
- #9 Revenue Contribution to Product #2:
- The dashboard I developed increased user retention and consequently boosted sales.
- Evidence: Screenshots of the dashboard, screenshots demonstrating my leadership in the development process, and a reference letter from the CEO of Product #2.
- #10 A/B Testing for Push Notification Optimization:
- We were operating push notifications that included ad spaces, so increasing the number of notifications sent directly impacted revenue.
- However, we were hesitant to aggressively increase notifications due to concerns about user churn.
- I conducted an experiment to determine the optimal number of notifications.
- Results showed that we could send more notifications than initially assumed without significant user churn.
- This allowed us to increase the number of notifications, projecting a monthly revenue increase of about £10k.
- Evidence: Screenshots of experiment results and a reference letter from the project leader I worked with at the time.
Questions
- Q1: Are there any pieces of evidence that you feel are weak? How can these pieces of evidence be strengthened?
- Q2: Are CVs absolutely necessary for letters of recommendation? Would profiles of the recommenders available online be insufficient? (Of course, I’ll avoid simply providing URLs, but I feel it’s quite challenging to request full CVs from the people writing recommendations for me.)
- Q3: I’ve heard that there’s a shortage of data-related talent in the UK. Does this mean that applications in this field are more likely to be accepted?
- Q4: Do translations of documents not written in English also need to be included within the 3-page limit? (Many of my achievements are documented in my native language, so I’ll need numerous translations.)
- Additionally, should all these translations be certified by a strictly regulated translation agency?
- I think most of the translated documents produced by strictly regulated agencies would take up an entire A4 page each. In that case, would it be acceptable to include only the translated versions in the evidence documents, rather than the originals?
- Q5: Should I apply through the Exceptional Talent route or the Exceptional Promise route?
- Q6: As a corporation, proof of sufficient income for MC can be demonstrated through sales figures and other financial data. Do you know of any cases where sales figures are used as proof of income?