[HN Gopher] Updates to H-1B
___________________________________________________________________
Updates to H-1B
Author : sul_tasto
Score : 427 points
Date : 2024-12-18 13:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.uscis.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.uscis.gov)
| pseingatl wrote:
| Cancel the program.
|
| It's not needed.
|
| It's used to game the system.
|
| It's not supposed to be a backdoor to a green card.
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| lmao, what do you mean by backdoor? how else would someone
| legally immigrate?
| toast0 wrote:
| Some people get upset that someone on a 'non-immigrant'
| 'temporary employment' visa can apply for permanent
| residency, although that is allowed by the H1-B program.
|
| Otherwise, one could immigrate through a different visa;
| there are some employment visas that are explicitly intended
| for those with intent to immigrate. Or like a family or
| lottery visa, I guess.
|
| I think it's possible to have a permanent residency
| application sponsored by an employer from abroad, but
| especially if the candidate is from China, India, Mexico or
| the Philipines, the timelines make even less sense than H1-B
| timelines (submit your application in a two week window near
| the beginning of March, for the chance to start in October).
| I don't know too many places that want to commit to a hire
| that can't start for 7 months, although it's not unreasonable
| for those on post graduate visas with work eligibility.
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| It takes around 20+ years to go from H1b to permanent
| visa/green card. In the meantime your kids born in US have
| grown up, graduated, you have a house and everything could
| be yanked at the border when you are travelling.
|
| Meanwhile vast majority of them pay into taxes and social
| security and leave the US and never see a dime of that
| money.
|
| Immigrants are the easiest group to exploit by everyone
| because they have no voice and are vilified by vast
| majority of the people include the so called intellectuals
| in here.
| newyankee wrote:
| Yup, left US after years of working and doubt will ever
| see social security for self.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| I'm sure this is no consolation, but as a born-and-raised
| citizen who has paid into social security for 15 years
| now, I have serious doubts about seeing a positive return
| on those taxes myself.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| That's not how social security works. You're not supposed
| to get a positive return. You directly pay a basic income
| to retired people (minus administration costs). When you
| retire, workers pay a basic income to you.
| dataflow wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they understand how social security
| works. You missed the point they were making.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Asking for a positive return on social security is like
| asking for a positive return on welfare. The positive
| return comes from not having so many homeless old people
| all over the country. It's not a personal investment
| vehicle.
| FredPret wrote:
| It could be that OP expects Social Security to be kaput
| by the time he gets to be old.
|
| Looking at the population graph, that's a valid concern.
| There's a ton of boomers and a ton of millenials, but
| very few babies to pay for our retirement.
|
| (This phenomenon could invalidate even individual stock
| investment retirement plans as well. We need a future
| generation of workers, investors, entrepreneurs,
| consumers).
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The issue is that, for me and anyone else who reaches
| retirement age after 2034, only about 80% of that basic
| income will be available. For reasons I'm not super clear
| on, this idea tends to get coded as a conspiracy theory
| in many circles, despite being uncontroversially true and
| widely reported on.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| That's a perennial Boogeyman. Policymakers have a wide
| array of tweaks they could make (from adjusting the cap
| to adjusting retirement age) at any time that could push
| that out by another century.
| https://www.epi.org/blog/a-record-share-of-earnings-was-
| not-...
| bombcar wrote:
| This is how it works, but it is not how it was sold (and
| all the "work tracking" confuses people as to what it is
| doing).
| radicality wrote:
| Social security also kinda feels like a Ponzi scheme. Use
| current 'investors' money to pay for retired people.
| lesuorac wrote:
| If you were paying retired people with investors money
| then why does SSA have a giant surplus of nearly 3
| trillion [1]?
|
| The surplus is because of all the people that have payed
| into the program and haven't retired yet ...
|
| [1]: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/assets.html
| commandlinefan wrote:
| If only they just used the current 'investors' money to
| pay the retirees. They actually use the social security
| taxes to pay for "whatever" and hope they can come up
| with the rest when they need it.
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| >I'm sure this is no consolation, but as a born-and-
| raised citizen who has paid into social security for 15
| years now, I have serious doubts about seeing a positive
| return on those taxes myself.
|
| Look at the bright side though: You get a chance to get
| conscripted for a war against Iran/Russia/China and also
| get to blow up windowless mudhouses in the desert to
| protect democracy and freedom back in the states.
| geodel wrote:
| So these highly skilled and smart immigrants coming on H1
| to US without ever understanding what they are getting
| into?
|
| They should absolutely be shunning this unfair system and
| helping India become _vishwaguru_ of software.
| umanwizard wrote:
| The byzantine US immigration system absolutely _is_ an
| impediment to people coming and staying here, and in my
| (admittedly anecdotal) estimation is a major competitive
| disadvantage, and a big part of the reason the UK, EU,
| Canada and China are making progress towards becoming
| tech hubs.
| geodel wrote:
| Well everyone is making progress. Relevant point is how
| far they have come and how long they've taken.
| aylmao wrote:
| Those particular cases have benefited by the shortcomings
| of the USA actually. I know some big tech companies send
| workers who weren't able to secure US immigration
| specifically to offices in Canada, the UK or the EU. For
| example Meta and Google [1][2].
|
| One can expect the company then grows an interest in
| developing full engineering teams in these sites. One can
| also expect some people might simply decide to not come
| back to the USA.
|
| With the general rise of China's tech scene, recently
| there's been a trend by which the USA doesn't retain
| Chinese international students and they instead opt to
| return home. One has to imagine the very, very long
| immigration process they have to go to has to do with
| this [4].
|
| [1]: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Does-Meta-relocate-
| you-to-Can...
|
| [2]: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-difficult-to-relocate-
| from-the-G...
|
| [3]: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-08-29/The-return-
| wave-Why-80...
|
| [4]: https://www.statista.com/chart/16528/long-wait-
| times-for-gre...
| theflyinghorse wrote:
| Canada is not making any sort of progress towards
| becoming a tech hub. Canadian engineers' dream is to work
| for a US company. Canadian investment landscape is just
| sad, but that's a different conversation all together.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Outcomes aren't binary. For any marginal increase in
| immigration difficulty for skilled tech workers, there is
| a marginal decrease in US tech competitiveness relative
| to other countries.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > It takes around 20+ years to go from H1b to permanent
| visa/green card.
|
| Primarily only for Indians. For almost everyone else,
| it's much quicker. Most people I know get it in 2-3
| years. Many in under 2 years.
|
| (And yes, it's frankly immoral that they have a separate
| queue for Indians).
|
| So don't get rid of H1B. Make it one queue.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| 20 years only if you're born in India married to someone
| born in India. Not great either way though, but it's
| really affecting the Indian community because of their
| particular norms.
| toast0 wrote:
| If your spouse is a US citizen or permanent resident on
| their own, great. But if you're on H1-B and your spouse
| is on H-4, I don't think their country of birth makes a
| difference?
|
| If you're both on H1-B, then sure, having a different
| country of birth can help.
| lanakei wrote:
| It does make a difference. When filing for adjustment of
| status, you can request USCIS to consider both you and
| your spouse as chargable to your _spouse 's_ country of
| birth, and therefore be placed in a more favourable GC
| queue. This is called cross-chargeability [1].
|
| Because of this, the "100-year green card queue" problem
| only really applies for a couple who are both born in
| India/China, with kids who are _not_ born in the US. If
| even one child was born in the US, they would be able to
| sponsor both parents for an immediate green card when
| they turn 21 years old. In the meantime, the H1-B
| beneficiary can extend their visa indefinitely and port
| their approved I-140 whenever they switch jobs, with a
| 6-month grace period. The spouse also has full working
| rights.
|
| 21 years is a long time, but while working, both parents
| will accumulate social security credits and will be
| eligible to recieve benefits upon retirement (if they've
| secured a green card by then).
|
| [1] https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-7-part-a-
| chapter-...
| rbanffy wrote:
| > your kids born in US have grown up
|
| And now even their citizenship is threatened.
| ImJamal wrote:
| If they were born here then they are citizens and nobody
| is advocating stripping them of citizenship.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Not if the next president gets away with it:
| https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-12-16/trump-
| said...
|
| It's unlikely he'll succeed, and he walked back on many
| campaign promises.
| ImJamal wrote:
| You are confusing what he is calling for. He is not
| advocating for people who are already citizens to lose
| their citizenship. He is saying, going forward, people
| who are born here will not automatically be given
| citizenship.
| addicted wrote:
| > Some people get upset that someone on a 'non-immigrant'
| 'temporary employment' visa can apply for permanent
| residency, although that is allowed by the H1-B program.
|
| The H1B visa is explicitly a dual intent visa.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_intent
|
| Becoming a permanent resident is explicitly allowed under
| the H1B visa. By contrast, if an immigration officer even
| had a suspicion that you intended to immigrate on any other
| visa, that would be sufficient grounds for them to disallow
| you from entering the country.
|
| Further, the dual intent nature of the H1B visa means H1B
| employees pay social security and Medicare, even though
| they themselves are not eligible for it. Something you
| don't have to do if you earn money on a non dual intent
| visa.
|
| The H1B visa is indeed temporary. It lasts only 6 years.
| But it allows you, or your employer, to apply for your
| permanent residency on the basis of other categories while
| you're in the U.S. on an H1B visa. IOW, the only real use
| of the H1B is that it lets an employer get to know an
| employee well enough that they're willing to sponsor their
| permanent residency.
|
| Also, the other reason the H1B appears overused and not
| "temporary" is because in a moment of brilliance Congress
| wrote laws so that there were an equal number of green
| cards handed out to people from Jamaica as those from
| China. As a result, when Indians and Chinese apply and get
| approved for a green card, they need to wait decades to
| actually get those green cards, whereas someone from Greece
| would get it instantly.
|
| Since Congress hasn't been able to write new immigration
| laws in 3 decades, extending thenH1B visa is the only way
| to allow folks who have essentially approved green cards to
| remain in the U.S., because they're discriminated by their
| country of birth.
| toast0 wrote:
| > The H1B visa is explicitly a dual intent visa. ...
| Becoming a permanent resident is explicitly allowed under
| the H1B visa.
|
| I am aware that this is allowed. However, the DOL
| describes the program like this: [1]
|
| > The H-1B program applies to employers seeking to hire
| nonimmigrant aliens as workers in specialty occupations
| or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability.
| A specialty occupation is one that requires the
| application of a body of highly specialized knowledge and
| the attainment of at least a bachelor's degree or its
| equivalent. The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help
| employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business
| skills and abilities from the U.S. workforce by
| authorizing the temporary employment of qualified
| individuals who are not otherwise authorized to work in
| the United States.
|
| So I understand why people would be confused or upset
| when nonimmigrant aliens with temporary employment
| authorization end up immigrating.
|
| I also agree that allocating a limited number of
| residencies by country of birth is pretty bizarre. There
| are some countries where the whole population could get a
| green card in a single year (if they were all eligible),
| but people born in Mexico and India have a 20 year
| backlog in some categories. Some sort of population or
| land area factor should apply. The impacted countries may
| want to consider strategic division to improve their US
| immigration backlogs ;P and they could gain more votes in
| the UN General Assembly, too.
|
| [1] https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| They should just get rid of the green card limit
| altogether.
|
| There is already a limit on people who can get H1Bs and
| move into the country. Once they are actually living here
| on a semi-permanent basis, converting to actually
| permanent should be based on the person themself, not
| based on how many other people decided to become
| permanent residents.
| xpl wrote:
| _> in a moment of brilliance Congress wrote laws so that
| there were an equal number of green cards handed out to
| people from Jamaica as those from China_
|
| It is largely by design and serves to preserve cultural
| diversity. Without immigration caps, half of the U.S.
| would be Indians and Chinese.
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| The rabid chants went from: we need to stop illegal immigration
| and make sure everyone enters legally
|
| To:
|
| We need to make sure we only allow valuable immigrants that add
| to the economy
|
| To:
|
| Cancel this program. They are gaming the system.
|
| You can choose the game to play but you can't choose the rules
| of the game.
| geodel wrote:
| > but you can't choose the rules of the game.
|
| Well you of course can. These rules are set by government and
| they have power to change as they see appropriate.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I think it's called democracy or something.
| dbbk wrote:
| How do you propose hiring tech talent then
| observationist wrote:
| Right, the desperate need for talent is the reason these
| programs are used so heavily. It's not discounted salary and
| cost savings in benefits, insurance, and other areas for non-
| permanent employees, or having leverage over immigrant
| employees in negotiations. Corporations only ever use these
| programs to get the absolute best of the best and they
| absolutely aren't abused to bypass the stricter regulations
| and requirements for citizen employees. /s
|
| There's nothing wrong with brain draining other countries and
| incentivizing legal immigration for work visas and H1B style
| programs. We should want to be the best place in the world to
| work. This shouldn't come as a detriment to the citizens of
| the US. Legal immigration and jobs programs need to be
| better. The H1B program suppresses legal citizen wages as
| well as immigrant wages because companies are able to use the
| threat of deportation as an effective negotiation tactic.
| Companies use immigrants for cheap professional labor, and if
| the immigrant pipes up, they get let go. With everything in
| tech life being designed around pushing people into paycheck
| to paycheck lifestyles, this can wreck someone's life through
| no fault of their own if they do something like ask for a
| raise, or better health insurance.
|
| In turn, if citizen employees try to negotiate, the company
| can replace them with more immigrant workers unless or until
| they can hire local replacements at the company's preferred
| rate of pay.
|
| We need a cleaner, easier path to citizenship, without the
| endless bureaucratic nightmare that is the current system. We
| need better work visa programs, so that people who
| legitimately make the world a better place aren't penalized
| for arbitrary technicalities, while at the same time
| recognizing the sovereignty of the US and reasonably
| protecting borders.
|
| Sometimes countries need to be overthrown, and the US
| shouldn't act like a pressure release valve for dictators. We
| also shouldn't be in the business of regime management or
| perpetuating political nightmares that causes a lot of
| illegal immigration, as well.
|
| TLDR; There's no shortage of US tech talent. The problem is
| that we've painted ourselves into a regulatory corner - in
| order to be competitive, companies have to shortchange
| payroll by abusing migrant salaries. To fix it, we must
| strengthen migrant rights so companies can't hang the threat
| of deportation over employee's heads, and reduce the
| financial burden of hiring citizens, so you get the same bang
| for your buck regardless of the immigration status of the
| employee.
|
| Microsoft and Lumen and FAANG and all the tech industry
| titans shouldn't have penny pinching strategies designed to
| bump stock prices using methods that are fueled by human
| suffering. Get rid of those options and stop blindly
| implementing systems where the incentives are so obviously
| awful.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| I didn't believe it until I saw it, but look at the
| classified section of the San Francisco newspaper where big
| tech companies post job listing knowing that Americans
| won't see them so they can say they tried to get domestic
| talent.
|
| My neighbor is on a visa from mumbai working at Chase who
| was brought in as the lead frontend engineer (def can't
| find Javascript devs in the US). Even he admitted it's
| weird that his whole team is from India on visas. They just
| aren't hiring citizens.
| jonnycoder wrote:
| As a senior software engineer who was unemployed for over
| a year, I can confirm almost nobody is hiring USA
| Javascript and Python devs with 10+ years of experience
| with some big accomplishments. I got lucky with a
| backfill.
| pacoWebConsult wrote:
| And once a team reaches that point, less citizens will
| want to work on a team where they're the outsider
| anyways.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I find that diversity extremely rewarding. I learn new
| things, learn about other people's traditions and learn
| different ways of thinking and organising. Approach the
| challenge with an open mind.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| These are the fun, but token advantages of diversity in
| this specific context. There are lots of advantages and
| disadvantages to diversity - because it is an extremely
| generic term. I have first hand experience of teams
| completely losing all the original members, who were
| extremely talented and all born in the US, because they
| hired such a huge number of people who were from a
| different culture (India, in this case). It had nothing
| to do with racism - they just had nothing in common. It
| was fun to talk about their different religious
| celebrations and so on, but they were emotionally aliens.
| They were reasonably smart, yet there was zero
| intellectual spark in conversations between the two
| groups. They were just too different to thrive with each
| other. Different culturally, ideologically,
| intellectually, emotionally. Different in methods of
| communication, in treatment of the business hierarchy, in
| assumptions and expectations. We can blame the business
| for making an incompatible team, but the compatibility
| parameters were too tied to culture and race. It's hard
| to account for that without essentially being racist.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > We can blame the business for making an incompatible
| team
|
| In my past few jobs I had many colleagues from India, and
| learning the cultural differences is extremely important.
| Teambuilding exercises are also a must - bring your
| cuisine to work is a stellar example: I brought both pao
| de queijo (a Brazilian thing) and sajtos pogacza (its
| Hungarian counterpart), and they brought some the best
| sweets I ever tasted. To our Turkish colleague's dismay,
| we all agreed Turkish Delight is not really a delight
| (but the Turkish colleagues recognized my Hungarian
| pogacza as some cross-cultural artifact coming from the
| Ottoman empire days).
|
| What would you bring to this table?
| 15155 wrote:
| Diversity can be rewarding when it's actually diverse.
|
| Being the only American citizen on a team of people
| constantly speaking Hindi or Tamil often isn't
| "rewarding."
| rbanffy wrote:
| You can always take interest in learning their language.
| You are the host and they are your guests, and, besides,
| their communication in their native language will be more
| efficient than if they translated to English for your
| benefit.
|
| Different culture, but back when I was working on a
| project with Sony, when they introduced their internet
| enabled TVs in Brazil, just adding the "san" suffix to my
| contact's name made him instantly more open to negotiate.
| 15155 wrote:
| If I piss on your head and tell you it's raining, will
| you find some silver lining in that activity?
|
| > You are the host and they are your guests
|
| What? This logic doesn't track. If I were a guest in
| their country, then I might take interest in learning
| their local language. That's respectful.
|
| Coming here on an H-1B and demanding people speak your
| niche language is more akin to invasion. (Here comes the
| "but.. but.. the United States has no official language!"
| tripe.)
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I'm glad you've had good experiences - so have I. But I'm
| not sure where you're going. You can't advise everybody
| into happiness when they are stuck in a _social group_
| that makes them unhappy. There are immutable forces at
| work. We 're humans. Learning a language is an enormous
| task, and it feels horrible to imply somebody should do
| it who is just trying to be comfortable in their own
| country. You should make that attempt when you visit
| _other_ countries. Not to mention, it wouldn 't solve
| this multi-dimensional social problem.
| __loam wrote:
| They could try hiring one of the hundreds of thousands of
| citizens they laid off over the past 3 years.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| By offering wages appropriate for the economy your fellow
| citizens are accustomed to, as opposed to the economy
| citizens of other nations are accustomed to.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Already done.
|
| I mean, you didn't provide details/data, so I don't know
| what you have in mind.
|
| The rules require you pay prevalent wages for the geo
| you're in.
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Saw a university (like 7 years ago) H1B'ing postdocs for
| like $30k, maybe $35k a year, by valuing the benefits at
| like $20k. It was kind of a joke IMO.
| BeetleB wrote:
| That is the prevailing wage for postdocs, domestic or
| foreign.
|
| The abuse of postdocs and grad students exists, but is
| entirely unrelated to H1B and foreigners. They paid them
| poorly even before the country was flooded with foreign
| students.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| no, just make it an auction system with compensation.
| ritcgab wrote:
| Guy who born with natural citizenship is too privileged to
| imagine how hard it is to get a green card.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Everybody is born with natural citizenship.
| petesergeant wrote:
| You should take a moment to look up what "stateless" means
| carlosjobim wrote:
| God forbid somebody says that every dog has four legs and
| a hacker hears it...
| ritcgab wrote:
| Stephen Miller does not approve this.
| lubujackson wrote:
| Great comeback, except you completely ignore the point (its
| purpose is not meant to be a backdoor) and attack him for...
| being an American?
|
| Instead of telling everyone else to check their privilege,
| maybe check your expectations. The world doesn't owe anyone
| anything. Claiming your desires are everyone else's problem
| is a deeply self-centered way to view the world.
| ritcgab wrote:
| H-1B is dual intent by definition, so it is not a backdoor.
| Any sane person who knows how green card application works
| understands that it is objectively hard, if not the hardest
| in the whole world.
|
| > Instead of telling everyone else to check their
| privilege, maybe check your expectations.
|
| Without such an expectation, who would pay tens of
| thousands a year to enroll in a random U.S. college, only
| to be told that there is absolutely no way they can work
| legally there?
| happytoexplain wrote:
| This is a hideous tone that will do nothing but antagonize
| proud citizens and sour voters on the idea of generosity.
|
| Thoughtful discourse is predicated first on basic respect.
| contagiousflow wrote:
| > generosity
|
| I'm sure you think of your own citizenship as charity as
| well...
| JSteph22 wrote:
| >how hard it is to get a green card
|
| It should be hard.
| ragazzina wrote:
| Was it hard to get your citizenship?
| jeffhuys wrote:
| Psst, the societal opinion on this has shifted.
|
| We shouldn't feel bad about protecting ourselves.
| ritcgab wrote:
| Protecting yourselves from what?
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| What is the correct pathway to green card for a worker
| immigrant?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| America does not owe the world a green card.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| That wasn't and has nothing to do with the question asked.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| A path needn't exist.
| screye wrote:
| Love how all your arguments boil down to 'I got mine.'.
|
| We don't want illegal immigrants, get legal work
| authorization. No, don't use work authorized visas use
| other legal means. No, family based chain immigration
| should be illegal too. Oh wait there are no other ways to
| come here ?....good. We never wanted you anyway. This
| country is full, all 4 million sq miles. Always has
| always been.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| It's not constructive to frame citizenship as "I got
| mine". People will fight - really fight - to preserve
| their homes and lifestyles, if they feel those are being
| threatened. It's obviously not _impossible_ to welcome as
| many immigrants as we do without this extreme level of
| conflict, but our system demonstrably does not accomplish
| that. We simply aren 't making use of our space, so why
| don't we focus on that problem? A tone like yours invites
| chaos.
| screye wrote:
| I disagree. Better to be direct, than frame it in soft
| 'feel good' terms. It's a matter of people's livelihoods.
| My tone invites confrontation as a sincere reflection of
| the stakes. I don't make value judgements. Citizens are
| entitled to hypocrisy, cognitive-dissonance and
| selfishness. It being bad is a social judgement made by
| the observer.
|
| Let's be clear. We're talking about the US here.
| Arguments based in nativism, isolation and crowdedness
| have thin ground to stand on. By percentage population,
| legal-immigration to the US is below the historic
| average. Yet threads on H1b quickly devolve into vapid
| arguments. The accusers are happy to sling
| unsubstantiated stereotypes towards immigrants, but hide
| behind soft language like 'we aren't used to making
| space' when immigrant commenters retaliate in kind.
|
| Racists aren't irrational actors or evil people. They
| simply have higher affinity for their tribe, and that's
| okay. Sometimes it takes for self-interests to be
| threatened, for bigoted & tribal behaviors to manifest in
| a loud manner. Again, that's okay. Americans are the ones
| who gave a negative connotation to to words like bigot
| and racists. In the rest of world, tribal & bigoted
| behaviors are an accepted norm. We're all racists
| sometimes. But, American tech workers are definitely at
| their racist-est on h1b threads.
|
| You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either you are
| the land of free, that practices extreme meritocracy and
| thrives as a result of it. You're a nation built by
| migrant groups over the last 4 centuries, and the door is
| always open to the ambitious and hard working. A
| benevolent super-power for all. Or, you're just as
| tyrannical as any selfish group. You're a white majority
| people that found a pre-inhabited land of the greatest
| resources and size. You claimed it all for yourself.
| Killed the natives. You give lip serve to globalism and
| meritocracy as long as it gives you access to all markets
| of the world. Your relationship with the rest of the
| world is transactional, and you will continue to be a
| world superpower through military strong-arming and
| thinly veiled globally-egalitarian propaganda.
|
| The reality ofc, is that neither extremes are true. But,
| it is a slider between the tribal-nativist and
| internationalist-meritocratic impulse. There are no right
| or wrong answers for what a nation's choice will be. But,
| if your slider is near the former while you claim to be
| the latter, then the hypocrisy is grating for the rest of
| us. For the lack of a better insult, it's Trudeau-esque.
|
| Personally, I am a big fan of out-right selfish people.
| There is genuine honesty there. I also love the US (warts
| and all). Say what people might, it is the least racist
| nation of any out there. Lastly, I have a vested interest
| as someone who is on an H1b myself. (although I'd like to
| think I'm senior enough to be insulated from negative
| outcomes for h1b)
|
| As I write this, I recognize that most people don't like
| harsh phrasing. I don't think our politicians or public
| speakers should adopt this language. But, a mostly civil
| pseudo anonymous forum of tech nerds is IMO, just right
| for this kind of directness.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I am a citizen because my ancestors fought in the
| revolution.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Ah. So migrants should foment a revolution if they're
| serious about citizenship. Got it.
| rorytbyrne wrote:
| The green card exists, so there must a priori be a valid
| path to get one. If it's not H1-B, then what is it?
| valicord wrote:
| Does America want smart people to come here and advance
| science/technology/economy or would she rather close the
| doors and watch other countries get ahead?
| jeffhuys wrote:
| I think it's more a question of do you want to enjoy the
| same benefits as your parents? Yes? Then protect those
| benefits.
|
| Not protecting them is how you get behind. America
| produces smart people as well.
|
| Ps. I'm Dutch. This same rhetoric is all in the West.
| It's shifting.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Yeah, you have no idea of the process of getting green card via
| h1b works.
|
| You can ditch the US, get permanent resident status in Canada,
| become Canadian citizenship, get TN visa to work in the US if
| you want to and someone who thinks that h1b is a backdoor to a
| green card will be just starting on green card paperwork. And
| that's if there are no issues with application.
|
| This is all after participating in h1b lottery for years. Trust
| me, it's an extremely slow and painful way of getting a green
| card. If h1b is your way to a green card, it means either:
| you're already married, you have no idea what are you doing.
|
| It's no a backdoor in any way, person move to the US for work
| and builds a life here, accumulate assets, I think it's pretty
| reasonable to give those people a way to settle in the US
| permanently in these cases.
|
| The program needs to be revamped because it's not working in
| the way it's sold to voters.
| screye wrote:
| > not supposed to be a backdoor to a green card
|
| So...what's the front door to the green card ? How does one
| arrive legally to the nation with the highest [1] historic
| immigration rate of any nation in the world ?
|
| https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/net...
| tartoran wrote:
| Does anybody know what are the updates are in layman terms?
| ganeshkrishnan wrote:
| here it is https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-
| announces...
|
| I read through it and even asked chatgpt for summary and it
| looks like "passport is now required" and "one beneficiary one
| draw" that is if you put in multiple petitions it will only
| consider you once.
|
| I thought Elon was talking nonsense when he mentions frivolous
| government rules but reading these h1b changes makes me
| question my own sanity about the government "rules" which they
| aptly named it as "Final rule" (wtf?).
| impish9208 wrote:
| Some highlights from the Federal Register:
|
| > 2. Bar on Multiple Registrations Submitted by Related Entities
|
| DHS will not finalize the proposed change at 8 CFR
| 214.2(h)(2)(i)(G) to expressly state in the regulations that
| related entities are prohibited from submitting multiple H-1B
| registrations for the same individual. On February 2, 2024, DHS
| published a final rule, "Improving the H-1B Registration
| Selection Process and Program Integrity," 89 FR 7456 (Feb. 2,
| 2024), creating a beneficiary-centric selection process for
| registrations by employers and adding additional integrity
| measures related to the registration process to reduce the
| potential for fraud in the H-1B registration process. In that
| final rule, DHS states that it "intends to address and may
| finalize this proposed provision [expressly stating in the
| regulations that related entities are prohibited from submitting
| multiple registrations for the same individual] in a subsequent
| final rule," but that "[m]ore time and data will help inform the
| utility of this proposed provision." 89 FR 7456, 7469 (Feb. 2,
| 2024). Initial data from the FY 2025 H-1B registration process
| show a significant decrease in the total number of registrations
| submitted compared to FY 2024, including a decrease in the number
| of registrations submitted on behalf of beneficiaries with
| multiple registrations.[1]
|
| This initial data indicate that there were far fewer attempts to
| gain an unfair advantage than in prior years owing, in large
| measure, to the implementation of the beneficiary-centric
| selection process.[2]
|
| Under the beneficiary-centric selection process, individual
| beneficiaries do not benefit from an increased chance of
| selection if related entities each submit a registration on their
| behalf. As such, DHS has decided not to finalize the proposed
| change pertaining to multiple registrations submitted by related
| entities.
|
| > C. Summary of Costs and Benefits
|
| DHS analyzed two baselines for this final rule, the no action
| baselines and the without-policy baseline. The primary baseline
| for this final rule is the no action baseline. For the 10-year
| period of analysis of the final rule, DHS estimates the
| annualized net cost savings of this rulemaking will be $333,835
| annualized at a 2 percent discount rate. DHS also estimates that
| there will be annualized monetized transfers of $1.4 million from
| newly cap-exempt petitioners to USCIS and $38.8 million from
| employers to F-1 workers, both annualized at a 2 percent discount
| rate.
| blahblahgov wrote:
| Yup, as expected. Not dealing with the effects of clustering.
| Great job GOV.
| https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1fyx9hp/cognizant...
| addicted wrote:
| Looks like that's going through the legal system so is already
| illegal?
|
| You can't make a rule that says "hey don't break the rules".
|
| That seems logically fallacious.
| lukeramsden wrote:
| Can't read the full article due to paywall but ostensibly
| it's due to bias rules on race and not visa rules? Sounds
| like visas being abused and then backstopped by unrelated
| rules does not mean the visa rules shouldn't be fixed.
| r-johnv wrote:
| Several positive outcomes, including expanding cap-exemption to
| non-profit and other research institutions, and stronger
| enforcement mechanisms.
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Ah, classic regulatory theater. The administration, after 4 years
| of not introducing these changes, is now suddenly scrambling to
| roll them out. They're dropping them right before a major
| transition, with an implementation timeline conveniently set for
| after the transition.
|
| It's a clever little maneuver. When the inevitable reversal
| happens, they can show up at fundraising galas telling donors,
| "We tried! We were so close! It's just those baddies who always
| come along and pull the rug."
| lesuorac wrote:
| Eh downvote.
|
| The USG has to go through a very length period of coming up
| with a proposed rule. Allowing comments to be made about it,
| adjusting (or not) the rule based on those comments, and then
| finally submitting the final rule.
|
| Nobody at USCIS wrote this document yesterday and published
| this today. This is the result of years of work. Do you
| seriously expect the USG to shut down anything they don't think
| they can finish under the current administration?
| fasdfdsava wrote:
| Maybe it's a total coincidence that this final rule takes
| effect the Friday, January 17 and Trump's inauguration is
| Monday, January 20th. But I sort of wonder.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > has to go through a very length period
|
| Doesn't the bottom of this announcement describe a previous
| rule that was announced in January 2024 and then implemented
| in March 2024? Interesting that rules process was far more
| rapid than this one.
| lesuorac wrote:
| And?
|
| So a different related rule started its process awhile back
| and a second rule was in the works concurrently. Is the USG
| only allowed to do one thing at a time?
|
| The comment period for this rule ended last year to give
| you an idea of how long this has at least been in the
| works. All of this information is rapidly found via the
| submitted url at the top of the page.
|
| https://www.regulations.gov/docket/USCIS-2023-0005/document
| akira2501 wrote:
| It's the same question. What decides when a long process
| and comment period is required and when it isn't? Why
| does this agency have such variable performance when it
| comes to similar rulings?
| pavon wrote:
| The announcement in January was the end of the process, not
| the start. Here is the timeline of that previous rule:
|
| 2021-02-02: President Biden issued Executive Order (E.O.)
| 14012[0]
|
| 2021-04-19: Request for Public Input begins[1]
|
| 2021-05-19: Request for Public Input ends[2]
|
| 2023-10-23: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Comment period
| begins[3]
|
| 2023-12-11: Comment period ends
|
| 2024-01-30: Final Rulemaking announced[4]
|
| 2024-02-02: Regulations are published in federal
| register[5]
|
| 2024-03-06: Rules take effect
|
| [0]https://www.federalregister.gov/executive-order/14012
|
| [1]https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/04/19/202
| 1-07...
|
| [2]https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/04/26/C1-
| 2021...
|
| [3]https://www.regulations.gov/docket/USCIS-2023-0005/unifi
| ed-a...
|
| [4]https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-
| announces...
|
| [5]https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/02/02/202
| 4-01...
| pavon wrote:
| Also worth noting that today's rules, 89 FR 7456, and the
| previous one, 89 FR 103054, both derived from the same
| NPRM. Apparently, based on feedback they thought some
| parts of the rules needed more work than others and
| finalized them in two parts.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| It's not the only last minute thing the administration does
| that it could have done before:
|
| - Launched rockets from Ukraine - remote work contracts
| extended to 2029 after Elon + Vivek wants people to RTO -
| TikTok ban
|
| And the classic answer is always the same here: ,,it was all
| planned for years'' (sure, but the decision is made after the
| elections on purpose)
| wat10000 wrote:
| We all know how a distant deadline can make us slack off.
| Then suddenly the deadline is in three months instead of four
| years, you'll discover a bunch of things you could do faster.
|
| That's not to excuse the slowness, but I imagine this stuff
| was in process for a while.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Parkinson's law: "work expands so as to fill the time
| available for its completion."
| tssva wrote:
| The decision regarding TikTok was not made after the election
| and the law was passed with strong bi-partisan support.
| frankzinger wrote:
| I'm surprised to see somebody presumably on the Republican
| side complaining about norm violations.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Regardless, these are good changes, I hope they stick around.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > The administration, after 4 years of not introducing these
| changes
|
| They might have spent the last four years negotiating what
| exactly the changes would ideally be. Government doesn't work
| well with the "let's see what sticks approach".
| patrickhogan1 wrote:
| Negotiating with who?
|
| This is an executive power. USCIS - the President can modify
| regulations, such as how H-1B applications are processed or
| the criteria used in selection lotteries.
| bubblethink wrote:
| There is rulemaking process that takes time. It has to go
| through notice and comment period, withstand lawsuits, etc.
| I agree with your overall point though, that this admin was
| utterly spineless and useless.
| eweise wrote:
| It will make Trump look great reversing a policy that steals
| good paying jobs from Americans.
| intermerda wrote:
| Capitalism is good! No not like that!
| cyberax wrote:
| > Ah, classic regulatory theater.
|
| No, the classic people not understanding how the government
| works.
|
| These are changes that were done through the rule-making
| process, not legislation. The rule-making process is (by
| design!) VERY SLOW to give the stakeholders a chance to voice
| their opinion.
|
| Typical rules take about 2 years to be implemented. And I guess
| Biden hoped to get a real immigration reform that would have
| made these changes unnecessary.
| root_axis wrote:
| Unlikely to be reversed. The incoming president's largest donor
| strongly favors a larger and more dynamic H1-B work force.
| n144q wrote:
| The same president used coronavirus as an excuse to ban all
| H1B entries.
| bdangubic wrote:
| those were then times, now billionaires shelled out a whole
| lot of money to put him in power and payback time is
| coming. h1b may double/triple/... in the coming years.
| policy will be to keep "bad people out" (southern border)
| while taking in a bunch of "smart people, best people" from
| other countries
| sitkack wrote:
| Anything to keep wages down.
| khazhoux wrote:
| It's fascinating how many government policies take 3 years and
| 11 months to implement.
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| To play devil's advocate, many if not most software projects
| that launch on time press right up against the deadline.
|
| Work expands to fill the space available, as they say.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| 3 years and 11 months or 7 years and 11 months, conveniently
| with no middle ground in between.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I'm very happy for everybody on H1-B whose live this improves!
| Does this include renewal in USA?
|
| But as an American the "bonafide job requirement" makes me
| nervous. We have a massive ghost job problem that really needs to
| be a federal crime. Will this make that worse?
| packetlost wrote:
| Yeah, there really needs to be some worker protection
| legislation makes ghost jobs a crime.
| lazide wrote:
| It already is. It just isn't enforced by the DOL/ICE. (Those
| offers need to actually be legitimate, or it's fraud).
| tartoran wrote:
| Is this actually enforced? There are still ghost jobs being
| posted.
| umanwizard wrote:
| The comment you're replying to already said it's
| unenforced.
| lazide wrote:
| Near as I can tell, it's similar to 'don't talk about
| salary at work' stuff - technically maybe if you can
| prove it and complain to the right person, but it's
| _everywhere_.
| vsskanth wrote:
| they mean "bonafide job offer". What is happening right now is
| staffing agencies (mainly in India) mass file H1B applications
| for all their staff, and then once they get picked in the
| lottery, they find assignments in the US and file the entire
| petition after. This heavily disadvantages non-staffing
| companies who file H1Bs for their staff outside the country or
| those in the US on F1 visas for actual jobs.
|
| This change is meant to close that loophole. This used to not
| be a problem, because you had to file the entire petition
| BEFORE you enter the lottery, but now you just pay some nominal
| fee and get your name in, leading to a highly profitable
| situation for staffing companies.
| ziddoap wrote:
| https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/12/18/2024-29...
|
| The tweet is a super brief summary, reproduced below.
|
| Founders can self petition (& spouses can work) -
| Own >50% of the entity, or have majority voting rights
|
| Roles tied to research institutions cap-exempt -
| Organizations where fundamental research is a key activity now
| qualify - Startups can hire researchers (AI, health,
| hardware) year-round
|
| Students get seamless transition - Cap-gap work
| authorization extended to April 1 - Prevents employment
| gaps for F-1 OPT to H-1B switch
|
| Faster H1-B transfers for job changes -
| Flexibility to start working immediately upon petition filing
|
| Clarification of specialty role - Less strict on
| the direct link between degree/job responsibilities -
| Recognizes that AI may require multiple academic background
|
| Cracking down on fraud - Stricter compliance
| rules - Employers must demonstrate a bona fide job exists
| - Site visit codified: refusal to comply = petition denial
| dang wrote:
| (This was originally posted in the other thread
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42451271, but it's useful
| here too)
| wooque wrote:
| > Founders can self petition
|
| Wait, so I can just open LLC and get H1B visa for it? There
| have to be conditions and limitations, otherwise it will be
| misused.
| tacker2000 wrote:
| Yea thats what I also thought. Opening an LLC is pretty easy.
| ramarnat wrote:
| You'd still have to comply with the H1-B rules for the job
| you are petitioning for, like the duties you are performing,
| the salary requirements etc. And the legal costs of doing the
| petition.
|
| Now, misuse could come if you are independently wealthy and
| can self fund, but at the end of the day if you are doing
| that in the US, the economy still benefits.
| shin_lao wrote:
| There are better visas and even green cards if you're
| wealthy.
| paxys wrote:
| Exactly. You can literally buy a green card with a ~$500K
| "investment". No need to jump through H-1B hoops.
| ramarnat wrote:
| That's more than what you would need if you were hiring
| for a prevailing wage position.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| EB-5 is a onetime payment for a green card (permanent
| residence). Prevailing wage must be paid every year and
| you have 60 days to leave when you the company stops
| paying you.
| ramarnat wrote:
| Yes, but the prevailing wage threshold would be lower
| than the investor visa, as will the commitments. The
| investor visa you have to show a plan, hire people etc.
| cyberax wrote:
| If you're "wealthy", you can immigrate by officially
| starting a business with just an $80000 investment (E-2
| visa).
|
| Or you can just buy a green card for a $800000 investment
| (EB-5).
| thiagocmoraes wrote:
| E-2 is not available to all countries.
| cyberax wrote:
| You can first get an investor-based citizenship in one of
| the countries that have signed the tax treaty with the
| US.
|
| It'll cost you about $50-100k extra.
| ktta wrote:
| Only CBI countries on that list are Grenada (200k+) &
| Turkey (400k), and USCIS put out a rule specifically for
| that situation, with additional requirements. From:
| https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-
| states/temporary...
|
| > In addition, for those individuals who obtained treaty
| country nationality through a financial investment, USCIS
| may require additional documentation to show that the
| applicant has been domiciled in the treaty country
| indicated in the application for a continuous period of
| at least 3 years at any point before applying for E-1 or
| E-2 classification.
|
| Plus E-2 visa is a non-immigrant visa, so it doesn't give
| you any kind of special pathway to green card. Might as
| well apply for an EBx at the outset instead of fiddling
| with an E-2 visa.
| cyberax wrote:
| You're missing several. Montenegro and Macedonia are
| definitely available, and I think also Panama.
|
| > Might as well apply for an EBx at the outset instead of
| fiddling with an E-2 visa.
|
| EB-5 has pre-country quotas, and for some countries the
| wait can be quite long (for China it's around 10 years).
| It also is veeerrrryyyyyy slow, even with the initial
| form processing taking _years_.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| So can I now go to SF, set up an LLC, and get the sweet SF
| dev rates?
| 0x457 wrote:
| Sure, as long LLC that you have set up generates enough
| revenue to pay your salary.
|
| I'm not sure you understand how this works.
| dcreater wrote:
| Yeah except your paying yourself minus taxes.
| punksatoni wrote:
| ** Wait, so I can just open LLC and get H1B visa for it?
| There have to be conditions and limitations, otherwise it
| will be misused.
|
| No, you have to first post a job posting at a low salary,
| preferably with an in-office requirement in a HCOL city. If
| you get applicants, give them Leetcode Hard and no one will
| pass.
|
| Then, when no one applies or passes the interview, you claim
| there is a shortage.
|
| Viola!
| i_have_an_idea wrote:
| I'm legitimately interested in this.
|
| I run a one-man consulting business from the EU. I sometimes
| hire freelancers. I work with US clients anyway. Does that
| mean I can open a US llc and move?
| geraldwhen wrote:
| I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, I look forward to
| teaching H1B recipients to turn on a computer.
| paxys wrote:
| > - Site visit codified: refusal to comply = petition denial
|
| Wonder how this works for remote-only positions/companies.
| kccqzy wrote:
| What's the reason for cap-gap extension to April 1? I thought
| that the government fiscal year starts on October 1, so H-1B
| statuses take effect on that date and therefore the extension
| is only needed until October 1. What is the motivation here?
| woodson wrote:
| > Roles tied to research institutions cap-exempt
|
| > - Organizations where fundamental research is a key activity
| now qualify
|
| > - Startups can hire researchers (AI, health, hardware) year-
| round
|
| That's a good change. I've seen ML researchers (PhDs) who led
| DARPA funded projects as principal investigator while working
| for a for-profit company not being selected for H-1B (lottery
| and cap) and having to leave the US.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| I wonder if it is possible to found a US company and open a
| bank account for it while being a resident of Russian
| Federation, and then self-petition yourself for a visa....
