In my last post I neglected to mention one other way of getting great technical people (engineers, scientists): the J-1 Visa (https://j1visa.state.gov/programs/intern/). Yes, it’s called an “internship” visa but it will provide you with state-of-the-art scientists and engineers from some of the world’s best universities for up to a couple of years. The key is to find international universities that excel in your subject matter. Offering their graduates the ability to spend a year+ in the US, in the much vaunted “startup culture”, can be enticing to many ambitious recent graduates around the world.
The downside is this program is that, it being the United States government (and a US government worried about terrorists during covid), there is a lot, a LOT, of paperwork. But… it was worth it for my company. And (no guarantees), there are SO many other countries that have highly educated, young people wanting US-work-experience, that you can get excellent candidates into your company for up to a couple of years. And play your cards right, when they return to their country, you may even be able to keep them on in their country of origin. I can only say this was part of the answer to building a technical company, and it may not be for everyone, but it was successful for us.