I’m a machine learning engineer at a tech company and I work in ads. I haven’t always worked in ads but also in e-commerce and online shopping. My technical specialty is deep learning focused on computer vision. I basically apply AI to ads so we can generate a deep AI based understanding of them and target them to the right users.

I spoke to a lawyer about an NIW case and he said the challenge is to come up with a « proposed endeavor » and there has to be evidence for it. He said this is going to be the hardest « prong » to satisfy for me.

I also worked at a startup for a year and half and helped build the tech that got them acquired. I have an MS in computer science.

For whatever reason, my employer went the EB3 route (ROW) for me and I am six months away (june 2023 pd) from the final action date (seems like it may be way longer in real time) with i140 already approved.

I am worried about not being able to change jobs for a while or the risk of layoffs. I have great pay and overall good work-life balance. However things can quickly take a turn where I work.

I am not sure about:

1. Whether I can come up with a good enough « proposed endeavor »

2. Whether I should bother with NIW at this point given that I will have to pay about 12k in legal and filing fees plus the additional work of gathering paperwork, letters, evidence, etc.

Would love any advice or takes on the situation. I also dont really have citations or patents. I have been mostly in industy as opposed to academic.