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Expect this to be rolled back fully on January 20
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Unclear. They're not going to be consistent or competent, and
| the intent of everything they do will be to either part out the
| government to their friends, weaponize the US government
| against perceived enemies. And they might reward people who
| kiss the ring by granting exceptions.
|
| Really, given the premise, anyone sane should kill H-1B
| entirely for tech:
|
| "The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who
| cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and abilities
| from the U.S. workforce by authorizing the temporary employment
| of qualified individuals who are not otherwise authorized to
| work in the United States"
|
| There is no shortage of qualified US software engineers. CS
| schools are full. The very concept is ridiculous. Kill this
| law, liberalize immigration instead.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Also, there are going to be endless, endless lawsuits on
| everything, because everything they do is going to violate
| either the Constitution or existing US law. I'm not sure how
| much that will slow them down.
| n144q wrote:
| > CS schools are full
|
| I guess you never paid any attention to the nationality of
| students enrolled in CS classes.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| The undergrads at my university were mostly US-born. I
| believe that's the case most places, even elite
| universities. The more expensive universities are
| incentivized to take more international students for the
| money though -- and obviously there's enough wealthy people
| globally to fill whatever slots they offer. There are
| plenty of good engineers from the US who simply weren't
| lucky enough to be born to rich parents in CA. It turns out
| moving 2000 miles from home for a worse quality of life
| isn't super attractive to people born in the US when your
| whole family still lives in the same region. Of course, if
| you're born in India or China, the value proposition is a
| bit different.
|
| Perhaps geographic restrictions on H-1Bs would spread the
| wealth: force these companies to prove they can't find
| engineers in the US by looking outside the wealthiest
| enclaves in the country, where even FAANG engineers
| complain about cost of living. We'd ease the Bay Area
| housing crisis, lift up other regions of the country, and
| provide more domestic-born citizens a path to good jobs
| while maintaining their own communities.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| ... not that it was _ever_ used that way, since its
| inception.
| parineum wrote:
| Why?
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Trump in term 1 was the most hostile to legal immigration
| President in decades and that was before he started
| slandering Haitians with legal status
| halyconWays wrote:
| He ran on a platform of _easier_ legal immigration.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| I think you are excessively credulous and that's the most
| polite I can be.
|
| I'm a natural born citizen that's the wrong skin color and
| I'm planning on carrying my passport everywhere come Jan 21 -
| I'm not going to chance being thrown into the back of a
| BORTAC van.
| M3L0NM4N wrote:
| I think a natural born citizen carrying their passport
| everywhere starting Jan 21 is even more credulous in the
| other direction.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| I don't think you've thought through the downside risk. A
| coworker - himself of my ethnicity - assumed I was
| foreign born, I'm not going to leave it to chance when
| the promised deportation dragnet starts up.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I'd recommend carrying a passport card instead of the
| actual passport. A REAL ID would be helpful as well.
|
| I don't think the chances of something that drastic are
| high, but it doesn't hurt to err on the side of caution.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Problem with the passport card is it requires me to send
| my existing passport for several weeks. In the event of a
| government shutdown I'd be SOL.
|
| REAL ID is plausible but I don't really trust it, given
| that illegal immigrants can get identity cards in my
| state.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > I don't really trust it
|
| REAL ID is a bare minimum. It shows that you at least
| have legal residency.
|
| FWIW it's trusted by DHS so that's all that matters for
| your usecase or assumption.
|
| If you are worried about the risk of being hauled by ICE,
| then you should get a REAL ID.
|
| > it requires me to send my existing passport for several
| weeks
|
| Last I remember, you can do it in person.
|
| Here are the passport offices -
| https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/get-
| fas...
|
| > In the event of a government shutdown
|
| The US Passport Office remains open during the commonly
| termed "government shutdowns"
| int_19h wrote:
| If it's the same process as getting a passport in the
| first place, you have to give them the documentation
| proving that you're a citizen, and they sit in it for a
| while before eventually mailing it back to you.
| bikenaga wrote:
| Your concern is reasonable, and I've thought about it
| myself. The _Wikipedia_ article linked downthread by
| int_19h notes: "Up to one percent of all those detained
| in immigration detention centers are nationals of the
| United States according to research by Jacqueline
| Stevens, a professor of political science at Northwestern
| University." There are specific cases mentioned in the
| article, and the case of Mark Daniel Lyttle was pretty
| alarming. It was written up in:
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/29/the-
| deportatio...
|
| On the other hand, you can't be detained without probable
| cause, and race/ethnicity alone isn't enough. For
| instance, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v.
| Brignoni-Ponce (https://case.law/caselaw/?reporter=us&vol
| ume=422&case=0873-0...): "In this case the officers
| relied on a single factor to justify stopping
| respondent's car: the apparent Mexican ancestry of the
| occupants. We cannot conclude that this furnished
| reasonable grounds to believe that the three occupants
| were aliens. At best the officers had only a fleeting
| glimpse of the persons in the moving car, illuminated by
| headlights. Even if they saw enough to think that the
| occupants were of Mexican descent, this factor alone
| would justify neither a reasonable belief that they were
| aliens, nor a reasonable belief that the car concealed
| other aliens who were illegally in the country. Large
| numbers of native-born and naturalized citizens have the
| physical characteristics identified with Mexican
| ancestry, and even in the border area a relatively small
| proportion of them are aliens. The likelihood that any
| given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high
| enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor, but
| standing alone it does not justify stopping all Mexican-
| Americans to ask if they are aliens."
|
| I second the recommendation to get a RealID. You're going
| to need one eventually for domestic flights, among other
| things. When I got mine at the DMV renewing my driver's
| license, they asked for a birth certificate, social
| security card, driver's license, and proof of (local)
| residency (e.g. utility bill). So why not get one and
| carry that as additional proof?
| M3L0NM4N wrote:
| > deportation dragnet
|
| Do you know how insane that sounds in this context? I
| absolutely despise Trump, make no mistake; but if you
| think Trump is rounding up any of the 40+% of the USA's
| non-white citizens and deporting them, you have been
| deluded by widespread FUD.
|
| The "deportation dragnet" might apply to illegals, sure.
| Will any meaningful amount of US citizens get scooped up
| in that, if any? Highly, highly unlikely. You're probably
| more likely to be murdered.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| All evidence points to first week being dedicated to
| flashy arrests in blue states with Tom Homan previously
| bragging that they would deport both illegals and their
| citizen family members with no regard for the obvious
| illegality of the concept.
| M3L0NM4N wrote:
| I think he poorly phrased deporting "anchor babies" by
| ending birthright citizenship. Since then, he's directly
| or indirectly claimed multiple times that he doesn't plan
| on deporting USCs. There's no telling whether he wants to
| deport USCs deep down in his heart, but he knows that's
| not going to happen.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/tom-homan-family-deportation-
| undocu...
| bdangubic wrote:
| more people will become billionaires in the next four
| years than get deported :)
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| A useless statement because I'm much closer to an legal-
| to-become-illegal than a multi-millionaire-to-become-
| billionaire
| bdangubic wrote:
| I wasn't talking specifically about you... there are
| campaign promises "we are going to deport _____ people"
| that you should know by now are just shit politicians say
| so that they get the votes in South Dakota, Alabama and
| shithole places like that. We heard in 2016 "build the
| wall, repeal ACA, lock her up..." and whatever BS was
| spewing at that time. the only policy that you know for
| sure will be in place for the next 2 to 4 years will be
| there to make sure that richer get richer - hence my
| statement that we'll see more people become billionaires
| than people that we will actually deport :)
| int_19h wrote:
| It is, but only the "Jan 21" part.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Americans_fr
| om_...
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| This is a movement based on extreme hatred and
| dehumanization of anyone different from them, and most of
| the time such movements have taken control anywhere
| historically, it has resulted in mass murder/genocide. We
| underestimate what atrocities they are capable of at our
| own peril. I am hoping for the best, but preparing for
| the worst.
|
| I feel like I - and a lot of people I know - have been in
| denial of what is happening for a while. It is
| terrifying, and I don't want it to be true, but it is
| undeniable. I don't want to be one of those people that
| says "Davon haben wir nichts gewusst" - "We knew nothing
| about that."
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I have a mixed race family, and am scrambling to get
| passports in time for people in my family with darker skin,
| and we will 100% be at least carrying good quality copies
| of them at all times.
|
| They are claiming to start mass deportations next month,
| and profiling based on skin color is absolutely the only
| way that can be possible. Moreover, just like the Nazis
| discovered, both deporting people and indefinite detainment
| are impossibly expensive- leaving only one option. This
| political movement is already based on the idea that people
| different than them don't deserve to be treated like human
| beings, and will not be.
| n144q wrote:
| Funny I see this kind of misguided comments all the time.
|
| Their immigration policy is never only about illegal
| immigration. Do you actually think it is possible to tighten
| immigration policy without affecting H1B?
|
| If you need evidence, just look at what happened between
| 2017-2021. H1B denial & RFE rates were way up, and the
| administration tried multiple times to roll out policy that
| significantly restrict the eligibility of H1B visas. They
| even used coronavirus as an excuse to issue travel bans on
| H1B. How is that making legal immigration easier?
| ashconnor wrote:
| Read the RAISE Act if you think that the incoming
| administration is going to be easier on legal migrants.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAISE_Act
| rat87 wrote:
| No he ran on an explicitly racist and ANTI Immigrant (yes
| including legal immigrants!) platform.
|
| See https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c77l28myezko
| ajsidncjcnbd wrote:
| Trump has said he'd like to "staple green cards to diplomas".
| Despite what the media portrays, he's not pro American, pro
| white, pro nazi, whatever.
|
| He's owned by a different slice of the parasitic ruling class
| that, while opposed to some of the goals the Biden admin was
| for, still share a common theme of not caring about the average
| American at all. He has probably the most pro Israel cabinet
| we've ever seen and appears to be cozying up with big tech
| (thiel, musk, zuckerberg, etc).
|
| If he was truly pro American H1-B would be thrown out and we'd
| require these companies that are wildly profitable to invest in
| educating American workers. H1-B is used to exploit both
| foreign and domestic labor to the benefit of a tiny population
| of capital holders.
| creer wrote:
| Wouldn't attaching green cards - or at least temporary work
| permits - to US university degrees be a positive change
| compared to employment agencies / contractor firms trying to
| sneak in piles of people without such degrees and screening?
| That would be a good response to the issue of training
| (ideally) highly qualified smart people and then kicking them
| out.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Except he was president for four years and did the opposite
| - remarkable that people want to forget 2017-2021
| creer wrote:
| There is that. And the idea of trying to retain new grads
| would already have worked 30 years ago and yet here we
| are.
| cma wrote:
| Didn't Trump try to prevent even _greencard holders_ from
| returning if they were from overseas from the wrong religious
| area of the world, after promising a Muslim ban? And was then
| only stopped by courts? Or am I misremembering that?
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| Yes, he did, it affected greencard holders for a brief
| period because it was a poorly designed idea thought up by
| malicious and stupid people.
| cma wrote:
| Thought so. From what OP said:
|
| > Despite what the media portrays, he's not pro American,
| pro white, pro nazi, whatever.
|
| Going after a religious/ethnic minority legally holding
| United States greencard status... Even if he tried to
| hide it in regions and not a DNA or religious test, he
| did it immediately after campaigning on a Muslim ban in
| those words. Sounds quite in line with those terms except
| it is actually anti-American if we take a huge part of
| 'pro American' to mean valuing the First Amendment.
| bdangubic wrote:
| > If he was truly pro American H1-B would be thrown out and
| we'd require these companies that are wildly profitable to
| invest in educating American workers. H1-B is used to exploit
| both foreign and domestic labor to the benefit of a tiny
| population of capital holders.
|
| This is exactly right and exactly why Trump won't do anything
| about it... when you surround yourself will billionaires
| you'll want to make this that this tiny population of capital
| holders prospers even further :)
| JackYoustra wrote:
| I mean, that's how you end up with Qian Xuesen and every
| high-tech chinese program succeeding
| root_axis wrote:
| Unlikely. Elon heavily favors more H1-Bs. If they roll it back,
| they'll introduce their own version that is even more favorable
| to those that gain by suppressing tech worker salaries.
| umanwizard wrote:
| What does this change, if anything, for software engineers at
| FAANG and similar companies?
| Cerium wrote:
| This is key: "Flexibility to start working immediately upon
| petition filing"
|
| Currently workers are often abused since the system puts
| intense pressure to keep a job and don't move around.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I expect a lot of H1B applicants creating shell corporations.
| roughly wrote:
| Well, they've passed the "culture" part of the citizenship
| test, then
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| H1B isn't citizenship.
| roughly wrote:
| I'm aware.
| binarymax wrote:
| From what I understand you also need to be able to pay yourself
| a $60,000 salary minimum, from that LLC. If people can do that,
| then power to them and let them stay!
|
| If you're worried about people shortcutting a line to get a
| visa by injecting money into the US economy, again by somehow
| getting 60K into the LLC to pay the salary of the recipient,
| this is also a win.
|
| So what is the problem here exactly?
| jpollock wrote:
| Allowing spouses to work on a H4 visa is a HUGE change.
|
| It was a big problem for our family.
| itissid wrote:
| And obama made that happen in his last days in office in Dec
| 2015/Jan 2016
| jpollock wrote:
| I thought that was specifically for when you were waiting for
| the residency permit, not a random H4.
| vsskanth wrote:
| Spouses on H4 cannot work unless the primary H1B has an
| approved I-140 immigrant petition. It's not automatic.
| fakedang wrote:
| Seems like the current admin trying to stuff all the laws right
| in time for the next admin to dismantle...
|
| Oh no, the 50% rule won't be exploited sir.
| autoexecbat wrote:
| I hope it says that they _remain_ above 50%
| frgtpsswrdlame wrote:
| Regarding this part:
|
| Clarification of specialty role - Less strict on
| the direct link between degree/job responsibilities -
| Recognizes that AI may require multiple academic background
|
| You really won't need to clarify whether the role is a specialty
| one or not if you just increase the minimum wage for H1Bs. I
| really don't know why we don't have some rule that pins H1B wages
| to like the 90th percentile wage.
| bombcar wrote:
| It would be exceptionally easy to solve the "H1B problem" by
| making sure that H1Bs are more expensive than local talent;
| then they really only would be used when local talent doesn't
| exist.
| richwater wrote:
| Yet even more ways for corporations to underpay native, domestic
| workers.
| physhster wrote:
| How so?
| hgs3 wrote:
| It's supply and demand economics: if there is a low supply of
| workers and a high demand for them, then employers are
| supposed to compete for them with more pay, more benefits,
| training/education, etc. When the supply of workers is
| artificially increased, then companies have less incentive to
| compete. It becomes a buyer's market for employers.
| ritcgab wrote:
| > if there is a low supply of workers and a high demand for
| them
|
| Employers outsource all those works to overseas.
| throwawa14223 wrote:
| Then throw them in prison?
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| For what?
| bradlys wrote:
| They've said this for decades and SV engineers still
| pulling down $500k+/yr while someone in Hyderabad isn't
| making anywhere close to that.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| It can't be due to fundamental skill, though! That same
| engineer's earnings statistically triple upon moving to
| the US, which is why we should allow more of them in:
| people are more productive in the US, and we all benefit
| from their productivity (most obviously fiscally, but
| less obviously through products that wouldn't exist in
| the counterfactual).
| JackYoustra wrote:
| General equilibrium exists though, if the supply of workers
| increases you usually see businesses which were previously
| non-viable appear to take advantage of them at similar
| rates.
|
| You can illustrate this by doing the other direction: if we
| killed half of the workforce, would real wages double.
| Unlikely! You'd probably just see broad-based inflation for
| a while until wages equalized again.
|
| For a first-take study on this, see
| https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf
| nosequel wrote:
| > Roles tied to research institutions cap-exempt
|
| And in comes a flood of "Research Software Engineer" roles
| cflewis wrote:
| Yeah, I wonder what that is going to ground out to. With the AI
| race, basically anything tangential is research, at least in
| the definition of "doing something scientific-looking that's
| not been done before". That could include a _lot_ of companies
| from massive to tiny.
| rorytbyrne wrote:
| As a working scientist, this is a hugely underserved category
| in academic/industry science. This would be very welcome.
| crmd wrote:
| It's never been clear to me why this program exists in the first
| place, other than to put downward pressure on US STEM wages. What
| am I missing?
| creer wrote:
| You are missing that it is used a lot in spite of that process
| (1) being a major administrative headache for the users, both
| employees and employers, (2) costly compared to hiring "locals"
| although that's moderated by perhaps lower salary with not a
| huge amount of evidence, and (3) rather unpredictable and risky
| for both employees and employers.
|
| You don't see the need but perhaps the users do.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Hypothetically it exists to allow companies to hire singular
| overseas experts like von Braun or Einstein that don't have
| domestic equivalents. It has become totally accepted to lie on
| the application though and now it is used to hire Java
| developers.
| mportela wrote:
| I believe that's the O-1 visa, not the H-1B.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That's a sign of how accepted it has become to say that you
| can't find any local workers that know Python when filling
| out the H1-B forms. The requirement is there but it's
| normally overlooked.
|
| "The intent of the H-1B provisions is to help employers who
| cannot otherwise obtain needed business skills and
| abilities from the U.S. workforce [...]"
|
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/immigration/h1b
| rbanffy wrote:
| At some point it becomes "couldn't obtain the required
| talent at the prices the business was willing to pay".
| strongpigeon wrote:
| That is incorrect. People with exceptional abilities are
| covered under EB-1 green cards (and O-1 visas). H-1B was
| created to bring people in specialty occupations requiring a
| bachelor's degree or equivalent experience. A Java developer
| definitely meets the bar (with the right degree or
| experience).
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's impossible to truthfully state on an H1-B form that
| the US labor market can't provide an experienced Java
| developer.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| That is correct, but tangential to the original point of
| extraordinary abilities.
|
| But it's also possible to say that one hasn't been able
| to find a skilled-enough Java developer.
| 15155 wrote:
| The Java developers coming over on H-1Bs are often bottom
| of the barrel.
| risyachka wrote:
| True, but at the same time immigrants have nothing to
| lose and everything to gain, thus in many cases they will
| work harder/longer and as result often be more skilled
| than an average developer.
|
| And in general skilled immigration has many times over
| been proven to only benefit the country and that java
| developer you mention.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| This piece of misinformation seems to be trotted out every
| time H-1B is discussed. H-1B is not for "extraordinary
| ability", the O-1 is. The H-1B is just designed for regular
| workers in a "specialty occupation". This is how Congress
| designed it in the Immigration and Nationality Act.
| remarkEon wrote:
| You're not missing anything. Other than that, seemingly, STEM
| roles are the only industry where the laws of supply and demand
| do not apply, and a positive supply shock of something does
| not, for some reason, drive down the price.
| jandrese wrote:
| If a supply shock doesn't drive down the price then it
| suggests that the supply constraint was larger than than the
| shock and that the market was being artificially constrained
| to prevent the prices from rising to meet demand.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| It's also possible that the supply itself is what creates
| more demand. People who move to the US are probably less
| risk-averse than the average person, and more likely to
| start new companies, creating more jobs.
| remarkEon wrote:
| So in other words, yes, for whatever reason tech is this
| special case that doesn't apply anywhere else and supply
| shocks don't matter.
|
| An odd claim, wish there was more evidence for it being
| true. As in, what is the "artificial constraint" for front
| end web developers?
| sunshowers wrote:
| Have you engaged with the Card vs Borjas literature at all?
| We learn about the world by studying it, not by simply
| thinking about it from one's armchair.
| remarkEon wrote:
| No, and after that brief description I definitely won't.
|
| You learn about the world by living in it, not by reading
| about it.
| sunshowers wrote:
| Indeed, you are part of the grand American tradition of
| reveling in ignorance.
| remarkEon wrote:
| It's more the grand American tradition of not listening
| to self-appointed experts.
| Aperocky wrote:
| STEM roles already pay incredibly well in this country, and
| even more so if you compare it globally.
|
| What is the downward price shock you're talking about? What
| do you think the salary would or should be, assuming all H1B
| worker are magically gone the next day?
| renewiltord wrote:
| The program exists to get skilled workers into the US. It has
| done this well. There are few other programs to get them in and
| onto a pathway to permanent residence and citizenship. STEM
| wages don't exist in a vacuum. Increased utility to the US
| economy is more important than them. The US government
| rightfully determined that having people like Elon Musk here
| makes this nation more competitive. Likely the effect was also
| to increase software engineering compensation but that's harder
| to tell.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| It's enabling companies to bring highly skilled individuals to
| work in the USA rather than having them open offices in other
| countries.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| If it's about urgently needed skills, then anybody who has a
| H-1B visa is of course the highest paid worker in his or her
| company. Right?
| margorczynski wrote:
| That's how it is marketed to the masses. From what I hear
| from many US citizens it actually looks quite different in
| reality.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| The reality is US is a tech powerhouse, many successful
| companies have been started by former h1b holders and US
| tech workers are highest paid in the world (even PPP
| adjusted). What you're hearing is not the reality - it's
| just vibes.
| rbanffy wrote:
| For the "highly skilled" there's the O-1 visa.
| 0x457 wrote:
| Not really, O-1 is essentially a visa to bring a specific
| person to the US. While H1B is a wide net (yes, visa given
| to a specific person, not what I'm saying).
|
| o-1 is to bring Albert Einstein and h1b is to bring some
| physicist that matches criteria.
|
| As in, O-1 is person-focused, while H1B is role-focused.
| nirav72 wrote:
| >h1b is to bring some physicist that matches criteria.
|
| those are exceptional cases. The majority of the 65K year
| h1b visas granted every year are for filling IT related
| positions. Mostly dev related positions.
| 0x457 wrote:
| I only used physicist because I couldn't come up with a
| name for O-1 recipient that isn't already a US citizen
| from top of my head.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Global competition exists. If US companies can't hire the best,
| others will. I hope you don't assume that all the best
| workers/researchers are born within US borders.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| I don't think countries should hire the best. Pretty good
| should do. They should foster a greater sense of community
| within their borders. Now, I'm not against immigration. I
| myself am an immigrant. But I think there's too much global
| fluidity and not enough attention paid to taking care of
| one's own.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> not enough attention paid to taking care of one's own._
|
| Because that's not profitable.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The best people are in no small part a product of their
| environment. You can have the best people but with no
| resources they won't be productive.
| grumple wrote:
| Do you think the average H1B or other visa holder in STEM is
| among "the best"? I'm forced to hire non-American engineers
| (contractors) because my company is too cheap to pay for and
| commit to paying American workers full time for a couple of
| years. There are certainly a ton of qualified Americans who
| can work for us (fully remote) for not much more money, and
| their native English skills would make them objectively
| better at the position. I would even hire juniors straight
| out of school, but the corporate bs gets in the way.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| You are mixing up purpose and effect. The purpose is to provide
| more and cheaper STEM workers. The effect is downward pressure
| on wages.
|
| Phrased differently, the goal is to help industry, not hurt
| workers. Hurting some workers is an acceptable cost, not the
| goal.
|
| One idea is that having a thriving industrial ecosystem helps
| those same workers more than the downward pressure.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| As somebody who does not live and work in the US, it seems
| plausible to me that the H1B system helps prevent other
| countries from obtaining similar talent hubs as Sillicon
| Valley. A lot of the talent is in the US, which attracts more
| companies, which attracts more talent, which means it's
| easier to go to the US and work there and start companies
| there than to do it anywhere else.
| rbanffy wrote:
| There's also the easier financing, but yes - I'm sure the
| outcome is dominated by the network effect of having denser
| talent. That's one of the reasons Silicon Valley is so hard
| to replicate elsewhere.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| it's not really the goal, but there are many cases of
| people denied visas going back and having huge success
| tssva wrote:
| If the purpose is cheaper STEM workers than downward pressure
| on wages is a goal and not just an effect.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The goal isnt to hurt workers for its own sake. The goal is
| to help industry.
|
| If harm was the goal, something like a STEM worker tax or
| cutting R&D tax incentives would be easier.
| danans wrote:
| > If harm was the goal, something like a STEM worker tax
| or cutting R&D tax incentives would be easier
|
| These would affect all STEM workers equivalently. The
| H1-B program, whatever one thinks of its merits, hurts
| domestic STEM workers and helps immigrant STEM workers.
|
| Perhaps the result is that the overall opportunities are
| greater because the larger talent pool results in more
| companies being formed. That depends a lot on how mature
| the industry is, and whether technological trends like
| generative AI will replace large swaths or STEM workers
| altogether.
| rbanffy wrote:
| This argument is kind of "I'm going to extract all your
| blood, but it's not to kill you, but to increase my
| profits".
|
| You can't really separate the two sides of the same coin.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think you can exactly separate them. One is the goal,
| and the other is the effect.
|
| Im not extracting all your blood for the fun of it, or to
| kill you. profit is the motivation.
|
| Saying the motivation is to kill you is simply not
| correct. It is a byproduct.
| rbanffy wrote:
| You can't achieve the goal without the unpleasant side
| effect, then you can't really separate them.
|
| Can we honestly say these hires are paid exactly the same
| their American counterparts would be willing to accept?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| If you shovel shit all day to make money to eat, can you
| tell me which part is the motivation?
|
| Im not sure why this is confusing. One part is the
| motivation, the other isnt.
| tssva wrote:
| The goal is to help industry in a specific manner.
| Lowering salary costs therefore suppressing wages is an
| integral part of the goal.
| danans wrote:
| > phrased differently, the goal is to help industry, not hurt
| workers. hurting some workers is an acceptable cost, not the
| goal.
|
| The phrase "help industry" has many dimensions. The simplest
| of course is that by increasing labor supply and suppressing
| wages it increases profit margins, rewarding shareholders.
|
| Another important function is that by having more workers
| overall in the US, it increases the productivity of the
| domestic industry itself, due to increased competition for
| jobs driving up the productivity of the average worker. This
| in turn makes the industry more competitive vs its
| equivalents in other countries.
|
| The average worker (whether permanent resident or
| temporary/H1B) who doesn't have significant investments
| likely doesn't receive much of those productivity gains,
| since they mostly go to capital owners.
|
| Long term, it boosts returns to capital while capping returns
| to labor, the same trend noted by Thomas Piketty some years
| back.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I dont think there long term impacts are so clear or
| cynical. the question is less about productivity, but
| network effect, number of jobs, and quality of jobs.
| danans wrote:
| > I dont think there long term impacts are so clear or
| cynical
|
| The economic impacts I described are looking backwards,
| not forward, and the data is pretty clear that long term
| returns on capital swamp the returns on labor (especially
| since the 1970s). STEM workers have been somewhat
| insulated from that due to the industries they work in
| growing in the past few decades faster than the labor
| supply. It's anyone's guess whether or not either trend
| will continue into the future.
|
| > the question is less about productivity, but network
| effect, number of jobs, and quality of jobs.
|
| I'd argue productivity and returns to capital are almost
| everything when it comes to what informs immigration
| policy from an economic lens. "Network effect" is a
| mechanism, not an outcome, and outcome metrics like
| "quality of job" or even "quality of life afforded by a
| job" are not a concern of such policies. On average, they
| might improve, or they might get worse, but productivity
| and returns on capital will always go up, whether they
| require workers or not.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I understand that you are trying to make a point about
| return on capital, but I dont understand how you are
| connecting it to the question of H1-B visas and if local
| benefits to industrial expertise outweigh the downward
| pressure from labor competition.
| danans wrote:
| > I dont understand how you are connecting it to the
| question of H1-B visas and if local benefits to
| industrial expertise outweigh the downward pressure from
| labor competition.
|
| Because what you are calling "local benefits to
| industrial expertise" is ultimately realized in the form
| of returns on capital.
|
| Whether these benefits outweigh the costs is an open
| question.
|
| When the tech industry's growth was very talent
| constrained as it was in the last few decades, arguably
| opening labor competition had the effect of increasing
| overall growth (mainly through new production invention).
| The list of immigrant technologists who have created new
| technologies and products - and jobs as a result - could
| probably fill an encyclopedia.
|
| It's unknown whether that type of growth - the kind that
| creates more and better jobs - will continue, especially
| given recent developments in AI.
|
| If the benefits going forward are largely going to be
| based on massive increases in labor efficiency, then it's
| not as clear that the benefits (mostly to capital)
| outweigh the costs (mostly to labor). Most business
| models in AI are predicated on replacing people, who are
| expensive, not making more or better goods. Sure, we'll
| get some neat robots along the way that actually make
| stuff, but that will likely be a small fraction of the
| money to be made.
|
| Or perhaps we are at the dawn of a new era of technology
| which will make more and better jobs. We'll see.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| OK, so you were changing the topic to something else you
| wanted to talk about. That was not clear to me. I thought
| you were making a rebuttal to what I was saying.
| danans wrote:
| Correct, if you look at my comment I was unpacking what
| the phrase "to help industry" could mean, not rebutting
| your comment.
|
| It's relevant to the original context because what helps
| industry (in terms of immigration regulation) might or
| might not help workers in that industry.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The interesting thing about the return to labor vs
| capital line of argument is that generally speaking,
| capital doesnt consume the types of product that labor is
| interested in.
|
| When productivity goes up, that doesnt mean workers are
| making 10X as many houses or hamburgers, which capitalist
| are eating.
|
| For me, this begs the questions of what exactly is being
| produced when we say worker productivity has increased,
| and where is it going? If it is "stuff" being produced,
| surely it should be evident somewhere, like massive
| exports hoarded stockpiles. Alternatively, the
| productivity is an illusion because there is a
| corresponding inefficiency or deadweight loss, like
| paying some service workers to create problems and paying
| others to fix them.
| danans wrote:
| > For me, this begs the questions of what exactly is
| being produced when we say worker productivity has
| increased, and where is it going?
|
| Power.
|
| Political power: policies written to benefit the highest
| bidder.
|
| Financial power: more leverage in being able to dictate
| terms of borrowing by workers - and being able to force
| the government to borrow from capitalists instead of
| levying taxes on them.
|
| Physical power: Being able to buy/influence law
| enforcement (themselves a type of worker) to protect the
| capitalist's interests over those of other workers.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I dont follow. IF we say worker power or GDP has
| increased 200% over the review period, what is the
| additional _product_.
|
| My understanding is that GDP or Piketty's review has no
| column for "Power".
|
| If someone is counting influence as GDP and worker
| productivity, I would say that is a faulty measure, and
| worker productivity _has not increased_.
| danans wrote:
| Increasing worker productivity manifests as greater
| returns that predominately go to capital owners, not
| workers. That concentrated wealth in the hands of capital
| owners is wielded as power in the political, economic,
| and physical realms.
|
| The "product" that the increased productivity buys is
| control over policy at whatever level of government, not
| more washing machines or tires.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Returns of _what_? I feel like this argument is leaving
| out words and skipping logical steps. Hamburgers are a
| product, cars are a product, cleaning services are a
| product. Wealth is not a product.
|
| If you have a company and worker productivity goes up
| 200%, where does the product go? Wealth created selling
| that product may go to the owner, and carry power with
| it, but that doesn't answer the fundamental question.
| Where is the product?
| crmd wrote:
| In my experience close to 100% of productivity increases
| accrue exclusively to shareholders.
|
| When my companies have produced more output from the same
| inputs (or the same output from less inputs in the case
| of mass layoffs), we return the cash to shareholders by
| way of a stock buyback or special dividend the following
| quarter.
|
| Maybe in some companies they instead give workers raises
| or outsize holiday bonuses, but I've never seen this.
| i18nsoftware wrote:
| > long term returns on capital swamp the returns on labor
|
| That effect mostly comes from housing, non-housing
| capital has not had that big difference in returns. See
| https://www.brookings.edu/articles/deciphering-the-fall-
| and-...
| danans wrote:
| > Existing studies that show an increase in capital's
| share of income miss the growing role of depreciation in
| short-lived capital, in items such as software, says
| MIT's Matthew Rognlie in "Deciphering the Fall and Rise
| in the Net Capital Share."
|
| Subtracting depreciation isn't a fair comparison. The
| example uses software as a short-lived asset. Has the
| monetary value of Google's search algorithms depreciated?
| They've been upgraded with routine investment, but the
| scale of the returns on their upkeep vastly outweighs the
| capital investment, otherwise Google wouldn't be so
| profitable.
|
| Software of the internally-developed sort isn't even
| depreciable [1], so it's not clear how its value for
| these purposes would be determined (short of assuming it
| represents a percentage of the business's value).
|
| Also, from the paper linked in your article:
|
| > Once all compensation of employees at the sawmill is
| subtracted, the remainder is its gross capital income.
| Some of this capital income will be _paid to lenders in
| the form of interest_ , some will be paid to the
| government in taxes on profits, and the rest may be
| _retained on the balance sheet of the sawmill_ or
| _distributed as dividends to shareholders_. Gross capital
| income is thus a very broad concept, encompassing funds
| that are ultimately paid out to many different recipients
| --it is unaffected, for instance, by the split in
| financing between debt and equity.3 GROSS VERSUS NET:
| CONCEPTS An alternative to gross value-added is net
| value-added, which subtracts depreciation. This can be
| divided into labor and net capital income, the latter
| being gross capital income minus depreciation.
|
| Everything which I have emphasized above are examples of
| returns to capital. Excluding them from consideration in
| this presentation is ignoring how a large amount of
| returns are channeled to owners of capital.
|
| Debt-holders gain from interest and shareholders are
| enriched via dividends and share buybacks that never
| appear on the article's net income derived graph.
|
| Of course, when you willfully ignore those huge tranches
| of returns, then housing looks like a major factor,
| because it is the common asset class that has been on a
| largely unchecked inflationary track.
|
| Finally, your article from 2015 argues that the overall
| trend will reverse and labor's share of GDP will start
| increasing. Here's what has actually happened since then:
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS85006173
|
| The brief spike in 2020 was due to pandemic era
| redistribution policies like the child tax credit, among
| others. Since those have been repealed, labor's share has
| continued its prior trend downwards.
|
| 1. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p946#en_US_2023_publi
| nk1000...
| cibyr wrote:
| The purpose of a system is what it does.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| The US owes much of its success to its ability to poach talent
| from other countries. By letting all the people who would start
| competing firms move to the US instead international
| competition is reduced and the products built in the US are
| better.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Software is one of the few STEM fields where one can get a
| fantastic job with just a Bachelor's. In most other engineering
| fields, a MS gives you a significant boost, and a PhD may do so
| as well.
|
| The reality is that in most of those fields, few Americans get
| an MS/PhD. Go to a typical engineering department and you'll
| often see the majority of advanced degree students are
| foreigners.
|
| So it's a question of: Do we want to continue to train
| foreigners, only to not have them contribute to the US economy?
|
| If you move out to the pure sciences, you pretty much need a
| PhD to get a good career. Once again, a big chunk, if not the
| majority, are foreigners.
|
| Look around at the highly skilled folks you see who are not of
| US origin, and you'll find most of them are in the US due to
| the H1-B program (only a tiny percentage come via other
| programs like the O visa).
|
| Yes, H1-B is often abused, but this is the reason it exists.
| It's a lot harder to get an H1B visa and then permanent
| residency if your degree is in the humanities, for example.
| memtet wrote:
| Ooh yes, let's address next how US top universities are all
| profit machines incentivized to take as many foreigners as
| possible, driving up the tuition they can charge so US
| citizens can't afford to get degrees. Let's do talk about how
| if you get a part time job to be able to pay for college then
| they yank your financial aid.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Why taking in foreign students raises the cost of tuition?
| Aren't they paying full price for it?
| BeetleB wrote:
| While foreigners definitely are a cash cow, I think you'll
| find in STEM fields most foreign PhD students are _not_
| paying tuition, but are instead funded by US grants.
|
| As for the cost of tuition, there are many, many reasons,
| and I suspect if you did a PCA, you'll find "raising
| tuition to milk foreigners" to be of minimal impact.
|
| In my state, for example, a local university publicized
| their finances going back decades, and the increase in
| tuition has been mirrored by a drop in state support per
| student. Overall the university is not making more money
| per student than they were 30 years ago - the only thing
| that changed is the entity making the payments.
| pellucide wrote:
| I am genuinely curious. Do you have a link to the
| publicized finances
| bradlys wrote:
| Isn't it well known that the main reason that most foreigners
| have advanced degrees is because that's how they get into the
| country legally in the first place?
|
| I don't see many people getting employed straight out of
| undergrad from India or China and moving to the US directly.
| They get their advanced degree here first to get into the
| country then they get employed...
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Isn't it well known that the main reason that most
| foreigners have advanced degrees is because that's how they
| get into the country legally in the first place?
|
| Yes, and ...?
|
| I mean, if it were a requirement to start a business and
| employ 10 Americans gainfully, would you go and say "Yeah,
| but the reason so many foreign born people do that is so
| they can get in legally."
|
| So?
|
| As long as they have higher level training than most
| Americans, and as long as we spend money training them (via
| research/teaching grants), isn't it a good idea to keep
| them?
| bradlys wrote:
| You're assuming people are really learning anything in
| those programs that they wouldn't have had in their
| undergrad. I've never met an American with an undergrad
| who is underperforming compared to their foreign MS
| counterparts. The MS is merely a cheaper tool to get into
| the country than other investment visas plus you get
| credentialed. I think it's also a bit of a validation
| tool that the person actually has studied at the same
| level as US counterparts. I have met some people from
| India who were surprised at how difficult college was
| when they came to the US compared to back in India.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| I was surprised at how easy college was in India when I
| saw the coursework.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I've never met an American with an undergrad who is
| underperforming compared to their foreign MS
| counterparts.
|
| Outside of SW, not many engineering jobs have a mix of
| undergrads and MS folks doing the same work, so your
| sample is extremely biased.
|
| > I have met some people from India who were surprised at
| how difficult college was when they came to the US
| compared to back in India.
|
| And I've met the opposite. Ask folks who went to the top
| IITs.
| stackskipton wrote:
| I think vast majority of Americans not going on to higher
| education is because system is so screwed up due to debt and
| unlimited student visas.
|
| Debt means most Americans go "I need to enter into the job
| market so I can pay off these debts".
|
| Also, alot of foreign students are willing to work/study
| insane hours because visa hanging over their head. I have a
| friend who got MS in Engineering but didn't want to continue
| because he looked at what's required and started talking with
| his mentor about his PhD. His mentor said it's 996 schedule
| and if you don't want to, I can likely find a student visa
| student who will.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I think vast majority of Americans not going on to higher
| education is because system is so screwed up due to debt
| and unlimited student visas.
|
| For undergrad, I understand the frustration, although
| student visas have almost nothing to do with it. As an
| example, when I was in my undergrad (for engineering),
| there was only one foreign student in my engineering
| classes. Almost all the foreign students were at the MS/PhD
| level. The number of foreign students in the undergrad
| population was easily under 5%, if not under 1%.
|
| Probably true in most no-name state schools.
|
| > Debt means most Americans go "I need to enter into the
| job market so I can pay off these debts".
|
| An MS is only 2 years, and you should go only if it's fully
| paid for (quite often the case in engineering). And you
| typically don't accrue interest on undergrad debts for
| those 2 years - so it's only delaying paying off debts by 2
| years.
|
| No - most Americans don't do MS in engineering, simply
| because they don't want to and don't value it.
|
| > Also, alot of foreign students are willing to work/study
| insane hours because visa hanging over their head. I have a
| friend who got MS in Engineering but didn't want to
| continue because he looked at what's required and started
| talking with his mentor about his PhD. His mentor said it's
| 996 schedule and if you don't want to, I can likely find a
| student visa student who will.
|
| Entirely dependent on the advisor, although I do suspect
| your anecdote is becoming more common. Also, likely more
| common at top tier universities and less so in no name
| state universities.
| elashri wrote:
| > I think vast majority of Americans not going on to higher
| education is because system is so screwed up due to debt
| and unlimited student visas.
|
| International students percentage is about 6% of total high
| education population [1]. We can say that their percentage
| in higher in some fields/degrees. But overall they are not
| significant reason High Education is not affordable.
| Actually for undergraduate (majority of international
| students) they will pay more tuition and many colleges
| wants to admit more to subsidize domestic students.
|
| > Debt means most Americans go "I need to enter into the
| job market so I can pay off these debts".
|
| Study abroad is expensive and you still need to enter the
| job market to earn your living and probably pay your dept
| (some will take loans to study in the US). This applies
| quite well to international students too.
|
| [1] https://opendoorsdata.org/annual-release/international-
| stude...
