He had already been laid off once. For an H-1B visa holder that starts a sixty-day clock: find a new employer and file before it runs out, or leave the country.
Google's process went well. He finished the interviews and, about a week before the clock started, the company gave him a verbal offer. Then the immigration team paused to review his case, and he supplied every document they asked for. The review ran long. On the fifth day of his sixty-day window, they concluded the hire could not proceed, because he had entered the grace period.
"It is incredibly disappointing," he wrote.
A verbal offer had not stopped the clock. The company's own due diligence had consumed the opening of the only window he had, and the offer never made it onto paper. Commenters supplied the lesson for anyone watching: a verbal offer means nothing in tech.