Employment-based immigration is a queue disguised as a process, and most of what goes wrong is timing rather than eligibility. This article explains how a job becomes a visa: the nonimmigrant categories that permit temporary work, the labor certification that tests the domestic labor market, the immigrant petition that establishes the category, the priority date that determines the wait, and the final step that converts an approved petition into permanent residence. It explains why two people with identical qualifications can wait two years or twelve depending on where they were born. It covers the employer's obligations, including verification and the anti-discrimination rules that constrain it, and the consequences of falling out of status. It closes with the practical decisions that matter most and the errors that cost years.