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| > International students percentage is about 6% of total
| high education population
|
| It's much much higher in Postgraduate because it's a way
| to stay in the country without being employed
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| foreign students actually subsidize higher education for
| most universities
| charlie0 wrote:
| The reason why foreigners get those degrees is because it's a
| way for them to stay in the USA longer. I have a friend who
| didn't win a renewal for their H1B and they signed up for a
| master's program and applied for a different VISA. So yeah,
| some foreigners get them because their hands are forced.
| breadwinner wrote:
| US tech exports in 2018 was $338 billion. Tech is our biggest
| export by far. Think of the US tech industry as a siphon that
| sucks in wealth from foreign countries. Would you want to make
| that siphon bigger or smaller?
|
| If you want to make that siphon bigger -- and more competitive
| -- how would you do it? By limiting the people that can work in
| tech to whoever companies can hire locally, or by bringing in
| the smartest people from around the world?
|
| Read more: https://mckoder.medium.com/does-america-need-
| immigration-781...
| PessimalDecimal wrote:
| Does "The US" siphon that money off? Or Meta, Google, Amazon,
| Microsoft, etc. siphon that money off? And where and to whom
| does it go from there?
|
| The major benefit of reducing or eliminating the H1B visa
| program is that those companies can continue to do well, and
| Americans can do well along with them.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Restricting or eliminating the H1B visas will cause these
| companies to hire more in oversea offices. Consulting
| companies however are a whole other deal.
| tartoran wrote:
| Why aren't they doing that now though?
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Because the talent is already here or will be here (on
| h1b/o1). It's common complaint I hear from people doing
| offshore consultancies type of businesses that their best
| workers leave for US $$$ paycheck.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| They are to an extent.
| breadwinner wrote:
| The money this siphon brings in is benefiting not just tech
| workers and tech shareholders. When the money is spent it
| turns the wheels of our economy, which leads to prosperity
| for all Americans, not just the 8% or so that work in tech.
|
| The tech industry vacuums up money from foreign countries
| and pumps it into the economy of our country. The
| beneficiaries include all Americans, including those who
| work in restaurants, retail, healthcare, insurance,
| education, housing, transportation, entertainment and so
| on.
|
| Limiting tech industry to whoever companies can hire
| locally will hurt its global competitiveness. Such a move
| will not just hurt the few would-be tech immigrants that
| are prevented from immigrating, but American prosperity in
| general.
| tartoran wrote:
| When is that prosperity coming to the US? It seems that
| it's been leaving the US for the past decades and life is
| harder and harder and the American Dream is hardest to
| attain in decades.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| What you are referring to is the velocity of money.
| Compared to wage income the velocity of money from
| capital is quite low.
| jimberlage wrote:
| Thanks for adding this - I feel like people who can't
| understand why populism is at it's peak misunderstand this.
|
| Walmart is a U.S. company that historically did well, but I
| don't see why anyone would care unless you buy their stock
| or live in Bentonville.
|
| People don't care about macro indicators that lump the 1%
| and the 99% together.
| whereismyacc wrote:
| you can grow the sector. there's not a fixed supply of jobs.
| getting more talented people into your economy will likely just
| lead to more companies, more agglomeration effects etc. it's
| good.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I think you should ask why any feature of our immigration
| system exists. Each way is cruel, byzantine and expensive for
| no discernible benefit to anyone except the directors of those
| programs.
| rbanffy wrote:
| It's also designed to attract talent from other countries. You
| didn't have to invest in their education, so that part comes
| for free.
| sunshowers wrote:
| Education. Learning. Expertise.
|
| As Asimov pointed out, "[t]here is a cult of ignorance in the
| United States, and there has always been." American culture is
| profoundly anti-intellectual. Every Dunning-Kruger rando thinks
| they have something valuable to contribute to every discussion.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> American culture is profoundly anti-intellectual._
|
| Then why are US tech companies the most successful?
| sunshowers wrote:
| Mostly because of the foreigners, and the small portion of
| Americans that are pro-intellectual.
| eweise wrote:
| That's exactly the reason. I don't remember working with any
| H-1B visa people in the 90s then the dotcom boom happened and
| demand soared. A couple years later I started working with H-1B
| engineers and my salary flatlined for over decade since.
| outworlder wrote:
| The program exists to brain drain other countries of talent.
| It's very successful at that.
| bdangubic wrote:
| 65k or 80k or say even 250k GLOBALLY per year is going to
| "brain drain" 8+ billion Global population? Yup, you got it,
| that's what US is doing...
| 0x457 wrote:
| What make you think that majority of that 8 billion
| population is worth to drain?
| bdangubic wrote:
| nothing at all :)
| 0x457 wrote:
| I'm not saying it's good or bad at brain drain, I'm just
| saying without knowing how many people overseas are worth
| "draining" that's not an argument.
|
| The program might have been designed for this, sold as
| this, but it's definitely not used for that anymore.
|
| H1B was created in 1990, that's when Russia (and ex-USSR
| in general) had a lot of idle brains that wouldn't mind
| moving to the US. Today isn't 1990 tho.
| bdangubic wrote:
| my apologies, I was just being sarcastic in my initial
| comment... the brain draining other countries by taking
| in 65k or whatever yearly is ... funny for the lack of
| worse but respectable word :)
| nirav72 wrote:
| Bringing over 10K java developers a year is going to brain
| drain other countries of java developers?
| hector_vasquez wrote:
| Put simply: It is in the national interest to have the world's
| most talented technologists here. It is yet more in the
| national interest that they work here, for us, and not for our
| enemies. One of the best ways we can compete with China is to
| attract their best and brightest with our free society and high
| wages.
| dboreham wrote:
| Imagine developing the atomic bomb with just US born
| scientists.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| Tech exists in a globally competitive market: the companies
| will exist where the skilled workers are, and the tax benefits
| will occur there. The US's large immigration rate is a
| precondition for maintaining its tech dominance and all of the
| benefits thereof.
| h1bgamer wrote:
| This H1B program is gamed so hard its a joke at this point.
|
| I personally witnessed someone that submit multiple applications
| that this person won the H1B lottery. This person even had fake
| office, fake business address, etc for the fake entities.
|
| I already reported it, but no action has been taken. This person
| is now happily employed in the US using H1B.
|
| Unethical life pro tips but work: for those of you trying to get
| H1B, just submit multiple applications to multiple "companies".
| There are services like this out there, just need to find out
| where.
|
| Good luck. This nation is for plunder.
| mksreddy wrote:
| Didn't the rule change last year where all applications by same
| person is considered as one?
| h1bgamer wrote:
| Yup but they actually can't check.
| ashconnor wrote:
| Erm they can. They are looking at passport numbers now.
| n144q wrote:
| Dude that's just not true. You need to submit almost every
| single detail about yourself before the lottery, including
| information on your passport. In fact this has dramatically
| decreased the duplicate entries to H1B lottery.
| h1bgamer wrote:
| You are free to believe what you want. I myself witnessed
| it. Fake address, fake office. Apply to "4" "companies".
|
| You have no idea what good lawyer can do :)
|
| It works.
| ashconnor wrote:
| Anti-immigration rhetoric always descends into fiction.
| JonoBB wrote:
| According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42451726,
| this is much less of a thing than before.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| is being employed for a salary considered plunder now?
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| [flagged]
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I'd rather have H1-B visas be a 5 year unrestricted work permit.
|
| America needs to keep attracting the world's best and brightest,
| but linking it to a specific employer is problematic. Opens up
| employees to mistreatment.
|
| I'd say charge a straight up fee, 500k upon approval. That gets
| you 5 years, if your wiz making 400k a year it's a great deal.
| daveguy wrote:
| If you're trying to get the best and brightest why would you
| charge 500 thousand dollars?! I don't care what kind of wiz you
| are, that's prohibitive.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| You need to already have means otherwise your out competing
| the lower end of the tech sector.
| mksreddy wrote:
| I thought it is a terrible idea from first sentence. Last
| paragraph completely changed my mind.
| jandrese wrote:
| I hate that it is time restricted at all. Just make it a green
| card program with a path to citizenship outright. Brain drain
| the rest of the world. Instead we are providing work experience
| to our future competitors.
| aylmao wrote:
| I worked many years under H1B, but moved out of the USA.
| Unsure if I'll come back, technically I still have time on my
| H1b, but man, it's just so stressful to lay roots knowing
| they're conditional on all sorts of ticking clocks and hoops
| to jump.
|
| I like working at early stage startups-- works pretty well
| with H1B but it makes the process of getting a green card via
| work complicated. Some people can deal with all that stress,
| I just rather not.
| remram wrote:
| If you need to already set up the business that can generate
| 500k in your home country before coming here, you do the
| opposite of bringing value and innovation to the US. You have
| already given most of that to the home country.
| aylmao wrote:
| I suspect most people that have a business that can generate
| $500k in their home country probably wouldn't want to move to
| the USA at all.
|
| Unless their business generates way more than $500k, in which
| case they'd probably be moving as businessmen, not as skilled
| workers.
| remram wrote:
| Yes exactly. They would also be advanced in their career
| and by then probably have roots in their home country that
| they wouldn't leave.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Are we actually doing that though? I managed H1-B employees at
| Verizon and honestly it felt like a scam. They weren't the best
| and brightest despite being awesome people in general, and they
| were also getting exploited by the company in terms of
| compensation. The only one benefitting seemed to be Verizon.
| whereismyacc wrote:
| would they have preferred not being able to live/work in the
| US at all?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I would have preferred for a multi-billion dollar company
| to use the H1-B program as intended and to pay an American
| wage to someone living and working in America.
| whereismyacc wrote:
| I'm just responding to the portion where you said the
| only one that benefits is amazon. Surely at the very
| least, the immigrants themselves benefit if the
| alternative was no ability to work in the US?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| What don't you understand about being exploited and
| underpaid?
| codegeek wrote:
| "charge a straight up fee, 500k upon approval."
|
| There is already a work visa for that called EB5 even though
| the requirement is $1M (800K for rural areas) and you will need
| to hire 10 American workers. Plenty of rich people from other
| countries are using that already.
| bubblethink wrote:
| 800k in investment gets you a green card. And you may even make
| a return on that investment. Why would anyone _pay_ 500k for
| participating in a pageant ?
| hparadiz wrote:
| The biggest loop hole for not being allowed to hire non citizens
| or permanent residents is not the H-1B. It's actually B2B
| contracts that have absolutely no restrictions what so ever.
|
| At least the H-1B lets us keep some tax revenue.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The new administration will likely reform USCIS around
| eligibility criteria rather than speed of processing and these
| reforms will be undone as quickly as Mayorkas is gone.
| DataDaemon wrote:
| I wonder how many people will move from socialism & bureaucracy
| Europe to the US.
| varjag wrote:
| Approximately none on top of the usual migration patterns.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Vast majority of H1bs are from India, and China. Only a few
| hundred per year from EU countries.
| kqgnkqgn wrote:
| Seem like sensible changes, though more is still needed.
| Requiring H1B holders to leave the country to renew paperwork is
| an insane anachronism. The per-country caps also seem like a
| throwback to the early 1900's era immigration exclusion policies.
|
| Re: the concerns over "immigrants taking our jobs!". As a native-
| born American working in a large tech company today - the threat
| is very clearly not from H1B's and other visas. The threat to
| American tech jobs is when US tech companies choose to build out
| offices in lower cost of living countries (and I'm very much
| including Europe in that, I think that's even a bigger problem).
|
| It's much much better for America if tech companies hire workers
| in the US, regardless of whether they are citizens. Americans are
| eligible for those jobs, and that money stays within our economy.
| Versus employing workers elsewhere, where American's can't easily
| be hired, and those resources leave the US.
|
| If we want to keep opportunities here - that's the issue we
| should be focus on fixing. What regulatory steps could we
| advocate for that would address this risk? Immigration is the
| wrong problem, and the focus on that in certain populist circles
| really demonstrates they are rather out of touch from what's
| actually happening in the industries that are driving the US
| economy today.
| Threadbare wrote:
| Following the sun is a win, faster project delivery and lowered
| cost of development
| kelnos wrote:
| Follow the sun is great for on-call rotations, but I'm my
| experience, for regular project work, the need for a handoff
| each day ends up being too much overhead. The teams in vastly
| different time zones wind up working mostly independently on
| completely different projects.
| rbanffy wrote:
| It brings its own set of communication and cross-cultural
| challenges.
| pdntspa wrote:
| That's for stuff that requires 24/7 support, not some
| harebrained project management technique that will make all
| your teams hate you
| akira2501 wrote:
| > to leave the country to renew paperwork is an insane
| anachronism.
|
| I always took it as a means of proving they still could return
| somewhere if necessary. Which is a reasonable thing to assure
| on a visa.
| kelnos wrote:
| That's pointless. They need to prove they have somewhere to
| return to while regretting their visa that lets them... not
| return there? Dumb.
|
| Ultimately it just wasted time and money, and causes lots of
| stress, for no useful purpose.
| akira2501 wrote:
| It's a visa. The whole point is that it's not permanent and
| you are ultimately expected to return home permanently. You
| may also be asked to leave at any time. It's reasonable for
| the host nation to want to ensure that outcome is still
| available and that someone hasn't actually fully emigrated
| here with no options for return.
|
| Ultimately it's known to anyone who applies for a visa that
| this will be the requirement, and so, if they don't want
| the economic opportunity of working in the US, they're free
| to avoid the stress and just stay in their home nation.
| cyberax wrote:
| > The whole point is that it's not permanent and you are
| ultimately expected to return home permanently.
|
| No. H1b is a "dual intent" visa. It's expected that you
| will file for a permanent residence while on this visa.
| bdangubic wrote:
| > It's a visa. The whole point is that it's not permanent
| and you are ultimately expected to return home
| permanently
|
| probably do not have to tell you this but not all visas
| are created equal... this one is particular is a dual-
| intent visa so what you are saying applies to SOME visas,
| just not this one :)
| bubblethink wrote:
| No, this was post 9/11. It has nothing to do with immigration
| policy. The collective jerking after 9/11 led to many bad
| policies, including this one. Biden half assedly tried to go
| back to the pre 9/11 state of "stateside renewal" but it went
| nowhere.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > It's much much better for America if tech companies hire
| workers in the US
|
| I used the same argument in Brazil to support a strong free
| software preference in all government functions. Support from
| voters in Redmond wouldn't get anyone re-elected in Brazil.
| fmeyer wrote:
| Then we got RedHat using the same strategy to sell support
| for the government :D
| rbanffy wrote:
| They had a huge office in Sao Paulo back then. For all I
| know, it's bigger now. A good friend of mine spent so much
| time in airplanes between Sao Paulo and Brasilia that his
| skin was dry as a turtle's.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >It's much much better for America if tech companies hire
| workers in the US, regardless of whether they are citizens.
| Americans are eligible for those jobs, and that money stays
| within our economy. Versus employing workers elsewhere, where
| American's can't easily be hired, and those resources leave the
| US.
|
| I want to pick on this point, because it's the general refrain
| about this topic. If there is some thing that American workers
| can't do in an in-demand field, and the government sets up a
| system to allow non-citizens to do those jobs, most people will
| say that this "helps" America. But does it? If the education
| pipeline is inadequately preparing Americans for being
| competitive in this in-demand field then perhaps _that_ is the
| problem that should be addressed. Right now it feels like we
| have a (highly suspect) "labor shortage" that is addressed via
| immigration, which doesn't send a signal back to the
| educational/training infrastructure that they're doing
| something wrong.
| chabons wrote:
| I don't have statistics, but given the student visa -> H-1B
| pipeline changes, it would seem there are a number of H-1B
| holders who are educated in US colleges (either at the
| undergrad or graduate level). This indicates that the problem
| is not entirely a training gap.
| hash872 wrote:
| The US is only 4% of the world's population, so there's an
| enormous number of extremely smart people who live outside
| its present borders. I don't think anyone believes that even
| the world's greatest educational system can bring all of its
| students up to an extremely high level of general
| intelligence. We should be letting very smart people born
| outside the US emigrate here, which is a win-win for everyone
| involved
| remarkEon wrote:
| Sure. But the government of the United States is,
| allegedly, there for the benefit of its citizens. I'm not
| really following where this "should" comes from. "Should"
| in what volume? "Should" over what time frame?
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| If you don't think that having Linus Torvalds as a US
| citizen tremendously benefits the US public as a whole,
| enough to offset any imagined downsides of a great many
| merely average immigrating tech workers, there's nothing
| more to be said. And that's just him alone but he is
| merely one example of many other famous examples.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Linus works from home, he could do that from anywhere.
| defrost wrote:
| Indeed.
|
| The benefit to the US if he is a citizen is that then his
| taxes flow to the US and if he's resident his local
| spending flows to the US economy and that of any geo
| immediate coworkers there for the face time.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| There is only one linus, and his personal economic impact
| is trivial compared to that of the linux project.
| tester756 wrote:
| What would it give US if they had Linus as an citizen?
| Terr_ wrote:
| If you're gonna name famous people, there's already an
| O-1 visa program for that.
|
| https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-
| states/temporary...
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| A national government functions as a labor union on a
| national scale.
| hash872 wrote:
| Letting in a lot of smart people benefits the citizens of
| the United States, that's why I said it's a win-win. Do
| you think we'd be better off if we excluded Musk to hire
| a native-born American instead in our aerospace industry?
|
| Just going back in time, do you think the US would be
| better off if we'd excluded Irish immigrants? Italians?
| Germans? If blocking immigration somehow benefits native-
| born citizens, you'd logically have to think our
| population should have stayed the same as it was when we
| broke away from Britain. We'd be about the size of say
| Colombia, maybe with a bit higher GPD
| vkou wrote:
| > Do you think we'd be better off if we excluded Musk to
| hire a native-born American instead in our aerospace
| industry?
|
| Given where he ended up, probably.
|
| Cheap rockets are nice, but speed-running a complete
| destruction of public trust, culture, and of any illusion
| that the country is one with rule of law for the benefit
| of a few insecure billionaire narcissists is a juice that
| wasn't worth the squeeze.
| mlindner wrote:
| Elon Musk is in fact incredibly popular, even if he is
| highly polarizing. His poll numbers are similar to Trumps
| and Trump won the national election.
| vkou wrote:
| Telling me that Musk is incredibly popular in Texas or
| Alabama is like me telling you that Putin is incredibly
| popular in Moscow. 'Strongmen' authoritarians peddling
| revanchist fantasies that'll make their country great
| again are often popular.
|
| Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's a net
| good.
|
| The man himself is an insecure narcissist who can't let
| any slight, real or imagined go unanswered. It would be
| sad and funny if he didn't own a speech platform, or
| hitch himself to an absolutely insane political movement.
| remarkEon wrote:
| The current immigration regime is still relatively _new_
| , it is not as if it has existed for the entirety of the
| existence of the United States. It's an artifact of the
| late 20th century, and only just now accelerated in the
| early 21st. That's barely a single generation. So, no, I
| don't take it as a given that essentially limitless
| immigration - even if loosely constrained on "high skill"
| - is somehow axiomatically good for the United States.
| hash872 wrote:
| I'm a little confused. It's possible to be very pedantic
| and say that the current immigration law only dates back
| to the 60s, but the population of the United States is
| 97.9% not from this continent. There was a wave of
| British, Spanish, and French immigration in the 17th &
| 18th centuries, followed by Germans, Italians, and Irish
| in the 19th & 20th. In the 19th century the legal regime
| about immigration was literally 'open borders', there
| were hardly any legal controls at all. The vast vast
| majority of us are the descendants of immigrants (my
| apologies if you personally are 100% Native American,
| didn't mean to lump you in)
| remarkEon wrote:
| I think you're the one being overly pedantic if you only
| qualify 100% Native American as "American". This country
| isn't just some economic zone that people come to and
| from for the purposes of commercial or business activity.
| If that's all it was, then a much more lax or liberal
| immigration regime would make perfect sense.
|
| >but the population of the United States is 97.9% not
| from this continent.
|
| This would be a surprise to the 85% of us who were
| actually born here. In its most simplified form, what
| those of us who are skeptical of the current immigration
| regime are wondering out loud is if these processes _do_
| actually make "people born in America" better off.
| "Immigration is always good" has been the mantra since,
| as you speculate, the 1960s. Probably worth evaluating
| that idea from first principles from time to time.
| hash872 wrote:
| But we're all descended from immigrants. Do you think it
| was wrong when the British & Italian & Irish & German all
| moved here en masse? Assuming no, what would be different
| about the latest wave of immigrants?
| remarkEon wrote:
| I honestly view this point - that there were prior waves
| of immigration from various European nations, and before
| that concurrent waves of forced migration from Africa and
| elsewhere (though this is left unsaid) - as a bit of a
| non-sequitur, bordering on bait, largely because it
| happened over a very long timescale into an essentially
| empty nation. Suppose I answered in the negative (that I
| don't think there was anything wrong with it). That
| wouldn't change anything at all about the current debate.
| It isn't some kind of gotcha, that if I don't have a
| problem with British/Italian/Irish/German/French/whoever
| coming during various migration waves it somehow neuters
| any particular point about how _any_ immigration regime
| should, in my view, be structured such that there are
| clear and defined benefits to the people _already living
| in the country_. Enumerated elsewhere in the thread, but
| the H-1B system in particular is for the benefit of
| _industry_ (POSIWID etc etc). Not people already here.
|
| It is worth noting, though, that after the peak of
| immigration in the late 19th century and ending in the
| 1910s, the United States very intentionally shut off
| immigration to allow time for assimilation to do its
| work.
| hash872 wrote:
| I think the main point that I want to make is that
| attracting all of the world's smartest people to our
| country, and staying the world's superpower in technology
| & science, does have extremely 'clear and defined
| benefits to the people already living in the country'
| remarkEon wrote:
| The United States achieved its super power status during
| the most restrictive phase of its immigration history,
| but now we're getting somewhere. Things like Operation
| Paperclip are clearly good ideas, and should be
| replicated for e.g. Russian or Chinese scientists, as but
| one example.
| hash872 wrote:
| Yes, one of my ideas that I've had for a couple of years
| is that the US should impose the following sanction on
| Russia for invading Ukraine- all Russian scientists &
| engineers in a narrow range of critical industries
| (nuclear weapons, armaments, missiles, etc.) and their
| immediate families are now entitled to a Green Card. It'd
| only be a few thousand people, so not enough for
| immigration restrictionists to get upset about- but it'd
| be absolutely devastating for Russia's technological
| edge. In some ways it'd be worse than any financial
| sanction, because your economy can always bounce back
| later, but once you've lost cutting edge scientists the
| knowledge loss is probably permanent. I think we should
| do the same thing for Iranian nuclear scientists too
| (albeit I understand there might be a bit more political
| pushback on them)
| remarkEon wrote:
| Yeah I think there's probably two types of an Operation
| Paperclip 2.0: the first for adversarial countries
| (Russia, Iran, perhaps China if you squint hard enough
| though that one isn't as easy), and the second for
| something like "geopolitical benefactors" if that phrase
| makes sense. Basically, using immigration as a tool to
| leach top scientists and human capital from places like
| Russia, and as an out for folks in places under direct
| threat (Ukraine). Immigration policy as a geopolitical
| tool is probably a much more fraught policy discussion
| but at least it would be an honest one.
| xpl wrote:
| What is currently happening is the exact opposite.
|
| There is a so-called "Technology Alert List" -- a list of
| critical areas (nuclear, missiles, AI, etc.). If a person
| has a background in one of these areas, they get an
| automatic U.S. visa refusal during the interview.
|
| Their visa application gets placed on indefinite hold
| (the so-called "administrative processing"), which can
| last for years even if it is eventually resolved.
|
| Why? The U.S. government fears espionage. They worry that
| someone with expertise in a critical field might
| immigrate to the U.S., secure a job at a company with
| access to sensitive, export-controlled technology, and
| then leak that technology to Russia.
|
| Even without espionage, such individuals could gain
| valuable experience in critical areas and later emigrate
| back to Russia -- a reverse "brain drain."
| hash07e wrote:
| By your logic humans are migrant therefore no borders for
| all....
| buescher wrote:
| Not immigration - settlement. And not even exactly that
| in the cases of the French and Spanish. Would you count
| Hawaiians as 20th century immigrants?
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| if anything the previous regime was even more
| unconstrained. add to that generous blanket amnesty etc
| and today seems more gated than ever
| christina97 wrote:
| I mean the US thinks of its place in the world as much
| more than the domestic insular affairs of its citizens.
| If you look at it from that angle it's obvious that
| vacuuming up smart people and becoming "more powerful"
| intellectually is what the US clearly wants.
| gorbachev wrote:
| Allegedly...by and large the US Government operates,
| however, for the benefit of corporations and rich folk
| (with some exceptions). If they want to hire foreign
| labor, the US Government is going to make it happen.
| sebastianz wrote:
| > which is a win-win for everyone involved
|
| Well... not for _everyone_ involved. It 's definitely a
| "lose" for the countries they are leaving from, that
| educated them.
| titanomachy wrote:
| The median American is not smart enough to do complex
| software engineering, just like they're not smart enough to
| be a doctor or college professor. All cognitively demanding
| jobs compete for the same (probably single-digit) percent of
| the workforce. Better education could certainly prepare
| _more_ people to do these jobs, but it 's not a given that
| there are enough smart people in the domestic workforce to do
| all the cognitively-demanding jobs.
|
| If thousands of the smartest people from the rest of the
| world want to move to the US and fill these gaps, doesn't
| that make America better off overall?
| remarkEon wrote:
| >The median American is not smart enough to do complex
| software engineering,
|
| This point, assuming for a moment that it's actually true,
| would matter if "complex software engineering" was all that
| this was being used for. Complex for _whom_?
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> The median American is not smart enough to do complex
| software engineering_
|
| How many jobs require complex SW engineering rather than
| basic SW engineering?
| kbolino wrote:
| This is just brain-draining the rest of the world for the
| short-term boosting of some myopic statistics. This isn't
| going to improve the employability of median-intelligence
| people, and in the long run, it's going to exacerbate the
| same problem, but now globally.
| upbeat_general wrote:
| I think a lot of these comments don't properly capture the
| benefit. The more skilled workers, the more
| startups/companies, not to mention smarter people.
|
| But the effect is bigger than that, by allowing skilled
| immigration, it makes US universities and tech companies the
| best in the world, at the very least seen as such, which has
| tremendous larger effects.
|
| It's not a coincidence that we have the largest tech
| industry, and it's not because we magically have smarter
| people.
| tiznow wrote:
| Try repeating this to a developer out of work right now.
| hedora wrote:
| Honestly, the US needs to (and used to) do both. We should
| have a world-class public education system, and we should
| aggressively get the best and the brightest people to move
| here.
|
| It seems unlikely we'll do either of those things moving
| forward. At least China's investing in green tech, I guess.
| BJones12 wrote:
| > The per-country caps also seem like a throwback to the early
| 1900's era immigration exclusion policies.
|
| Canada does not have that and it is going very poorly. Lots of
| people are calling for the implementation of the same policy.
| aylmao wrote:
| How is not having a per-country cap going poorly in Canada?
| focom wrote:
| Have you heard of Brampton?
| aylmao wrote:
| Nope, what's that
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Brampton is a suburb of Toronto with a large Indian
| immigrant population. This is leading to tensions
| _within_ Brampton as different Indian political factions
| attempt to influence Indian politics from
| Canada[1][2][3].
|
| [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/canada-
| khalistan-re...
|
| [2] https://www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/national/party-
| leaders-c...
|
| [3] https://tnc.news/2024/11/04/arrests-brampton-surrey-
| khalista...
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Canada's center of bad driving, fraud, and temporary
| worker abuse.
| BJones12 wrote:
| Because there are an overwhelming number of immigrants from
| the same state (or two) in India.
| aylmao wrote:
| Is this bad due to the hypothetical loss of diversity?
| ie, it'd be better if there were a mix of Indian,
| Chinese, Brazilian, Mexican, etc immigrants, vs only
| immigrants from a single state in India?
| fourside wrote:
| It'd be interesting to understand why immigrants to
| Canada are disproportionately coming from a small number
| of locations. Unless there's a good reason behind it I
| think it's reasonable to find a better balance.
| riskable wrote:
| The reason why there's so many Indians is because THERE'S
| SO MANY INDIANS! You don't need to be a rocket surgeon to
| figure that one out =)
|
| The "problem" with having _that_ many Indians isn 't that
| they're not adapting to Canadian culture it's that
| they're bringing along some of the bad things from India
| like the caste system. It's not as bad as many other
| cultural problems because it's strictly Indians causing
| problems for other Indians but it's still a problem.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| What happens in a lot of cases like this is nepotism and
| lack of need, or even desire, to assimilate to the host
| country. Things like this are _always_ dismissed the
| first 20 years, but it _always_ leads to racial and
| ethnic tensions as time passes. Saying "ummm, like,
| don't be racist" has never worked.
|
| But when immigrants all come from one small region, they
| tend to only hire people they know or are vetted by
| someone they know, they only rent properties to people
| they know or are vetted by people they know, they start
| to see the locals of the country they're living in as
| below them, and it just keeps spiraling out of control.
|
| And notice that I specified no race. I specified no
| country. I specified no religion or ethnic background.
| It's simply a universal thing that happens in every
| country. It always leads to far right swings when not
| quickly addressed. If what I've said in any way comes
| across as "racist", that's due to the reader inserting
| their own racial biases and thus their own racism into
| this statement, because I'm not in any way implying this
| is confined to one group. It's something that's been a
| problem for millennia and governments keep making the
| same mistakes.
| throwawaythekey wrote:
| > But when immigrants all come from one small region,
| they tend to only hire people they know or are vetted by
| someone they know, they only rent properties to people
| they know or are vetted by people they know, they start
| to see the locals of the country they're living in as
| below them, and it just keeps spiraling out of control.
|
| This happens with some races more than others. When you
| import Indians you are importing caste thinking.
| i18nsoftware wrote:
| How would have the same policy had any effect in Canada?
| Country caps in the US don't change anything about who can
| enter the country, they only affect who gets permanent
| residency.
| Hilift wrote:
| > leave the country to renew paperwork is an insane anachronism
|
| Not really. This is really Customs and Border
| Patrol/Immigration way of saying, you can always do the
| default/what everyone else does. You can leave and return six
| months of the year. The key is leave (which they do), they are
| already declared non-immigrant, and are self-sufficient.
| outworlder wrote:
| Not sure what you are talking about. This is about H-1B, aka
| dual-intent visas. You can have immigrant intent.
|
| Also, if you leave for six months, how are you even working
| in the US? Which is the point of the visa.
| cute_boi wrote:
| The per-country caps is very important. Otherwise, you will see
| flood of same people which makes everything biased.
| xtreme wrote:
| It's a policy based on unsound reasoning. Why is India
| treated as a monolith when it is more diverse than the EU in
| terms of linguistic and cultural diversity? If tomorrow India
| magically broke off into 30 separate states, all the same
| people who have been waiting for decades would be immediately
| eligible for green cards. How does it make any sense?
| bdangubic wrote:
| H1B program is also diversity program, much like green card
| lottery...
| int_19h wrote:
| Diversity based on country of origin doesn't make much
| sense, though.
| cute_boi wrote:
| You might be right, but if u see the real situation Indian
| manager prefers Indian worker mostly. And it is mostly 2-3
| states, not every states.
| a13n wrote:
| To some extent this is what Section 174 is about.
|
| If you hire US-based engineers working on R&D (most software
| engineers) then you amortize their pay over 5 years. Foreign-
| based engineers working on R&D get amortized over 15 years.
|
| You get to expense 3x as much for domestic engineers compared
| to foreign engineers. This means you need to pay more taxes
| upfront for having a foreign R&D team, which is bad for
| cashflow. Your company could be losing money (unprofitable) but
| still owe corp income taxes because of Section 174.
|
| If the gov charged "tariffs" on foreign labor or services
| provided, especially for certain countries that labor is
| typically outsourced to, or certain types of labor/services
| (e.g. support, engineering, etc), that'd probably be an
| effective way to discourage offshoring.
| mlindner wrote:
| Per-country caps remains an absolutely good idea. The goal of
| immigrants should be to integrate into the society they are
| joining. Without per country caps you can start creating
| strange enclaves and you get some of the issues Canada is
| having.
| i18nsoftware wrote:
| Having people who have been living in the country for
| decades, but have the threat of leaving anytime they get
| fired from job or due to visa issues doesn't encourage them
| to "integrate into the society they are joining".
|
| If anything, the way the country caps work in the US right
| now make integration harder, because no matter how much they
| try to integrate and be part of the local community, they
| could be kicked out at any time. That just encourages people
| to have one foot out the door at all times.
| alienallys wrote:
| India has roughly twice the population of Europe and is just
| as diverse. Treating India as a single, homogeneous entity
| because it's one country overlooks its vast cultural,
| linguistic, and demographic diversity--comparable to that of
| Europe. If diversity justifies country caps, it doesn't apply
| to India. Clinging to such policies seems outdated.
|
| If India were divided into smaller countries like Europe, the
| same South Asian population, culture, and diversity would
| persist, but the artificial constraints tied to the name
| "India" would disappear.
| tiznow wrote:
| I believe this is part of the problem/perception -- Indian
| immigration via policies like H-1B and whatever Canada does
| disproportionately offers people from a handful of Indian
| states (and the highest castes) the chance to be North
| American tech workers. Even if you say "well, the Indian
| tech industry is centered on a few states" it in essence is
| the same problem or perceived problem.
|
| Specific to North America, most people actually like the
| idea of someone coming from halfway around the world to try
| to be a citizen of their nation. They do not exactly like
| the idea of being "carpetbagged" or being "flooded with
| people who do not integrate" and those perceptions exist
| not wholly out of imagination.
| bubblethink wrote:
| >They do not exactly like the idea of being
| "carpetbagged" or being "flooded with people who do not
| integrate" and those perceptions exist not wholly out of
| imagination.
|
| They do exist wholly out of imagination in this case. You
| are professing your opinion and stating it as fact. As
| far as actual immigration statistics go, Indians are a
| tiny minority, disproportionately successful on wage,
| crime, and education metrics, and most importantly,
| legal.
|
| >offers people from a handful of Indian states (and the
| highest castes).
|
| I really do not get what caste has to do with anything.
| Which states ? What is the mechanism that favors people
| from these states or castes ? The legal immigration
| pathways to the US/Canada are either education or work,
| and neither of them has any preference for state, caste,
| etc.
| maeil wrote:
| > Re: the concerns over "immigrants taking our jobs!". As a
| native-born American working in a large tech company today -
| the threat is very clearly not from H1B's and other visas. The
| threat to American tech jobs is when US tech companies choose
| to build out offices in lower cost of living countries (and I'm
| very much including Europe in that, I think that's even a
| bigger problem).
|
| > It's much much better for America if tech companies hire
| workers in the US, regardless of whether they are citizens.
| Americans are eligible for those jobs, and that money stays
| within our economy. Versus employing workers elsewhere, where
| American's can't easily be hired, and those resources leave the
| US.
|
| Makes me wonder how many people gladly support this while at
| the same time clamoring against the EU's DMA and other
| regulations and fines it imposes on SV companies.
|
| What you're saying is of course absolutely true! I like how
| plainly you've stated it, because the directness makes clear to
| people just _how awful_ of a deal it is for the EU and other
| countries where US tech companies make enormous profits without
| hiring any significant number of locals.
|
| I've lived in both the EU which suffers from the above, as well
| as a place where protectionism and barriers helped strongly
| restrain US tech and "artificially" give opportunity to local
| players. The latter has worked out so much better for every
| party involved except US tech.
| newsclues wrote:
| Per county caps are good protection for your culture.
|
| Canada suffered because a lack of caps.
|
| It leads to a concentration that can be overwhelming.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| A supposed shortage of qualified US applicants for tech jobs,
| especially software developers, doesn't jibe with the huge
| numbers of US developers currently looking for work, including
| highly experienced older workers suffering from age
| discrimination.
|
| I'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are ones
| where the hiring company has even looked for US applicants.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what
| companies want to pay. If it is taking more than 30-60 days for
| workers to find a role, there are enough workers domestically.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what
| companies want to pay.
|
| That and companies are just hilariously bad at finding
| workers they _want_ to hire for nebulous reasons. I have no
| doubt even if my company hired 95% of the workers it had
| marked down as "no hire" they'd be able to squeeze a
| salary's of value worth out of each of them (well, if
| management is competent, which it tends to not be). I'm sure
| those of us who've been around long enough can all attest to
| some side of seeing form of this dysfunction. I'm more than
| happy to reject them for selfish reasons, of course, like "I
| don't want this person on my team" or "this person seems like
| an asshole" or "I don't want to teach this person their third
| language after java and typescript". Etc.
|
| I mean there are _terrible_ interview candidates out there,
| but the people who literally can 't code at all tend to be
| easy to filter out.
|
| I'm curious if there's any way to observe the salary margins
| that separate the top of the labor market from the bottom.
| Surely there are. That would probably give a big signal as to
| how much undue attention is given to, e.g., Senior vs Junior
| developers and American workers vs H1Bs. I'd put money that
| some of this complaining about lack of labor is actually not
| wanting to hire fresh grads and eat the cost of training when
| they'd be just fine. (Also the H1B thing, but that's already
| discussed to death)
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| Okay, I have interviewed hundreds of people in the last
| decade, and I can tell you that _most_ are not good enough.
| There are companies that are downright abusing H1B for wage
| suppression, but as a startup founder, I will try my
| hardest to avoid hiring people who I have to squeeze their
| salary 's worth and still get mediocre results (nothing to
| do with citizen or not - I had this experience with a
| Canadian contractor - just not worth it).
|
| I have been successful in liberating money from VCs and
| create jobs, and I want the best people _that money_ can
| buy. Turns out, there are great American and non-american
| candidates who are willing to work for the money I can
| offer. Also in my experience, I hardly even get resumes
| from Americans for backend jobs. Frontend is different and
| I get a LOT of American resumes. Our frontend engineering,
| PS, CX, Sales and Marketing is all-american, and backend is
| a mix of american, greencard, H1b - because thats all I get
| in the resume pipeline.
|
| If I have to cut costs, I will have to cut the team in US
| and _move_ the jobs to a low cost region regardless of
| their citizenship status.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| >> If I have to cut costs, I will have to cut the team in
| US and move the jobs to a low cost region regardless of
| their citizenship status.
|
| Read that sentence again. If you're hiring an American
| team in the Us, and cutting in the US, it's not
| regardless of citizenship - unless you're abusing the
| H-1B program
| lubujackson wrote:
| "Not good enough" or not good enough to pass your leet
| code gauntlet that has nothing to do with the day-to-day
| role?
|
| Because those aren't the same thing. Also don't discount
| interview stress - I read that psychologically the most
| difficult thing to do is be on stage in front of people
| and do complex math problems... which is basically what
| live coding tests are.
| afavour wrote:
| I hate leet code gauntlets too but I don't see what it
| has to do with hiring immigrant workers. No matter your
| status you are equally vulnerable to failing a code
| gauntlet test.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Math problems usually have one right/wrong answer. Many
| interview 'challenges' have multiple ways of doing
| something correctly. Without necessarily knowing any more
| about the context of a problem beyond a few sentences,
| you work with what you've been given. You can deliver a
| working solution but if it's not the way they were
| expecting... you're out of the running.
| fijiaarone wrote:
| You really haven't done much math, have you. Even 2+2 can
| be solved multiple ways.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| I hate leet code and it's ilk, and I don't want anyone to
| go through that useless stuff. But I believe a good
| engineer can suss out another good engineer in a
| conversation or two. At least that has been my experience
| with people I have hired and people those people have
| hired.
|
| When you hire anyone, there is always _some_ bar of
| "good enough". It is different for different orgs and
| even people, but it is there. Otherwise you'd end up
| hiring the first candidate you encounter, no?
