dismissed L-1B Case: Software Development

U.S. Citizenship 
and Immigration 
Services 
MATTER OF A-C- LLC 
Non-Precedent Decision of the 
Administrative Appeals Office 
DATE: APR. 13,2018 
APPEAL OF CALIFORNIA SERVICE CENTER DECISION • 
PETITION: FORM I-129, PETITION FOR A NONIMMIGRANT WORKER 
The Petitioner, an online retailer, 1 seeks to temporarily employ the Beneficiary as a "Software 
Development Engineer II" under the L-1 B nonimmigrant classification for intracompany transferees. 
See Immigration and Nationality Act (the Act) § IOI(a)(I5)(L), 8 U.S.C. § IIOI(a)(15)(L). The 
L-1 B classification allows a corporation or other legal_ entity (including its affiliate or subsidiary) to 
transfer a qualifying foreign employee with "specialized knowledge" to work temporarily in the 
United States. 
The Director of the California Service Center denied the petition, concluding that the record did not 
establish, as required, that: the Beneficiary possesses specialized knowledge; has been employed 
abroad as a manager, executive, or in a specialized knowledge capacity; and will be employed in the 
United States in a specialized knowledge capacity. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that the Director "oversimplified the beneficiary's job duties, and 
... ignored evidence included in the record." 
UrJOn de novo review, we will dismiss the appeal. 
I. LEGAL FRAMEWORK 
To establish eligibility for the L-1 B nonimmigrant visa classification, a qualifying organization must 
have employed the beneficiary "in a capacity that is managerial, executive, or involves specialized 
knowledge," for one continuous year within three years preceding the beneficiary's application for 
admission into the United States. Section 10l(a)(15)(L) of the Act. In addition, the Beneficiary 
must seek to enter the United States temporarily to continue rendering his or her services to the same 
employer or a subsidiary or affiliate thereof in a specialized knowledge capacity. !d. The petitioner 
must also establish that the beneficiary's prior education, training, and employment qualify him or 
her to perform the intended services in the United States. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(1)(3). 
1 
The Petitioner. a Delaware li1~ited liability company, is part of a larger corporation that remains active. However, the 
entity that tiled the petition withdrew its registration to do business in the State of Washington, where the Beneficiary's 
proposed job is located, after filing the appeal. (Search conducted at https://ccfs.sos.wa.gov/#BusinessSearch/ 
13usinesslnformation. March 13. 2018.) 
Maner ofA-C- LLC 
Under the statute, a beneficiary is considered to have specialized knowledge if he or she has: ( 1) a 
"special" knowledge of the company product and its application in international markets; or (2) an 
"advanced" level of knowledge of the processes and procedures of the company. Section 
214(c)(2)(B) of the Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1184(c)(2)(B). A petitioner may establish eligibility by 
submitting evidence that the beneficiary and the proffered position satisfy either prong of the 
statutory definition of specialized knowledge. 
' 
Specialized knowledge is also defined as knowledge possessed by an individual of the petitioning 
organization's product, service, research, equipment, techniques, management or other interests and its 
application in international markets, or an advanced level of knowledge or expertise in the 
organization's processes and procedures. 8 C.F.R. § 214.2(!)(1 )(ii)(D). 
II. BACKGROUND 
The Petitioning organization is a global ecommerce retailer. The Petitioner stated that the 
Beneficiary "will be a key member of the [Petitioner's] Customer Service Technology (CSTech) 
team, which provides solutions to improve the customer experience." The Petitioner stated that 
"Artificial Intelligence for Customer Service (AICS), a sub-team within the CSTech organization, is 
a question-answering platform for customer service" and that the Beneficiary "will be working on 
'Message Us' platform, which is ... powered by machine learning, natural language processing, and 
workflow content." 
The Petitioner asserted that the CSTech team uses a variety of proprietary technologies, such as a 
"tool . . . used for automating the deployment of code from a developer's environment to a 
production environment"; a "tool that enables teams to track and triage software bugs and issues 
impacting Customers"; and an "E-Commerce Storage and Computation platform." 
At the time of filing, the Beneficiary had approximately 22 months of experience as a software 
development engineer II with the Petitioner's affiliate in India on "the Media Shopping Experience 
Team," which "is responsible for developing detail pages for media categories, including textbooks, 
DVDs, and video games, and maintaining the products and providing operational support for the 
products." The Beneficiary's position with the Petitioner would involve writing code "in a broad 
range of design approaches"; working with engineers, product managers, and customers "to develop 
a balance for customer requirements with team requirements"; identifying and solving problems 
through software enhancement and other means; and acting as a mentor to junior engineers. 
