How I Earned the UK Global Talent Visa (Exceptional Talent)

Intro

Last week, on April 15, 2025, I was awarded the UK Global Talent visa for Exceptional Talent route. This is a visa designed to recognise leaders in the tech industry - and in this article, I'd like to share the projects that helped me earn it.

Whether you're considering applying or just curious about what kind of impact is needed, I hope this post offers insight and motivation. While I can't share the original documents due to NDAs and IP, I'll walk you through the key highlights that made up my case.

💼 Mandatory Criteria: Evidence of Leadership

MC1. Onboarding Low-Tier Device R&D Project

I designed and implemented a solution to onboard a previously unsupported low-tier device.

Highlights:

1. The product designs
2. The solution
3. The effectiveness, measured with functional tests
4. The presentation at London Video Tech meetup 2023, with YouTube recording

Read more here

MC2. Onboarding Global Partner Devices Project

I led the onboarding of 2 devices for the Global Partner.

Highlights:

1. Collaboration with Global Partner team
2. Onboarding documents
3. Enabling usage of an in-house HTML5 video player
4. Positively impacted 100K+ unique monthly devices in the UK
5. Public press release

MC3. Salary Growth

I demonstrated a 500% salary growth over 6 years (2018-2024), with bonuses and share options.

🌍 Optional Criteria 2: Recognised Work Outside of Employment

OC2.1. GitHub Contributions

1. 5K+ contributions over 6 years (2018-2024)
2. Maintainer of nanoutils (2018-2021) - 200+ GitHub stars
3. Contributed to 20+ popular frontend libraries (3K-50K GitHub stars)

OC2.2. ts-essentials Project

1. Lead maintainer of ts-essentials since 2022
2. 100+ contributions, 20+ releases
3. ~4K GitHub stars, 2.5M+ npm weekly downloads (as of beginning of 2025)

OC2.3. Technical Articles

1. Hackernoon article with 12K+ views (2024)
2. Personal blog article with 22K+ views since 2022
3. Referenced by: Architecture Weekly, markdown-to-jsx, typescriptcourse.com, and others

🛠 Optional Criteria 3: Contributions to Impactful Projects

OC3.1. Video Subtitles Initiative

I created, wrote the roadmap and led the project to migrate library from Haxe to TypeScript.

Highlights:

1. Reduced bundle size by 30% (from 60Kb to 42Kb)
2. Positively impacted 0.5M+ monthly active users in several regions
3. Implemented built-in testing strategy, incorporating over 500+ unit tests and 10+ end-to-end tests
4. 170+ contributions, 20+ releases

OC3.2. Low Latency R&D Project

I led the project to reduce video live latency on web browsers.

Highlights:

1. Reduced video live latency by 34% (from 23s to 15s) without change of buffering rate
2. Positively impacted 0.8M+ monthly active users in 10+ regions
3. Presented the results to the senior management and CTO
4. Was promoted as an outcome of OC3.1 and OC3.2

OC3.3. Letter of Reference from Principal Engineer

Letter from a Principal Engineer (who works in Netflix now) confirming my contributions and leadership.

📄 Supporting Evidence

1. CV: Short version here
2. Three additional letters of reference from directors at my previous and current workplaces

✨ Final thoughts

This achievement wasn't only about recognition - it was about reflecting on the impact I've made, the challenges I've overcome, and the communities I've helped grow.

If you're just starting your career, you have ambitions and you want to build a strong engineering career, I encourage you to:

1. Contribute to Open Source
2. Write and speak about your work

Feel free to reach out if you're on the same path - I'm happy to share what I've learned!

🧡 Special shout-out

While I put a lot of effort into my projects, securing a visa is never an easy and clear task. I'm incredibly grateful to the amazing people who supported me throughout the process!

A huge thanks to:

1. Elizaveta Morjan - Founder & Creative Director, EP Advisory
2. Lamiia Israilova - Paralegal, Sterling Law
3. Elena Kunakova - Product Director, Ads, Microsoft
4. Dom Busser - Director of Engineering, Vercel
5. Patrick Kunka - Senior Software Engineer, Streaming Algorithms, Netflix
6. Dave Warren - Director of Engineering, Flo Health

... my colleagues, and many others who made the whole process smoother and worked tirelessly to make it all happen!