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I wonder what your investors would think if they found
| out you can't manage and need to 'hope you find suitable
| talent' and that you are incapable of growing it?
| seneca wrote:
| > I wonder what your investors would think if they found
| out you can't manage and need to 'hope you find suitable
| talent' and that you are incapable of growing it?
|
| Not hiring mediocre talent is a key part of management.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Every company talks about finding talent. VCs are very
| familiar with this because many startups don't have
| familiarity with this stuff. It's not surprising to have
| a VC help hire for roles the startup is unfamiliar with
| hiring for. An investor is not someone's boss. Once
| they've handed over the capital, they're very invested in
| making sure that there aren't any blockers to the
| company's success.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| They know how I work, because I'm on the board and
| constantly update them. I built this company from slides
| to 5M ARR in 4 years. Granted, I have made hiring
| mistakes - good engineer, bad attitude that affected the
| team, good engineer not bought into what we do, one or
| two mediocre engineers that I couldn't suss out. But I've
| rectified them and have found good engineers in
| reasonable time.
|
| Unfortunately you have to take my word for it. Not sure
| how you assumed I cannot manage with no context.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Okay, I have interviewed hundreds of people in the last
| decade, and I can tell you that most are not good enough.
|
| Me, too. I straight-up disagree; I think interviewing is
| just so broken it gives a false impression of quality
| issues in the labor pool. Realistically if you have a
| handful of core skills you can ramp up to basically any
| problem with enough time. That's time on the order of
| _months_ , maybe, not _years_. Companies just don 't want
| to bother training anyone anymore. Why bother when you
| can just complain endlessly and hope some politicians
| throw cheap labor your way? In that sense you're
| absolutely right, but the whole "quality" thing is
| completely unrelated.
|
| > I have been successful in liberating money from VCs and
| create jobs, and I want the best people that money can
| buy.
|
| I think people seriously overestimate the difference
| engineer quality makes. Most products can be built with
| mediocre talent. I'm sorry, that's the truth. We all love
| to have strong opinions on who we should hire and I say
| "almost anyone, just throw meat at the problem". Most
| problems are solved with time and not cleverness.
|
| Startups are definitely more sensitive to quality, but
| startups don't make up much of the labor pool, and they
| don't pay competitively with much larger companies that
| _don 't_ need the quality.
|
| I'm being a little hyperbolic here--you do need people
| with experience and ability to see red flags to lead the
| flock--but not by much.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| This is the truth that peoples egos can't seem to handle.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Add in that in the search for the _perfect_ candidate
| that has all 16 bullet point requirements you 'll come
| across folks who have, say, a solid 13 of them, but
| they'll get passed over waiting for the perfect candidate
| to come around. Which can take many months... years even.
| In the meantime you could have been bringing up one of
| those 13-point candidates getting them up to speed on
| those 3 missing bullet points. And you'd likely have
| gotten to a desired level of productivity faster than by
| waiting for that perfect candidate while wringing your
| hands that there just aren't enough qualified people out
| there.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| I don't think anyone is saying wait for the perfect
| candidate. No one is perfect and no one checks all the
| boxes. That would be a fool's errand. But most good
| engineers can differentiate between a good (not
| superstar) engineer and a mediocre/bad engineer in a
| couple of conversations. I really have not seen anyone
| optimize for a mediocre candidate, nor for a superstar.
| Superstars come by with luck or with tons of incentives
| (money, stock, tech or whatever is their itch).
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I've often seen this happen. A few years back I applied
| for a job at a startup where I checked a lot of the
| boxes, but not all, but some of the boxes I checked were
| difficult to come by - never heard anything back. Six
| months passed and I was contacted by them, would I be
| interested in interviewing? I was and I ended up getting
| the job. Later when I asked about the position being open
| for so long I was told by one of the people involved that
| there were folks who were waiting for the perfect
| candidate to come along and finally, after many months,
| they were convinced that the perfect candidate probably
| didn't exist. So yeah, there's at least one instance of
| it where I know for sure that's what was going on and
| I've seen others where I'll watch a job listing keep
| appearing for several months.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| So they learned their lesson and hopefully don't make the
| same mistake again. We are in anecdote land now (both
| yours and mine), I don't know what's more common.
| Behavior like that (waiting for long for perfect
| candidate) can cripple or kill businesses
| Aperocky wrote:
| > Most problems are solved with time and not cleverness.
|
| Yes, because given time someone clever would have came in
| and fixed it.
|
| It's like doing push up in the elevator and believing
| that arriving at the 100th floor is due to doing push
| ups.
|
| The GE, IBM, Intel, Boeing are few examples that didn't
| believe in quality - and not just people apparently, and
| their problems aren't getting solved with time.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| Eh, I just don't see it. GE and IBM and Boeing are
| solving the problems they want to solve. Management
| dysfunction can't be blamed on low-quality workers.
| Anyway, I'm a little reluctant to draw the parallel with
| Boeing because I simply don't know what kind of work goes
| into that sort of engineering. Maybe cleverness is a big
| part!
|
| > Yes, because given time someone clever would have came
| in and fixed it.
|
| I can't emphasize enough how much software engineers
| overestimate the value of their own cleverness. Bugs are
| fixed with persistence, in my experience--I've used
| "cleverness" to find only a handful of bugs across my
| entire nearly two-decade career. I don't want to say I'm
| "the best engineer on the team" or anything like that,
| but I dependably fix the bugs that are put on my plate
| regardless of how frustrating they are to crack,
| regardless of what tools I need to bust out to get the
| job done. Debuggers, printf, valgrind, core dumps, packet
| captures, profilers, repls, disassembly, whatever's
| necessary. But all of these take _persistence_ to reach
| for and use to crack the case. Experience is a short cut,
| but that 's a very different thing than cleverness, and
| you very directly pay for that experience.
|
| Not to mention if I see "cleverness" in a code review
| you're gonna bet I'm gonna comment and ask you to make it
| less clever unless that cleverness seems to neatly solve
| a problem. Even then, commenting is absolutely critical.
|
| Time, not cleverness, is the key.
|
| Hell, the joke used to be that being a software engineer
| is 80% googling. Now that barrier's been lowered even
| further with chatbots: you can literally ask it to find
| the bug, explain behavior, _fix the bug_ , etc. It
| doesn't take _much_ competence to correct the output. All
| it takes is not giving up when you see problems.
| Aperocky wrote:
| Well everything you've written suggest to me that you're
| clever, or maybe that shouldn't be the word, but
| somewhere between smart and wise.
|
| And a lot of people aren't that.
| r00fus wrote:
| Your examples didn't fail due to quality - they failed
| due to horrible management practices and worshipping at
| the altar of the MBA philosophy.
| meiraleal wrote:
| They definitely failed due to quality - problems caused
| by their horrible highly-paid managers and directors.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I worked at GE. A lot of thier software dealing with the
| transportation industry back then wasn't technically
| complicated. There were just a lot of business rules and
| regulations they had to check for.
|
| My vertical was railroad car repairs
|
| https://public.railinc.com/sites/default/files/documents/
| CRB...
|
| Most developers aren't doing "hard things". Not even at
| BigTech
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| It's not at all about doing hard things. It's simply the
| number of things to be done and how they interact with
| each other. You are absolutely right that these are
| technically not hard problems, but they're still hard
| design problems that keep changing very frequently
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| I am confused why you included GE. Do you think their
| aerospace products (jet engines and such) or medical
| products (MRI machines) are low quality? They are pretty
| much top three globally in those areas, and very
| innovative. And how about the Boeing 787? What issues do
| you have with that?
| coredog64 wrote:
| GE was the granddaddy of the financial engineering
| shenanigans that have hit the others in the list. If
| we're looking for a simple villain, it's "Chainsaw" Jack
| Welch.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| >I think interviewing is just so broken it gives a false
| impression of quality issues in the labor pool.
|
| I've been in a team where hiring requirements have
| emerged through the filter of HR almost unrecognisable.
| Naturally, they're still objective requirements, so
| qualified candidates are filtered out before ever meeting
| someone who could judge if they're qualified. It gets
| noticed, but nothing happens. Of course it doesn't:
| you're stepping on important toes.
|
| That's how it tends to work. Candidates are filtered out
| by non-technical staff, including openly using programs
| that filter out CVs missing keywords. In smaller
| companies, this even gets farmed out to third-party
| recruiters that have poorly aligned incentives.
|
| How can we know if candidates are qualified? We never see
| most of them.
|
| It's hard to imagine many things worse for productivity
| than bad hiring processes. But it's all just accepted.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Screw the company -- sure, maybe they can build a product
| with mediocre talent. But I don't want to work with
| mediocre devs, because they make my life harder.
|
| I'd much rather wait for someone I want to work with,
| than hire the first person that is "good enough".
| srj wrote:
| > I think people seriously overestimate the difference
| engineer quality makes. Most products can be built with
| mediocre talent. I'm sorry, that's the truth. We all love
| to have strong opinions on who we should hire and I say
| "almost anyone, just throw meat at the problem". Most
| problems are solved with time and not cleverness.
|
| I'm surprised that your experience here is so different
| from mine. The best engineers I've had are capable of
| things that the average to below average ones could
| likely have never achieved, even with an order of
| magnitude more time.
|
| I don't think it comes down to cleverness as it does
| inventiveness. There are dots that great engineers can
| connect that often nobody else could spot. They also need
| less process, and a large number of people with all of
| the coordination overhead does not linearly scale.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| Most products can be built with mediocre talent. But no
| one actively goes after mediocre talent. And yes,
| startups are more sensitive to this, I really had to let
| go mediocre people because it affects everything.
| Throwing meat at the problem for long enough time really
| screws up the product. Even at a very large company that
| I worked for, innovation ground to halt after a decade of
| this thinking, because systems that started simple
| enough, got complex over time in part because of market
| and primarily because of mediocrity. Adding things became
| a nightmare, because we threw meat at problems for a long
| time.
|
| Maybe what you say has worked for your situations, but it
| really never worked for me over my experience, and it
| just was a downward spiral _over time_ every single time.
| mlinhares wrote:
| If workers are mediocre, management needs to be top notch
| to deliver great products.
|
| If management is mediocre, workers need to be top notch
| to deliver great products.
|
| The odds you'll land at a place that have both are
| vanishingly low. It also takes a lot of work, money and
| interest to turn a big ball of mud around and no one gets
| a prize for that, people get a prize for churning out
| features and bugfixes, so this is what you get, specially
| because most large scale rewrite projects are utter and
| complete failures.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| Each can compensate for the other only to an extent. We
| don't need top notch, we need good. Most large scale
| projects may fail, but we ended up assembling good people
| for all the rewrites. Five of the six projects were
| successful (in production with objectively better
| metrics). One failed due to underestimating the
| operational complexity of a piece of technology.
| fijiaarone wrote:
| You're right, most people are not good enough, and the
| H1-Bs are worse.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| That is a sweeping statement. They (or should I say "We")
| are no worse than anybody else. If your point is that
| "worse" people should not come in to the country on H1B
| because H1b is meant for "better" people, I will probably
| agree.
| snozolli wrote:
| _most are not good enough_
|
| What is the basis for your claim? Unless you've followed
| up with those you rejected in order to gauge their
| performance on comparable tasks, you're just talking
| about confirmation bias.
|
| I've never heard of anyone actually producing objective
| measurements of hiring practices vs. actual worker
| performance. I've just heard a hundred different versions
| of confirmation bias. Maybe Google has some useful data.
| I know that they dropped GPA requirements when they
| looked at data and found that it had no impact on job
| performance...
| dunkelheit wrote:
| > That and companies are just hilariously bad at finding
| workers they want to hire for nebulous reasons. I have no
| doubt even if my company hired 95% of the workers it had
| marked down as "no hire" they'd be able to squeeze a
| salary's of value worth out of each of them (well, if
| management is competent, which it tends to not be).
|
| Isn't it ironic that a comment making fun of companies for
| not hiring workers who can barely contribute above their
| salary's value, in the very same sentence blames management
| for incompetence. Well, guess what, managers are hired
| workers too, so if you apply the same principle to them,
| this is what you get.
|
| What you suggest makes sense from the "homo economicus"
| point of view, but the result will be a barely functional
| hellhole riddled with incompetence (at least this is what
| it will feel like from within.) Can we blame people for
| being "selfish" and not wanting to work in this kind of
| environment?
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Well, guess what, managers are hired workers too,
|
| I didn't comment on hiring "managers", did I?
|
| > Can we blame people for being "selfish" and not wanting
| to work in this kind of environment?
|
| I did cop to this behavior, right? I do agree. It makes
| my life easier rejecting candidates. I'm just saying this
| complaining over lack of quality talent seems like the
| corporate equivalent of feigned helplessness rather than
| an actual problem.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| There's a shortage of applicants with the skills that
| companies need. Engineers, like most qualified workforce,
| aren't interchangeable.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This is not what the data shows [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Also,
| the efforts of many US firms recently to grow their India
| and LATAM presence [6] demonstrates this is for cost
| reasons, not a lack of qualified workforce. Companies will
| hire contractors from IT outsourcers and similar to launder
| the labor cost cramdown operation. IT unemployment is ~6%
| [7], why are we issuing any H1Bs beyond exceptional, highly
| compensated talent (~$300k-$500k/year and up)?
|
| [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-cognizant-h1b-v
| isas-... | https://archive.today/jaXNo
|
| [2] https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-
| widespread-wage...
|
| [3] https://cis.org/North/Unlikely-Sources-Confirm-Wage-
| Suppress...
|
| [4] http://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2015/05/economists-h-
| 1b-vi...
|
| [5] https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/h
| 1b.pd...
|
| [6] https://stig.net/latam-outsourcing-destination-us-
| companies/
|
| [7] https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-unemployment-
| hits-6-amid-ove...
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| I mean, If I have an India or LATAM presence, why would I
| hire in the US at all, even H1Bs? Unemployment rates mean
| nothing if its a skills job. Eng #1 is not the same as
| Eng #2. You can see this plainly in interviews. Our hit
| rate for engineering is roughly 1 in 20 - purely based on
| the skill match. So 6-7% unemployment might as well mean
| they are not good enough?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Indeed, it's why policy will be an important component,
| just as tariffs can be used to stoke domestic production
| (to bring outsourcing costs to domestic cost parity).
| I.R.C. SS174 touches on this with an amortization delta
| between US and non-US based development and R&D cost
| accounting, for example.
|
| https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/tax-and-
| accountin...
|
| > Beginning in 2022, all costs related to R&D must now be
| amortized over five years for US-based companies or 15
| years for non-US companies.
|
| With regards to "not good enough", maybe expectations (as
| a hiring manager or org) are unrealistic? Very
| subjective, so I find this topic to be difficult to argue
| effectively. I am not unsympathetic to the fact that
| hiring is hard, but the evidence of bad faith behavior at
| scale is undeniable and requires accounting for. If we're
| going to live in a socioeconomic system where people are
| forced to work to survive and there are little, if any,
| social safety nets, domestic employment must take
| priority over potential profits and economic gains of
| owners and similar controlling interests arbitraging
| labor cross border (or importing cheap labor) imho. As a
| founder/business owner, I can appreciate you're
| optimizing within your local minima.
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| It is indeed subjective. But since I have hired both good
| american and non-american engineers consistently over
| long periods, I tend to think it is not unrealistic.
|
| I completely agree large scale abuse of the program must
| be stopped. No country can afford to have large influx of
| new population that hinder their own(however "own" is
| defined in a country) progress. Borders are a thing (for
| better or worse) and invoke extreme emotions within
| society, and that must be accommodated and not ignored. I
| say this as an H1B employee and I see this play out a lot
| more radically in my home country
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Even if you have an India/LATAM presence, the higher end
| of workers from those countries are still mostly
| migrating to other countries for higher salaries. So you
| still need H1Bs because you aren't getting that person in
| their home country.
|
| Up the skill tree, companies often really get what they
| pay for, so the saving on offshore work is that they were
| overpaying for some lower skilled tasks, but not the
| higher skilled tasks (it's a world market for top
| talent).
| throwaway7783 wrote:
| Not really. Countries like India are very large
| (population-wise) and have a very thriving domestic
| technology scene with a LOT of good talent. Not all of
| them want to migrate to other countries just for money.
| For the CoL in India, they are very well paid.
| dingnuts wrote:
| > There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what
| companies want to pay
|
| Translation: companies would rather have underpaid immigrants
| as indentured servants to exploit than Americans who can
| demand higher wages
| rtpg wrote:
| A problem solved if visas are not associated to employers,
| because then an employer couldn't hold onto the employee
| like this.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| No. Because it still floods the job market with off short
| talent that is willing to work for 30% less. Construction
| workers arent tied to a single employer (usually) and
| that drops the price of labour across the board even in
| union dominated markets.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| The simple solution is for the government to put a tax on
| the visa. For each H1-B the company does, they pay the
| government an additional $200,000 per year (or some other
| large, arbitrary sum). If they really need them that
| badly, they'll pay up. What I think happens is that they
| discover they don't need them quite so much.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| Tariffs on visas?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Great idea
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| It's one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard on this
| site frankly. For how "meritocratic" HN claims to be,
| they are totally fine with basically eliminating all
| competition in their own job sphere.
|
| Imagine how quickly business trust in the government
| would go down if the government mandated a $200k head tax
| on H1Bs. It's absurd and only here would anyone hear it
| and think it makes sense
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| Why is this post so heavily downvoted? Oh wait, I guess
| this really hit a nerve: > For how
| "meritocratic" HN claims to be, they are totally fine
| with basically eliminating all competition in their own
| job sphere.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| There is always someone willing to do your job for less.
| Protection against that isn't anti-meritocratic, it's
| anti-exploitation.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| H1Bs at a lot of companies (excluding the actual
| criminals TCS, Wipro, etc.) are not always willing to do
| your job for less. Many of them make more than most US
| devs.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| Many make what you would consider laughable wages. I
| worked for a university in their IS department years ago,
| and since the university had an office that dealt with
| visas, they'd bring in people for what was truly a
| mediocre job. Salary probably $45-50k back in the
| mid-2010s.
|
| But since HN is San Francisco-centric, it can pretend
| otherwise I guess. Some very tiny fraction earn above
| what US developers earn.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Most people are self interested.
| rayiner wrote:
| Having to compete with people in the third world who have
| no expectations isn't meritocracy. My dad grew up in a
| literal village and I remember sleeping under mosquito
| nets. Americans shouldn't have to put up with the things
| I'm willing to put up with.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| You don't have to compete with people with no
| expectations. You have to compete with people who: often
| have an advanced degree (much more common for H1Bs than
| citizen devs), often have financial resources at home
| backing their ability to move up to a more expensive
| economy for work without security of a job, and are often
| just as good if not better than you.
|
| H1Bs are often scapegoated by these forums as being
| hungry to not live in poverty, but they are often the top
| of their respective countries by most metrics.
|
| And most of you all do not think that we should level the
| playing field between, say people who went to good
| schools vs people who went to bad ones, or people who can
| barely code vs people who can code really well. Only when
| it's foreigners do you not want meritocracy
| rayiner wrote:
| It's not comparable. Both my parents have advanced
| degrees back in old country. But the standard of living
| for someone in the top 5% back home is comparable to
| someone in public housing in the US. If people's
| alternatives back home were so good they wouldn't abandon
| all their family--my family was never from anywhere
| besides Bangladesh going back thousands of years--to come
| to the U.S.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| You ignored all of my comment. The point is, people here
| want to eliminate more educated, more likely to have
| financial backing candidates for their jobs. But they
| would bristle at the suggestion of any such thing for
| business success, college admissions, academic awards of
| any kind, etc.
| rayiner wrote:
| People want competition on a level playing field. Most
| people also don't think it's fair for American companies
| to have to compete with Chinese ones that don't have to
| abide by environmental protection or worker protection
| laws. The same is true for having to compete with foreign
| workers.
|
| The country I'm from just had rioters overthrow its
| government. In terms of what I'm willing to put up with
| at work or school, I just have a mindset and motivations
| that native born Americans shouldn't have to compete
| with.
|
| You can't build a more just, fair society by filling it
| with foreigners who perceive the minimum standard as
| being so much lower because of their background.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| > In terms of what I'm willing to put up with at work or
| school, I just have a mindset and motivations that native
| born Americans shouldn't have to compete with.
|
| Yeah, sorry. I actually believe in meritocracy unlike
| whiny HN'ers. Whatever mindset is best should win. That's
| how business is. That's how academics are. That's how
| every serious global endeavor is.
|
| > You can't build a more just, fair society...
|
| If that's all you're optimizing for, just have communism.
| Easy path to what you want. If you actually want people
| to earn according to merit, to succeed according to
| making big bets that pay off, or any of those cruel,
| unequal things, then don't have a huge blind spot when it
| comes to only your job and no one else's.
| aylmao wrote:
| I mean, I can think of a lot of things businesses could
| greatly benefit and grow from, but would have to do
| without if it came with $200,000/yr price tag.
|
| IMO this is not about wether a business can do without X.
| Most businesses can do without a lot of things, just more
| poorly. IMO this is about finding the right balance
| between the benefits and drawbacks of hiring foreign
| specialized workers.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Ranked by salary is an alternative I've heard.
| aylmao wrote:
| A lot of things "flood the job market". In 2021, >104k
| degrees CIS degrees were awarded by US colleges [1].
| There's a flood of young people entering the market every
| year, and they're willing to work for >30% less than
| experienced engineers because it's their first proper
| job.
|
| IMO as with all things money, it's all about negotiation.
| Of course a lot of negotiating power simply has to do
| with the market supply/demand, but a whole lot has to do
| with policy and rules. Giving more negotiating power to
| H1Bs would definitely put upwards pressure on salaries.
|
| Re: construction workers. Same problem, worker's rights.
| A lot of construction workers are undocumented: an
| estimated 20 percent [2][3]. Undocumented immigrants have
| virtually no negotiating power. Allowing this solid 1/5th
| of the workforce to confront their employer without fear
| of deportation would go a long way increasing
| compensation for the industry as a whole.
|
| [1]: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_
| 322.10.a...
|
| [3]: https://limos.engin.umich.edu/deitabase/2024/05/28/u
| ndocumen...
| greentxt wrote:
| "Allowing this solid 1/5th of the workforce to confront
| their employer without fear of deportation would go a
| long way increasing compensation for the industry as a
| whole."
|
| It is strange to read this all typed out in earnest like
| that. Housing costs triple over night for the win? We'll
| all be homeless but those of us in construction will get
| a boost (or decreased competition from low cost imported
| labor).
| rtpg wrote:
| Yeah it's fair to say that if suddenly a huge influx of
| people show up causing downwards pressure on wages then
| that can happen. Though I feel like construction work is
| a place where there is legitimately more limits to how
| many people who are willing to work in that industry
| (even if you paid me double a SWE salary, I'm not working
| in scaffolding all day) locally.
|
| I do think that if you don't tie the visa to the
| employer, then it's _less interesting_ for an employer to
| recruit people from abroad. Especially for companies
| whose entire business model is "get cheaper IT labor,
| locked into mandatory service, in exchange for being an
| entryway to the country".
|
| Like if you despise those shops, then you really should
| be lobbying to get rid of the employer lock-in.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| First, GP wrote: > A problem solved if
| visas are not associated to employers, because then an
| employer couldn't hold onto the employee like this.
|
| Then you wrote: > No. Because it still
| floods the job market with off short talent that is
| willing to work for 30% less.
|
| In many highly developed countries in the world, visas
| are not associated with an employer. We don't see people
| clamouring to post about it on HN. Why? Because the
| number of visas offered to skilled migrants is relatively
| limited.
|
| Second, you wrote: > Construction
| workers arent tied to a single employer (usually) and
| that drops the price of labour across the board even in
| union dominated markets.
|
| How can you be sure that this is true? Do you have a
| "natural" experiment where two similar areas in the US
| have construction workers where area A has workers tied
| to a single employers and area B not? Else, how can you
| say this with such confidence?
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| Source: I managed projects bigger than you can imagine as
| a very young person. I traveled between the United
| States, China, the Middle East and the Caribbean.You have
| to take my word for it, as I can't and wont dox myself. I
| might as well have a PhD on this subject. I don't care if
| you believe me or not, but what I say is true.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > There is a shortage of applicants willing to work at what
| companies want to pay
|
| If you want the best candidates, it makes sense to have a
| wider pool of recruitment.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They're not hiring "the best". They want compliant serfs
| who are trapped with the promise of a greencard sponsorship
| someday.
| amykhar wrote:
| That is absolutely what these kinds of Visas are NOT supposed
| to be addressing.
| thephyber wrote:
| > If it is taking more than 30-60 days for workers to find a
| role, there are enough workers domestically.
|
| This makes no sense, even if I agree with your first
| statement.
|
| Not every company is willing to completely retrain a worker
| for something outside of their core competency. Lots of
| candidates simply aren't competent, or even reliable
| employees. Lots of companies would rather a position go
| unfilled than make a bad hire that is very expensive to fix.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > outside of their core competency
|
| I don't mean to point a finger at you, but this term is
| basically a weasel term at this point... because the "core
| competency" grows as large as necessary for these companies
| to complain that they cannot find qualified candidates. In
| truth, they are not willing to train people missing some
| skills at the fringe. The original post from someone who
| works on satellite tech (surely dual-purpose to create
| killer robots, or whatever) decided to throw into the "core
| competency" mix that good/solid linear algebra was
| required. What a farce. I am sure that less than 1% of
| their work requires it. You can just have one PhD on the
| wider team that writes all that codes... well, sketches it
| out, then everyone else integrates it or refines it.
| thephyber wrote:
| Your entire comment could have been "that phrase is
| subjective".
|
| Every company makes lots of subjective decisions during
| hiring, I agree.
| dmayle wrote:
| This is why H1-B visas should have a minimum salary
| requirement equal to 20% over whichever is greater, median
| salary for the role in the industry, or median salary for the
| role in the company (and whichever is greater, US-wide, or
| local pay scale).
|
| This way, a company is always incentivized to find local
| talent, but when they are actually unable to, they have a
| path to find the expertise they need. The U.S. could relax
| restrictions on H1-B, lowering red tape, and removing a lot
| of churn that comes with the H1-B program
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| In general, H1B visas do have such provisions. At least in
| CA most jobs must provide a salary range. Even if every H1B
| is the lowest of the range in those postings, that alone
| means there are many many jobs which fit your criteria.
| janalsncm wrote:
| The ranges are way too low then. I checked H1B salaries
| and I found the following in San Jose (median rent approx
| $2200 for 1BR):
|
| FLEXON TECHNOLOGIES INC Database analyst: $60k
|
| DATA TRACE INFORMATION SERVICES LLC Software engineer:
| $65k
|
| PRIMARIUS TECHNOLOGIES US LLC DATA ANALYST $72k
|
| ZOOM VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS INC AI SCIENTIST $74k
|
| HBI SOLUTIONS INC DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR $75k
|
| BEACONFIRE STAFFING SOLUTIONS INC COMPUTER SYSTEMS
| ENGINEER $88k
|
| https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=&city=san+jose&yea
| r=2...
|
| Sort by salary ascending and you will see what I mean.
|
| These are blatant violations. We know how much software
| engineers should make. Do the immigrants know they are
| moving to one of the most expensive cities in the US?
| sciencesama wrote:
| Taking advantage of the system !!
| mlinhares wrote:
| The good ones do and use this as a way to get through the
| door.
| rayiner wrote:
| Someone should put together a package for the new
| administration with advertisements to target for H1B
| violations. I'm sure Stephen Miller would want to see it.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Almost all H1Bs have already been in the US for years on
| their student visas, so of course they know COL and where
| they are moving to.
|
| Those you are posting look like they could be violations.
| But if you just visit your link, you quickly see that
| most jobs are in line with median salaries in the bay
| area.
|
| For example:
|
| https://www.indeed.com/career/software-
| engineer/salaries/San...
|
| And then:
|
| https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=zoom+video+communicatio
| ns+...
|
| Those are pretty close to the median in aggregate.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> Those are pretty close to the median in aggregate._
|
| Pretty close to the median?
|
| Aren't these H1-B visas supposed to be for _specialists_?
| To bring in the _best and brightest_?
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Compared to average workers, software engineers are
| specialists. H1B holders are often brighter than their
| citizen counterparts by at least one objective measure:
| advanced degrees holding. It's very hard to find US
| citizens with advanced degrees who can code well and
| understand computer science.
| pzh wrote:
| Not all H1B holders have advanced degrees, and the reason
| some of them do is because that's one of the immigration
| pathways --- pay for a 1-2-year Master's degree so you
| get a better chance of landing an H1B after you graduate.
| Most citizens don't go for advanced degree because
| there's no utility in them, and not because they aren't
| smart.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| I know this. But it is a measurable differentiator in
| qualification that H1Bs are way more likely to have than
| citizens. Many young men don't see the utility in college
| compared to women in the the US, but employers do.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| > This is why H1-B visas should have a minimum salary
| requirement equal to 20% over [median]
|
| The requirement should be _at least_ 2x top of band.
|
| A mere 1.2x of the median is absolutely absurd.
| m00x wrote:
| That's ridiculous. 20% is already enough from top of
| band.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| And how you going to enforce this?
| randcraw wrote:
| Require employers of each H1-B to submit (along with the
| hire's w-4 that they send to Uncle Sam that already
| includes the job's wages and benefits), the position
| description in the job ad, the candidate's resume, and
| the matching wage band the job purportedly falls into and
| exceeds by 20% (or whatever the required margin is). It
| should be trivial to automate the validation process.
| Then do random checks to confirm those purported facts,
| especially of employers who hire large numbers of H1-Bs
| and have past violations.
| Clubber wrote:
| Random audits, like the IRS does.
| Spivak wrote:
| I feel like this whole issue could be solved short order if we
| agreed that not being able to find qualified applicants _at a
| given fixed price_ does not a shortage make.
|
| It's the same with the "fast food shortage," I bet the shortage
| would dry up real fast at $50/hr so all we're really doing is
| haggling over price. If in order to hire a H1-B at a salary of
| x you had to offer US workers 2x with say a $100k floor on x
| then I bet Americans would show up.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| On a market with free pricing there _are_ , pretty much by
| definition, no shortages or surpluses.
|
| Instead prices go up or down until supply and demand meet.
|
| So talking about "shortages" in this context doesn't really
| make sense to me. Yet that's the terminology in this field,
| and the resulting confusion is unavoidable.
| jltsiren wrote:
| A shortage is a situation, where the market cannot bring
| high prices down by increasing the supply. For example, if
| software engineers earn more than equally demanding roles
| in other engineering fields and the situation persists long
| enough, there is a shortage of software engineers.
| lastiteration wrote:
| Who decides if the price is high or low? That should be
| the market. High salaries -> more people decide to pursue
| it as a career -> more competition -> lower salaries.
| They are trying to force salaries down quicker
| cherryteastain wrote:
| > On a market with free pricing there are, pretty much by
| definition, no shortages or surpluses.
|
| Remember the "chip shortage" all throughout the pandemic?
| It's not like the whole world switched to a Soviet style
| command economy between 2020 and 2022 yet we still had it.
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| "Free market" folks tend to ignore the ladder-pulls and
| existing regulations that make it a non-free market.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| That's an interesting case!
|
| ChatGPT mentions some factors for why suppliers didn't
| just raise prices until the demand met the supply:
|
| 1. The industry often has long term contracts that fixes
| prices months or years in advance.
|
| 2. Even without such contracts, the value of stable,
| long-term relationships with major customers made
| suppliers keep prices stable.
|
| 3. Governments intervened to prevent "price gouging" for
| favored industries, and even without such intervention,
| perceived price gouging can be more damaging long term
| than is made up for by near term profits.
|
| So you're right that there was a real shortage for a
| time.
|
| But note my original caveat: "On a market with free
| pricing". Unfree pricing (contracts/regulation) was one
| factor.
|
| But PR considerations, which I admit I didn't think of,
| was also a factor. So I learned something here!
| JSteph22 wrote:
| This example proves OP's point. It was only a "shortage"
| in name.
|
| If you were willing to pay more than the market rate,
| there was no problem in finding chips.
| eru wrote:
| > I feel like this whole issue could be solved short order if
| we agreed that not being able to find qualified applicants at
| a given fixed price does not a shortage make.
|
| It could be solved by realising that letting immigrants in,
| especially highly skilled ones, is good for the country (and
| for the immigrants!), independent of anything like a 'skills
| shortage'.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| So then call the H1-B program what it is - a way for US tech
| companies to depress wages to the point that you can't afford
| to live the US, unless it's a bunch of H-1B holders living
| together in a house share.
|
| The same goes for offshoring for jobs. Lovely for
| shareholders and the CEO's bonus, but not so great for US
| residents having to compete with them who are paying US cost
| of living, not Indian/etc overseas cost of living.
|
| It'd be nice if the US government would pass laws benefiting
| its own citizens/residents rather than corporations.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| It's racist to prefer citizens over non-citizens though.
| The US government should pass laws benefiting all people of
| the world equally.
| gmueckl wrote:
| It's nationalist, not racist. Passports and border
| controls are the practical foundation of all nationalism.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Huh? There are US citizens of all sorts of ethnic/racial
| backgrounds.
|
| Preferring US citizens over outsourcing is patriotic, not
| racist. It's also being a good corporate citizen -
| supporting the country/people you are gaining your
| profits from.
| nirav72 wrote:
| not sure if your comment was an attempt at sarcasm and I
| just missed it. In case it wasn't - it's not racist for
| country to look after its own economic interest or the
| interest of its own citizens.
| mianos wrote:
| Governments exist to take care of their own citizens--
| that's their main job. Citizens pay taxes, follow the
| laws, and contribute to the country, so it makes sense
| for a government to prioritize their needs. That's not
| racist; it's just how countries work.
|
| If a government tried to treat everyone in the world the
| same, it wouldn't be able to meet the needs of its own
| people. Things like healthcare, schools, and public
| services are paid for by citizens, so they have to come
| first.
|
| Also, preferring citizens isn't about race. Citizenship
| is something anyone can earn, no matter where they're
| from. Calling it racist mixes up two very different
| things.
|
| It's hard not to break the rules in replying to something
| like this.
| ulfw wrote:
| > Governments exist to take care of their own citizens--
| that's their main job. Citizens pay taxes, follow the
| laws, and contribute to the country, so it makes sense
| for a government to prioritize their needs. That's not
| racist; it's just how countries work.
|
| Are you trying to tell us immigrants to the US do not pay
| taxes? They don't follow laws? And they don't contribute
| to the country?
| mianos wrote:
| Obviously, given the context, I am not trying to say
| immigrants don't pay taxes or follow the law. I am saying
| the the job of a government is to look after its own. If
| you have some better term for "its own people" go for it.
|
| I'd also say, immigrants are only temporary non-citizens.
| If they are immigrating to stay, then it's the
| government's job to take care of them. Countries like the
| US and Australia were founded on immigrants.
|
| If their loyalty is not to the country they are
| immigrating to, and is to their previous country's
| government, I am not sure why it would be a priority to
| support them.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I'm not being sarcastic this time. You seem to have
| missed the zeitgeist, especially among younger
| generations. For them, it's very much true that the
| government shouldn't look out for the interests of its
| citizens over the interests of people in general, and
| they do think it's racist if the government does this.
| It's impossible to explain to them the very simple game
| theory implications of such policy, and it's difficult to
| argue that the government isn't already doing it (in the
| United States, in other countries it's impossible to
| argue that).
|
| >If their loyalty is not to the country they are
| immigrating to
|
| This goes against human nature. Loyalty would come later,
| not before or even immediately.
| closeparen wrote:
| House sharing is a problem with the numbers of people that
| FAANG wants to employ in West Coast communities that aren't
| having it, not with their identities. When people making
| $300-500k can't have their own houses, the problem is not
| money.
| m00x wrote:
| If the H1B is paid $400k, is it really depressing salaries?
| It's more about having employees that are 10-15% better
| than the competition if you can, which makes you much more
| likely to beat them.
| jimbohn wrote:
| Yes, even at 400k it's still salary depression. The whole
| thing is, essentially, regulatory capture that is being
| used to do a sort of "arbitrage" over people. Big
| corporations in the West are cannibalizing society
| because governments are failing at defending the
| interests of the majority due to the lobbying power of a
| minority. Mind you I am not talking about an uprising or
| some bullshit like that, but, for example, the situation
| around medical service/insurance in the US is appalling.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Good news: the USCIS makes this data available! [0]
|
| Google, Microsoft and Meta definitely look for (and hire!) US
| applicants. One can reasonably have a gripe with the consulting
| companies on there (Infosys, Tata, Cognizant, etc.) but they
| don't represent 90-95% of H-1B issued.
|
| [0] https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-
| studies/h-1b-employe...
| pnw wrote:
| One might have more than just a gripe with Infosys given they
| recently admitted to defrauding the visa system over decades
| and paid a record $34m fine. How many Americans lost out on
| jobs as a result? We'll never know.
|
| https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/indian-corporation-pays-
| re...
| strongpigeon wrote:
| It's worth saying though that this fine is for lying and
| abusing the B-1 visas (to circumvent H-1b limitations).
| That being said I still believe there are a lot of issues
| with these companies regarding their H-1bs in the first
| place.
| guiomie wrote:
| Actually, looking at your link, Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon
| are all in the top 10... on the link you shared, am I missing
| something?
| strongpigeon wrote:
| My point was that those companies are indeed in the top 10,
| and those companies also look at and hire US applicants.
| This was in response to the commenter's point that they'd
| be surprised if 5-10% of H1Bs listing even considered US
| applicants.
| philosopher123 wrote:
| If you filter out Information only ( which i am being
| conservative because this does not include healthcare and
| other sectors ) that is about 20K high paying IT Jobs. This
| def smells funny that they cannot find "quality" candidates
| in US that can build APIs and do FE work. Maybe out of that
| 20K workers, 500 might be actually be doing something special
| but rest are doing the work that does not need any
| specialization.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Not sure if this is only fresh visas or includes visa
| renewals. Because of the country caps in the naturalization
| process, you have people from some countries have to renew
| visas again and again while they wait for naturalization.
| Given that H1b is only 3 years, for companies like Google and
| Facebook, you could have a situation where they are just
| trying to retain employees who have been with the company for
| a while.
| strongpigeon wrote:
| You can only renew an H-1b once (as there is a 6 years
| limit for H-1b). However, if you have an approved I-140
| with a priority date in the future (as is often the case
| with people from India or China) you can keep on extending
| your H-1b (which doesn't count against the cap).
