Anthropic pays most and says it sponsors; OpenAI has the most SF/London roles near $200k+
Asked (summary)
Which US companies hiring software engineers in San Francisco or London pay around $200k or more, will do an H-1B transfer and possibly PERM, and might support an EB-1 — companies with strong career and network upside? Answer in a table.
Five companies matched the intersection of current or recent direct software-engineering openings in San Francisco/Bay Area or London, pay near or above US$200k (or senior London equivalents), and documented H-1B filing history: OpenAI, Anthropic, Scale AI, Stripe, and Databricks — 60 matching direct roles across the shortlist, researched 2 October 2026 from employer career pages and immigration-filing aggregators. Pay figures are shown exactly as advertised (USD or GBP, base or broader compensation).
USD pay range (SF / Bay Area)
GBP pay range (London — UK Skilled Worker route, not H-1B)
$200k aspiration line
Hover a bar for visa signals and role counts.
Anthropic is the clearest explicit visa-support lead — its job page says it sponsors visas, makes every reasonable effort after an offer, and retains an immigration lawyer; its SF Staff+ role pays $405k–$485k, though its 2026 source shows zero PERM filings.
anthropic.comOpenAI is the broadest target: 29 matching roles, and its Agent Infrastructure role spans San Francisco and London at $230k–$385k plus equity, with 800 H-1B filings shown for 2025 and an EB-1 mention in the source.
openai.comScale AI is a strong SF target with 13 matching roles and both H-1B (239 FY2026 filings) and PERM (24) history; the example role pays $180k–$225k.
scale.comStripe's representative London row (£72k–£144k) sits below the $200k aspiration — other searched Stripe London roles reached £193.2k — and Databricks' opening is in Mountain View (Bay Area, not SF proper), topping out at $210,250.
stripe.com
| Company | Representative role | Location | Advertised pay | Matching roles | H-1B history | PERM history | EB-1 mention | Visa statement | Sources |
Immigration caution. H-1B and PERM columns are filing-history signals from third-party datasets, not promises that a role or candidate will be sponsored. An H-1B transfer is a new employer petition — confirm with recruiting before interviewing. A London job ordinarily uses the UK Skilled Worker route, not H-1B/PERM. EB-1 is not a normal employee benefit: EB-1A may be self-petitioned under extraordinary-ability standards; EB-1B/EB-1C require specific employer and role facts — the EB-1 flag here is only a third-party mention, not a company commitment. Anthropic's zero PERM filings in its 2026 source is not proof it refuses future green-card sponsorship. Equity and network upside toward "becoming rich" is subjective, speculative career upside, not a factual guarantee.
Shortlist of 5 companies, one row each, researched 2026-10-02 from direct employer career pages plus independent immigration-filing aggregators (five employer domains, two immigration-data domains; no URL backs more than one row). Pay is as advertised — currency and base-vs-total kept exactly as stated. H-1B/PERM figures are filings shown by the chosen source for the period listed. 60 matching roles total across the shortlist; only one representative role per company is shown for space.