III. SPECIALIZED KNOWLED(JE 
The Director determined that the Petitioner did not establish that the Beneficiary possesses 
knowledge that is special or advanced compared to others in the same field. The Director also found 
that the record did not establish that the Beneficiary had previously been employed in a position that 
was managerial, executive, or involved specialized knowledge, and that the U.S. position involves a 
special or advanced level of knowledge. 
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Mauer ojA-C- LLC 
As a threshold issue, we must determine whether the Petitioner established that the Beneficiary 
possesses specialized knowledge. If the evidence is insufficient to establish that the Beneficiary 
possesses specialized knowledge, then we cannot conclude that the Beneficiary's past and intended 
future employment involve specialized knowledge. 2 
Under the statute, specialized knowledge consists of either: (I) a "special" knowledge of the 
company product and its application in international markets; or (2) an "advanced" level of 
knowledge of the processes and procedures of the company. Section 214(c)(2)(B) of the Act. 
As both "special" and "advanced" are relative terms, determining whether a given beneficiary's 
knowledge is "special" or "advanced" inherently requires a comparison of the beneficiary's 
knowledge against that of others. With respect to either special or advanced knowledge, the 
petitioner ordinarily must demonstrate that the beneficiary's knowledge is not commonly held 
throughout the particular industry and cannot be easily imparted from one person to another. The 
ultimate question is whether the petitioner has met its burden of demonstrating by a preponderance 
of the evidence that the beneficiary's knowledge or expertise is special or advanced, and that the 
beneficiary's position requires such knowledge. 
Once a petitioner articulates the nature of the claimed specialized knowledge, it is the weight and 
type of evidence which establishes whether or not the beneficiary actually possesses specialized 
knowledge. We cannot make a factual determination regarding a beneficiary's specialized 
knowledge if the petitioner does not, at a minimum, articulate with specificity the nature of its 
products and services or processes and procedures, the nature of the specific industry or field 
involved, and the nature of the beneficiary's knowledge. The petitioner should also describe how 
such knowledge is typically gained within the organization, and explain how and when the 
beneficiary gained such knowledge. 
Special knowledge concerns knowledge of the petitioning organization's products or services and its 
application in international markets. To establish that a beneficiary has special knowledge, the 
petitioner may meet its burden through evidence that the beneficiary has knowledge that is distinct 
or uncommon in comparison to the knowledge of other similarly employed workers in the particular 
industry. 
Because "advanced knowledge" concerns knowledge of an organization's processes and procedures, 
the Petitioner may meet its burden through evidence that the Beneficiary has knowledge of or an 
expertise in the organization's processes and procedures that is greatly developed or further along in 
progress, complexity, and understanding in comparison to other workers in the employer's 
operations. Such advanced knowledge must be supported by evidence setting that knowledge apart 
from the elementary or basic knowledge possessed by others. 
2 The Petitioner does not claim that the Beneficiary was employed abroad in an executive or managerial capacity. 
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Mauer ofA-C- LLC 
The current statutory and regulatory definitions of "specialized knowledge" do not include a 
requirement that a beneficiary's knowledge be proprietary. Thus, whether the knowledge is 
proprietary or not, a petitioner must still establish that the knowledge utilized in the proposed 
position and possessed by the beneficiary is in fact specific to the petitioning organization, and 
somehow different from that possessed by similarly-employed personnel in the industry. Proprietary 
knowledge that is readily transferable to a similarly experienced employee outside of the company is 
not considered special or advanced. 
The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary "already has in-depth knowledge of the platforms 
necessary to join the CSTech team," and listed 14 "proprietary technologies" that the Beneficiary 
"will use ... in his day-to-day job duties." The Petitioner provided brief descriptions of each of 
these technologies, but did not explain how the 'Beneficiary's knowledge of them extended beyond 
general familiarity routinely gained through employment at the petitioning company. The Petitioner 
also did not specify whether the Beneficiary would be modifying the listed tools and platforms, or 
would simply use them in the course of performing his duties. Further, although the Petitioner 
indicated that some skills require a "lengthy training period," it did not provide information or 
documentation regarding the Beneficiary's training in the company's proprietary tools and 
platforms. In fact, the Petitioner indicates that the Beneficiary has "spearheaded critical projects" 
tfom the time he joined the company, despite having no prior exposure to the company's internal 
technologies. The Beneficiary's ability to undertake and lead projects without formal training in 
these tools undermines the Petitioner's claims that it would be extremely time consuming for an 
employee from outside the company to obtain proficiency. 