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Yes, which is why I was checking whether the data
| includes the renewals (including for approved I140s).
| angott wrote:
| Yes, the data does include petitions filed for renewals:
|
| > The H-1B Employer Data Hub has data on the first
| decisions USCIS makes on petitions for initial *and
| continuing* employment
| jmyeet wrote:
| H-1B abuse is a real problem but not by Big Tech. The
| offenders are the bodyshops like Tata and Infosys.
|
| The bodyshops flood USCIS with Indian-born applicants because
| they don't really care who gets approved and who doesn't.
| Those that get approved get a US job. The system is designed
| to stop employers abusing the power this gives them over
| employees. They fail in a number of ways.
|
| First, part of the process is a Prevailing Wage Determination
| to make sure the employee isn't underpaid for that job in
| that geographical area. There is abuse here at the bodyshops
| where (IIRC) employees are paid less or not at all if they
| aren't currently farmed out to a third-party. This should be
| policed but I don't think it is, at least not effectively.
|
| Second, the real abuse comes from the H1B -> Green card
| pipeline. H1B visas don't have per-country quotas. Green
| cards do (max 7% per country as determined by the country you
| were born in, not your actual citizenship). Because so many
| H1B holders are Indian-born, the backlog for Green cards for
| Indian-born applicants is decades long.
|
| Now you can stay with an employer beyond your 6 years (the
| usual limit of 3+3 for H1B visas) if you have a pending PERM
| application. The employee can't really leave. If they do they
| have to file their whole PERM case again (but they retain
| their priority date at least) so this becomes like indentured
| servitude almost.
|
| Nobody has really addressed this H1B abuse nor dealt with the
| huge backlog. A few years ago there was a bill that sought to
| address some of the issues by essentially removing the per-
| country quota but the net effect would be that for many
| years, nobody but Indian-born applicants would get green
| cards (because they have earlier priority dates). And that
| bill died in Congress.
|
| But back to Big Tech: they abuse this system too but not so
| egregiously.
|
| If you wander around any Big Tech office you will find likely
| a cork board in some obscure corner of some floor with little
| traffic. It will have a bunch of job postings on it. If you
| look in the physical newspaper for your area, you will also
| find them.
|
| Why are these here? To "prove" that the employer could not
| find a US permanent resident or citizen to fill that
| particular position. You have to advertize that position
| through a number of channels and those channels are chosen to
| receive the fewest applicants because who in 2024 applies for
| a SWE job from a physical newspaper? If you do apply, there
| is a whole process to exclude you from the position. You'll
| be too qualified or under-qualified or your salary
| expectations won't match the advertisement. Or they'll find
| some other reason to strike you.
|
| All of this theater is so someone else's PERM application
| with USCIS can go through.
|
| To me this is also abuse.
| ec109685 wrote:
| > If you do apply, there is a whole process to exclude you
| from the position. You'll be too qualified or under-
| qualified or your salary expectations won't match the
| advertisement. Or they'll find some other reason to strike
| you.
|
| Why would companies want to do that? Big tech has wage
| scales and pretty rigorous processes to ensure even pay at
| level, so what is the incentive to be biased against US
| born employees there?
| mwigdahl wrote:
| For one, because an H-1B holder is legally bound to the
| hiring company and can't seek work elsewhere. It is much
| higher level of employer leverage, particularly in a hot
| market.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I've managed a team at one of the big tech companies for
| a bunch of years. I've managed a couple people on h1b,
| all with graduate degrees from premier US institutions.
|
| Never once have I heard anything even resembling "work
| your h1bs harder because they won't leave." They all
| joined on the same pay scale as legal permanent residents
| and were all evaluated through a process where nobody
| else in the room knew who was a legal permanent resident
| or not (I only knew because I needed to sign off on forms
| describing their job responsibilities to the government).
|
| At most this is some aggregate effect of "people changing
| employers less is good for employers generally."
|
| This doesn't really vibe as _abuse_ of the program to me.
| I 'd vastly prefer it if the policies gave people on h1bs
| significantly more confidence in changing roles and more
| time to find a new job should they lose their job, but is
| this really a decision of the tech companies rather than
| an output of the immigration policies?
| jmyeet wrote:
| So for Big Tech it's never as egregious as "work your
| H1Bs harder" or "pay them less". That just opens you up
| to a future lawsuit.
|
| In a hot market, your best chance of career progression
| and maximizing your compensation is to swap jobs every 2
| years or so. Visa holders have a much harder time doing
| this.
|
| Additionally, there are additional burdens on the
| employer to hire visa holders. For a large company, this
| process is solved. You have lawyers on retainer. You have
| a pipeline for the paperwork. It's a non-issue. But an
| early stage startup? That's a lot less likely. So visa
| holders are, by definition, more limited in their job
| opportunities.
|
| Even if you can job hop, if your ultimate goal is to get
| a green card, you have a problem. Will your new employer
| sponsor your green card? How long will it take? Or are
| you better off waiting for your current process to go
| through? Best case, this whole thing takes just under a
| year. But it can take years completely randomly and
| there's nothing you can do about it (eg you get randomly
| audited).
|
| And if you were born in one of the four high-demand
| countries (India, China, Mexico, the Phillipines) you
| have an even longer wait.
|
| Also, after you get to 6 years on your H1B you really
| can't swap jobs anymore. You just have to wait for your
| green card at that point.
|
| Now that's not _strictly_ true. There are self-sponsor
| options for both visas and green cards but the bar for
| these is much higher and you 'll need to hire your own
| lawyer for this.
|
| So there's no directive on treating visa holders
| differently but bias creeps into the process. Why push
| someone for higher bonuses, more RSUs or promotions when
| they can't leave but another one of your "stars" can
| leave? This may not be conscious either. And it may
| happen on a level above you, as a manager, because your
| director is ultimately responsible for balancing out
| ratings and promotions across their org.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > Why push someone for higher bonuses, more RSUs or
| promotions when they can't leave but another one of your
| "stars" can leave?
|
| This would have to be _extremely_ unconscious for me, I
| suppose. I 've never considered immigration status when
| doing comp planning. Comp planning is mostly algorithmic
| based on performance reviews, which again are done
| through a group of people who don't actually know
| somebody's immigration status. Discretionary comp pretty
| much entirely comes from rewarding people who are in the
| high end of some ratings bucket, which again is derived
| from the panel discussion. I've also managed to promote
| all of the h1bs I've had on my team.
|
| > And it may happen on a level above you, as a manager,
| because your director is ultimately responsible for
| balancing out ratings and promotions across their org.
|
| I've actually been pretty fortunate here (I guess) and
| have never had a rating adjusted by a higher up. I
| suppose this _could_ happen, but I 've also been in the
| rollup meetings where a director is trying to fit ratings
| to some expected distribution and there'd have to have
| been a secret meeting ahead of time for immigration
| status to come up.
|
| > In a hot market, your best chance of career progression
| and maximizing your compensation is to swap jobs every 2
| years or so. Visa holders have a much harder time doing
| this.
|
| This is true. People on h1bs being less able to change
| roles can depress their wages over time and this can be a
| benefit to corporations. I don't know if I'd really call
| this "abuse" by the companies, more like a shitty outcome
| of the policy. It could be the case that the big tech
| companies lobby to make it more difficult for people on
| h1bs to change jobs, I suppose.
| coredog64 wrote:
| I would expect to see the thumbs on the scale at the
| director level, not at the direct report level. At those
| heights, employees are costs to be managed, and they
| shave a little off here and there to keep their budget
| low.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I guess you could expect this.
|
| I've never seen anything that smelled of this even a
| little bit.
| angott wrote:
| > an H-1B holder is legally bound to the hiring company
| and can't seek work elsewhere
|
| That's not really the case. An H-1B visa holder is not
| strictly bound to their employer, and is allowed to
| transfer to a new employer. Unlike visas such as the L-1,
| which are employer-tied, the H-1B allows for this
| flexibility. Transferring does require the new employer
| to file a new H-1B petition, but that process is
| straightforward and any big tech company will gladly
| complete that as part of the hiring process.
|
| The main exception arises only when the H-1B holder has
| just started pursuing a green card. The first step of the
| green card process, known as PERM, typically takes 1-2
| years to complete. During this time, the worker may feel
| more committed to their current employer because
| switching jobs would restart the PERM process,
| potentially delaying their green card timeline.
| ta_1138 wrote:
| A non-trivial part of the issue with consulting companies is
| the long wait for many to turn an H-1B into a green card. If
| you are going to need many years of continuous employment
| without ever getting hit by a layoff (which risks a gap in
| employment), the immigrant might be better of with the
| consulting company, as they might end up the bench, or just
| count as employed but not getting any hours.
|
| If the road from H-1B to permanent residency was shorter and
| more reliable, the advantages of the consulting companies
| would shrink.
|
| The same as if we didn't end up having to rely on lotteries.
| Hiring a candidate and hoping for an H-1B is quite annoying
| if you don't have them on staff in another country, or they
| are working for you in the US from an F-1. Those consulting
| companies that have large offices in India can happily submit
| large amounts of applications of people they already have in
| India, and be OK with 2/3rds of them not winning said
| lottery. A smaller company just can't play that numbers' game
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| I have also met teams at FAANG where a foreign born boss's
| team is 90% or more H1-Bs from their origin country. Kind of
| suspicious.
| aylmao wrote:
| I wonder if this shortage has to do with the recent strong
| swing back to in-office work
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Well, what is a company supposed to do if local candidates do
| not want RTO? It seems logical to hire workers who are OK
| with RTO, especially if they are outside of the country and
| clearly willing to relocate for RTO.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Well, what is a company supposed to do if local
| candidates do not want RTO?_
|
| Well one option, of course, would be not forcing staff to
| return to office.
| simoncion wrote:
| Perhaps while also noticing both the record profits made
| over the past four years, as well as the fact that many
| of those working from their home office have had nothing
| but glowing performance reviews over those past four
| years...
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| It just takes the negotiation power from the employees
| though. The question is, whether it's more important to
| make the employees happy or the businesses. Both have valid
| cases.
| eru wrote:
| Talking about a shortage of local applicants is really
| irrelevant and at most a distraction.
|
| It's the old 'the foreigners are taking our jobs' routine.
| liontwist wrote:
| So is it true or false?
| eru wrote:
| The number of people in the labour force has change quite a
| lot over the centuries, and the number of people gainfully
| employed has tracked that quite closely. Ie unemployment
| has been relatively low and stable. (Despite eg women
| joining the labour force en mass over the course of the
| 20th century, or all the baby boomers, etc.)
|
| That suggest the null hypothesis that to a first
| approximation the number of jobs is determined by the
| number of workers available. More workers seem to somehow
| lead to more jobs. (Immigration changes the number of
| workers, yes. But that's about it.)
| liontwist wrote:
| what about the particulars?
|
| What kinds of jobs are growing? Are any groups
| underemployed? Are standards of living increasing? For
| who?
|
| > More workers seem to somehow lead to more jobs.
|
| Imagine the US merged with Canada and Mexico. The number
| of jobs would probably go up until we reached a similar
| level of unemployment. Would everyone be better off? Is
| that what economic growth looks like?
| semiquaver wrote:
| > I'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are
| ones where the hiring company has even looked for US
| applicants.
|
| But H1B employers are required to certify that they took good
| faith steps to recruit U.S. workers for these positions and
| were unable to find qualified candidates to hire.
|
| You really think a business would do that? Just go to the
| government and tell lies?
| pnw wrote:
| Yes, some of them have been doing it for decades.
|
| https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/indian-corporation-pays-
| re...
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Yes - it seems this is routinely done for H-1B positions. You
| meet the requirement for having advertised the job by running
| an ad for 1 day in the back of the fisherman's chronicle. You
| tailor the job description so closely to the H-1B candidate
| you've already decided to hire, that it'd be easy to defend
| why you rejected other candidates (should they inconvenience
| you by seeing the ad and applying).
| throwaway173460 wrote:
| When you get a chance please look up the difference between
| H-1B and PERM.
| angott wrote:
| There are no newspaper ads involved in the H-1B program.
| There is a separate process (LCA) to ensure the H-1B worker
| is paid the prevailing wage in the location where they're
| hired. It relies on the Department of Labor making such
| determination.
|
| Newspaper ad is required for PERM, which is part of the
| green card process.
| vetrom wrote:
| "Good faith" by the letter of the law is often established by
| chichanery like posting job ads with nebulous requirements in
| _print_ newspapers, requiring mail in resumes, and
| slowrolling a process.
|
| Not lies, strictly, but I see plenty of evidence pointing to
| the 'fake job' phonemena that seems to be discounted, like
| this example: https://www.teamblind.com/post/Intuit-firing-
| up-ads-in-local...
|
| Filtering out real information from data and anecdata is a
| challenge at the best of times, but I am ill convinced of the
| honesty of most of the recruitment market.
| bdangubic wrote:
| there is limited number of H1B visas that are issued each year
| (as if I have to even say this)... so they won't make a dent if
| you are correct with "the huge numbers of US developers
| currently looking for work."
|
| we abolish the program and boom, 65k people out of this
| apparently HUGE number of US developers looking for work won't
| make a dent... so this argument holds absolutely no water ...
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| ...other than... you know... the entire point of the H1B visa
| program... is to get talent the US DOESN'T already have ...
| bdangubic wrote:
| I am not arguing the merits/purpose of the program. just
| the silly that this program is affecting US population tech
| (un)employment
| Aperocky wrote:
| Well, if there aren't such programs people like Elon or
| Satya and Pichai might have never started out. You look at
| them as being successful and exceptional today (regardless
| of some of the more questionable antics and decisions),
| when they just started, it's hard to argue that you can't
| find similar, exceptional talent in the US.
|
| But if you shut off that valve, they would not be here 25
| years later.
| slaw wrote:
| Elon, Satya and Pichai didn't arrive on H1B visa.
| fragmede wrote:
| Interestingly, Staya Nadella did use the H1B program, in
| an unconventional way.
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-ceo-satya-
| nadella-o...
| ashconnor wrote:
| As a non-immigrant to the United States, I don't really buy
| into the idea that companies prefer H1B candidates purely for
| financial reasons. The H1B process is frankly a rigid,
| unreliable and time-consuming process.
|
| It's hard for even Canadians and Mexicans to find jobs in the
| US and we have access to the supposedly easy to obtain TN visa.
| Australians too with E3.
|
| I'm more inclined to believe that H1B workers have other
| benefits to employers such as longer tenure due to the
| restrictions of moving jobs.
|
| Which in itself should be an argument for further
| liberalization say by giving I140 approved petitioners access
| to EADs.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _I 'm more inclined to believe that H1B workers have other
| benefits to employers such as longer tenure due to the
| restrictions of moving jobs._
|
| That _is_ a financial motive. Companies don 't want to pay
| the kind of compensation which would induce employees to be
| loyal to the company, and so they use H1B quasi-indentured
| servitude as a cheaper alternative.
| gmueckl wrote:
| It doesn't quite work that way. H-1B employees need to have
| above average compensation or their field. This is part of
| the application process.
| simoncion wrote:
| > H-1B employees need to have above average compensation
| or their field.
|
| In the past decade or so, I have personally worked with
| an H-1B in the SF Bay Area who was working a full-time
| software position advertised as requiring a Master's
| degree, but was making something like $120k/year.
|
| "Must be making above the median pay for the position"
| might be the way it's SUPPOSED to work, but it's clear
| that it doesn't ALWAYS work that way.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| Does that salary need to be above average at the time of
| hire, or throughout their entire tenure.
|
| If its the prior then if an H-1B employee stays at a
| company for more than a few years it actually would come
| out to being cheaper overall, on top of them being more
| incentivized to just go with the flow and deal with any
| BS since their stay in the country depends on it. They
| have significantly less leverage than a US citizen to
| stay through grueling work conditions or toxic work
| environments.
| ashconnor wrote:
| I think you're assuming that everyone has a price.
|
| Also H1Bs can't also start their own businesses (at least
| before this rule). So that was another restriction.
| lupusreal wrote:
| > _I think you 're assuming that everyone has a price_
|
| Nope. They don't need it to work for every worker, they
| can't get every worker as a H1B either. It working for
| _some_ workers makes it worth doing for businesses.
| orochimaaru wrote:
| I've been on an H1B before, a long time back. Most
| companies do not want to deal with your immigration issues.
| Bigger enterprises have the resources. But the moment you
| get smaller, there isn't a whole lot of patience or energy
| for that.
|
| As an H1B I May have made marginally less than my peers who
| were not immigrationally challenged. But as promotions
| picked up I think that wasn't an issue anymore.
|
| The one thing I still have though is I'm never the squeaky
| wheel. Getting laid off on an H1B is brutal. So your
| tolerance for corporate bs and workplace toxicity is quite
| high.
| whaleofatw2022 wrote:
| This last point is a big one.
|
| I've seen more than one shop that would use contract
| houses as a way to 'paper over' their internal turnover
| issues.
|
| After all, even if the internal resource at the body shop
| asks for and gets a transfer, they've got another body in
| to finish the contract.
|
| Plus the fringe benefits. That h1b is a sword of
| damocles, contractor will work 6/10+ even if the main
| shop is doing 45 on average for engineers.
|
| Which, doesn't get you better code typically, but it
| let's suits say people are working long hours to get the
| task done.
| bdangubic wrote:
| I don't buy this and you should not be selling it :) if
| H1Bs worked 6/10+ while other employees did 45 all it
| would take is ONE of H1B's to reach out to ONE hungry
| lawyer and the lawsuit will be plastered all over the
| MSM/Social Media/... the H1B gal/guy would go home to
| their country with a bag full of money :)
|
| people here on HN (without any merit) make H1B program
| sound like farming jobs in Texas... too funny
| dazed_confused wrote:
| Crazy to think the people who come to US universities to
| obtain post-bachelor degrees are more qualified than
| those who didn't... This is purely anecdotal, but my
| experience at a top institution is that the majority of
| CS/ECE of MS and PhD programs are foreign students, and
| the H1B folks I worked with had these advanced degrees.
| closeparen wrote:
| Only in the context of H1B does anyone conceive of tech workers
| as having a binary condition called "qualified." In white-
| collar jobs worth having, impact scales essentially infinitely
| with skill. You aren't looking for people who are merely
| capable of some baseline, you are looking for the best. The
| world is much bigger than America, so even if Americans are
| very good, many of the best are still foreigners.
| silisili wrote:
| I agree with this in theory, but in practice...
|
| I've worked directly with probably 50 or so H1B folks in my
| career. I can only think of a few I'd call exceptional. Just
| like Americans, most were a mixed bag from good to terrible.
|
| So the idea and argument of best of the best is sound, but
| it's definitely not being used solely that way.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The idea of 'best of the best' relies on the assumption
| that it is measurable which history has shown that it is
| not.
| closeparen wrote:
| I mean, this is basic VC logic: because the returns are
| power law distributed, and it's very hard to know in
| advance which ones are going to hit, you should probably
| invest at least a little bit in anyone who seems
| basically plausible. Imagine having denied a visa to
| Sergey Brin!
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Money is measurable, engineer quality is not. Sure with a
| smaller startup you could average amongst the engineers
| but it's an imprecise value. The million threads on
| leetcode and interview are proof positive engineer
| valuation is hard.
|
| It's all well and good to gamble when someone else, the
| public, is picking up the tab.
| closeparen wrote:
| What tab? H1B engineers are definitionally employed,
| usually in the upper tax brackets.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Unpriced externalities. Housing is unaffordable in no
| small part due to immigration. Opportunity cost for
| Americans workers.
|
| Generally the government manages the economy to make
| things 'easy' but not necessarily reflecting the true
| cost of any behavior.
| closeparen wrote:
| Housing is unaffordable because tech brings high-paying
| jobs into regions that don't want housing growth. Whether
| the people coming to fill those jobs and throw those
| salaries around in the housing market are from India or
| from Wisconsin hardly matters, except that it's more
| comfortable for local governments to be overtly hostile
| to the Wisconsinites.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Housing requires land which inherently does not scale.
| closeparen wrote:
| Accepting that premise for a moment, why would the land
| around Bay Area offices scale any better for Americans
| than for H1Bs? If the opportunities simply go to
| Americans, you have exactly the same geometry problem. If
| the Americans who refill those roles do so at higher
| wages, the supply-and-demand imbalance gets even worse.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Ultimately there exists more foreigners than Americans.
| American employees are more willing to create jobs
| outside the bay area.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| So then the h1b hires will go to jobs outside the bay
| area, reducing pressure on housing prices in the bay
| area.
|
| Tech companies have N openings in the bay area. They will
| fill these openings. Whether they fill the openings with
| people moving from India or Mississippi has zero effect
| on the pressure on the bay area housing market.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| My understanding is Sergey was just along for the ride
| and Larry was the one with the unique insights (pagerank)
| and led Google through the early years as CEO.
| fellowmartian wrote:
| Most people are missing the fact that there's a whole
| immigration economy on the other end, it's not a passive
| storefront (that was banned in the 19th century). People
| want to immigrate, but the people who are best at
| immigrating aren't necessarily best at their job.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| How have you only worked with 50 or so H1B in your career?
| It's either not been long, or you didn't work at any large
| tech companies (the ones who use this visa the most)
| silisili wrote:
| I don't jump much, I've worked for 3 companies in 20
| years.
|
| They were smallish companies, 1000ish employees. Only one
| had H1B, and there were more than 50, but never worked
| with most enough to pass judgment one way or another.
| calculatte wrote:
| H1B doesn't test for skill. It is a lottery. And judging from
| the skill of hundreds of H1Bs I've worked with, it is a
| failure of a system.
| bdangubic wrote:
| where the F do you work when you are surrounded by
| "hundreds of H1Bs" - at the airport's baggage claim when
| they arrive?
| calculatte wrote:
| You are forgetting the dimension called "time" Mr. Angry
| But Dense.
| bdangubic wrote:
| you've been working since 1776? other than immigration
| attorney no F'ing person has worked with "hundreds of
| H1Bs" so you can cut the crap
| calculatte wrote:
| You've clearly never worked in a large tech company.
| atq2119 wrote:
| The size of company you work in doesn't matter beyond a
| certain fairly small size. The only way anybody could
| work with hundreds of people at all (and have a justified
| informed opinion about them) is to have a long career in
| a place or places with very high turnover.
|
| Professors might hit those numbers because having
| informed opinions about their students is a large part of
| their job and they see large turnover by definition.
| Directors could have a chance, but even there I'd say
| hundreds is actually unusual, unless your standards for
| quality of opinion are low.
|
| And then that's all people, not just H1-B holders.
| calculatte wrote:
| Then call me Mr Outlier.
|
| Because large tech companies with a large cohort of H1B +
| tendency to frequently reorg + career level with impact
| with large reach means I have indeed worked with
| hundreds.
|
| Sorry bro, you don't get to deny my actual experience.
| bdangubic wrote:
| no one is buying what you are selling so you should not
| be selling it :)
|
| even if you were the largest outliers on the planet you
| could not possibly collaborate with hundreds in a way
| where you get to know much about them. even if you said
| "tens of h1b's" it would be a hard sell :)
| spydum wrote:
| I think very many people are confusing H1B and straight
| outsourcing of talent. While there is some overlap, they
| are not nearly the same.
|
| Ive worked with both, and very few of the H1bs were below
| average. Otherwise they aren't worth sponsoring.
|
| There was a time in the mid 2000s when the
| Infosys/TCS/wiPros of the world were gaming the H1B to
| bring offshore bodies onshore.. but most of that died off
| as far as I see.
| calculatte wrote:
| The H1B fraud from places like Infosys is alive, well,
| and bigger than ever.
|
| Alive and well.
| https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/09/h1b_visa_fraud/
|
| Companies caught cheating the lottery
| https://archive.ph/Ey3e8
|
| Outsourcers rampant abuse
| https://www.infoworld.com/article/2241196/proof-
| that-h-1b-vi...
|
| SV companies discriminating against Americans
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/10/07/h-1b-visa-company-
| sup...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > A supposed shortage of qualified US applicants for tech jobs,
| especially software developers, doesn't jibe with the huge
| numbers of US developers currently looking for work, including
| highly experienced older workers suffering from age
| discrimination.
|
| While I tend to agree, this is a bit of a straw man.
|
| You can have tons of people looking for work who aren't
| qualified for the job - which is (I think) the FAANG argument.
|
| It's not like FAANG is paying less than what most unemployed
| techies are looking to make.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| FAANG companies have been laying people off at the moment, so
| it doesn't seem they are exactly suffering from a lack of
| workers. Until a year or so ago some of these companies were
| hiring people without any real work for them, just to deprive
| their competitors of talent.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I tend to agree, but this is another straw man.
|
| FAANG will argue that they are laying off people with
| skills they don't need, and there's a lack of people with
| skills they do need.
|
| Call them out and make a convincing argument that this is
| BS.
|
| Don't cry out: BUT SOME AMERICAN WAS FIRED AND THEY'RE
| STILL HIRING!
|
| This isn't a sound argument.
| danans wrote:
| > FAANG will argue that they are laying off people with
| skills they don't need, and there's a lack of people with
| skills they do need.
|
| They are laying off workers (permanent residents and H1Bs
| alike) mostly to cut costs while all their competitors
| are doing it, thereby saving face.
|
| Additionally they are signalling to investors that they
| are focused on cash generation and only investing in
| areas they think will serve that end in the near term.
|
| Finally, they are preparing for a future where they need
| fewer workers per unit of revenue and profit growth, but
| in the short term, that just means a higher workload for
| those workers that remain.
| coliveira wrote:
| Well, tech companies claim that they cannot find good enough
| workers to fill their positions. But "good enough" is a
| subjetive classification. I can always create a test for which
| you are not good enough, it doesn't matter how much knowledge
| you have. And that's what tech companies have done for years.
| They'll aways craft a contrived interview process that will
| classify most people as not "good enough" and use this as
| evidence that there are not enough workers available, so they
| will get the opportunity to expand the pool of workers as much
| as they want.
| ponector wrote:
| When company says they cannot find good enough people to hire
| it really means they cannot find cheap enough people.
| lokar wrote:
| Not true IME from working and hiring at several tech
| companies.
|
| They pay at top of market. They would save a ton on comp if
| they gave up on h1 candidates and hired the best they could
| find locally.
|
| I know popular sentiment here is often that there is no
| real difference between these candidates, and the standards
| are arbitrary. That is simply it true. There are vast
| differences in engineering talent. Some people are truly
| amazing compared to the median candidate.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Every dev interview process I've been a part of has not
| included consideration of the applicant's citizenship status.
| The interview process has many flaws, but it is not contrived
| to tailor itself towards H1Bs at the expense of citizens. At
| least, not at the companies I've worked at, which are
| household names. At TCL or Wipro? Sure, those are blatant
| offenders of the H1B visa.
| janalsncm wrote:
| You said it yourself, those offenders supply talent to
| other companies. Many roles simply won't be available to
| citizens because they're filled by H1B abusers.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Yeah, I think the abusive companies like TCS and Wipro
| should be shut down. But the other companies generally
| pay pretty fair and use this visa system pretty normally,
| and they do see a shortage of qualified talent. I saw it
| myself as an interviewer. TCS and Wipro have a completely
| different quality standard (if you can call it that) and
| everyone knows it, plus they are cheating
| coliveira wrote:
| Companies don't need to favor one group against another,
| they just need to make the process artificially hard, so
| they'll have the excuse that there are not enough workers
| ready to fill those positions.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| The process is not artificially hard, imo. It's just
| testing you on things a college CS curriculum goes over.
| Sadly many many colleges in the US have a very
| substandard bar for teaching this subject.
| harichinnan wrote:
| It's really simple test. Dig into unemployment numbers for
| skill shortages. If your industry only has an acceptable level
| of unemployment filings, then it qualifies as an industry
| eligible for H1B. Within the industry, each company would
| interview you on SV style data structures and algorithms. If
| you don't make the interview, you are not qualified. The
| foreigner who could pass such a qualifying test would then get
| the job and visa is an accessory here.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| My employer cannot hire H-1Bs.
|
| You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US
| Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
|
| You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance. You
| don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is usually
| plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have to be
| eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you in for a
| clearance.
|
| We cannot find qualified applicants.
|
| I've had this conversation many times on HN so here are some
| preemptive responses:
|
| No, we don't make weapons for the military. Well, we do but not
| my part of the company. The most harmful thing the products I
| build do is quantify in precise detail how climate change is
| dooming us all.
|
| No, our positions aren't ghost positions.
|
| Yes, we are willing to train someone who is motivated. We won't
| re-teach linear algebra to a developer applicant but we will
| pay a tech writer to go to school nights/weekends to get a
| degree in engineering (me, I did that).
|
| Yes, we have extensive high school and college work-
| study/internships and participants make $72k/yr. with full
| benefits for the duration of the program. That pipeline is
| actually successful.
|
| No, you can't work remotely. You (even programmers!) have to
| touch the things we build in order to build them and nobody has
| an ISO certified clean room in their house.
|
| Yes, we pay well.
|
| No, we don't pay as much as Meta. We build components for
| satellites that have been sold to space agencies and purchased
| by various departments/ministries of the environment, not your
| personal information to advertisers-- one party has more money
| to spend than the other.
|
| We have shortages in mech/EE/Aero, shortages in software, and
| critical shortages in engineering technicians.
|
| One issue is that we expect programmers to remember linear
| algebra and have more than the ability to shovel frameworks on
| top of each other until a phone app comes out the other side.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| What is your definition of qualified.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > No, you can't work remotely. You (even programmers!) have
| to touch the things we build in order to build them and
| nobody has an ISO certified clean room in their house.
|
| What part of the country are you in?
| MisterTea wrote:
| This. If you're not in or near a major urban center you're
| going to have to really be attractive to pull people in to
| work there.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| And if you are near a major urban center pay needs to
| reflect the HCOL environment or the unpaid commute time.
| edm0nd wrote:
| a lot of these fed or sec clearance type jobs in
| VA/Maryland area.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| They talked about manufacturing satellites, some of this
| aerospace stuff is in Alabama because a senator back in
| the 60s got some space contracts for the Huntsville area
| - good luck finding people who want to move to AL. Not
| saying that the poster is necessarily in AL, but if they
| are then that could be a reason they're not finding
| people.
| EFreethought wrote:
| Some people say that when you leave Huntsville you enter
| Alabama.
|
| Granted, it is still a red state.
| mfer wrote:
| If someone is a software developer who has done non-trivial
| things and linear algebra but not recently and needs to be
| refreshed, do you provide time/training to refresh on the
| math skills?
| sokoloff wrote:
| I'd imagine that the rusty candidate could refresh themself
| on linear algebra in what, two three-hour evenings before
| the interview.
| lovich wrote:
| Who's putting in the work to study for a niche skill set
| for a place that will pay you less than the market?
|
| Normally that kind of requirement leads to _higher_
| compensation
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| If you think of it from a return on investment/expected
| value point of view, why would you ever take time out of
| your day to refresh yourself on linear algebra and other
| numerical methods assuming its not out of personal
| interest just to apply somewhere that already has so many
| barriers to entry that don't exist elsewhere, on top of
| admitting it will not pay as much as other positions that
| would require these skills.
|
| I'd rather spend my time focusing on applying at other
| positions that will pay just as much if not more without
| being required to spend nights and weekends relearning a
| skill that is just not used very much elsewhere and not
| requiring security clearances, and why would I waste my
| time applying there when other jobs that do require these
| skills compensate more for the effort.
|
| On the other hand if this company did pay closer to Meta
| salaries (the comparison they used) then it gives all
| candidates, including US citizens who fit more of their
| eligibility criteria, that much more incentive to
| actually relearn these skills and makes the expected
| return on investment potentially worth it.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I agree with you on the overall reasoning, but I conclude
| that "this job is not worth applying to even if it took 6
| seconds of preparation" rather than "this job is not
| worth applying to because it would take 6 hours of
| preparation".
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| I understand your struggle. I have worked with US and non-US
| orgs that are in similar boat.
|
| In my experience this is often and at least in part a self-
| inflicted wound. As you describe your side of the business,
| it should not restricted, but it is. _Maybe?_ Not enough
| detail to be certain.
|
| What I see time and time again is business not willing to
| implement proper DLP, labeling and isolation of restricted
| things. Instead, they just throw everything into a single
| bucket, because it is quicker, faster, some of the risk and
| compliance is shifted to third party, and _initially_
| cheaper.
|
| In short, a US, UK, Aus company that does government
| contracts will just force _everyone_ into NOFORN, on-prem
| requirements (because DFARS, CMMC, CE+, Essential 8, or
| whatever). It is way quicker to do this for entire company
| than actually label data, isolate environment and resources,
| and so on.
| geertj wrote:
| Why linear algebra? Honest question, i have not seen this as
| a specific requirement before.
| jmb99 wrote:
| It can be inferred that they're making satellites, or at
| least satellite components. It's pretty likely that vector
| math will be involved in some of the software being written
| in that context. In particular, if anything they write
| involves navigation (which is a lot of things when it comes
| to satellites, from actually maneuvering to observation
| correction) you need to have a pretty good understanding of
| linear algebra to write good software. And aerospace isn't
| an industry where you want someone relying on google for
| mission-critical logic.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Sure, but there's a huge spectrum between "mild
| competence" and "can recite strang's verbatim". My
| experience is that companies emphasizing specific math
| skills beyond normal professional baselines typically
| expect the latter despite usually offering the same (or
| lower) salaries than the former.
| zifpanachr23 wrote:
| strang's would be something that is entry level in terms
| of linear algebra.
|
| I think they should clarify whether they want somebody
| that has passed a linear algebra class with high marks
| based on something like strangs' entry level book
| before...or are on the cutting edge of graduate level
| linear algebra research. It's not clear from the post and
| I suspect that might be an issue.
|
| Give me a couple months and I could recite strangs entry
| level textbook. I passed that class with an A+. But I
| could not become a PhD level maths student with a linear
| algebra research focus in that amount of time.
|
| There are multiple very different ways to interpret a
| requirement for being competent in linear algebra.
|
| Knowing everything covered in strangs introduction to
| linear algebra is actually quite low on the potential
| list of requirements and could be self studied.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| If you need a specific specialist degree (like a PhD in
| linear algebra), then that's just the professional
| baseline knowledge I already mentioned.
|
| When I last read Strang's, my course included a lot of
| spectral theory that was decidedly _not_ introductory
| regardless of what the title says. Either way, the point
| is that most non-specialist practitioners don 't need
| that. How often have you truly run into determinants mod
| N or stochastic matrices in real life?
|
| It sounds like our linear algebra classes were somewhat
| different though. No one received an A in mine. I had one
| of 3-4 B's.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Never ran into modular determinants IRL but stochastic
| matrices are pretty common in many jobs - that said
| honestly anyone that's actually good at linear algebra
| and dev work has some pretty good options in many fields
| so considering it as a baseline unremarkable requirement
| is uncalled for, I agree.
| coliveira wrote:
| > Give me a couple months and I could recite strangs
|
| Yes, most people had LA classes during college. But would
| you take a couple of months to relearn something that
| would be used only to interview for one job that you have
| no idea you'll get? That's certainly a reason why few
| people want to interview there.
| jmb99 wrote:
| I would argue that, if the sole differentiating
| requirement is "must be proficient at linear algebra" (at
| an undergraduate level), the pay requirements shouldn't
| be that different from most other similar jobs. Almost
| every engineering job will have some domain specific
| requirements; would you say a job asking for applicants
| to be "proficient in undergraduate-level fluid dynamics"
| would require higher pay than any other chemical
| engineering job? Or, back to SWE, if there's a
| requirement to have experience working with
| microcontrollers, should that job pay more than any other
| C developer position?
|
| If an SWE job posting has a narrow set of requirements,
| none of which require particularly high-level education,
| that means the ideal candidate is a "regular" SWE with
| experience or knowledge in the field being hired for.
| It's not like this aerospace company wants someone who is
| an expert at linear algebra while also being a full stack
| dev with intimate understanding of a few major cloud
| platforms' offerings and knows how to write windows
| drivers and does silicon design in their spare time.
| They're just looking for a particular type of developer
| for which there simply may not be any candidates. Yeah,
| technically you could triple the salary and steal
| employees from other companies who weren't looking for
| jobs, but the economics of that aren't feasible. If there
| are n positions and n-a total eligible developers (for
| some positive a), it doesn't matter how much you increase
| pay, there still aren't going to be enough people to fill
| the roles. And you're eventually going to run out of
| money, because you usually can't just triple the price of
| your products.
| panzagl wrote:
| Satellites go in circles and need to point at things.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| You might believe that you don't make weapons, but nobody
| else does.
|
| You're building satellite components, which I'm quite certain
| are dual use.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| The linux kernel is dual-use.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| This is why you can't hire anybody competent.
|
| Maybe try admitting what you're building and justify it
| as necessary instead.
|
| Insulting people's ability to reason is a certain way to
| repel anybody with a brain.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| I used to build fantastic little things the likes of
| which no human being had ever seen before that have
| killed many, many, people including (if reports from that
| side of the company are right, and they are) thousands
| and thousands of Russians and their tanks.
|
| Now I design radar panel assemblies for weather
| satellites.
|
| They're both a good living.
| glitchc wrote:
| > They're both a good living.
|
| Only someone who has never seen war first-hand can make a
| statement like that. You've never been in the kill zone.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| I was an infantryman in the US Army from 1998-2008.
|
| I used the GI Bill and Army College Fund to pay for my
| bachelors.
|
| I deployed to "tHe KiLl ZoNe" twice with C Co 1/503rd
| infantry and A Co 1/23rd infantry.
| coliveira wrote:
| I guess even if he knew he was making weapons, he
| wouldn't be able to say it... And that's another reason
| why these companies cannot find workers.
| p1esk wrote:
| _Yes, we pay well. No, we don 't pay as much as Meta._
|
| How well do you pay? If I were at Meta, my total comp would
| be 500-600k. I make half that at a small startup. Can you
| afford me?
| panzagl wrote:
| No they cannot, unless maybe you have advanced degrees and
| a couple decades experience.
| optimiz3 wrote:
| Yeah but then you're too old. Need to be in your 20s with
| a couple decades of experience.
| CapeTheory wrote:
| Calling it now - a leetcode-based kindergarten programme
| is the next big a16z investment.
| yazzku wrote:
| "Hit the ground running."
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| You say this ironically, but someone who's been working
| hard 15 hours 7 days a week in a niche, 50 weeks a year,
| from age 15 to age 29 has clearly a much higher potential
| than a 45 year old following the normal path in life.
|
| And almost certainly a higher employable value too unless
| they have catastrophically bad social skills...
| lovich wrote:
| Did they develop those social skills during the free time
| they had?
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Why does this matter?
|
| They can develop it while lying in bed and daydreaming
| for all the difference it makes.
| lovich wrote:
| The implication was that someone who dedicated all of
| their time as physically possible to working and
| studying, would not have had time to develop social
| skills
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Talented people can improve in multiple directions at the
| same time... unless you don't believe this?
|
| Plus any 29 year old who can actually land a genuine
| 500k-600k USD compensation job at a big company is a
| literal genius, at the very least.
| lovich wrote:
| Do you honestly believe that an individual who
|
| >... been working hard 15 hours 7 days a week in a niche,
| 50 weeks a year, from age 15 to age 29...
|
| Developed the same level of social skills as the average
| individual who lived a more normal schedule?
|
| I have to ask before you even answer that. Do you believe
| that social skills are something to be practiced and
| built upon, are they some waste of time they only
| hormones bother with, or some other option I haven't
| considered?
| snakeyjake wrote:
| How many years of experience?
|
| I fall almost exactly on the low end of this range:
| https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/senior-aerospace-
| engineer...
|
| With 15 years of experience.
|
| I'm at the low end of my peers.
|
| Like I said, auctioning off access to your users to
| advertisers pays better than the European space agency.
| zipy124 wrote:
| Wait the low range of that link is PS45k but you say work
| study placement people get $75k a year?
| bitcurious wrote:
| There might be some regionality built in; viewed from the
| US the range is $265K - $463K/yr.
| titanomachy wrote:
| That is outrageous that two seemingly developed countries
| could have such a huge compensation gap. A _senior
| aerospace engineer_ in the UK can make as little as 45k
| GBP, or 56k USD? One _fifth_ as much as the lowest-paid
| American??
|
| The take-home on that is PS35k. The median rent in London
| is PS26k. I suppose the person making PS45k doesn't
| likely live in London, but still pretty grim.
|
| https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024/10/14/the-
| amer...
| paleotrope wrote:
| You guys get the NHS though.
| samatman wrote:
| Yes but those numbers are pre-tax income.
| winter_blue wrote:
| I don't know if you're making a joke or not, but getting
| NHS isn't worth $200,000 USD per year.
|
| Most Americans get employer-provided health insurance,
| which costs money (the amount specified in the DD section
| of the W2), and its often in the $1500/month range. That
| DD amount isn't part of your income or the salary
| Glassdoor mentions. It's an added benefit of top of that.
|
| In the UK and elsewhere, around $500/month/person in
| taxes pays for your healthcare. That's essentially
| subtracted from your income. So the uk income is even
| lower when you subtract the taxes the NHS costs.
| sofixa wrote:
| > I don't know if you're making a joke or not, but
| getting NHS isn't worth $200,000 USD per year.
|
| Nope, but NHS + no/less student loans + no car dependency
| + cheaper childcare + time off + a ton of other things
| shave quite a bit off that $200k. Not equal, and not in
| every personal case, but a lot.
| rangestransform wrote:
| Canadian and not UKian, but our public healthcare is
| definitely not worth 50% of my take home cash, I get much
| better access to care in the US right now. it still says
| Canada on my passport so I can get healthcare if I get
| fired or chronically ill
| beezlebroxxxxxx wrote:
| > One fifth as much as the lowest-paid American??
|
| Americans are often blown away and kind of ignorant of
| how, relative to the rest of the world, they are really
| wealthy and well paid. Like, people have _way_ less
| disposable incomes in other parts of the world, even
| developed countries. The purchase power of the USD and
| the power of the US economy is absolutely insane.
| loeg wrote:
| The UK is really, really poor compared to the US.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The UK is poor because they decided to financialize the
| economy in the 90s and stop making things. It's like
| canada where the GDP per capita goes down every year. I'm
| amazed there hasn't been a revolution.
| titanomachy wrote:
| > canada where the GDP per capita goes down every year
|
| Couldn't this largely be explained by their importing
| huge amounts of low-income people?
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Of course. Canadians are still getting poorer every year
| and that's the salient point.
| n4r9 wrote:
| I don't think the average migrant salary is much
| different from the average UK citizen salary. Then again,
| I also don't find the "financialisation" argument very
| compelling. Plus, the GDP per capita visibly _does not_
| go down every year.
| foldr wrote:
| GDP per capita has not gone down every year in Canada or
| in the UK:
|
| https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/gdp-per-
| capita#:~:text=T...
|
| https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-per-
| capita
|
| (Click the button to check the 25 year view.)
| foldr wrote:
| The UK is poorer than the US, but US software engineering
| salaries are an outlier. The difference is not as big as
| that comparison would suggest.
| gspetr wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/03/bri
| tai...
|
| "another respected data journalist, John Burn-Murdoch,
| calculated that without London, the UK would be poorer,
| in terms of GDP per capita, than even the poorest US
| state, Mississippi."
| foldr wrote:
| Yes, it's true that the UK economy is very London-
| centric, but the original poster was talking about the UK
| as a whole vs the US as a whole. (The flip side of this
| is that the figures would look better if you compared
| London to a major US city.)
|
| None of this changes the fact that US software
| engineering salaries are a poor comparison to use to
| illustrate wealth disparities between the US and other
| countries, as they are an outlier.
| pikclingoil wrote:
| >One fifth as much as the lowest-paid American??
|
| Quite! A top 10% earner in Finland, a supposedly very
| developed country, by saving all of their net-income
| spending zero on food and letting their SO pay the bills,
| could in 2-3 years afford a new Skoda.
| qmr wrote:
| Ah I think I see where the confusion lies.
|
| The US is not a developed country, rather it is a
| particularly rich third world country.
| CalRobert wrote:
| They don't call them europoors for nothing
| sofixa wrote:
| Yes, Aerospace Engineers don't live in London because
| there are very little (if any) aerospace jobs in London.
| Biggest aerospace employers in the UK are BAE Systems and
| Airbus, and both have factories in much cheaper locations
| (Wales, Northwest of England).
|
| You're basically comparing "super specialised job in the
| middle of nowhere with very low cost of living" vs a
| "super specialised but much more needed job in multiple
| high cost of living locations" (Seattle metro area, LA
| metro area to name a few).
