Either you could ask you current employer to file for L1 visa (that’s like an intra company transfer to an onsite location) or you would want to find a prospect employer in US first and persuade them to go through the pains of getting your H1-B petition (I797, I129) filled and approved. The H1-B process is pretty painful for anyone new to it and it used to take about 6 months to 1 year for the whole process to get done right from getting the EAC number and onwards. Agree with mo34 - employers are trying to stay as far away from H1-B, unlike during the Bush adminsitration, when, for example: The 65,000 quota/ year (for India) that opens on 1st April of each year used to get filled in the 1st hour of commencement. Good luck for DV lottery though.
… and yes as Mobius mentioned - H1B is now a lottery system (in trye sense). They accept applications and draw amongst the collectable pool of applications to select those lucky 65,000. Hard luck to others, they have to reapply through all this process *again* and get their names in the goblet-of-fire to have a probablity of getting drawn in those selected 65K for next year. Year over year, every year, the same process…
Thanks for the feedback everyone, It seems that my best bet would be to get my employer to file for an L1 visa. That is a pity since I’m averse to staying with them for much longer - fed up with the the job and need a change. K