The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary "is responsible for building most critical pieces of software 
and the core engineering components," and that his "expertise ... qualifies him to work on 
developing the core data components for the CSTech team." The Petitioner asserted that the 
Beneficiary's "knowledge will be critical in his position in the U.S. to design and develop CSTech 
services and AICS." 
The Petitioner listed various projects on which the Beneficiary has worked, but did not explain how 
the Beneficiary's tasks demonstrated specialized knowledge. For example, the Petitioner stated that 
the Beneficiary was the lead engineer on a project that used a "proprietary ... service ±ramework," 
the Petitioner's "code management system; a build tool . . . ; a deployment configuration 
management system ... [and a tool for modeling -release process and adding automation to it," as 
well as "security access tools." 
The quoted language identified some of the Petitioner's proprietary systems, but did not show that 
the Beneficiary has special or advanced knowledge of those systems (as opposed to simply the 
ability to use them). The ability to use a tool is not necessarily specialized knowledge regarding that 
tool. The Petitioner did not explain with sufficient detail how much experience or training would be 
necessary for an otherwise qualified .worker to be able to use the company's proprietary tools in a 
similar manner and, as noted, did not provide evidence that the Beneficiary himself received training 
prior to using the Petitioner's internal tools and platforms. 
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At/alter of A-C- LLC 
The Director advised the Petitioner that "[i]t is not readily apparent what spec ial or advanced 
knowledge the beneficiary holds." The Director noted that the initial submission "does not compare 
and contrast the beneficiary's purport .ed spec ial or advanced knowledge to the knowledge of other 
employees similarly employed by the foreign entity , or within the field." The Director also stated 
that the Petitioner' s "cover letter describes tools used by the beneficiary but does not explain 
whether the beneficiary's knowledge of the usage of such tools is considered advanced or special." 
In response, the Petitioner stated that "no one has the same breadth and depth of spec ialized 
knowledge of the full array of tools required for developing automation in customer service on the 
[Petitioner's) ecommerce platform." The Petitioner also stated that the Beneficiar y's "knowledge of 
wotking with various systems along with a sound knowledge of various intern al technologies and 
processes is rare within" the company , and that "(h)is leve l of technic al acumen in the 
implementation of proprietary technolog y is either unavailable or extremely uncommon eve n 
within" the corripany. 
At the time the Petitioner filed the petition, the Beneficiary had worke d for the foreign aftiliate for 
about 22 month s. The Petiti oner 's direct supervisor abroad, stated that the Beneficiary 
"developed a nich e expertise in implementing a complex array of ... proprietary techn ologies .... 
His level of expertise is ... extremely uncommon within the company. Compared to his teamma tes, 
he has developed an uncommon set of highly specialized ski lls." added that the 
Benefic iary' s "know ledg e of internal processes, tool s, technologies, services and platforms along 
with experience in customer interaction domain is rare within [the company] and is highl y 
specialized." 
stated that the Beneficiary "was transferred [to the United States] because he brings 
knowledge in (seve ral proprie tar y] technologies, a combination that none of his colleagues in the 
U.S. possess at the moment. . . . Prior experience in implementing a complex array of mu ltivariate 
... internal tools is a rare ability even within" the company. He also stated: "It takes a significant 
training period for a new hire ... to gain ex perience with the wide variety of products being used 
within [the company's] Media Shopping Experience team. " Furtherm ore, he stated: 
[W]hile it.may take a lengthy training period to become proficien t in some of the se 
skills, these skills are not the sole basis for [the Beneficiar y's] specialized knowledge . 
. . . Even the vast majority of [the company's] employees that have gained experience 
with the proprietary tool s and technologies .. . do not have the know-how and the 
technical maturity to see it through . 
In an annual review, the Beneficiary's manager praised the Beneficiary's "deep technical 
knowledge ." The "peer feed back" portion of that annual review indicated that the Beneficiary "has 
vast understanding in back-end system." ·· 
·s 
Matter of A-C- LLC 
Email messages and other materials documented the Beneficiary's involvement in resolving "trouble 
tickets," but the submitted materials do not selt:evidently show that the Beneficiary's knowledge 
exceeded that of other participants. 
The Director denied the petition, finding that the Petitioner "did not provide evidence to demonstrate 
the beneficiary's knowledge and training [are] considered advanced or special compared to others 
similarly employed ... within the field." The Director added that the Petitioner had not 
"demonstrated that the [Beneficiary's] familiarity with [the Petitioner's] products, policies, 
processes, methodologies, framework, and projects equates to specialized knowledge." Also, the 
Director concluded that the Petitioner did not specify "the nature of the beneficiary's knowledge; 
how such knowledge is typically gained within the organization; and how and when the beneficiary 
gained such knowledge." The Director found, instead, that the Petitioner had relied on "general 
statements" to the effect that the Beneficiary had mastered many of the company's proprietary tools. 