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| Wichita Kansas is home to about 20% of aircraft-
| manufacturing workers in the United States. Not exactly
| known for HCOL.
| dccoolgai wrote:
| The U.S. engineer can be fired on a whim immediately and
| lose their health care (COBRA) and the company that fires
| them can even contest their unemployment benefits (that
| the employee paid into) if they feel motivated enough.
| That's one of the reasons they get paid much more.
| sgerenser wrote:
| I feel like that range is a on the high side, at least
| for jobs outside the Bay Area. Unless aerospace pays a
| lot better than software jobs at government contractors.
| When I was laid off less than 2 years ago and applying to
| a wide variety of places, the gov contractors were only
| offering in the $120-$140 ballpark for senior sw
| engineering positions. They tended to play up gold plated
| benefits, high 401k match, etc as well but there's no way
| that would get it up to $263k.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Holy shit, that auto-redirects to the salary range in
| Canada for me (66K-95K CAD)
|
| Tried again with a U.S. VPN and I'm gob-smacked by _how_
| different that range is.
| winter_blue wrote:
| Yup, I'm in Canada as well, and I was quite a bit thrown
| off by the redirected Canadian pay range.
|
| For anyone curious, the Canadian pay range is:
|
| Base pay $66K - $95K/yr
|
| $79K/yr Average base pay
|
| The _low end of that base pay ($66k CAD) converts to $45k
| USD_.
|
| While the U.S. pay range is:
|
| Total pay range: $266K - $463K/yr
|
| $346K/yr Median total pay
|
| Pay breakdown $137K - $223K/yr Base pay $129K - $240K/yr
| Additional pay
| zifpanachr23 wrote:
| Realistically, there are plenty of competent people they
| could hire for any low six figures amount (unless they are
| directly in the DC area, in which case add 20-30k for cost
| of living). 500-600k or half of that is a unicorn salary
| that doesn't apply to those industries or areas and is
| irrelevant to the discussion. Even if they offered you that
| salary you wouldn't take it because the work environment
| would be radically different from working at a bloated web
| tech firm, or working at a silicon valley startup.
|
| Totally different markets. You wouldn't be interested in
| that job, and they wouldn't want to hire you even if you
| were interested. Even the tone of your post makes that
| obvious.
|
| We should be discussing early to mid career folks from
| somewhere other than silicon valley startup or big web tech
| land. Aka "meat and potatoes" tech jobs. That is what's
| being discussed.
|
| I don't know what their problem is with hiring either and I
| agree with you that it could be partially compensation
| related. But not being able to compete with Silicon Valley
| on compensation is not where I would be going with that
| argument....I think it's more likely to be related to
| environment and interview style and notions of what
| "experience" means. In other words...bad hiring
| practices...not necessarily raw compensation issues. The
| compensation for non "big tech" firms can sometimes be
| quite good in comparison to other career paths especially
| when located outside of the valley, so being unable to hire
| talent makes me suspicious of hiring practices more than
| compensation (assuming they are reasonably large and hit
| market rate for the area and are in a reasonably large
| metro).
|
| Just my two cents.
| briffle wrote:
| Do you offer to sponsor people to get their security
| clearance? many jobs I see in the sysadmin space want someone
| who already has clearance, and are not willing to do the
| process of getting someone their clearance.
| ryanackley wrote:
| Came here to say this. I have a friend who is a manager for
| a defense contractor. He says that competition is fierce
| for people _that already have clearance_ and they can 't
| really hire someone to sponsor them because of how long it
| takes. There is a 2-3 year wait for obtaining security
| clearance because of a backlog caused by COVID.
|
| The people that have it can write their own ticket and do
| very little work apparently.
| calculatte wrote:
| You didn't name your employer for someone who might be
| interested. Perhaps visibility is one reason you can't find
| anyone?
|
| I applied to a similar position locally this year. I far
| exceed their requirements and experience and I got rejected
| at the application stage. And the same goes for nearly all of
| other places I applied to. Hiring has most definitely changed
| over the years. They are not just looking for "qualified
| applicants". There is something else going on.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| >I applied to a similar position locally this year. I far
| exceed their requirements and experience and I got rejected
| at the application stage.
|
| Could be "This one is overqualified, we can't pay that
| much" or "He doesn't have experience in the exact thing we
| need." Or just that they want a qualified applicant but
| they've got lots of options.
| ponow wrote:
| But then the narrative of "there aren't enough qualified
| people" collapses, and H1-Bs unjustified.
| lazide wrote:
| Then they'd also have to pay more and not have someone
| they could put under their thumb.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US
| Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
|
| Just to clarify, being a _dual_ U.S. citizen (e.g.,
| U.S.-Canadian, U.S.-Irish) doesn 't necessarily prevent a
| person from obtaining a U.S. "SECRET" security clearance.
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| What's your company? What exactly do you pay? I haven't done
| linear algebra in a while but certainly remember enough from
| graphics programming (and of course physics and linear
| algebra proper) in undergrad. Feel free to check out and
| contact me via any of the routes available on my GitHub:
| https://github.com/JonLatane
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| > You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance.
| You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is
| usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have
| to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you
| in for a clearance.
|
| Y'all should probably make that clear. Usually, the moment I
| see something like that as a job requirement, I move on. Not
| because I may or may not qualify, but because I honestly
| don't remember a lot of the information required and because
| it's not clear that I can work in a non-weapon-building role.
| Probably should offer refresher courses in linear algebra -
| I've been a developer for 25+ years and have never knowingly
| used it.
| dcrazy wrote:
| > You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US
| Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
|
| This is illegal under IRCA unless another law or government
| contract mandates it. [1] If every single role at your
| company requires a Secret clearance, then I question how
| separate "your part of the company" really is from the part
| that makes weapons.
|
| [1] https://www.eeoc.gov/national-origin-discrimination
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Obviously this company is a government contractor.
| dcrazy wrote:
| Not all government contracts require all employees
| working on the contract to have clearances or be US
| citizens.
| thephyber wrote:
| I remember visiting a family member's work (similar
| industry) and the front office did a screening of me as a
| visitor to make sure I met those same requirements before
| I could enter.
|
| I'm guessing the contracts that make paper clips don't
| need those stringent requirements, but the ones that make
| sensitive comms equipment do.
| eigendreams wrote:
| Large companies (think FAANG) can and do have non
| cleared, non citizen, non us persons (permanent
| residents, refugees and asylees) working on such projects
| with the proper separation of scopes, data access
| restrictions and so on.
| amalcon wrote:
| One of my old managers has a story about how he was
| tasked with documenting an unspecified something for the
| US government. Because he was not a US citizen (though he
| was a citizen of a very close US ally), he was then no
| longer permitted to read the document that he wrote.
|
| Probably just lawyers being lawyers, but still pretty
| funny.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| But some do! And sounds like this is one of them.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Companies can chose to not sponsor visas. That's not
| illegal.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| True, but they aren't allowing recently admitted
| permanent residents, asylees, and refugees, all of whom
| have federal protections against immigration status
| discrimination in employment.
|
| Some places like NYC offer legal protections in this area
| to all categories of immigration status, of course within
| what applicable federal and state law requires and
| allows. Federal law allows preferring citizens over
| equally equalities noncitizens, requiring employment
| authorization to already exist, and complying with any
| specific legal requirements for restricting certain jobs
| to citizens. NYC law respects all of this. But overall
| NYC is totally allowed to, and does, add protections
| beyond federal law.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Late typo correction well beyond the edit window:
| "equally equalities" should have read "equally
| qualified".
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| That just means that if you're going to hire someone on a
| VISA you can't discriminate which country they're from.
|
| I believe there is some protection against discriminating
| against greencards, but not visas
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| Recent green card holders, asylees, and refugees get
| federal protection, except when a law requires or permits
| otherwise. The other commenter's company has a blanket
| rule of allowing none of these categories. Approximately
| this got SpaceX into trouble with the DOJ recently.
|
| Some state or local laws offer additional protections
| beyond federal law, including NYC for all immigration
| statuses, except as required or allowed by other
| applicable laws. (So, for example, NYC doesn't pretend
| that companies have to hire people who don't already have
| employment authorization.)
| colechristensen wrote:
| It is required by law. Most likely through prohibitions for
| "exporting" defense technology, which can be very broad.
| "Exporting" can consist of having a casual conversation
| with a non-"US Person" or having a document visible on your
| desk.
|
| "Secret" classification is really mild, about 5 million
| people have one.
|
| >The law prohibits employers from hiring only U.S. citizens
| or lawful permanent residents unless required to do so by
| law, regulation or government contract.
|
| At these workplaces it will be a combination of all 3 of
| law, regulation, and government contract.
| eigendreams wrote:
| You are referring to ITAR. Under ITAR, permanent
| residents are considered US Persons and not subject to
| export controls. Clearance is a totally different thing
| that people often confuse with ITAR, which is only
| granted to US citizens, and though it is possible to
| grant something somewhat like clearance to non us
| citizens, it is almost never done.
|
| Edit: Ah I see you are not disagreeing with what I said
| at all. Apologies, I cannot count the number of times I
| have seen in reddit and here, where people confuse ITAR
| with clearance.
| cplat wrote:
| To be fair, he never said "every single role at your
| company requires a secret clearance." He has specifically
| mentioned that you can get by even without them. You have
| misquoted.
| snake42 wrote:
| I think it probably is illegal as well. My company had to
| settle a lawsuit with the DOJ recently for this reason.
| dboreham wrote:
| Presumably government contract does mandate in this case.
| macNchz wrote:
| Do you drug test? Sounds like a place that might. A fairly
| significant proportion (though definitely not all) of the
| best developers I've ever worked with would simply pass over
| places that seem like they would.
| brewdad wrote:
| You aren't getting a clearance if you can't pass a drug
| test.
| pas wrote:
| Having eligibility is not the same as passing unannounced
| random drug tests.
| zifpanachr23 wrote:
| Plenty of people can pass a drug test. That's not the
| issue I guarantee it. It might slightly help their hiring
| but it's not the root cause of difficulties, and I
| seriously doubt compensation is a root cause either.
| veggieroll wrote:
| I don't do drugs; I barely even drink alcohol. But, I
| think drug testing is a violation of privacy and none of
| a company's business. This isn't 1950, nobody cares if
| you're doing drugs on your personal time as long as
| you're sober for work.
|
| Yes, you need to drug test for clearance. But I'm saying
| that's a job I'm not applying to unless I have no other
| choice. It goes straight to the bottom of the pile for
| me.
| retox wrote:
| My understand is that it comes down how likely it is that
| the employee could be bought/blackmailed/corrupted. A
| person with a drug (or gambling) habit could be
| blackmailed or might need more money to fuel their
| addiction, making them susceptible to a foreign power
| buying their support.
|
| Same reason for homosexuality in the past when it was
| illegal/scandalous.
| michaelt wrote:
| The blackmail thing always seemed a bit circular to me.
|
| "We'll fire you if you smoke pot"
|
| "But why?"
|
| "Someone might blackmail you, by threatening to reveal
| that you smoke pot"
|
| "How is that a threat?"
|
| "Because we'll fire you if you smoke pot."
| veggieroll wrote:
| > might need more money to fuel their addiction
|
| This makes a lot more sense to me than blackmail.
|
| I'd quibble though that this overlooks that quite a lot
| (possibly even most) drug users are able to lead
| productive lives without having to resort to illegal
| activity to fund their drug use.
|
| The other thing this doesn't cover is that there are many
| alcoholics that fall into the same trap. Though there
| again, most alcoholics are able to lead productive lives
| despite their addiction.
|
| And through personal experience, I unfortunately know
| quite a few alcoholics that work in defense with various
| levels of clearance.
| snake42 wrote:
| A drug test is not a requirement for a security
| clearance.
| michaelsshaw wrote:
| >You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance
|
| Nope. Not doing it. Not going to argue politics, but this is
| a huge RED FLAG for a lot of people. And I feel I don't need
| to submit to mandatory drug testing as well.
|
| >The most harmful thing the products I build do is quantify
| in precise detail how climate change is dooming us all
|
| Then why is it classified? How separate is your branch from
| the weapons branch, that you acknowledge exists?
| snake42 wrote:
| A security clearance doesn't necessarily mean you have to
| take drug tests. You do fill out paperwork about your
| previous drug usage though.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| If you admit to past drug use they're going to drug test
| you.
| snake42 wrote:
| Not in my experience.
| echoangle wrote:
| > Then why is it classified? How separate is your branch
| from the weapons branch, that you acknowledge exists?
|
| There's a lot of dual-use stuff that's not used for
| military applications but could be by another actor. Dual-
| use means that it could be used for civilian and military
| applications, not that it actually is.
|
| So if I build a revolutionary weather radar that could be
| used for military reconnaissance by Iran if the technology
| came out, but the US military isn't interested because they
| already have something better, it would be completely
| civilian but classified.
| michaelsshaw wrote:
| >Dual-use means that it could be used for civilian and
| military applications, not that it actually is.
|
| This brings forward some cognitive dissonance in me. I
| love the open source ethics, especially the "ANYONE CAN
| USE THIS FOR ANY PURPOSE" tagline. But, personally, I do
| not want any military (especially the US military) to
| find any usefulness out of my projects. I'm not sure on
| the legal aspects of it, but if there was an SPDX-
| License-Identifier for GPL-3.0-NO-MILITARY (or something
| similar, you get the point), I'd use it on everything.
| rcktmrtn wrote:
| Closest thing I've heard:
|
| https://github.com/g-truc/glm?tab=License-1-ov-
| file#readme
| michaelsshaw wrote:
| Can't believe I never noticed this. I've used GLM a bunch
| before.
|
| It's funny, and it's nice, but it's not quite the
| ironclad level of "NO MILITARIES" as I'd like. Plus,
| enforceability becomes a question with classified
| military stuff, not even going into the actual legal
| discovery process. A common license would suffice for me,
| as I'm not going to modify the GPL as they did.
|
| Thanks for sharing though, it made me laugh.
| ponector wrote:
| So many contradictions!
|
| You pay well, but not so much.
|
| You search for qualified applicants but can hire a student.
|
| You require linear algebra but ok with technical writer.
|
| Looks like your managers don't know who they need to hire or
| don't want to really hire.
| antisthenes wrote:
| > Looks like your managers don't know who they need to hire
| or don't want to really hire.
|
| It's prevalent in government-adjacent companies. It's all a
| completely opaque byzantine system to mask the nepotism and
| the fact that a lot of those people just siphon money from
| the government like it's a jobs programs.
|
| Not to mention that their application systems are usually
| complete garbage like Workday or Taleo.
| vasco wrote:
| The defense industry _is_ a jobs program, I thought this
| was clear to everyone. It's cheaper than keeping all the
| vets on the payroll directly and also cheaper than
| letting them become another homeless crisis on top of the
| existing one.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Defense contractors are usually located in out of the way
| places. If you work for the USAF Lab in Rome, NY, you make
| less than a Facebook intern, but the only guy richer than
| you in town is the state trooper with overtime. They are
| also stable gigs with good benefits.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Yeah, but you also have to live in Rome, NY. Don't get me
| wrong, I don't want to live in a major city; but being
| _near_ one is pretty handy. And if the job doesn't pan
| out, then being in Rome, NY means your options for the
| next job are extremely limited. Unless your family is ok
| with uprooting and moving (probably _again_), the pay to
| move to Rome for a job would need to be catastrophically
| large to lure me there.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > the pay to move to Rome for a job would need to be
| catastrophically large to lure me there
|
| On the other hand, when in Rome...
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Exactly. The fit for an employee is challenging, but for
| the right person it's the ideal job.
|
| Alabama, ditto. There is no amount of money that would
| compel me to live there. But for the right person, it's
| paradise.
| gottorf wrote:
| I moved from a string of coastal metropolises to a much
| smaller city in Alabama, voluntarily. Pay was not a
| factor, since I kept the same remote job; but obviously
| my purchasing power is higher here, especially for
| housing. There are certain aspects of living in or near a
| "world-class" city that are lacking here, but for my
| lifestyle, that has no impact on my day-to-day.
|
| I'm not specifically trying to change your mind about
| Alabama (since as you said, everyone has a different
| lifestyle), but I would wager that perhaps some of what
| you think about these Deep South states are contrary to
| reality.
| DanielHB wrote:
| One of my biggest concerns of doing something like this
| is being too far away from specialist healthcare in my
| old age. I see my 70 year old mother struggling to find
| specialist doctors without going to the big city (which
| is 2 hours away). She is not even _that_ far away from
| the big city.
|
| Meaning around one time per month she has to devote a
| whole day for a doctor trip. I am afraid when she grows
| older and can't do that by herself anymore. Most of her
| doctors are still local though, but specialists are hard
| to find.
|
| When my dad had cancer he had to take similar trips for
| his treatment. Except it was weekly with occasional
| multiple times per week. It was brutal for him and my
| mother.
| ahi wrote:
| I dealt with cancer this year. I had my choice of health
| systems, one 30 minutes away or one 5 minutes away. By
| the end I was very grateful I went with the closest. At
| one point I had radiation every morning at 8:30 for a
| month. Drop the kid at school then swing by for the
| appointment is much more manageable than an hour commute
| while feeling like ass.
|
| It's not just the specialists either. My pcp at a local
| health clinic is a MD/PhD from a top 5 med school. Most
| of the best in any field don't want to live in Podunk
| either.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I can't handle Southern weather.
|
| The redneck stuff is fine with me, I lived in a small
| town and it has a certain charm. Good place to raise
| kids, etc. But I like winter... I live in a small
| northeast city and enjoy it.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > but the only guy richer than you in town...
|
| Or, you know, any tech worker with a remote job. The
| point is if you have technical skills and want to live in
| Rome, NY you can do that and still have a better job.
|
| > They are also stable gigs with good benefits.
|
| Maybe 30 years ago. Today the benefits don't compare to
| what you get in a large tech company and I think everyone
| one I know with a career in a DAPRA/Defense contractor
| job has eventually been laid off and struggled to find
| new work since it's generally challenging to transition
| _out_ of that industry involuntarily.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think he is saying that they'll hire folks _as_ technical
| writers (so you do technical writer stuff) and then help
| out with engineering classes if things seem to be going
| well.
|
| This is pretty different from somebody who wants to go in
| as an engineer but doesn't remember their intro classes.
| pilotneko wrote:
| Don't forget "we don't build weapons...well the company
| does but my team doesn't."
| tivert wrote:
| > Don't forget "we don't build weapons...well the company
| does but my team doesn't."
|
| It's totally possible. There's an defense contractor in
| my area where _all_ the work at the local office is on
| non-defense government projects.
| rurp wrote:
| Sure, but it could still be a deterrent for some
| applicants. They might not care enough about that
| distinction to apply to the company.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| After what went down in Ukraine I struggle with the idea
| that folks can still find military tech inherently
| problematic.
|
| It's currently the only thing preventing a liberal
| democracy from being overrun and genocided because a
| tinpot dictator with nuclear weapons woke up on the wrong
| side of the bed back in 2022 and said "I want, I take."
| wklauss wrote:
| > You pay well, but not so much
|
| Don't really see much of a contradiction. A good salary is
| not necessarily the highest salary.
|
| > You require linear algebra but ok with technical writer.
|
| I'm a tech writer but went to engineering school. While I
| assume it's not a fairly common situation, it's also not
| unheard of. The original comment seems to imply that
| they'll frown upon a candidate that will expect to be
| taught linear algebra at the workplace but will be ok with
| one that has only a basic grasp and it's willing to attend
| engineering school to improve.
| b8 wrote:
| Defense contractors have loads of entry level jobs, but most
| require you already have a clearance (e.g. wanting US Army
| 17c or IC vets) or certifications which cost $500+ plus. Many
| don't sponsor a clearance, because it takes a long time, high
| chance of the application not passing and because they may
| just use you to get a clearance and job hop to a higher
| paying job.
|
| Defense contractor jobs are the only ones I've seen that
| haven't been outsourced overseas yet, but good luck getting a
| CJO for one that will sponsor a clearance and actually
| getting cleared.
|
| A top tier three letter agency sponsored me for TS SCI FSP
| and it took 9 months after the conditional job offer (CJO)
| after 10+ offers of personal interviews with me not counting
| my old jobs, college and friends/acquaintances just for them
| to cancel my app for "other traits, conduct or behaviour" and
| to reapply after a year.
|
| I heard other applicants on the free bus ride that it was
| their 3rd or 4th try at the polygraph or that the agency
| forgot about them so they had to a Congressional inquiry
| after 2 attempts prior etc.
|
| It's a lot of BS and I've tried for a few years now to work
| for the federal government and military, but they just don't
| want me. I've given way more effort than normal folks, so
| honestly screw them.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Amen, good to see it wasnt just me. My last job search was
| this summer and I hit this all over.
|
| I'm fine with working for a defense contractor or the feds.
| I'm fine with taking a pay haircut relative to FAANG to do
| something meaningful. I'm even fine with commuting, and the
| agencies poking into my life to assess a clearance. But I
| need to move from one job to another without a gap.
|
| Private sector employers won't touch me without a
| clearance, and in my part of the world there are lots of
| people who already have one, so I'm not worth their time.
|
| The US government would put me through a clearance, but
| their hiring practices are so slow and arcane that they're
| just not viable for someone who needs to find a job
| starting say in the next 30 days.
|
| I wish it wasn't that way, but it is. So, I stay in the
| uncleared commercial sector.
| 0086b416f103 wrote:
| > We cannot find qualified applicants.
|
| Your company is incompetent. I've applied to hundreds of
| companies like yours within Huntsville, AL in the past year,
| rejected or ghosted all the time.
|
| Defense morons will talk about how hard their work is and how
| they can't find anyone to do it. Completely skip over how
| prevalent affirmative action is in their hiring process; who
| were you guys interviewing in 2020? Why is the defense small
| business base completely dominated by veterans who stack 10%
| disability ratings and minorities with a preferred SBA
| sticker on their website?
|
| Complete joke of an industry.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| that's an assumption
|
| its just as likely that their process is auto-rejecting
| candidates and nobody has looked yet
|
| "After his HR department hadn't found a single candidate
| for a job, the manager submitted his own resume. It was
| auto-rejected."
|
| syndicated here
|
| https://www.yourtango.com/self/manager-proves-hr-system-
| auto...
|
| and the associated reddit comment that the articles are
| based off here
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/1f8x5ma/comment/
| l...
|
| this is likely the more common practice
| chefandy wrote:
| Not commenting on the rest of their assumptions, but to
| be clear, auto-rejecting candidates that could reasonably
| fill roles in your company isn't a defense against
| incompetence accusations-- it _supports_ them.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I was referring to the discrimination rant
|
| even candidates that might fit a poorly implemented
| affirmative action program are likely getting auto-
| rejected
|
| nobody knows if its helpful to mention their race or
| disability, or whether its hurtful
| 0086b416f103 wrote:
| My "discrimination rant" is informed by my ex-girlfriend
| being hired for an M&S/OpenCL job as a non-programming
| mech-e. Why? Because all the work was _already_ done and
| it would look better to the government client to have a
| female, black engineer sit around in a SCIF doing nothing
| all day. Stuff like this is absolutely rampant.
| briandear wrote:
| This is absolutely true. Government contractors have what
| is effectively diversity quotas. People will get hired to
| fill the quota regardless of what they actually do. It's
| absolutely not true that diversity hires are all useless,
| but there are significant incentives to create diversity
| numbers in order to gain a government contract. Hiring
| 100 people to do nothing and get the lucrative contract
| is better than hiring based on need and not getting the
| contract.
| yawpitch wrote:
| Utterly shocked she's an _ex_ -girlfriend, really.
| chefandy wrote:
| I'm not an HR person, but I'd be surprised if the ATS
| bouncer algorithms even have access to the eeo
| information, and making assumptions about ethnicity based
| on name seems unlikely to be a feature. Sure, someone
| could code their own solution easily enough but I really
| doubt that's a common enough occurrence to warrant
| discrimination accusations at the auto-reject level.
| pandaman wrote:
| It's not an assumption, Affirmative Action along with
| many other requirements is mandated for the contractors
| working with the US. You can start from here
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-
| areas/employers/fe...
| yieldcrv wrote:
| but its implementation different per organization and at
| any moment in time.
|
| it could just as easily be any other reason, like the one
| I identified
|
| its an assumption to know what's being applied _to you_.
|
| its obvious that the frustrated guy just wants to be
| heard, it is still an assumption. that doesn't mean its
| not happening. it means its an assumption about what
| exactly applied to you.
|
| unless they specifically said that and you won an
| employment discrimination case then you literally dont
| know.
| flyingpenguin wrote:
| I have worked for a few defense contractors in my time.
| There is significantly more diversity outside of defense
| than inside defense.
|
| I had a team of 14 with 2 women and 1 non-white male. I
| had a team of 10 with 0 women and 0 non-white male. I had
| a team of 20 with 1 women and 0 non-white male.
|
| Looking at it another way, thats 40 successful white male
| hires, and 4 successful non-white male hires.
|
| if only having access to 91% of jobs instead of 100% is
| the reason you can't get hired....
|
| edit: To clarify, as a software developer of 10+ years
| both in defense and faang, I have never once had a team
| where there was less than 50% white men.
| biztos wrote:
| Veering off topic a bit, but I wonder what would happen
| if a company required that for any new hiring filter for
| Role X, it must pass everyone currently in Role X or
| above.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Does it make sense, in general, to prevent the hiring
| process from becoming more selective in the future? If
| so, why? But if not then a rule like that wouldn't make
| sense.
| biztos wrote:
| I don't think it makes sense to prevent it becoming more
| selective, but I do think it makes sense to avoid passing
| over candidates who can do the job. And your best (only?)
| data on who can actually do the job is who is currently
| doing the job.
|
| If you really need everyone in Role X to have a PhD in
| Psychoergonomics, then what's up with Jane over there and
| her MD?
| gpm wrote:
| If you're hiring because you _need_ someone? Yes?
|
| It makes sense to sort candidates with the more niche
| requirement to the top of the pile, but to require it?
| When you need to fill this role?
|
| There's also hiring because "wow, this candidate is
| great, we should find a place to fit them", and there it
| makes sense to become more selective going forwards...
| but when a company is saying "we need people and can't
| find them", that doesn't seem like the time to be more
| selective.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| For some reason I fancy buying myself a new watch.
| coredog64 wrote:
| Anecdote: Amazon has a hiring bar that states that new
| hires have to be better than half of the current
| population in the role. Whether or not it's adhered to,
| there's a reasonable motive for doing so.
| Me001 wrote:
| Defense morons should be a more common term. These guys
| have been given free money for generations in VA and can
| barely do anything other than suck cash from the
| government. I'm an American it's disgraceful they are
| children compared to my Asian colleagues.
| testbjjl wrote:
| Maybe, when you interview, they sense your anger and that
| you feel as you say, they are morons, so they move onto
| more desirable candidates?
| enkid wrote:
| What a weird last sentence.
| exe34 wrote:
| if they're getting free money, they're not morons!
|
| humans think we're the most intelligent because we built
| New York while the dolphins have just been hanging around
| having a good time. the dolphins think they're the most
| intelligent for the same reason.
| harvey9 wrote:
| I'm picturing a lot of corp execs boarding a spaceship
| and saying 'so long and thanks for all the tax breaks'
| mcmcmc wrote:
| Have you considered that it might be your attitude costing
| you job opportunities? Anti-woke baby raging isn't exactly
| exactly an attractive quality in a potential candidate
| Ardren wrote:
| Wow, I can't imagine why companies don't want to hire you
| dijit wrote:
| its perfectly acceptable to be bitter and express it
| sometimes when you have the perception that life has been
| unfair to you for half a decade.
|
| It doesn't necessarily speak to the parent's attitude
| before becoming bitter. Hard to draw such a direct
| conclusion for me.
| enkid wrote:
| Would you hire someone who is actively being bitter
| toward your industry?
| dijit wrote:
| I work in video games, if I didn't I would have no pool
| of candidates to choose from.
|
| However if you read what I wrote:
|
| 1) Current attitude is not necessarily prior attitude
|
| 2) A histrionic tirade is not indicative of an outwardly
| perceptible attitude, in fact, its more common that these
| kinds of outburts are from a person who _is not_
| outwardly bitter enough day-to-day and is forced to be
| positive. (thus it boils inside them and becomes
| venomous)
|
| 3) Bitterness is usually the combination of a (often
| still) motivated person who feels let down. Your
| companies most negative voices are very often the ones
| who are passionate but sad about things. Its the
| "checked-outs" who you _really_ don't want if you're
| building something you want to be good.
| buran77 wrote:
| It's very unlikely that people just start by being bitter
| against an industry, but extremely likely that an
| industry gave people reason to become bitter in time.
| People tend to start their careers fresh and free of
| preconceptions, while industries keep carrying their
| "blemishes" through decades and many generations of
| people.
|
| You're applying the circular reasoning of "of course I
| treat you like crap because you have a bad attitude
| (because I treat you like crap)", while ignoring the part
| in the bracket.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| I hunted down someone who was known for their bitter
| critique of the industry I was in at the time (because I
| could tell the critique came from the frustrations of
| someone who was very technically skilled), convinced them
| to join my team and they've been one of my best hires to
| date.
|
| This individual was a great contributor and long
| outlasted my tenure at the company (so it's not just my
| bias), only to eventually move on to even better roles.
|
| Frankly, if you work in tech and _haven 't_ been bitter
| about some nonsense in this field, I suspect you must not
| be particularly engaged or passionate about the area you
| work in.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Becoming deeply bitter is a very normal outcome of
| dealing with US company hiring processes in 2024
| FrozenSynapse wrote:
| maybe he's not as competent as he thinks he is
| tivert wrote:
| > maybe he's not as competent as he thinks he is
|
| I'm not going to let industry off the hook by blaming the
| victim.
|
| It's not the defense industry, but I know a very
| qualified person who's been having a lot of trouble being
| hired for what must be stupid, industry-dysfunction
| reasons.
| borski wrote:
| Becoming deeply bitter is a very normal outcome of
| dealing with literally anything, in any year. It has very
| little to do with US company hiring processes and a lot
| to do with someone's attitude and outlook on life.
|
| Both of my dads (father and FIL) got cancer this year. My
| mom almost did.
|
| You don't have to become deeply bitter, no matter what
| your situation. Many people do anyway, and that is by no
| means a moral failing of any kind, but it has very little
| to do with the individual events that precipitated it.
| dijit wrote:
| This deserves a much more thought out and nuanced answer
| than I am capable to give.
|
| I will try anyway.
|
| Let's take something that we have more information about:
| burnout. Since burnout is a hot button topic, we're all
| somewhat aware about it.
|
| Many people misconstrue burnout to mean "overworked" -
| which it's not, it's a type of depression where your
| emotional investment is not getting adequate emotional
| returns: and that's what's happening with your depiction
| of "bitter".
|
| You had objectively worse situations happening to you,
| yes! However- the conditions in which they happened were:
|
| * Not artificial. There was no concerted effort by the
| universe to conspire to give your fathers cancer.
|
| * You were given sympathy
|
| * You were given the opportunity to actually air
| grievances about it before it boiled up- likely you were
| told that it's healthy to feel bad or to express
| yourself.
|
| Likewise, bitterness is the culmination of being treated
| in a way you perceive as unfair, and it starts small. It
| gets worse when not _treated_. Treatment is as easy as
| letting people be a little angry sometimes or to let them
| talk about their issues and be met with something other
| than condescension.
|
| You had a worse situation, yes, but you're talking about
| people getting moody as a moral failing.
|
| It would be like me telling a woman not to be moody on
| her period because some men have their arms blown off on
| oil rigs. They're not comparable at all.
| borski wrote:
| You misunderstood me. I very explicitly do not think it
| is a moral failing at all. I do not have any problem with
| someone being moody. Problems aren't a competition. I
| mentioned mine not to imply that mine were worse, but
| just that they were different, and to show that I wasn't
| speaking from a position of "having no problems" or being
| oblivious to them.
|
| It is completely reasonable to be bitter. But long-term,
| it is still a choice.
|
| I don't disagree that being bitter, at the onset, is not
| a choice. And often requires treatment.
|
| Burnout is a great example because I agree with
| everything you said about it. Becoming bitter when burnt
| out isn't a choice. _Staying_ bitter is.
|
| For short periods, it is almost always even necessary;
| treatment requires feeling.
|
| But too many people get stuck in it, do not seek
| treatment (or are afraid to / taught not to, even amongst
| friends), and do not move forward. Even that is still not
| a moral failing; but it does make me sad.
| UltraSane wrote:
| > Becoming deeply bitter is a very normal outcome of
| dealing with literally anything, in any year.
|
| No it isn't. Most people only become bitter when they
| feel they have been treated unfairly and badly for a very
| long period of time.
| borski wrote:
| Citation needed. People get bitter over good things
| sometimes too; because they see others as having gotten
| more, or perceive unfairness when there wasn't any, and
| so on.
|
| I am not implying bitterness is bad. But you can
| absolutely be bitter for almost any reason.
| DanielHB wrote:
| They want top tier talent to work on crappy quality
| products/code
|
| Meaning people who can unravel all the crap they have to
| maintain but with no agency to enact any sort of long term
| fix.
|
| Plenty of this kind of work going around, the older the
| codebase is the less willing people are to work on it. Soon
| good engineers don't want to anymore and mid engineers are
| not good enough to even tweak it. Leaving the only lever
| these companies can pull being salary and they can't
| compete with FAANG on that.
|
| Reminds me of those anecdotes you hear from Oracle and ASML
| engineers. The difference there is that they can still use
| the salary lever.
| jrs235 wrote:
| This. "You can't pay me enough to work on something where
| I have almost no agency to do anything without constantly
| raising my hand, asking if I can improve something, then
| having to wait and wait and wait for approval to
| consistently be told 'No.'". Unless I'm allowed to be
| free to do other things while waiting or allowed to work
| remote/asynchronously (not tethered/shackled to a
| desk/keyboard), then I might be open to doing it, but
| still for a lot of money to deal with the redtape/bs.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| I've found that people who reach for DEI or affirmative
| action to explain their lack of success are generally just
| not very good.
|
| All of these hundreds of rejections were due to affirmative
| action huh? In Huntsville? Ok.
| GolberThorce wrote:
| Defense industry has lower standards and higher salaries
| for tech jobs, because they're restricted to nationals
| only. Not sure about AA
| xerxesaa wrote:
| I'm a U.S. citizen and I've applied to plenty of these types
| of jobs. Had an offer at Palantir previously but would not
| take that now due to ethical concerns.
|
| I'm an older worker in management. Willing to be hands on.
| Not looking to get paid as much as Meta (I've worked there
| too) but also don't want something that pays peanuts. Willing
| to relocate to many places.
|
| Genuinely curious where I can find such jobs.
| snake42 wrote:
| For clearance specific kinds of jobs, I use
|
| https://www.clearancejobs.com/
| yazzku wrote:
| It would be good to have a "no military" filter.
|
| Results would probably come out empty anyway.
| echoangle wrote:
| I think many Aerospace jobs that aren't directly
| Defense/Military (think SpaceX Falcon 9 flight control
| development) are also behind clearance. Of course you
| will indirectly help launch military satellites but I
| wouldn't call it a military job exactly.
| the_arun wrote:
| Don't we first need security clearance before applying to
| these jobs? Or at the time of joining the company helps
| us to get clearance?
| simoncion wrote:
| Some employers will pay the cost to get a security
| clearance. Others will not. IME, employers will tell you
| in the job description which kind of employer they are.
|
| "Must have a currently active $TYPE clearance." and "Must
| be eligible for a $TYPE clearance; position contingent on
| acquiring a $TYPE clearance." are the sorts of phrases to
| look for.
| snake42 wrote:
| Depends on the company. My company prefers you to have
| one incoming, but since few people do, we sponsor most
| people.
| sgerenser wrote:
| In my experience roles at companies like this in the
| southeast US pay around $120k for senior engineers,
| probably a bit more for management. Not sure if you
| consider that peanuts, but it's significantly less than
| Meta.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I once worked in defense as well and it could be that the pay
| is insultingly low with immense hassle and responsibility (do
| this thing wrong and you goto jail). I'll only consider going
| back if a new major conflict starts.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I passed on a bunch of jobs that required clearance, because
| getting it sounded like a nightmare.
|
| Your paragraph at the end sounds like maybe your company
| culture is also a problem.
| tgma wrote:
| > We cannot find qualified applicants
|
| > No, we don't pay as much as Meta.
|
| So, essentially, you are seeking special treatment from US
| citizens. I'm not saying this is always unreasonable, but
| you're in the territory of a centrally planned economic
| decision, and in the US philosophy that is supposed to be
| done minimally.
|
| Maybe the right thing is for your company to shut down or
| change their line of business, freeing up the labor for Meta.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| There are 4.8 million developers in the US most of them are
| not making Meta salaries and I would say that 80% will
| never see 200K inflation adjusted in thier lives.
|
| Instead of going to levels.fyi go to salary.com and choose
| any major city in the US that is not on the west coast.
|
| No most developers don't get RSUs or anything else aside
| from their salaries and maybe a bonus.
|
| And before someone replies that I'm "bitter". No I'm good,
| I'm 50. I did my stint at BigTech and I don't have the shit
| tolerance level to deal with the politics of any large
| company.
| tgma wrote:
| You are actually proving my point. If there are 4.8
| million developers who are not commanding Meta salaries,
| and they "pay well" it should be fairly straightforward
| to get labor.
|
| It's simple: the more picky you are the more you will
| have to pay. The GP admitted the upper bound of Meta,
| which is a company that is sustainably operating in the
| same country. If you cannot compete in a labor market,
| either raise your product pricing or be more efficient.
| If not, you will make less profit and/or go out of
| business, which is an appropriate outcome most of the
| time.
|
| No one is entitled to their business model.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I think the other part of the problem is no one in
| software wants to work in Huntsville.
|
| There are numerous reasons why AL sucks.
| vel0city wrote:
| There's a ton of reasons to not like AL, but Huntsville
| is actually pretty decent from what I've seen of it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Huntsville isn't the socially liberal (ie we are all
| people and you do you) oasis like Atlanta, Miami and
| other major cities in red states.
|
| To be clear, I'm not saying all conservatives are evil. I
| have nothing against the Kemp's (GA's governor) and
| traditional conservatives.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I can't believe that his work is so complicated that he
| can't take a good older developer in thier 30s, who would
| be more than willing to move to a lower cost of living
| area where they can raise a family affordability and
| design an internal training program to get them up to
| speed.
|
| Offer things that we care about like free health
| insurance, "unlimited PTO", a generous 401K match with
| immediate vesting, etc.
|
| I personally wouldn't move to Alabama. But many would.
|
| At 50, I need to work. But I don't need to chase after
| FAANG salaries. I optimize for my other priorities. As I
| said in my previous post, I'm not "disdaining what I
| can't have". I've been there done that.
| calculatte wrote:
| Given that Meta pays so well, why are they so dependent
| on H1B?
|
| Or google? In 2023 they had a net elimination of 6576 US
| jobs, but added 5479 H1B.
|
| This isn't a simple market issue, these companies are
| abusing worker visas to replace Americans from their own
| companies.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| While I'd normally use levels.fyi for more accurate data,
| since you don't want to rely on that, here's info from
| glassdoor.
|
| Senior: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/remote-senior-
| software-en...
|
| > $178K - $262K/yr
|
| Principal: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/remote-
| principal-software...
|
| > $269K - $415K/yr
|
| > The estimated total pay for a Principal Software
| Engineer is $329,957 per year in the Remote area, with an
| average salary of $196,928 per year. These numbers
| represent the median, which is the midpoint of the ranges
| from our proprietary Total Pay Estimate model and based
| on salaries collected from our users. The estimated
| additional pay is $133,029 per year. Additional pay could
| include cash bonus, commission, tips, and profit sharing.
|
| Sounds like the right ballpark. If you're in a location
| that doesn't pay as well, remote can pay much better.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Exactly how many "remote principal software developer"
| jobs do you think there are available and that's a self
| selected sample and even then they for some reason
| separate "senior software developer".
|
| Look at salary.com where you can see by cities.
|
| None of the BigTech companies have many remote jobs.
| Google is even requiring their customer facing
| professional services department to be in certain cities.
| That was a bridge too far even for AWS.
| brookst wrote:
| Yes, because obviously we as a country should prioritize
| creepy VR avatars over understanding climate change.
|
| By this reasoning _no_ charities should exist (they pay
| less than commercial orgs) and even people who are willing
| to work for less in order to feel good about their
| contribution should not be allowed to.
|
| It's a very cynical, even nihilistic view.
| tgma wrote:
| > Yes, because obviously we as a country should
| prioritize creepy VR avatars over understanding climate
| change.
|
| As a country we have decided to let the market decide
| what to prioritize. Who are we to judge "creepy VR
| avatars" are less important if people are willing to fair
| and square pay for them? If they are creepy, don't pay
| for them.
|
| > No charities should exist.
|
| No that is not the appropriate conclusion. People are of
| course free to work for less and balance their
| circumstances. If they want to volunteer for a charity by
| choice, more power to them. But no, using taxpayer money
| to fund "charities" is by-and-large corruption in my
| book.
|
| > It's a very cynical, even nihilistic view.
|
| If we are doing labels, yours is a very communistic,
| statist, view.
|
| --
|
| P.S. regardless of your PoV, I like that you acknowledge
| my core point: that the OP is seeking special treatment
| in the form of cheap labor from the US. You are simply
| arguing for that special treatment being justified, not
| denying that's the core demand.
| snake42 wrote:
| Profit is not and shouldn't be the primary driver for
| whats useful economic activity. There is a lot of good
| work to be done that can't or won't be sustained by the
| market. Basic scientific research for example.
| tgma wrote:
| I mean sure you could argue that, as communists and
| others perhaps do, for instance, but we are chiefly
| talking about the US, where individual profit is decided,
| IMHO correctly, as the _primary_ metric. Sure, you may
| want to choose to minimally do certain things for
| national security or other legitimate reasons as the
| people vote for (as I mentioned in three posts above),
| but that is supposed to be a deliberate choice of the
| people and their representatives, driven by their
| desires, not as an automatic subsidy to any pre-
| established business, in the form of lax immigration
| policy which can have second-order effects.
| lazide wrote:
| Who ends up paying for the decision to pay a meta
| engineer x, but the climate change engineer x/5?
|
| It's the engineer who picks the climate change job
| instead.
|
| Essentially what you're saying is that due to society not
| being willing to pay competitively, engineers should take
| the kick to the nuts and be paid peanuts to make up for
| societies bad decisions.
|
| Sounds like a pretty stupid decision, frankly.
