Immigration Specialist

Zealot; New York (NY); On-site; USD 65,000 - 105,000; Full time

Job summary

Zealot is seeking an Immigration Specialist in NYC to serve as the main liaison for our international team. You will oversee end-to-end relocation, from document collection to filing, ensuring fast, compliant moves for Israeli-to-US talent.

This in-house role demands meticulous case management and proactive communication with candidates, counsel, and internal teams. Responsibilities include managing visa pipelines (O-1, H-1B, L-1, TN, EB-1/EB-2), building robust evidence packages, and driving

Qualifications

• 2+ years of employment-based immigration experience.
• Experience with L-1 and H-1B visas for Israeli-to-US relocation.
• Knowledge of O-1 petitions is a major advantage.
• Strong organizational and tracking skills.
• High initiative in a fast-paced startup environment.
• Ability to liaise with attorneys, candidates, and internal teams.

Responsibilities

• Manage the Core Relocation Pipeline: Coordinate U.S. employment-based visas for our talent pool across relevant streams.
• Build Strong Evidence Packages: Lead collection and organization of documentation for O-1 and EB filings.
• Guide the Candidate Experience: Ensure smooth progression from offer to filing and arrival in NY.
• Own the Internal Tracking: Maintain the internal tracking system for all candidates and deadlines.
• Resolve Bottlenecks Early: Proactively address document collection and embassy appointment issues.

Skills

Immigration experience

O-1 EB-1 knowledge

L-1 H-1B knowledge

Document management

Project tracking

Tools

Case management software

Job description

We are a venture-backed startup building AI systems that find zero-days, emulate target devices, and develop working exploits for U.S. defense and intelligence customers. We're backed by tier-1 U.S. venture firms and industry leaders, and our team includes alumni of leading AI labs, top defense-tech companies, U.S. national-security agencies, and Y Combinator.

We are hiring quickly, and our international pipeline is one of the most critical factors in keeping up our momentum. This role is right at the center of that pipeline.

The Role

We are looking for an Immigration Specialist in NYC to serve as the main link for our international team. Your job will be to help exceptional technical talent move out of Israel and into our growing New York office safely, quickly, and with full attention to detail.

This is a hands-on, in-house execution role. You will manage the actual work that turns immigration from a stressful waiting game into a predictable, smooth process for our hires. This means you will handle document collection, case tracking, evidence gathering, candidate communication, deadline management, and the daily follow-through required to keep files moving.

We measure our time-to-start timelines in weeks rather than months. We need someone who treats a stalled case as a top priority, spots potential delays before they happen, and takes initiative to clear them.

You will work closely with candidates, our People Ops team, hiring managers, external U.S. immigration counsel, export-control stakeholders, and company leadership. Your focus will be ensuring that filings are completely clean, blockers are resolved early, and candidates feel supported from the moment they sign their offer until they land in New York.

What You’ll Do

• Manage the Core Relocation Pipeline: Coordinate the full mix of U.S. employment-based visas that matter most to our talent pool. You will support matters across O-1, H-1B, L-1, TN, E-3, J-1 waivers, EB-1, EB-2 NIW, and PERM-related processes, along with their associated workstreams.
• Build Strong Evidence Packages: Take the lead on collecting and organizing the specific documentation that makes our cases successful. This is a major part of the role, especially for O-1 and EB-style filings. You will work directly with candidates to track down and structure evidence of awards, publications, citations, press coverage, recommendation letters, judging experience, professional memberships, critical-role documentation, and comparable achievements.
• Guide the Candidate Experience: Keep candidates moving cleanly from their initial offer through filing, embassy consular processing, and their final arrival in New York, keeping attorneys, recommenders, universities, and internal teams aligned.
• Own the Internal Tracking: Maintain our internal tracking system so that internal teams always have an accurate, up-to-date look at every candidate, visa type, deadline, and required next step.
• Resolve Bottlenecks Early: Keep a close eye on document collection and appointment availability at the US Embassy, jumping in to solve issues directly when a case hits a wall.

What We’re Looking For

• The Baseline: 2+ years of employment-based immigration experience as an immigration paralegal, legal assistant, case manager, or an in-house global mobility specialist.
• Israeli-to-US Tech Relocation Background: Direct experience working with the visa pathways commonly used by Israeli tech companies moving talent to the US, specifically L-1 (A and B) and H-1B, along with some familiarity with E-1/E-2 treaty rules.
• A Major Advantage: Experience helping build or support O-1 (Extraordinary Ability) petitions. If you already know how to gather evidence for high-level technical talent, organize a strong O-1/EB-1 file, and talk through technical achievements with expert recommenders, you will have a significant head start.
• Strong Organization: Great instincts for document collection and project tracking. You are comfortable following up firmly but professionally with busy engineers to get the paperwork we need.
• High Initiative: You do not wait for perfect instructions or a step-by-step manual. You look at a case, see what is holding it up, and figure out how to fix it.
• Adaptable to Urgency: You are comfortable working in a fast-paced startup environment where plans move quickly and getting people on the ground on time matters.

What We Offer

Competitive salary, meaningful early equity, a mission that directly impacts national security, and the opportunity to build out a seamless relocation process from the ground up.