On appeal, the Petitioner asserts that it had previously submitted detailed statements and 
documentation, providing specific information that the Director disregarded in the denial notice. 
The record does contain a large amount of information about the Beneficiary's tasks and projects; 
we have discussed some of the Petitioner's submissions above. But while these submissions give us 
an idea of the nature of the Beneficiary's work, they do not address the Director's points about "the 
nature of the beneficiary's knowledge; how such knowledge is typically gained within the 
organization; and how and when the beneficiary gained such knowledge." Regarding a given 
proprietary software platform, for instance, it is not sufficient to show that the platform has a 
complex, sophisticated structure. Different levels and types of knowledge are necessary to create 
such a platform, significantly edit its code, or simply use the platform. For this reason, it cannot 
suftice to simply list the proprietary tools that the Beneficiary encounters in his work. Rather, the 
Petitioner must show that the knowledge required to work with these proprietary tools is different or 
uncommon compared to that held by other software engineers and could not be readily transferred to 
a similarly experienced engineer in working in the ecommerce industry. 
The Petitioner notes that the Beneficiary's manager abroad provided a 14-page letter, excerpted 
above. The letter, however, lacked sufficient detail about the Beneficiary's knowledge and how it is 
special or advanced in comparison with others at the company. ·Instead, the letter described tasks 
that the Beneficiary performed, and identified tools that the Beneficiary used to perfonn those tasks. 
This is not sufficient to establish specialized knowledge. As a specific example, the foreign entity 
stated that the Beneficiary would "[ w ]rite code and maintain proficiency in a broad range of design 
approaches," using a variety of tools. Naming two of these tools, the entity stated "significant 
knowledge of these tools is required to develop secure software applications and services." 
Also, the Petitioner asserts that these tools are in use throughout a company that has existed for over 
20 years and has hundreds of thousands of employees. At the time of filing, the Beneficiary had less 
than two years of experience at the company. Given these facts, a claim of specialized knowledge 
must go beyond the Petitioner's statement on appeal that "very few [of the Petitioner's] employees 
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Maller of A-C- LLC 
have the same level of knowledge as the Beneficiary," or the prior assertion that the Beneficiary 
possesses "a combination [of knowledge] that none of his colleagues in the U.S. possess." 
The Petitioner stated that the Beneficiary needed,significant experience before achieving his current 
level of proficiency, but the Petitioner did show when the Beneficiary reached that level. With 
respect to the claim that such proficiency is extremely rare within the company, the Petitioner did 
not establish how many others hold the title of software development engineer II or sho~ how they 
do their jobs without that proficiency. 
The Petitioner states that "USCIS erred by failing to follow its own policy memorandum." The 
Petitioner refers, here, to USClS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0111, L-1 B Adjudications Policy 
(Aug. 17, 2015), http://www.uscis.gov/laws/policy-memoranda. The memorandum quoted 
dictionary definitions of "special" and "advanced" (id. at 6-7) and also provided "a non-exhaustive 
list of factors that USCIS may consider when determining whether a beneficiary's knowledge is 
specialized" (id. at 8). The Petitioner protests that "[t]he denial makes no mention of any of the 
factors listed in the policy memo," which, the Petitioner asserts, expanded upon the definitions of 
"special" and "advanced." The Petitioner contends that the Director erred by relying only on the 
dictionary definitions of those terms. 
The factors listed in the policy memorandum, however, do not directly address the meaning of the 
terms "special" and "advanced." Rather, "[t]he presence of one or more of these (or similar) factors, 
when assessed in the totality of' the circumstances, may be sufficient to establish by a preponderance 
of the evidence that a beneficiary has specialized knowledge" (emphasis added). !d. The same 
policy memorandum states: 
the focus here is primarily on whether the beneficiary's knowledge of the processes 
and procedures used specifically by the petitioning organization is advanced. Such 
advanced knowledge must be supported by evidence setting that knowledge apart 
from the elementary or basic knowledge possessed by others in the petitioning 
organization and the relevant industry. 
!d. In this instance, the Petitioner has shown that the Beneficiary's job involves a number of 
proprietary tools, but has not. submitted evidence to support its claims that the Beneficiary's 
knowledge is advanced beyond others at the company working with the same tools. 