| snake42 wrote:
| Sure the engineer ends up losing out. Thankfully, some
| people put values over personal profit.
| lazide wrote:
| It sounds more like someone is taking advantage of
| people, using nominative idealism to do so.
| yazzku wrote:
| You are very confused about how the US works. Go find out
| where the Internet comes from, for example.
| tgma wrote:
| Ironic that you use it as an example, since Internet blew
| up exponentially the moment commercial activity was
| allowed.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| It blew up with commercial activity, but it never would
| have existed in the first place if it hadn't been created
| in taxpayer-funded research labs.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Someone that wants to do some good in the world can have
| a bigger and better impact by getting paid much more and
| donating half the difference to charity.
|
| Working for a company that launches satellites that
| examine climate change is _far_ less impactful. It 's not
| worth a big pay cut even when you're focusing on
| altruistic motives.
| nativeit wrote:
| > _Someone that wants to do some good in the world can
| have a bigger and better impact by getting paid much more
| and donating half the difference to charity._ [Citation
| needed] _Working for a company that launches satellites
| that examine climate change is far less impactful._
| [Citation needed] _It 's not worth a big pay cut even
| when you're focusing on altruistic motives._ [Citation
| unavailable as its purely subjective]
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Working for a company that sometimes makes satellites
| that make measurements of climate change is _so_ indirect
| at helping people if at all. Donating to that company (by
| being paid less) is not a good use of money, in terms of
| charitable benefit. I don 't think any of this is wild
| enough to need citation in a discussion where the median
| comment is not expected to have citations.
|
| How many people honestly think it's a good idea to donate
| to a for-profit company?
|
| > It's not worth a big pay cut even when you're focusing
| on altruistic motives. [Citation unavailable as its
| purely subjective]
|
| I'm talking about level of benefit, which is not
| subjective.
|
| Edit: Also I just reread the original comment and
| realized the climate change measurement was listed as a
| _negative_ , so for the two citation neededs I point back
| at the original post about the company. Donating a single
| dollar beats a negative.
| intended wrote:
| IF Meta is the benchmark for "good" pay, then this is nuts.
|
| There are far more people who need code, than just the
| people at FAANG companies.
|
| Are you saying that these firms are economically
| uncompetitive, with META, and should shut shop?
| pikclingoil wrote:
| >Are you saying that these firms are economically
| uncompetitive, with META, and should shut shop?
|
| A company with same requirements but not the funding?
| Absolutely
|
| >There are far more people who need code, than just the
| people at FAANG companies.
|
| With different requirements you can find way more people.
| intended wrote:
| In that case, there is 100% going to be a move to
| offshoring.
|
| Ideally, the industry would relocate outside of the US,
| to a place where they can be competitive.
|
| However, since this defense, they can't, and will never
| be competitive.
|
| So defense will languish.
|
| I guess that's all I have. I can't see a way out of the
| situation if we accept your premise.
|
| Defense margins aren't going to beat social media
| margins, that too of something like meta.
|
| Requirements are requirements. If you need a hammer,
| scalpels won't help.
| tgma wrote:
| > Defense margins aren't going to beat social media
| margins
|
| Really? It's the first time I am hearing US is procuring
| defense for cheap!
|
| If there is a margin issue, that's an efficiency problem,
| i.e. the company is being an idiot or deliberately
| wasteful/stealing (perhaps due to structural problems
| like overreliance on cost-plus contracts).
| intended wrote:
| This isnt the first time you are hearing that social
| media margins are better than defense margins.
|
| That is a misrepresentation of what was said, and an
| unkindness to the conversation being had.
|
| Tech scales, in a way that manufacturing and physical
| products dont. I would assume that on HN, this is common
| knowledge, and that you also are aware of it.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > However, since this defense, they can't, and will never
| be competitive.
|
| The US defence budget is ~20x Meta revenues. They can be
| competitive, but they don't choose to allocate their
| resources that way.
| lazide wrote:
| They seem pretty happy to try to guilt trip people into
| taking the pay hit 'for the good of the country' while
| someone in the middle pockets the difference though.
| DanAtC wrote:
| Security clearances are a giant hassle. Why go through all
| that for less than FAANG pay?
| yazzku wrote:
| [flagged]
| tiznow wrote:
| sorry, what's GP here?
| loeg wrote:
| Grandparent comment.
| hankchinaski wrote:
| In other words you are looking for people who are willing to
| get paid less what they are worth
| monksy wrote:
| So do you discriminate against people that consume
| substances, on their own unpaid time, legal in the location
| they live at?
|
| > You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance.
| You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is
| usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have
| to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you
| in for a clearance.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| Where is your workplace located? Perhaps it's in a crappy
| place that no one wants to live in, and you should look at
| relocating.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I've looked at jobs at places like this (some requiring quite
| high clearance) and the pay is hilariously bad, and I don't
| make anywhere near peak FAANG rates (or work in FAANG)
|
| 50% pay cut for a DevOps/SRE role requiring a Q clearance
| (DoE version of Top Secret I think)
|
| You can't find employees because the job isn't exciting
| (you're probably not NASA) and the pay is bad. Maybe your
| recruiters are bad too.
| shiroiushi wrote:
| They're probably located way out in the sticks too. Who
| wants to pack up all their stuff and sell their house and
| move to the rural deep South for a job that may or may not
| work out long-term? And if it doesn't work out, they now
| have to sell the house they bought there (because there's
| nothing decent in that area on the rental market) and move
| cross-country yet again?
| brandonmenc wrote:
| > Yes, we pay well.
|
| Not enough, apparently.
|
| > No, you can't work remotely.
|
| You'll have to pay even more for this.
|
| > No, we don't pay as much as Meta.
|
| So again, not enough.
| biztos wrote:
| Not to pile on, but if linear algebra is _really_ a part of
| the day-to-day job and not some manager's mistaken idea of a
| proxy for more general talent, then you're hiring specialists
| and the pool will not be that large. People who remember all
| their math and enjoy it and can also code, are also very
| employable at all the AI companies and departments, including
| at Meta.
|
| And how do you know if someone's eligible for security
| clearance without applying for it? (Other than the obvious
| "be a US citizen, don't be a spy" part.)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Isn't linear algebra heavily used in machine learning and
| computer graphics (not just know it, but be able to wield
| it proficiently)? So ya, the talent probably exists, but
| they hit the "these engineers are making half a million a
| year to do something else" problem.
| biztos wrote:
| Yes, exactly, I would (naively) assume it's common among
| e.g. ML specialists, who are in high demand and thus hard
| to recruit. I'm sure there are a lot, but if I had to
| extrapolate from experience ("OK, who's good at math,
| hands up?") I would say it's less than 20% of coder
| genpop.
| bravura wrote:
| There is a lot of published _research_ work in ML that
| had huge impact without explicitly touching linear
| algebra.
|
| Given that is the case, to answer your question: yes,
| linear algebra is the foundation of ML. No, a lot of
| impactful day-to-day ML engineering can be done without
| touching linear algebra.
|
| This is how assembly is the basis of compilation and
| programming. But you probably are going to get a whole
| lot of work done without ever using it.
|
| It's generally a nice flex when applicants can code
| assembly, and usually a yellow-flag when the company
| suggests they require knowledge of assembly.
|
| To me, my eyebrows raise when an industry person mentions
| linear algebra. I'm just saying the odds are really low
| that you actually use it.
| avmich wrote:
| > People who remember all their math and enjoy it and can
| also code, are also very employable at all the AI companies
| and departments, including at Meta.
|
| That's either a wishful thinking or a stretch of
| definitions, IMHO.
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| What about the opposite? My math is getting super rusty
| but it doesn't matter because all I do is push protos
| around. Yet I seem to be pretty employable.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > if linear algebra is really a part of the day-to-day job
| [...] then you're hiring specialists
|
| It kind of bothers me that the parent and other readers
| here are passing off knowing linear algebra as some kind of
| esoteric skill. Linear algebra is a year 2 course in a
| undergraduate eduation. There are polished libraries to
| make it fast.
|
| Unless you mean enough knowledge to be _writing linear
| algebra libraries_ , there is no need to consider this
| skill a high hurdle.
| yazzku wrote:
| Why is this down-voted? I was going to add most people
| have already seen some sort of linear algebra even in
| high school. Determinants, Gaussian elimination, etc.
|
| It's unclear what "linear algebra" means to GP, though. I
| agree writing linear algebra libraries is next level,
| since that involves numerical code and knowing FP math
| well.
| ponow wrote:
| > Determinants, Gaussian elimination, etc.
|
| Umm, not in Pennsylvania government high schools, not
| typically. Not by a long shot.
| lovich wrote:
| This is a real life version of this comic
|
| https://xkcd.com/2501/
| tanjtanjtanj wrote:
| The number of American (and most other countries too)
| students who interacted with Gaussian elimination or
| Determinants in High School can fairly safely be rounded
| down to zero.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| And we wonder why the US is declining in the ranking for
| HS math competence.
| biztos wrote:
| I don't think it's esoteric, I just don't think it's used
| much in real-life, day-to-day software engineering as
| practiced by most professionals. I didn't mean to imply
| it's a high hurdle, just that IMO a minority of actual
| SWE's are going to bust out the proverbial slide rule,
| and anecdotally it seems like they have a lot of options.
|
| That it's a year-2 undergraduate course for some people
| argues more for forgetting than remembering it, if you're
| not using it regularly.
| klodolph wrote:
| > Linear algebra is a year 2 course in a undergraduate
| eduation.
|
| From what I've seen, the year 2 course is great for
| graphics programming, game development, that sort of
| thing. It's not enough for the tasks that require more
| serious linear algebra, when you're working with systems
| of linear equations, large matrices, etc. These "big"
| linear algebra problems come up a lot in fields like
| physics simulation, finance, and machine learning / AI.
|
| I've done some hobby work in graphics and game
| development, and I've done some professional work in
| physics simulation. The kind of linear algebra you use in
| physics simulation is a different beast.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I would expect the type you are talking about to be
| described as something more like scientific computing or
| HPC or something, right? Numerical methods.
| klodolph wrote:
| I took these classes in college and none of them would be
| described that way. They were linear algebra classes.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Huh, interesting. What did they cover? I guess I thought
| you were talking about stuff like sparse iterative
| solvers (Krylov subspace, that sort of stuff). But those
| are computational tools mostly, I guess, right?
| klodolph wrote:
| The math department at my college had three linear
| algebra courses.
|
| "Intro to linear algebra." 200-level. Vectors are
| (x,y,z), more or less. Class includes math, engineering,
| science, and business majors. 200-level makes it
| _nominally_ a second-year course but lots of first-year
| students will take it. Required course for many different
| majors.
|
| "Applied linear algebra." 300-level. Vectors are finite.
| Eigenvalues, linear transformations, determinants, matrix
| algebra, factorization. Touches on numerical methods but
| doesn't spend much time on them. Students were mostly
| math, with some physics and electrical engineers mixed
| in.
|
| "Advanced linear algebra." Series of two 400-level /
| 500-level courses. Almost exclusively math majors and
| math grad students. Algebraic topology, tensor spaces,
| exterior algebra, spectral theory, differential forms.
|
| There were also numerical methods courses--one in the
| math department and one in the CS department.
| Tyr42 wrote:
| Can't take graphics until you have finished linear
| algebra, otherwise how would you deal with all the
| rotation and projection matrices?
| klodolph wrote:
| Right, but there's another linear algebra _after_ that
| one.
| amluto wrote:
| Linear algebra may well be year 2 _in a math B.S._
| program, and you'll encounter it in physics and quite a
| few engineering fields, too. Maybe a bit of linear
| algebra in CS. And a _lot_ of graduates who go do
| something else for a while will not remember too much
| linear algebra.
|
| I can easily imagine that an overly aggressive linear
| algebra requirement will eliminate many excellent
| candidates.
| defrost wrote:
| In Australia Linear Algebra was straight out of high
| school first year university basic STEM common core math
| course work for Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Medical,
| Biology, etc. streams.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Also true in the US; I don't know what the "year 2"
| people are thinking.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| At my university, the quickest you would be able to take
| it was the second year because Calc 1 and Calc 2 were
| considered pre-reqs. Assuming you're a normal student
| doing only Fall/Spring semester, you can't take Calc 1
| and 2 simultaneously.
|
| Unless you had AP Calc in high school and managed to get
| the university to accept it. I think quiet a few ABET
| schools don't accept AP Calc as a full replacement for
| Calc 1 if your an engineering major.
| ZYsFrZ8RXvolv47 wrote:
| Here in the US I was: calc 2 (year 1), calc 3, linear
| methods (year 2), discrete math, theory of computation
| (year 3). The downside being that the math and comp. sci
| courses had no overlap, so I've basically forgotten the
| first 1.5 years. Might have been better off at a state
| college.
|
| And wow, coming in from the other end of the scale to
| even the bias...
|
| Did an internship in biotech then spent the next ten
| years working the only 2-3 blue collar jobs I could land
| while applying to thousands of jobs per year and writing
| hundreds of cover letters per year: retail, call centers,
| IT, software development, comp sci, secretarial, and
| other random fields I have certifications in. All told,
| zero interviews. Spent my spare time working on open-
| source projects and tutoring programming and data
| science.
|
| Suffered a horrible work-related injury near the end of
| the decade and had to quit, but just as my savings were
| about to expire I managed to find a government
| contracting job for 80K/year, which is nearly 3x my
| previous salary. I suffer incredible pain at work due to
| my injury, and spend all my spare time recuperating and
| exercising, and spend all my money on healthcare and
| moonshots to no avail. I've wound down all my hobbies. I
| thought I'd start socializing once I could afford it, but
| I'm in too much pain.
|
| Competence in government really doesn't reflect my
| experience in landing a job. What a silver lining. When I
| can barely walk I can just not show up and nobody would
| even notice. So career-wise I don't think I'm going
| anywhere. Life-wise I'm limping on, I guess.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I've seen it put after calculus for whatever reason,
| usually. Surprisingly, even for engineering students,
| calculus often takes up the first year of classes in the
| US.
| defrost wrote:
| In Australia, and a number of European countries,
| Calculus takes up the last two years of high school in
| the advanced stream (for anybody intending to go to
| university and take Law, Engineering, Medicine, Physics,
| Chem, etc).
|
| Interestingly in serious university mathematics when
| looking at the foundations of mathematics, Linear Algebra
| is a functional prerequisite of multivariate calculus and
| anything higher dimensional as LA provides a _literal_
| basis for abstract spaces and local approximations to
| continuous functions, etc.
|
| (Often the two are formally taught in parallel)
| brightball wrote:
| It's the same in the US. My son is in 10th grade doing
| Pre-Calculus now and should be in AP Calculus next year.
|
| If you don't take the AP class to test out of it, you'd
| have to take it first in college though.
|
| I imagine many people strong enough in math to pursue
| sciences will go the AP route and test out of it, but not
| everybody takes the same path.
| bee_rider wrote:
| At the place I went, they designed the curriculum around
| students that came in without it. But I guess testing out
| gives room for a gen-ed.
|
| I dunno. The vibe in high school's hardest math class and
| college's easiest math class is kinda different. Might be
| worth doing both, haha. Easy A, too.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| I generally think it should be taught along calc 3
| (advanced integration and differential equations), as
| there's decent conceptual overlap and basic calculus
| helps weed out those who might not be ready for a more
| rigorous course.
|
| Also to clarify wrt calculus, it is very common for
| university-track students to take AP calculus in high
| school, which allows them to take an examination that
| most universities accept to prove mastery of the
| equivalent to calc 1 or calc 1+2 depending on the
| examination.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I got an A in linear as a sophomore... a long time ago.
| If it's needed for a job, I got some studying to do.
| StressedDev wrote:
| Agreed - If you got a Computer Science degree from an
| engineering school, you probably had to take Linear
| Algebra as one of your required classes. Also, Linear
| Algebra is not that hard to learn.
| anon7000 wrote:
| And you're going to remember that at a job interview 10
| years later after never dealing with it after class? Uh,
| no.
|
| I took through calc 3 + discrete math, but didn't have to
| take the full linear algebra course for the BS in CS. I'm
| sure I could refresh myself on calculus, but almost no
| one is regularly maintaining their more advanced math
| knowledge in this field.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| I got a CS degree from a fairly high ranked state
| university.
|
| Linear algebra wasn't a requirement. I took it as an
| elective just for my own curiosity. I have a feeling
| loads of programmers really don't know anything about
| linear algebra, and probably a large number are like me
| and learned it due to interest in game development.
| defrost wrote:
| The upstream comment mentioned Linear Algebra as a base
| requirement for applied programmers in their domain;
| satellites, remote sensing, communications, navigation,
| etc.
|
| You can assume they're interested in esoterics like those
| who can grasp the spherical harmonic equations used to
| model the daily magnetic flux epoch models to control
| sats via mag torque, those who can do a multivariate 512
| dimensional SVD reduction against pipelined multi
| spectral data to create sharpened images, create fuel
| optimal paths in constrained resource starved
| environments while dodging projected debris paths, .. you
| know, all that jazz.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The bigger risk I think is that most engineers took it in
| the first couple years, didn't realize they were applying
| it in all their other classes, and forgot about it.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| It's not so much that it's esoteric, it's that it's not
| something most people use every day, and skills decay
| over time. I mean, Differential Equations (Diff-e-screw)
| was a year 2 class for me, and I assume I'd fail it if I
| took it today.
|
| But most people that have any exposure to it can pick it
| back up fairly rapidly. And most people that have a
| reasonable exposure to math in general could probably
| come up to speed (a little less) rapidly.
| hilux wrote:
| How many years do you expect most working professionals
| to remember the content of each of their undergrad
| courses - unless they use it on a regular basis?
| ponow wrote:
| Linear algebra is not a universal requirement for CS and
| EE.
| simoncion wrote:
| > And how do you know if someone's eligible for security
| clearance without applying for it?
|
| The short answer is "You can't, not with 100% certainty.".
|
| Based on my experience from decades ago, the long answer is
| "Anyone who's a US citizen and doesn't lie about their drug
| use and debts can get a Secret clearance.". Things MIGHT
| have significantly changed since my clearance lapsed way
| back when, but I doubt it.
| simoncion wrote:
| Actually, after engaging my brain a bit more fully, I
| realize that one can be eligible for a security clearance
| but fail to actually be granted one.
|
| That is, eligibility concerns whether or not the State
| Department will consider your application, not whether or
| not they will grant the clearance after performing their
| background and lifestyle investigation.
| jtcurlin wrote:
| I've applied to a variety of your positions each cycle for
| the past 3 years. New grad, clearance-eligible US citizen
| from a mid-range state school with a historically strong
| defense/gov. connection. I have multiple internships, a math
| minor, and my standout project is a rendering engine with a
| physics/collision system. I've never had or expected a remote
| option, and 70k (outside of the extreme-COL areas) sounds
| fantastic.
|
| Your company has never offered me a phone screening. Seeing
| claims that Northrop is in sort of qualified candidate crisis
| when myself and many applicants I know of similar profiles
| are lucky to get so much as a rejection email is borderline
| infuriating.
| phkahler wrote:
| What city or state?
| sigbottle wrote:
| :/ Never got into embedded programming or engineering, maybe
| I should though. Invested too many of my math skills in
| theoretical computer science
|
| Never too late to learn etc. etc.
| atlgator wrote:
| The pool of Americans that can qualify for a clearance is
| very small. You'd be surprised how many people have poor
| credit, bad debt, foreclosures, foreign connections, drug use
| and/or arrest history. It's not a fair comparison to the
| applicant pool available to your typical industry business.
| When I got my TS out of college, the OPM agent went to my old
| frat house and interviewed people at random, then went to my
| girlfriend's sorority house and interviewed random people
| there. It can be brutal.
| foobiekr wrote:
| past drug use does not preclude a clearance (edited)
| atlgator wrote:
| It absolutely can. Depends on the drug and when it was
| last used, if you had any drug-related incidents or court
| ordered rehabilitation.
| foobiekr wrote:
| That's going beyond simple use. The two year lookback is
| real but nobody is going to fail a basic clearance over
| college pot use.
| atlgator wrote:
| I didn't say anything about pot. I said drug. That's any
| illicit drug or controlled substance including
| prescription misuse. The look back for declaration is 7
| years, not 2, and generally you are auto denied if use
| was within the last 12 months, college or not.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| >I didn't say anything about pot. I said drug. That's any
| illicit drug or controlled substance including
| prescription misuse.
|
| Pot is still illegal at the federal level where a
| clearance would be taking place.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| If you are a citizen but your spouse is not a US citizen,
| does that count as an out? I hard a while ago that having a
| spouse from China could ruin your chances of getting
| security clearance, but I'm not sure if naturalizing solves
| that problem or not.
| CrI0gen wrote:
| Yes, it will make a huge impact during the investigation
| and adjudication process. For TS and TS/SCI, even with
| naturalization the chances for approval will be slim and
| naturalization likely won't help, especially if they have
| family in China. For the government, it's all about
| calculating risk of someones loyalty, character and
| having things that can be exploited by financial issues
| (debt is the biggest disqualifier), foreign contacts or
| family, and anything they'd want to keep secret that
| could be used for blackmail.
| baq wrote:
| > debt is the biggest disqualifier
|
| If they have a good candidate and the only problem is
| debt, they should offer to pay it off. They have no
| qualms printing billions to save some broken banks.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Someone with lots of debt likely has some aspirations of
| foreign travel to risky locales, regardless of what they
| say... so it makes sense why that would be a
| disqualifier.
| lovich wrote:
| Why would having a lot of debt make that person have "...
| some aspirations of foreign travel to risky locales..."?
|
| Plenty of people get into debt just doing normal shit at
| their homes
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| High risk behaviors correlate... It's not a foolproof
| assumption, but it probably will be true more than half
| the time.
| lovich wrote:
| If we're going to be that ridiculous about risk
| management but not other ones that , I at least believe,
| are in the same tier i.e. alcohol abuse, then we might as
| well go full bore and have the government pay an
| extremely generous, generational wealth paying position.
|
| That's the only way you're going to get people with self
| control and willing to live the life of ascetic monks for
| the duration of time to both learn how to build these
| systems and then actually build them
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Your first paragraph is incoherent... can you try to
| write out the actual argument legibly?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think they do try to keep people with substance abuse
| problems from getting clearance. (Unless they are friends
| with then President or something like that).
| atlgator wrote:
| I'm not sure how that's relevant. The goal is to assess
| the individual's susceptibility to coercion. Maintaining
| safety from kidnapping while traveling can certainly be a
| concern when you hold a clearance, but simply taking your
| family on a vacation overseas is not among the high
| concerns. If you have bad debt where you are drowning
| financially, or if you have strong foreign ties or
| connections, or other behavioral risks, they make you
| susceptible to coercion. Selling secrets to adversaries
| to repay loan sharks, being extorted using threats
| against overseas family members, getting drunk or high
| and divulging secrets, secrets in exchange for drugs,
| etc.
| mint2 wrote:
| What's your companies general location? Do you have an office
| where tech talent wants to work? Location is an important
| part of a competitive employment offer.
|
| And I highly doubt linear algebra is a day to day requirement
| for a typical worker. Sounds like a case of expecting
| chauffeurs to know how to build a drive train from scratch.
| klipklop wrote:
| > Yes, we pay well.
|
| Let's hear some numbers for junior, mid and senior. I bet
| they are not great.
| sensanaty wrote:
| I'm not USAian, but everything you described to me makes the
| job sound miserable, especially compared to the competition.
|
| The clearance I won't comment on, as I have no clue what it
| involves. Presumably though, this means randomized drug tests
| which is IMO a complete violation of privacy. Also, I'm
| probably wrong but it gives me the impression that despite
| your reassurance that you aren't building weapons systems, ya
| kinda are.
|
| And as you said, a part of your company makes weapons. That
| will automatically cause many people to be disinterested, for
| better or worse.
|
| > Ghost positions
|
| In my experience, gov't jobs are the _worst_ when it comes to
| fake job postings that only exist as a cover for internal
| promos. Might be different in the states, but I doubt it.
|
| > Yes, we are willing to train someone who is motivated. We
| won't re-teach linear algebra...
|
| Wait, so will you train them or not? You won't refresh
| someone on linear algebra which most people haven't touched
| since their uni days, but you'll put a technical writer
| through university to become an engineer? Which one is it?
| Then later on you say the algebra thing is a hard
| requirement. How do these statements make sense together?
|
| > Can't work remotely
|
| This is an automatic disqualifier for many people, for many
| reasons. I get that you're working with space hardware in
| clean rooms, but if this means people have to move to the
| middle of nowhere (or just move, period) and commute for 2
| hours each way, then you're disqualifying tons of people,
| when their alternative is a job where they can work remotely
| with all the benefits that entails. I'd personally rather be
| dead than be forced to commute ever again.
|
| > We pay well
|
| Define well? Especially with everything else I commented on,
| is it really "well", if they can join a much less frustrating
| job and get paid more? Also you sound quite snarky about
| working at Meta. I'm no fan of FAANG, but if we're talking
| compensation, I think the snark is unwarranted given the
| situation.
|
| > We expect programmers to remember linear algebra and have
| more than the ability to shovel frameworks on top of each
| other...
|
| Again, snarkiness and derision. A bit of a dumb position to
| take when you're admitting that the easier job not only pays
| (dramatically) more, but has better conditions (remote work,
| no clearance-related BS) as well.
|
| No wonder you can't find qualified individuals, your comment
| alone makes it sound like a miserable job where you're
| working for bean counters that want to inspect the cloudiness
| of your piss while forcing you to waste half your life
| driving to the office and back without extra compensation,
| while they get to see other, less skilled engineers "glue
| frameworks together" for double the pay and quadruple the
| happiness. And I find it rich to comment on advertisers when
| your company makes weapons that _literally kill people_.
| Something about reaper missiles and glass houses comes to
| mind here.
| beambot wrote:
| > Yes, we pay well.
|
| Prove it. What city are you in, and what is total comp for
| software engineer & hardware engineer with 20 years of
| experience?
|
| I worked in national defense. It was a pain in the ass: shit
| pay, worst politics, massive tolerance for incompetence &
| mediocrity, meeting hell, and secrecy (necessary, but "need
| to know" gatekeeping wasnt at times).
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| Why would I work in person for less money when I can work
| remote? For in person work on critical applications like
| satellites, I'd expect (spitballing here) a staff eng to be
| making 300k base with substantial bonus/espp on top.
| Consider that most midsize tech companies are going to pay
| staff level 200k or above and ask how the company in
| question compares, before pricing in the crushing
| inflexibility of in person work.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| > I'd expect (spitballing here) a staff eng to be making
| 300k base with substantial bonus/espp on top
|
| This is a fairytale in DoD work and while I think there's
| room for us to improve our compensation I'm not sure this
| is a reasonable number at the moment. Please don't flame
| me for this, just sharing my opinion. I work on a
| critical DoD new-work project.
|
| The only way to achieve that number in this sector would
| be private consulting with a very strong network. I will
| say that it's a very easy world to network in, at least
| in my experience. I also find the work and location I'm
| in very meaningful and interesting compared to most of
| the private sector work accessible to me at this point in
| my career.
|
| I don't think as many people love remote work as HN
| suggests. We have an extremely flexible hybrid and PTO
| policy here, and we're in a great midsize city that
| people love living in.
|
| This is just a random jumble of thoughts in response.
| Cheers
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| I appreciate your insider perspective and insight here. I
| realize that most industries don't pay their engineers
| like tech companies do. I just wish that we as workers
| instead of accepting less would instead agitate for
| better wages across the board. I previously left a very
| engaging pharmaceutical research job to work in finance
| because the money I was leaving on the table got to be
| too much for me to justify, regardless of how much I
| enjoyed the work.
| diob wrote:
| Yeah, it just sounds like the ole "no one wants to work
| anymore" line when really it's you're not paying enough.
| m00x wrote:
| We pay $400-700k for L4-L6 and we have a hard time
| finding qualified candidates.
| ikiris wrote:
| Then it's not enough. This isn't hard.
| gottorf wrote:
| Your statement is trivially true in terms of market
| mechanics, but considering that $400k/yr for an
| individual puts him in the 99th percentile of all income
| earners in the US, the argument gets a little harder to
| make.
| caseyohara wrote:
| I reckon a L4-L6 engineer should be in the 99th
| percentile of talent and value for US workers so I don't
| see the problem.
| mrep wrote:
| "400k" (he/she says they work for a private company so
| they haven't told us how much of that is actual cash in
| hand) and also in an unknown location which could be the
| bay area which in that case, just go work for
| Google/Meta/Netflix and make that money in cash/RSUs.
| ponow wrote:
| Define "qualified".
| albrewer wrote:
| I'll take it. My resume probably doesn't match your
| qualifications, but hey I'm sure you guys are willing to
| train people up where they're deficient, right? For that
| kind of pay, I'd never leave - surely me being a drag on
| productivity for 6 months while I come up to speed is an
| acceptable trade, right?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Do you work in big tech, high finance, or private equity?
| kennyloginz wrote:
| Hi, How can I get in touch with your hiring department?
| profsummergig wrote:
| Curious re: "linear algebra".
|
| What kind of understanding is needed? A basic understanding?
| It's a vast and unending subject.
|
| And there are well known software apps that do linear algebra
| these days. Do you folks use a particular software to do it?
|
| Engineering Technician: what does an hour in the life of such
| work look like?
|
| Thanks.
| touisteur wrote:
| Later on GP talks about radar, so I'd guess probably at
| least the basics, convolution, matrix multiplication, and
| some inverse methods (evd, svd, cholesky...). Not just
| implementing but understanding what it does, a bit ?
| fn-mote wrote:
| Wow, I was all ready to look you up in your profile ... until
| I read all of the follow-up responses.
|
| I knew it was too good to be true.
| teeray wrote:
| > We won't re-teach linear algebra to a developer applicant
|
| Why not? Isn't this just part of your ramp-up if it's a niche
| qualification? We re-teach networking to developers who
| probably forgot it--that's a semester course, easily. If
| you're not willing to invest in candidates that are 90% of
| the way there, then you're perpetually going to have
| difficulty hiring.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| > We cannot find qualified applicants.
|
| It's not _just_ that you 're restricted to US Citizens.
|
| You point out all the issues in your post:
|
| > You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance
|
| So, even though I'm adult and it's legal in my state, I can't
| smoke weed now and then? Oh and depending on the project may
| be subject to a polygraph... sounds fun!
|
| > No, we don't make weapons for the military.
|
| Every.. government... defense... contractor has this speech.
| Why even pretend that you're not in the war business, which
| ultimately means killing people? Honestly I would be _more_
| comfortable working for an org that _wasn 't_ afraid to admit
| what they do. Making moral compromises is not uncommon in
| tech, and I don't judge people that choose to do so, but I do
| judge those that _pretend_ that they 're not.
|
| > No, you can't work remotely.
|
| I've worked remotely virtually my entire career, including
| for the Federal government. You may have a good reason for
| this requirement, but it absolutely shrinks your pool. You
| don't even mention location, but I'm guessing it's not in a
| top city like NYC or SF.
|
| > Yes, we pay well.
|
| And yet you never give a range. Last time I worked for a
| DARPA contractor, Google (this was the earlier days)
| basically hired every elite member of the R&D team in a
| weekend (exaggerating here, but not much) since both the pay
| and work was drastically better.
|
| > One issue is that we expect programmers to remember linear
| algebra
|
| Ah great, unjustified ego to boot! I'm sold!
|
| I'm a US Citizen, work in a remote small company doing
| opensource work largely for the good of the world, likely
| paid roughly the same, it's nobody's business if I want to
| smoke weed, and most of the team has a quantitative PhDs (but
| would blush to mention it) and those that don't could easily
| _teach_ a course on linear algebra.
|
| I'm just one engineer, but I can't imagine applying at
| company like you describe. You might have better success
| hiring qualified applicants if you at least admitted how
| unattractive such a place is to the many engineers I've work
| ed with who use linear algebra everyday and tried to find
| _some_ compromise.
| inamberclad wrote:
| Ball?
| csomar wrote:
| > Yes, we pay well.
|
| > No, we don't pay as much as Meta.
|
| Are you saying you pay well as comparing to the local
| McDonalds? That being said, my guess you can't find
| "qualified applicants" is because you are putting too many
| restrictions and paying too little. So you end up with
| students who will take anything and then you come here to
| complain about the lack of talent.
| ramrunner0xff wrote:
| similarly i am in this ridiculous position. I am a security
| engineer, wanting to work in vulnerability research. Got an
| EB2-NIW green card due to my skills being valuable for the
| national interest. Can't even get an interview because all
| vulnerability researcher positions require TS clearance... I
| guess i will just have to wait 4 more years for the
| citizenship, but it's a pity.
| choppaface wrote:
| > We cannot find qualified applicants.
|
| By chance has your employer posted on HN who's hiring?
| remarkEon wrote:
| >No, we don't pay as much as Meta.
|
| Ah, well. Nevertheless...
| loeg wrote:
| A lot of people don't want to have to get a security
| clearance for a mediocre pay job.
| randmeerkat wrote:
| > We cannot find qualified applicants.
|
| What's the name of your employer?
| eigendreams wrote:
| By definition a US Person would not have a visa, since that
| qualifier only applies to US nationals, permanent residents
| (which do not need nor have a visa, permanent residents do
| not apply for admission after status is granted), refugees or
| asylees.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| > We won't re-teach linear algebra to a developer applicant
| but we will pay a tech writer to go to school nights/weekends
| to get a degree in engineering (me, I did that).
|
| Why? Linear Algebra is certainly something that can be
| learned faster than a degree in engineering. I expect the
| average software developer (someone that can understand
| algorithms) can achieve competency in less than a semester's
| worth of time. If someone is a good developer, learning
| specific skills sets for the domain is pretty normal.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| The hard truth is that too many people can't pass the drug
| test required for security clearance, and that does narrow
| your applicant pool.
| llm_trw wrote:
| >You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance.
|
| Having had to go through one of those: yeah no shit. Not
| everyone enjoys a colonoscopy without anesthesia.
|
| >You (even programmers!) have to touch the things we build in
| order to build them and nobody has an ISO certified clean
| room in their house.
|
| I do, a keg at any rate, but given that I can't get a
| security clearance because of the people I hung out to build
| one - yeah.
| achenet wrote:
| I'm a programmer, I know linear algebra (I actually have a
| master's degree in maths). I grew up in Houston, lived there
| from 1998 to 2010, but never got a citizenship owing to some
| of my father's medical issues disqualifying us from a green
| card.
|
| If you're willing to sponsor me for a green card and wait
| five years, and you're located in a city I'd actually like to
| live, I might come work for you :)
| mr_toad wrote:
| > programmers to remember linear algebra
|
| Programmers who know linear algebra probably also know basic
| calculus & stats, so now you're competing with companies
| hiring ML engineers.
| briandear wrote:
| If you doubled the pay you'd probably have more applicants
| than you could ever hope for. And why don't you pay as much
| as Meta? The defense industrial complex can pay retired
| generals massive salaries to sit on boards, they can hire the
| most expensive lobbyists on the Hill. The defense department
| specifically can't even pass an audit. They have so much
| money going out that they can't even count it. And let's take
| Raytheon for example, have you seen the operating margins?
| They're huge. So even with these "critical shortages,"
| somehow they are immensely profitable. If shortages are
| affecting those margins, then there should be plenty of money
| to pay "critical" people more. Revenue per employee at
| Raytheon for example is almost $420,000. For typical
| manufacturing companies, a "good" number is $300,000. So a
| "critical" employee is worth a lot more than they're being
| paid and there are probably a lot of employees that are dead
| weight and keeping them around means less money to pay the
| shortage areas.
|
| I once applied to work a government project for a
| subcontractor and they were adding "headcount" simply because
| the terms of the subcontract required a specific number of
| people regardless of the amount of work required. They were
| essentially hiring people to do almost nothing. I spent over
| 3 months waiting for a response. Apparently their critical
| shortage wasn't that critical because the hiring process was
| so long and convoluted and subject to "contract renewals,"
| that I simply gave up and went to work for someone else.
|
| I could go on for days about the extreme waste and oftentimes
| outright fraud that happens in government contracting,
| subcontracting, and sub-sub contracting. And despite formerly
| having a TS/SCI clearance, any job in the "McLean Area," pays
| less than most startups. And jobs in places like Huntsville
| pay even less. Even overseas work in "austere" environments
| pays less than a junior developer at Stripe. And you don't
| get potentially shot at at Stripe -- And I don't have to work
| 100 levels deep for contractors or contractors of contractors
| on site using often circa 1996 development practices and
| lowest-bidder equipment managed by IT departments that seem
| to be led by dinosaurs and it can take weeks or months to
| simply requisition a dev server even within an unclassified
| cloud environment.
|
| Why to do that for salaries/benefits that are lower than I
| could get as a janitor at Netflix?
|
| Make the workplace/work environment and benefits compelling
| and you'll get more applicants. Small startups literally have
| better benefits. You also don't have to endure a Tier 5
| investigation -- the outcome of which entitles you to a job
| that pays so little comparatively.
| hilux wrote:
| > No "US Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
|
| FYI, a "US person" means a US citizen or a Permanent
| Resident.
| ponow wrote:
| Define competence. What fraction of graduates in EE and CS
| from top 50 schools would you regard as competent?
| newsclues wrote:
| Have you tried recruiting people in school in mathematics
| programs?
|
| You've repeatedly mentioned being unwilling to train linear
| algebra skills, but will train other things, so go recruit
| math nerds.
| grumple wrote:
| What you're saying just doesn't jive with the experience devs
| have when applying for jobs. You hear horror stories about
| juniors applying for hundreds of jobs. They are absolutely
| qualified for entry level work - they have CS degrees.
|
| I have experienced applying for dozens, including those
| posted to HN: most won't respond at all. Maybe months later
| you'll get an auto-reject message. Or you'll go through
| several interviews not to be selected, even while passing
| technical assessments. My colleagues and friends have similar
| experiences.
| miningape wrote:
| > ISO certified clean room in their house
|
| Well it's not ISO certified, and its more of a box than a
| room. But yes I do actually have access to a sterile (not
| sanitised) environment at home.
|
| I can't work for you on account of my SA citizenship though.
| It looks like my only option to get that kind of clearance is
| to start my own company.
| greentxt wrote:
| Look, by "won't reteach" you give it away. Those who are not
| rusty in linear algebra will tend to be recent grads, younger
| people who are probably not looking for a boring defense job
| with no remote somewhere in Alabama. Those jobs appeal to
| people who may have had enough time to forget how to
| implement a SVD without googling.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| Alternatively the developers who do remember and use linear
| algebra many years into their career or even more advanced
| math/numerical methods and are also interested in using it
| are in higher demand than ever before due to the explosion
| of ML/AI, and thus can command a much higher salary.
|
| The simple answer is always they simply don't pay enough to
| attract the people with this skillset. If they paid as much
| as Meta (who they used as an example) they would certainly
| have way less issues with hiring.
| greentxt wrote:
| On the latter point I agree completely, on the former--
| demand for mid-late career quant types, I want to agree
| but also think we'll need to wait and see because current
| AI will lower a lot of bars, and as you acknowledge it's
| all about money ultimately.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| _We cannot find qualified applicants. ... [a bunch of
| requirements] ... No, we don 't pay as much as Meta. ...
| [some more requirements]_
|
| The shortage on $5000 ferarris continues as well.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I work in the space. You are massively understating the
| difficulty of finding candidates willing to get a security
| clearance, and the cost to the company of sponsoring those
| clearances. It's not as simple as the compensation number
| alone.
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| Yeah, no surprise. Getting a clearance sucks.
|
| It takes forever and you're subjected to very intrusive
| scrutiny as well as potentially psychological tomfoolery
| like polygraphs.
|
| Why would a qualified individual subject themselves to
| that unless they have no other option.
|
| There's a reason clearance jobs have a reputation as
| make-work for ex service members.
| GenerWork wrote:
| >You are massively understating the difficulty of finding
| candidates willing to get a security clearance, and the
| cost to the company of sponsoring those clearances.
|
| I find this hard to believe. I'd totally get a security
| clearance, but no company seemingly offers it, they only
| want people who have a pre-existing clearance.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| sounds like you have a requirement that filters out a lot
| of people. typically when things get rarer they get more
| expensive.
| antonvs wrote:
| Since more skilled immigration can't solve the requirement,
| what is it you think would help?
|
| > You (even programmers!) have to touch the things we build
| in order to build them
|
| This sounds like an excuse. You think it's completely
| impossible to write code for some embedded device, robot,
| whatever remotely? Hire some cheaper remote hands, set up
| some telework equipment, voila now you can hire from all over
| the country.
|
| I did development for a scanning optical microscope, was only
| once even in the same room with one, and even then never got
| to touch it.
|
| Of course once that issue is eliminated, the security theater
| one will be raised next. People might be working from their
| bed next to a Russian honeypot or whatever. National security
| types tend to have vivid imaginations in that respect, and
| have to justify all their rules to themselves. The end
| result? "We can't find qualified applicants."
|
| Btw I'm technically qualified, and in no way a security risk
| to the US, but you wouldn't be allowed to hire me. Perhaps
| the feds should figure out a way of doing security screening
| for foreign nationals. "Must be a citizen" seems like lazy
| bureaucratic BS. As if citizens can't be security risks?!
| jfwuasdfs wrote:
| > Yes, we have extensive high school and college work-
| study/internships and participants make $72k/yr
|
| This is below COL in many areas. If you increase this to 125k
| like Bucees then you should be able to draw in more
| candidates.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| Without concrete numbers, all of this is worthless. How much
| do you pay for the roles you have a shortage, and where are
| you located so it can be compared with the market rate.
|
| If your pay is anywhere below minimum 75th but more
| realistically 90th percent market rate in your area your
| answer is obvious and you are just BSing or your employer is
| gaslighting you to keep pay down.
|
| All the criteria (required security clearance, no
| opportunities for remote work, knowledge of skills not used
| very much outside of schooling without allowances for
| relearning on the job, only US citizens, etc) you listed
| automatically creates a hurdle to entry that isn't made up
| for without significantly higher pay than market rate.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Sounds like we work in similar worlds. I completely agree
| with your experience. I think its a balanced mixture of
| compensation and qualified applicants.
| pizzalife wrote:
| >No "US Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed.
|
| You are not a US person as a visa holder. You are however a
| US person if you have permanent residency (green card).
| sir0010010 wrote:
| Hello! Say a developer applied with ~10 years experience
| without a technical or quantitative degree but have self
| studied and feel they have a solid understanding of linear
| algebra using textbooks and online resources such as the
| Strang course from Opencourseware - would you still interview
| someone in this situation?
