EB-1A examples
These are illustrations of how the ten criteria get argued. They are not client results, not approvals, and not a promise that a similar resume will be granted.
Staff engineer, no publications
The resume shows a staff title, two internal awards, and a system used by other teams at the same company. Authorship is empty. The case, if there is one, has to be a critical role plus an original contribution that left the company, or judging and a real salary comparison. Internal awards do not fill the awards box. This pattern is often “not yet.”
AI engineer, citation record
The resume lists papers and a citation count. The count is a claim until the Scholar or Scopus record is an exhibit, and until someone checks how many citations are independent. Two hundred citations do not equal a criterion. They can support scholarly articles and final merits if the citing work actually uses the result. The other boxes still have to be looked at. There is no citation that replaces them.
Founder without awards
No prizes. The company raised money and has users. Funding is not an award. The possible boxes are a critical role at an organization whose reputation you can prove, original contributions others adopted, press about the founder rather than the funding announcement, or judging. If none of those exist outside the cap table, EB-1A is early.
Principal engineer at a large company
The employer can help the “distinguished reputation” half of a critical role. The principal title does not prove the role was critical. Patents with no adoption, a high level with no survey, and letters from the same reporting chain are the usual thin version. The stronger version has outside use, outside review work, and a comparison that is not the company’s own band.
Related: Staff and principal engineers, AI engineers, Founders.
This is not a law firm and does not file petitions. USCIS decides each case on its own record.