The Director listed the four main categories shown in the Beneficiary's foreign job description, and 
found that these duties appear to be typical of a Software Developer as described in the Department 
of Labor's Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH). The Petitioner asserts: "The denial 
oversimplifies the beneficiary's job duties and mischaracterizes the record," because the Director 
had quoted only the section headings and omitted the longer descriptions that followed. The 
Petitioner contends: "The denial should be overturned on this basis alone." 
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Mauer of A-C- LLC 
This clement of the denial concerned the question of whether the Beneficiary's foreign position 
involved specialized knowledge, a Jinding that we cannot make in the Petitioner's favor without first 
establishing that the Beneficiary possesses specialized knowledge. Because we do not find that the 
Petitioner has met this first threshold, we cannot make a separate Jinding that his position abroad 
involved specialized knowledge. We note, however, the Petitioner's assertion that "there is no legal 
basis whatsoever for linding that because an occupation exists in the OOH, a specific position within 
that occupational classification cannot involve specialized knowledge." The Director made no 
finding that a position listed in the OOH cannot involve specialized knowledge. Rather, the Director 
found that the Petitioner had not establishe·d that the Beneficiary's duties require knowledge beyond 
what is typical for a qualified software developer. 
The Petitioner offers the analogy of a surgeon who uses "specialized knowledge in doing the daily 
tasks of diagnosing and treating illnesses and injuries." The Petitioner states: "the fact that the 
surgeon's job duties are listed in the OOH make it no less likely that she possesses specialized 
knowledge." What the Petitioner describes, however, is knowledge specific to a particular 
occupation, which is not the same thing as specialized knowledge. Only a surgeon knows how to 
perform surgery, but this does not mean that any given surgeon has specialized knowledge relative 
to other surgeons. Otherwise, any sufliciently complicated occupation would involve specialized 
knowledge simply as a matter of definition. 
The Congressional record states that the L-1 category was intended for "key personnel." See H.R. 
Rep. No. 91-851, 1970 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2750. The term "key personnel" denotes a position that is "of 
crucial importance." Webster's II New Coli. Dictionary 605 (Houghton Mifflin Co. 2001). In 
general, all employees are "important" to a petitioner's enterprise, in the sense that their 
contributions to the enterprise justify their employment. But an employee of"crucial importance" or 
"key personnel" must rise above the level of a petitioner's average employee. Accordingly, based 
on the dellnition of "specialized knowledge" and the congressional record related to that tem1, we 
must make comparisons not only between the claimed specialized knowledge employee and the 
general labor market, but also between that employee and the remainder of the Petitioner's 
workforce. Skills intrinsic to a given occupation do not constitute special knowledge as defined at 
8 C.F.R. § 214.2(l)(l)(ii)(D) and§ 214(c)(2)(B) ofthe Act. 
A petitioner's statements may provide persuasive evidence of specialized knowledge if they are 
detailed, specitic, and credible. Here, the Petitioner asks us to put great weight on its statements 
regarding the Beneficiary's knowledge of its organization and his knowledge of the internal tools 
and platforms used by its software engineers. However, the record lacks probative evidence 
demonstrating that extensive training is required to perform the duties it claims are difTerent from 
that of other sotiware development engineers, either within or outside of the organization. While 
there likely are no employees with the exact same knowledge the Beneficiary possesses, the record 
does not demonstrate that the BeneJlciary's knowledge is in fact signilicantly different from that 
generally held by workers in similar positions in the industry, or that it would require up to a full 
year or longer to acquire the knowledge needed for the position. 
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Mauer of A-C- LLC 
For the above reasons, the record does not establish that the Beneficiary possesses' special 
knowledge of the company's services and their application in international markets. 
To dit1erentiate the Beneficiary's knowledge from other employees within the petitioning 
organization,. we must review the duties of those employees in similar positions, as well as their 
training, education, and length of experience with the petitioning organization's mission. Here, the 
Petitioner has not provided the necessary information to make such a comparison. The Petitioner 
does not describe how this Beneticiary's work and responsibilities differ from other employees or 
how other employees gained their knowledge of the petitioning organization. The Petitioner has not 
established that the Beneficiary's knowledge is advanced within the petitioning organization's own 
operations. 
While the Beneficiary may be a valuable employee who is well-qualified for the proposed position 
in the United States, the record does not establish that the Beneficiary possesses special or advanced 
knowledge. 
IV. CONCLUSION 
The Petitioner did not establish that the Beneficiary possesses specialized knowledge. 
ORDER: The appeal is dismissed. 
Cite as Maller of A -C- LLC, !D# 1131194 (AAO Apr. 13, 20 18) 
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