Caterpillar

Caterpillar

Principal Software Engineer – Physical AI, Autonomy & Data Platform Engineering

Chicago, Cook County · Principal

Sponsorship not specified$159k-$259kDetected 79 days ago
Platform Engineering

Stay score

odds of building a lasting career here

55Sponsors, lottery-bound
Cap-exempt (no lottery)0
Sponsors this role65
Entry-level history0
PERM / green-card track0
Lottery odds (Level IV)94
Fits your clock70

Sponsors, but it's cap-subject — you still face the weighted lottery (~61% per draw at Level IV). Good if you win; have a cap-exempt backup on your list.

Lottery odds assume a STEM candidate.

Personalize to your clock →

H-1B wage level

the lottery is wage-weighted — each level is one more entry

Level III · 3×
Level I$92,7891 entry
Level II$117,0832 entries
Level III$141,3983 entries
Level IV$165,6934 entries

$6,573 more — $165,693 — moves this role to Level IV and 4 lottery entries. That figure is inside the range the employer already advertised.

Based on the DOL prevailing wage for this occupation and worksite, a base salary of $165,693 would place this position at wage Level IV. That figure is within the posted range, and I'd like to target it. This role classifies under "Software Developers" for prevailing-wage purposes.

DOL prevailing wage, 2026-27 wage year · Software Developers (15-1252) · Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN. Wage level is derived by USCIS from the offered wage, occupation and worksite; the occupation shown is inferred from the job title.

Employer immigration record

from this employer's Department of Labor filings

Green-card filing pattern in this occupation

Context, not a finding about this posting: of this employer's 30 green-card filings in this occupation, 100% were for a worker who already held the job.

Green-card intent detected

Caterpillar Inc. obtained a prevailing wage determination for Software Developers in Irving, TEXAS on 2026-06-22. No matching green-card filing appears in our data yet. The determination expires in 12 days (2026-09-19), and a green-card filing must follow before then or the employer starts over.

Green-card follow-through: 88%

Of 8 labor certifications old enough to have been used, 1 expired without the employer filing the next step. Median time from filing to decision: 456 days.100% of their filings were for a worker who already held the job.Only certifications past the 180-day window are counted — recent ones cannot have expired yet.

Files H-1B transfers

52 transfer filings in the last year, covering 52 workers. Median labor-condition decision: 7 days. An employer that already files transfers is one that can take over an existing H-1B.

Sourced from Department of Labor LCA, PERM and prevailing-wage disclosure data. Employer matching is by name, so figures may be split across an employer's legal entities. Absence of a filing means none appears in our copy of the data, not that none exists.

Community outcomes

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About the role

  • Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.
  • When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do - but also about each other.
  • We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities.

Compensation

  • $159k-$259k

Company info

  • We don't just talk about progress and innovation here - we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live.
  • Together, we are building a be…
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This listing is sourced directly from Caterpillar's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.