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| > No, you can't work remotely. You (even programmers!) have
| to touch the things we build in order to build them and
| nobody has an ISO certified clean room in their house.
|
| This is just plain wrong. I'm wrapping up on a project where
| I wrote significant chunks of the flight software for a moon
| rover while being 99% remote. If you're requiring software
| engineers to be onsite regularly for non-cleared work, your
| process sucks, no exceptions.
|
| ETA: By the way, I personally only went fully remote due to
| covid (although I moved away from the office and have no
| plans to return), but some of my coworkers have been remote
| for well over a decade, and this is a government agency. I've
| seen _way_ better setups in private industry.
| rurp wrote:
| As a counterpoint I've been involved with several companies
| in recent years that did not have a particularly difficult
| time hiring similar candidates. The only clear difference was
| that these jobs were remote friendly.
|
| It's impossible to say for sure from the outside but a few
| factors that might be making it difficult for you to hire:
|
| - A lot of tech workers value remote work these days.
|
| - You aren't based in a location with a large enough talent
| pool for the work you do.
|
| - Your company doesn't pay as well as you think, or has other
| details that turn off some potential applicants.
|
| - It could be variance. There's a lot of randomness in the
| job market.
| thephyber wrote:
| Then you should support this rule change:
|
| > Finally, the rule strengthens program integrity by codifying
| USCIS' authority to conduct inspections and impose penalties
| for failure to comply; requiring that the employer must
| establish that it has a bona fide position in a specialty
| occupation available for the worker as of the requested start
| date; clarifies that the Labor Condition Application must
| support and properly correspond with the H-1B petition; and
| requires that the petitioner have a legal presence and be
| subject to legal processes in court in the United States.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| H-1B is a scam for hiring Indian developers who then become
| beholden to the companies they work for. That's it.
| dosinga wrote:
| ah yes, like the CEOs of Google and Microsoft
| meme3 wrote:
| I'm just an outside observer but I would say it's probably
| not _all_ a scam. Most of it absolutely is though.
|
| Generally I just see a lot of unfocused writing in this
| thread. Even the reply to your post is an attempt to muddy
| the waters with some ambiguous statement. I guess this is a
| community of developers and we tend to have difficulty with
| politics and the real world :-)
| heeen2 wrote:
| There may be many Indians, but when I was on h1b me and my
| colleagues were from Germany, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine,
| Brazil, India. All of those moved on to other companies, even
| multiple times and/or went through the green card process.
|
| The salary I got was ok for bay area standards, certainly not
| rockstar level but would make jaws drop in Germany. For me it
| was an amazing opportunity and I would recommend it to anyone
| to do for a while.
| ivalm wrote:
| We don't support h1b, of the last 3000 applicants we had only 1
| was qualified. It's super hard to hire strong swe.
| JSteph22 wrote:
| What kind of salaries are you offering though...
| ivalm wrote:
| We are seed stage startup, we post salary range 130-180k +
| competitive equity for mid to senior level fully remote.
| gedy wrote:
| 3000 applicants we had only 1 was qualified
|
| Not snarking, but you either have a needlessly arbitrary bar,
| or you've left the applicant pool up to people unqualified to
| gather applicants (non technical young HR, etc)
| bfung wrote:
| Na, the 3000 sounds the like normal flood of LinkedIn type
| apply now button presses.
|
| The real number for them is probably the next few parts of
| the hiring pipeline after those resumes are scanned and
| filtered.
| ivalm wrote:
| It's LinkedIn jobs board + HN who is hiring. Everyone who
| applies tends to have some development experience. We
| interviewed maybe 30 best resumes out of the 3k applicants.
| Lots of people fail relatively basic python or typescript
| coding challenge, a few fail basic "designs an api" round.
| We did filter a few people in culture match but thats rare,
| most fail the technical rounds.
| arp242 wrote:
| Many competent developers are horrible at these live
| coding challenges. I suspect at least some people just
| "failed" out of anxiousness.
|
| That said, it's certainly true there's lots of spam in
| job applications.
| sensanaty wrote:
| This will be my eternal curse :(
|
| During the actual job I've never once had issues of any
| kind, but my brain just shuts down in interview
| environments. I'll forget the simplest of things that I
| do literally daily, and it all just ends up spiraling out
| of control from there. It's like there's 2 people in my
| brain, the regular, competent me, and then interview me
| who's a bumbling buffoon that I myself wouldn't hire.
| It's not even a pressure thing, I do fine in high stress
| environments, it's just specifically during interviews
| where things go wrong.
| mavelikara wrote:
| I hear you. I was that person once. I was able to
| overcome this with deliberate practice. When I was doing
| that, ~20 years ago, this problem was far less
| understood. But these days, there are many more resources
| to help you. Best wishes!
| 01100011 wrote:
| Yep. We pay a lot. We are a company you've heard of and we're
| doing well. For our systems engineering roles, we've had a
| hell of a time finding good people. Plenty of interviews with
| folks who turn out not to know basic C programming or systems
| level algorithms.
|
| It seems like systems level programmers are either firmly
| employed somewhere else or have switch roles to an easier
| domain. I know I've considered going back to Python
| programming where I can make the same money with a lot less
| work.
| mianos wrote:
| Where "turn out not to know basic C programming or systems
| level algorithms" is failing some leetcode puzzle they have
| not touched in the last 20 years while they have been full
| time writing C and C++? So hell of a time not finding your
| definition of 'good people' would be kinda expected.
| 01100011 wrote:
| No it's more like failing to understand how to implement
| a basic memory allocator which is a very relevant task
| for a systems engineer.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| I seriously doubt you and ivalm are having a hard time
| finding SWEs capable of memory management in C.
|
| Something is terribly wrong with your hiring practices.
| You just need to admit it's a "you" problem.
| sciencesama wrote:
| Well they charge you more ! Us is famous for not hiring
| programmers aged above 50 cuz they are expensive !!
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I used to work for the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Centers, and
| it was a pretty good experience.
|
| U.S. citizens (and perhaps some dual-citizens) might want to
| look into such places (Navy warfare centers, NRL, ARL, etc.)
|
| TL;DR:
|
| The top starting pay is about $150k IIRC, which I'm told is
| somewhat below what a well-funded defense contractor will pay
| for really good people.
|
| But I worked with some great people, the work was interesting,
| and it was located in a medium-cost-of-living area.
|
| I left because of the siren call of the startup scene, and
| frustration with some bureaucratic stuff. But in retrospect I
| actually liked working there the best.
| tshaddox wrote:
| But it also doesn't jibe with the reported difficulty US tech
| companies experience trying to hire US developers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Sorry, on what planet are we onshoring H-1B work? What company
| can manage the H-1B process but can't remote to Ukraine or
| Colombia? Or capitalise their dev expense, inefficiently,
| granted, with AI?
|
| In a post-remote world these jobs aren't competing with on-
| shore labor. This is a populist pitch in the mould of iron work
| to Pennsylvania.
| GoToRO wrote:
| The companies that do RTO. Logically, you are right but this
| is not how those CEOs operate.
| danans wrote:
| > What company can manage the H-1B process but can't remote
| to Ukraine or Colombia? Or capitalise their dev expense,
| inefficiently, granted, with AI?
|
| All of those are also happening, plus H1-B competition.
| Offshoring to low-cost countries is more common for
| maintenance work, or work that is not core to the business or
| its product innovation.
|
| H1-B workers are often very good at what they do, every bit
| as good as permanent resident workers, which is precisely why
| they are competition for permanent resident workers, whether
| in office or remote.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| It's definitely more than 5-10% if you just include FAANG who
| pay far higher than most average US citizen devs make in salary
| to both H1Bs and citizen devs.
| sciencesama wrote:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/economicCollapse/comments/1hgghdb/f...
| jmyeet wrote:
| Here's a reform I'd like to see: if you've had layoffs in the
| last 24 months, you as an employer are ineligible to apply for
| or sponsor or hire an H-1B visa holder for any similar position
| and "similar" here is broad.
|
| Big Tech, for example, treats SWEs as largely interchangeable.
| Make a SWE redundant and you can't hire another SWE--anywhere
| in the country--who is a visa holder for 24 months.
|
| You can buy your way out of this by paying any redundant SWE 3
| years of salary and benefits.
|
| Let's see how necessary layoffs really are.
| sgerenser wrote:
| This sounds good in theory, but I suspect it would cause
| companies to mostly switch from layoffs to aggressive
| performance management (i.e. firing for "poor performance",
| stack ranking, etc.)
| rayiner wrote:
| It's a scam. It's the same thing as "we'd pay $8 for avocados
| if it wasn't for illegal immigrants" with flowery language.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| They are required to by law but I saw something odd once. My
| company published the job they wanted an immigrant to fill in
| some weird printed newspaper that I doubt had much readership
| if any so obviously they got no offers. Then they take that and
| say they couldn't find a citizen for the role so they had to
| get an immigrant. I still question if maybe I missed something
| because if what I saw is true, it really breaks the spirit of
| the law. Obviously HR and managers handled it all and they
| don't tell me details like that but I found out about it later
| when I witnessed a form sent to the Dept. of Labor for someone
| I knew.
| Bjorkbat wrote:
| That's pretty common and not actually limited to H1-Bs
|
| I know universities will do this with certain open positions
| where they already have a candidate in mind but are required
| to advertise an opening, can't remember the specifics why
| though. Same with RFPs.
|
| Really easy system to defeat.
| bubblethink wrote:
| What you are talking about is PERM. That's a requirement that
| the department of labor has established. When you want to
| hire an immigrant permanently, DOL requires that you take out
| an ad in a Sunday newspaper. It benefits the lawyers and the
| government greatly as this is a good source of revenue for
| both of them. As far as the actual job goes, that job was
| never open. The person is already working for the company on
| a visa. DOL just makes them do this dog and pony show before
| they can hire them permanently. These regulations are a few
| decades old and were never updated.
| shitlord wrote:
| I wonder why US citizens aren't regularly exploiting this.
| Subscribe to the newspaper, apply to the job, and sue the
| company when they ignore you.
| tiznow wrote:
| No expert on this, but in my estimation the nature of the
| law and process makes it hard to sue unless you're a one-
| to-one match with the job posting or invented part of the
| tech stack being used. Companies across various
| industries pass up on qualified people every day.
| thomasjb wrote:
| Yeah, a fun side project would be republishing the advert
| information somewhere devs could set up alerts
| pandaman wrote:
| There are other precautions: the job application has to
| be mailed to a physical address and can easily get
| "lost", the requirements for the position are numerous
| and peculiar (the #1 in the old times used to be fluency
| in a foreign language, but DOL/USCIS eventually got tired
| of that one, still, since the requirements are for a
| particular person, it can be any random mix of skills,
| all of which are hard requirements), and the interview
| process itself is not designed to pass anyone as the
| person, on whose behalf the PERM is being filed, won't be
| interviewing. One would be spending time much more
| productively applying to real vacancies. The only winning
| play here is to go through the process and sue the
| company to get some pain and suffering judgment, which I
| have not heard being successfully done (but I don't
| really follow this closely so I could be just ignorant).
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Developers aren't fungible, and are hard to hire. Try getting a
| bunch of people to sling some boring Java or mainframe code.
| They don't exist.
|
| The trap with the older worker is a guy wants $250k, but will
| perform at the level of a $75/hr body shop guy. Skills don't
| align - that's always the risk of engineering.
| vaxman wrote:
| Haha, you're so wrong, Spooky23. Older workers love doing
| "boring" work that younger workers do not enjoy. What's more,
| a 1337 definition of "senior level" that I used back in the
| day was the ability to walk into a project and not have the
| urge to begin rewriting everything, something virtually every
| non-senior level worker (and many senior idiots) may have the
| urge to do. Here in the (dystopian) future (from my
| perspective), you can go on YouTube to watch a video about
| "How to write the clean code, by Uncle Bob" (cringe) and "My
| life as a Senior level Dev" (uber cringe). Please make a note
| of it.
|
| While here, adding that we need Executive action to ban H1B
| workers and tariff BPOs at 250% from countries that have not
| ratified the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. I speculate
| that even Elon Musk Actual will approve of this restriction.
|
| Lastly, to avoid posting a response to another comment, going
| to mention that there is nothing quite like having a head-
| hunter with an accent that sounds roughly like he is talking
| with a rotary egg-beater jammed into his mouth call you up
| and ask you a series of disqualification questions for a
| position that he already has sourced from offshores labor
| pool (so as to check the box that he personally certifies
| there are no American workers qualified for the work). Their
| customer doesn't want to know how the sausage is made, they
| just want cheap bodies for unimportant low-level work and
| this is what it takes under the current Law. I actually have
| a friend who was paid very well to let an H1B follow him
| around for several months learning his job before he was let
| go and lost his home, wife and wound up moving in with his
| parents. He went to the US Government to complain and ended
| up at Google for a while before moving on to a Unicorn.
|
| If the H1B have side-hustles like starting Zoom, doing what
| Satya did, or their spouses create incredible non-tech
| businesses, that's really great..but what about all the
| American peeps (AND THEIR KIDS) that were jipped out of that
| opportunity by lax enforcement of America's laws, only to
| ultimately hear "See, we need to keep letting so many H1B
| people and their criminal recruiters warehouse them in
| apartments and work for dog food because so many of them have
| gone on to create such tremendous economic activity for
| America" (ie, a self-fulfilling prophecy).
| heartbreak wrote:
| > The trap with the older worker is a guy wants $250k, but
| will perform at the level of a $75/hr body shop guy.
|
| Casual ageism as if it won't be you one day
| ta_1138 wrote:
| It's not a matter of age itself, but variance and
| experience. You can find the issue already at 5 years: Some
| people have grown and have used those years wisely, while
| others still are going to get experience raises, while they
| don't bring the improved performance.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > wants $250k, but will perform at the level of a $75/hr
|
| So... literally what we've been saying about the H1B visa
| program for decades? That Americans _are_ available with the
| skillset you need, but not willing to work for the wages
| you're offering, so you bring somebody from overseas, which
| is actually illegal per the H1B rules that never get
| enforced?
| stego-tech wrote:
| My sentiments exactly. The visa is highly exploitative by
| design, so it selects cheap labor from abroad at the expense of
| workers at home. Any posturing by employers claiming they can't
| find qualified domestic applicants or governments claiming
| they're protecting workers is hogwash.
|
| If we really valued this foreign labor, we'd make permanent
| residency a requirement of the visa rather than block it. Of
| course, if we offered immigrants permanent residency status
| then companies would have to pay them substantially more, which
| is the whole point of the H1B.
| baby wrote:
| Yes. I got my internship in Chicago (J1), later failed the H-1B
| because of the lottery (twice) so had to leave, spent a year
| and half in England and managed to get back on a Greencard. Now
| I have citizenship. I created a startup also.
|
| Now, was I essential to the US? Probably not. They probably
| could have found someone else.
|
| I'm not sure if that's good enough to say I should not have
| been accepted here.
| m00x wrote:
| I do coding interviews 2-3x/week for a private, but large
| company.
|
| We do not lack candidates, but we lack qualified candidates.
| Most people that I interview have no clue how software actually
| works. Most are leetcode monkeys or just really awful.
|
| We mostly hire seniors because of the industry we're in, but
| we've started hiring interns and juniors due to the lack of
| decent candidates.
|
| We'd love to hire US candidates, but there's just a huge lack.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| If this true, why doesn't FAANG have the same problems? I
| noticed that your post did not discuss any of the negatives
| about your company or its offers. When I have struggled in
| the past to hire, it is always because my company or its
| offers were pathetic. Pretty simple. If your company or
| offers are weak, then your candidate pipeline will (likely)
| be weak.
| ponector wrote:
| Decent candidates have more opportunities. Decent candidates
| have already a decent job. Why should they apply to your
| company?
| alecco wrote:
| The majority look for leetcode monkeys more than experience.
| I gave up applying because of that.
| mrep wrote:
| From your other comment, you pay $400-700k for L4-L6.
|
| Since your company is private what percent of that is liquid
| (cash or RSUs you can immediately sell for cash). Also, what
| locations are you hiring in?
|
| Cause, if you are asking me to move to the outrageous housing
| market that is the bay area only to make half my money in
| shitty stock options that might not evaluate to anything,
| than I think I found your problem.
| Aleksdev wrote:
| Yes, I don't understand this either. Nowadays you have to be a
| senior just to get an entry level position in the USA. There
| are plenty of mid level developers that are struggling to find
| a job.
|
| I guess it will be interesting times ahead. I recommend
| everyone to keep their skills sharp!
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Friend of mine worked for a Fortune 500 company that was
| playing an interesting game: They would open a job req with a
| narrow set of qualifications. If a US citizen showed up and
| matched the qualifications, they would hire them, then
| eliminate their position 6 months later. But then they'd
| slightly change the job qualifications to exclude that person,
| and try again. (It seemed like it was part of some lobbying
| effort to say "Look how many job openings we can't fill!")
| thumbsup-_- wrote:
| There are plenty of software engineers but many of them may not
| be qualified for the currently open jobs. So, yes, there are
| open jobs and there are unhired americans but programs like
| H1-b make even more highly talented pool of people available
| which in turn increases innovation and productivity in economy.
|
| So, it's not just a plain numbers game, it's more about
| innovation, productivity, talent pools and of course,
| capitalism.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| You get top talent from abroad compared to an average citizen;
| seen through that lens, is a good thing.
| steelframe wrote:
| > where the hiring company has even looked for US applicants
|
| I've worked at a company where >90% of the technical interviews
| I conducted were H1-B hires. It makes perfect sense for a tech
| company to bias the applicant deck in this way for a few
| reasons. They're willing to accept a lower comp package. Once
| they're onboard, they will generally keep their head down, do
| whatever they're asked to do, and accept whatever working
| conditions they get without complaining. That said, I've known
| several brilliant H1-B workers. However I've noticed that they
| rarely stick their neck out and challenge the status quo, which
| can lead to bad ideas receiving unquestioning and persistent
| efforts to implement in spite of the writing being on the wall
| about that project's inevitable demise.
|
| I've worked at companies that hire primarily non-H1-B workers,
| and I can tell you that the amount of complaining about working
| conditions in particular at those companies was a couple of
| orders of magnitude more raucous. The end result of a
| complacent workforce was a soulless office with ubiquitous
| infrared sensors, no available meeting spaces, a microkitchen
| stocked with a pittance of moldy food, and with floating
| workstations where the equipment was chronically broken or
| missing.
| danielktdoranie wrote:
| Exactly, it's creaper to fire foriegn workers as they will work
| for much less. It's a racket. I hope the Trump adminstration
| cracks down on this. Employers need to prove there's no
| available and qualified applicant beofore the H-1B is approved.
| They also need to prove they are paying the same to a domestic
| applicant as they would a foreign candidate.
| joshfraser wrote:
| There is no one over 40 playing in the NBA. Is that due to age
| discrimination as well?
| sotix wrote:
| It certainly stinks as a software engineer laid off in January
| who has struggled to find work. The hiring bar is too high at
| every company. They're actively looking for reasons to
| eliminate you rather than reasons to pass you. That mindset
| leads to an overly cynical evaluation. I find it crazy to be
| rejected before an initial screening at a company I've been
| referred to, yet it has happened a few times.
|
| At this point I feel like I'm relying entirely on luck and
| hoping for someone to pay it forward by "taking a chance" on me
| even though I feel perfectly capable. Surely there's a single
| company that I could work out for despite not having 5 years of
| experience.
| FL33TW00D wrote:
| Surprised by all the negativity here.
|
| The USA benefits enormously from skilled immigration: "doubling
| the size of the US H1B visa program increases US and EU growth by
| 4% in the long-run"
|
| From a recent paper here: https://academic.oup.com/qje/advance-
| article-abstract/doi/10...
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| It's a slowdown in tech recruitment, so it is fair for citizens
| to think for themselves first. There are quite a lot of
| candidates that can fulfill most of the roles, and it has bad
| optics when the government tries to prioritize others.
|
| Disclaimer: I don't live in the states, but I can understand
| the frustration.
| ponty_rick wrote:
| That would work in the short term. In the long term, jobs
| would leave the USA so companies won't have to deal with
| immigration uncertainties.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Doesn't really matter. People won't care about long term
| consequences if they're experiencing hardships right now.
| It's easy to say this when we have jobs, but if I didn't
| have one, I would never want my government to prioritize
| others.
| hx8 wrote:
| Tech isn't a zero sum game, it's a growth market. If some
| H-1B talent helps grow a company faster, then they can
| increase their own citizen employee count faster.
| simoncion wrote:
| > ...it's a growth market.
|
| Not when it's in fashion to perform large traditional
| layoffs and "stealth" layoffs via RTO mandates and other
| unpleasantness.
|
| Maybe things will substantially change within a year or
| two, but I'm skeptical.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| That tracks only when it's not taking 6+ months to find a
| stable job. It's not really a growth market right now, and
| anyone who is on the hiring end/looking for a job can
| attest.
| punksatoni wrote:
| You have to first answer why few locals outside Stanford-
| Berkeley-MIT-CMU are hired out of school. Is it because all
| non-top-4 schools under prepare students? Is it before foreign
| workers are that much better? Or is it because companies are
| looking for underpaid workers they can abuse and keep in a
| state of limbo?
|
| If CS degrees from non-top-4 schools are not valuable, best to
| get that out so US students are not studying useless degrees.
| doug_durham wrote:
| That's simply not true. You have no data to back that cynical
| view.
| titanomachy wrote:
| At the moment, at least in the trillion-dollar web companies,
| it seems not many people are being hired straight out of
| school at all. A new grad would have to really stand out to
| get hired in a field of experienced candidates. The potential
| cost savings of hiring a new grad doesn't seem to matter much
| to these companies.
|
| In the past, I've seen a lot of new-grad hires from the top
| 30 or so schools, but not so many from the top 5. More likely
| Michigan, Maryland, or Washington than Stanford or MIT (I'm
| on the West Coast). Pandemic-era Stripe was an exception,
| they seemed to hire _only_ top 5, but they were also offering
| outrageous pay at that time.
|
| Someone graduating from a school not in the top 30 probably
| needs to adjust their expectations away from Google or Meta,
| at least for a first job, unless they have good connections
| and interview very well.
|
| Back to your original point though, I think it's plausible
| that most schools not in the top 30 (charitably, top 50) are
| actually incapable of some combination of (1) attracting
| sufficiently smart and motivated students and (2) educating
| them adequately.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| This is the bit that I've always found confusing. When it comes
| to blue collar jobs, people in the upper echelons will gladly
| advocate the wonders of millions of people entering the job
| market to compete with Americans.
|
| But as soon as it's their own market that introduces additional
| competition, they will advocate "just pay people more, the job
| seekers exist, just not at the wages employers are offering,
| this extra competition only depresses American wages".
|
| Which one is it? Is it "competition for other classes, no
| competition for my class please"?
| macintux wrote:
| There are many, many blue collar jobs which Americans don't
| want to do at the prevailing wages (or at all). Agriculture
| is a prime example of this.
|
| There are relatively few high skilled, high paying jobs which
| Americans don't want to do.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Again, why is the answer in agriculture to simply not
| increase wages? Someone's willing to pick berries for
| $100/h I'm sure. Does it make berries unsustainable as a
| business? Likely, but isn't that an argument for moving
| away from industries that can only survive on exploitation
| of undocumented third world labor?
| JackYoustra wrote:
| Ah, the argument is following it: the berries will still
| be picked in other countries for substantially lower
| wages and worse conditions than the wages or conditions
| (partially) of undocumented workers here. Even our worst
| jobs are substantially better (usually ~3x) than the
| average job of many countries, to say nothing about the
| huge gulf in security and institutions you get form
| living here.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| That's also the argument that Bryan Caplan has been
| making for years in favor of open borders. I genuinely
| don't know what to make of it, I get the moral argument
| within it.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| Yes! what's the part you have trouble with?
| JSteph22 wrote:
| >at the prevailing wages...
|
| ...which are where they are in no small part due to decades
| of immigration policy.
| superq wrote:
| It's basic economics: wages are low because cheaper labor
| is available.
|
| For instance, if working on an Alaskan fishing boat pays
| $2,000 a week, you might take the job despite harsh
| conditions. At $200 a week? Unlikely. But for someone from
| a less-developed country, $200 might feel like $2,000.
|
| Remove the supply of lower-cost workers, and the resulting
| labor shortage drives wages up, seeking equilibrium in the
| market.
| n144q wrote:
| I am not surprised.
|
| People don't like the fact that they actually need to be
| competitive in skills to get a job. Had there been no H-1Bs,
| they could submit a resume and immediately get a job offer!
|
| No joke. I look around in my company, Indians and Chinese
| (among others) are good at their jobs and do amazing work.
|
| Some people just don't like that. They blame not being able to
| get a good job offer on Indians taking away the opportunity,
| not themselves being good developers.
|
| This post is the place where they can vent.
| acedTrex wrote:
| You have had a very different experience with h1b workers
| then I have.
| n144q wrote:
| That says more about your company, and perhaps yourself,
| than anything else.
|
| Companies like Google and Meta don't pay people on H1B
| 400k/yr just so that they walk around doing nothing.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Yes, people at Meta and Google are highly paid and highly
| skilled. Some more or less than others, in relation to
| the average, just like anywhere else. What is your
| example demonstrating?
|
| >That says more about your company, and perhaps yourself,
| than anything else.
|
| Why? You're simply sure the parent and the companies they
| work for are bad at hiring, or racist, or what? You've
| offered nothing but a spit in the face.
| bubblethink wrote:
| No, it means that if you find yourself surrounded by
| mediocre/incompetent people, it means that you aren't
| working at a good place and that you may be mediocre too.
| Clubber wrote:
| It couldn't possibly be that the H1-B's that his company
| is hiring are bad, because his company is trying to save
| a buck by abusing the system, because that never happens.
| bubblethink wrote:
| You are not refuting what I said. The company is doing
| what it can do to maximize revenue and reduce costs. If
| you are working at such a company, that reflects on your
| skill more than anything else.
| Clubber wrote:
| >If you are working at such a company, that reflects on
| your skill more than anything else.
|
| Maybe he's so good everyone is less skilled than he is.
| pknomad wrote:
| It's also missing the point. The verbiage around H1B is "to
| help employers who cannot otherwise obtain needed business
| skills and abilities", not artificially inflate competition
| for jobs. This issue was contentious even during the good
| times and I'm not surprised that it's flaring up during the
| bad times.
|
| There are plenty of smart and excellent workers who come
| mainland China and India for sure but there are plenty of
| people who don't or come through the abuse of the program.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| competition isn't artificially inflated, the competition is
| there all along, just arbitrary rules prevent them from
| seeking better life
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| As an academic scientist in the USA, it is an amazing
| opportunity to work with bright people from all over the
| world. I feel lucky that I am from the place where this
| happens, and I don't personally have to travel overseas for
| it- but certainly would if I hadn't been from here. The
| scientists that come here from all over the world make
| discoveries that help everyone, but the companies that spin
| out of them usually end up US based and are a major driver of
| the economy. When we do hiring, it is only about 1/4 of the
| time or so I would say that we get a highly qualified
| applicant that is a US citizen.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Yeah. Do people really think that Silicon Valley would be such
| a huge economy (and a huge job creator for US citizens) if the
| US had never allowed immigrants to work there?
| liontwist wrote:
| Which came first?
| dboreham wrote:
| Founders of the original valley companies were US born
| (except Shockley) but by the early 70s many of the key
| participants were foreigners (Grove, Faggin, ...).
| liontwist wrote:
| Yeah I would say very little about our current
| immigration situation resembles anything like 1970. So
| I'm not sure what the magic key to success is, that was
| alluded to other than "some people who were key were also
| not born in America".
| blululu wrote:
| There were >100000 layoffs at tech companies in the last 4
| years because companies "overhired". The government is finally
| taking action to address a "labor shortage" in this sector,
| because these same companies cannot find anyone to hire?
| Something doesn't add up here but a lot of people who have been
| given a pretty raw deal.
| nopcode wrote:
| How is it possible that the labour force suddenly produced
| all those tech workers domestically during a pandemic?
|
| What's not adding up is the qualifications of those people
| that got overhired.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I find it hard to believe you are surprised. In disagreement,
| sure. Surprised? This is an enormous, dramatic issue. People on
| both sides rightfully perceive it as borderline existential.
| liontwist wrote:
| Who benefits from that growth of the native population is
| unemployed or underemployed?
| xingped wrote:
| Really? You're surprised? You're surprised that a country and
| industry continuing to suffer from ongoing layoffs after
| layoffs, both stealth and honest, could possibly be negative
| about their government saying "yeah, let's bring in _more_
| foreign workers while our own citizens can't find or keep their
| jobs"? The audacity!
| citrin_ru wrote:
| As person who is not currently trying to immigrate to the US I
| have mixed feelings. One one hand I wish all best to people who
| do want to move to the US, on other hand a non-broken H-1B
| could accelerate brain drain from the country I'm living in
| (which will be one more blow to already struggling economy).
| sneed_chucker wrote:
| "The USA benefits..."
|
| Who actually benefits?
| Glyptodon wrote:
| Are they accepting them in descending order of total compensation
| yet?
| ashconnor wrote:
| This would be a great way to starve every industry outside of
| tech of H1B workers.
| bradlys wrote:
| The working conditions for Americans suck due to this fucking
| program. People come here to live subservient lives and bring
| along a toxic culture of submission. The level of ass licking
| that I see on the regular is akin to a well known Korean airline
| going into the side of a mountain. It is insane the level of
| deference you will find.
|
| All this hype about the "smartest, brightest, etc." is nonsense.
| I've worked with hundreds of engineers in SV who are all on H1B.
| They are no better than anyone else. My main complaint with them
| is that their work is fine but the culture they bring is insanely
| toxic and does not allow for any psychological safety _at all_. I
| know enough people in industry for a long period of time to know
| that it wasn 't always this way. There were always problems but
| it has hit a level that is insane. The fact that an American is a
| minority nationality when in almost any US tech company is
| bonkers.
| sfblah wrote:
| I'm in favor of immigration generally, but I actually agree
| with the cultural argument here. The toxic culture really shows
| up in interviewing. Recently I've repeatedly had to deal with
| interviewees obviously cheating with AI tools. Also, while I
| agree that folks on H-1 visas are around the same
| qualification-wise as citizens, I also agree that their primary
| interest is always their visa, not doing a good job as an
| employee.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| Yeah, I think that the solution here is to make the visa
| easier though? If they don't worry about it then they won't
| be so focused on it.
| bradlys wrote:
| I don't know what the solution is but I don't feel like
| making it easier is going to be helping either. I'm not
| entirely sure if this toxic culture would go away as soon
| as people have green cards. After all, this culture is
| alive and well in the countries these people are from.
|
| The bad culture isn't just due to being locked into a job
| or it being hard to get a new job. It is a _core component_
| of their belief system. I see this as soon as people from
| these places get promoted to a manager - they literally
| turn into the thing they hated the most on the first day!
| It seems to me to be completely cultural.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| Sure, but you have selection effects at the end of a
| really brutal pipeline from their perspective, so the
| culture of people conditioned on going through this
| process is always going to be kinda an asshole.
|
| People go into banking and have shitty hours and culture
| because there's a nice rewarding story at the end of it
| (money, prestige, whatever) - similar to what would be at
| the end of moving somewhere prosperous. The problem with
| banking culture isn't an inherent problem with American
| culture, it's merely a product of a system where you have
| such a hiring system.
|
| Unlike in banking, however, the toxic culture isn't a
| product of a company or market forces, but the outcome of
| such a restrictive visa regime. Change the visa regime,
| and the culture (eventually, you have to give it a
| generation) also changes.
| sfblah wrote:
| Agree completely. My opinion is that if you earn a
| certain amount and therefore pay a certain amount in
| taxes for 2-3 years, you should become a citizen, period.
| sfblah wrote:
| My opinion is if you pay more than a certain amount of
| income tax, the visa should be automatic.
| cute_boi wrote:
| I wish USCIS was very strict about those guys who is coming in
| H1b from India incapable of doing anything and hire guy from
| india to do all their work.
| asoneth wrote:
| I wonder if switching from a lottery to an auction would help
| curtail some of the abuse?
|
| That is, for each position a company wants to fill with a non-
| citizen they also have to bid on the visa fee they're willing to
| pay. The highest ~7,000 bids that month are accepted and paid to
| the government in exchange for a visa.
|
| We could debate things like sealed-bid versus open auction and
| uniform-price versus paying your bid but whatever details we pick
| I suspect this would allow us to discover which companies are
| actually desperate for skills and which primarily use it as a
| cost-savings measure.
|
| (I'm also curious how much H-1B visas would cost if there was a
| market: thousands of dollars? tens of thousands? hundreds of
| thousands? more?)
| punksatoni wrote:
| Yes it would.
|
| This would prevent abuse of foreigners who are underpaid. It
| would also allow most of the applicants to go to good jobs
| (FAANG) which can pay premiums salaries.
|
| Reverse auction is the best way to go. Good for foreigners,
| good for top companies, economically the best option.
| huevosabio wrote:
| Probably hundreds of thousands. A big reason master programs
| can command such a massive price tag is that they are tickets
| to enter the US labor market.
|
| It also has the benefit of giving the government an incentive
| to increase the quota to get more revenue.
| cheriot wrote:
| This is the simplest way to improve the H1-B system!
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The simplest way to improve the H-1B system is to abolish it.
|
| The better but slightly less simple way is to abolish it (and
| a bunch of other employment-related visa categories), but
| also allow individuals who aren't personally barred from
| entry because of past misconduct, etc., but who are not
| eligible (or wish to bypass wait times) for admission under
| other existing visa categories to pay an fee (which others,
| including employers, can subsidize if they wish, but gain no
| special power over future status by so doing) for a limited
| term, renewable employment-eligible status that becomes
| eligible to transition to permanent residency automatically
| after a set time in status. (This also fixes a number of
| _other_ problems in the immigration system beyond the H-1B.)
| Aperocky wrote:
| Think you would also lose everyone that's not working in
| IT/finance in an instant (or until whenever their visa
| expires).
|
| The biologist, geologist, physicists and the likes.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Lottery only applies for initial employment, not for
| renewals.
|
| Most physicists and biologists and geologists work in
| universities or labs or other institutions, which are cap-
| exempt anyway and don't go through the lottery.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Remember, H1B isn't always about tech, even if we'd all like to
| pretend it is. You'll have to have separate bidding process for
| different occupations, otherwise you'll end up with a system
| where Facebook will get all the visas, while in some cases,
| doctors would not be sponsored.
| H8crilA wrote:
| How is that resolved now? Uniform probability sampling across
| all requests, regardless of occupation?
| basiccalendar74 wrote:
| yes
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Yes and some occupations are cap exempt.
| liontwist wrote:
| Good. There is no shortage of doctors except the one created
| by accreditation cartel.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| There absolutely is. Especially in underserved areas.
| superq wrote:
| Your statement and the parent's can be concurrently true.
| asoneth wrote:
| I'm curious what makes you think tech workers would
| monopolize the top spots? I would expect that companies
| desperate for experts in medicine, research, engineering,
| law, business (which, like tech, already pay high salaries)
| would be similarly willing to pay a premium to be able to
| hire the best from other countries.
| superfrank wrote:
| I actually think that could end up having the opposite effect
| in lower paying fields.
|
| An mid level engineer at Google averages $280k/yr according to
| levels. A principal mechanical engineer at Boeing averages
| $170k/yr according to levels. If Google can pay an H1-B
| engineer 70% of what a non H1-B employee would get ($196k),
| they can bid up to 80k and still save money.
|
| Since Boeing is going for a high level employee who actually
| highly skilled, it's less likely that they would be able to
| underpay their candidate, but even if they could pay their H1-B
| employee 70% of the market rate ($117k), they only have ~$50k
| to before they hit the break even point.
|
| Obviously if the person is highly skilled and Boeing actually
| needs them it would make sense to bid beyond the break even
| point, but Boeing needs to be more choosy than Google. In that
| scenario, Google should put every single L4 candidate up for
| and H1-B because if even one gets their bid accepted it saves
| them money. Boeing actually has to decide which candidates
| they're willing to overpay for which will result in a smaller
| pool of mechanical engineers being put up for H1-B visas.
| ponty_rick wrote:
| Only the base salary counts, not the total comp. That 280k/yr
| sounds like total comp - includes base+bonus+RSUs. The
| average base would be more along the lines of 150k-190k.
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| > Since Boeing is going for a high level employee who
| actually highly skilled
|
| "actually": Are you saying that mid-level engineer at Google
| making ~300K/yr is not actually highly skilled?
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| I don't think that's what they were implying, but with the
| way google has been going this past decade, I don't think
| anyone is still under the impression that google employees
| are highly skilled. They're the butt of tech jokes for a
| reason.
| never_inline wrote:
| Leetcode mediums do not count as skill in this context.
| superfrank wrote:
| Uniquely skilled is probably a better word to use. H1-Bs
| are meant to be used when American worker's can't be found
| to fill a role. I think there are more people qualified to
| be a mid level software engineer (even at the FAANG level)
| than principal mechanical engineers at Boeing.
|
| I doubt that many mechanical engineers can become a
| principal level engineer at a Fortune 500 company in 3-5
| years, but I know plenty of software engineers who've
| gotten to L4 at FAANG companies in that timeframe.
| asoneth wrote:
| The implication that companies use H1-B visas primarily to
| find candidates willing to work for less (e.g. 70%) of a
| qualified domestic candidate seems like the underlying
| loophole we should try to close, not just the "fairness" of
| allocating which companies and fields deserve to exploit this
| loophole.
|
| But your post raises a good point that money is an imperfect
| proxy for "value" -- a company with high profit margins can
| outbid leaner companies (or nonprofits) for a visa, even if
| the relative value of that visa to the rich company is not as
| high as it would have been to the other companies.
|
| Three thoughts in response:
|
| First, this "unfairness" doesn't seem unique to a visa
| auction. Isn't it already "unfair" that mediocre developers
| at Google earn more than expert mechanical engineers at
| Boeing?
|
| Second, assuming H1-B visas lower average salaries in the
| fields where they're used most, then if this program ends up
| primarily applying to the highest-paid positions (like mid-
| level engineers at Google) then this might end up reducing
| some of the "unfairness" above.
|
| Third, I wonder which scheme (lottery or auction) Boeing and
| their hypothetical H1-B candidate would prefer themselves.
| Tech companies already game the system and let other
| companies fight for scraps so having a more predictable (if
| expensive) pathway may end up being slightly preferable to
| all parties.
| superfrank wrote:
| Appreciate the response. I think you make some good points,
| on your response my thoughts would be.
|
| 1. Fully agree, but I don't think we should use that as
| justification to implement another unfair system. My
| thinking is that the current H1-B system isn't perfect, but
| at least we understand its shortcomings. We shouldn't
| implement a new system that we know has flaws because we
| don't know what the effects of those flaws will be. It's a
| devil you know vs devil you don't know type thing. If the
| current system was a bidding system and people were
| advocating for a lottery system, I would likely be
| advocating for staying with the bidding system.
|
| 2. To some extent I do think it does affect salaries, but I
| think there just aren't enough H1-B visas available to have
| had a super noticeable effect. Also, the rise in companies
| using H1-Bs has coincided with a massive rise in tech
| salaries and we don't have a control group to compare
| against. If tech salaries are up 300% in the last 10 years,
| but they would have been up 400% without H1-B it's really
| hard to prove that and it's hard to gain a ton of sympathy
| from the general public when tech workers are already paid
| far above average. No one wants to spend their political
| capital defending the 28 year or making 300k who is upset
| about not making 400k, even if they are pointing out a
| legitimate issue.
|
| 3. I have a couple of H1-B employees on my team and they
| all hate the lottery system, so I'm sure they would say a
| bidding system. To be honest though, in a bidding system, I
| don't think my company would pay enough to win a visa for
| them and if I told them that, that would change their mind.
| My guess would be that a lottery system is actually better
| for most people currently in the H1-B process because my
| personal experience has been that most of the people aren't
| actually all that specialized.
| ponty_rick wrote:
| Why not just auction on the candidate's salary instead of
| paying a tax to the government who will burn your money anyway.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Honestly insane how much racist rhetoric I'm reading online (and
| surprisingly now HN) regarding this news...
|
| I suppose 2025 is starting early.
|
| edit: case in point, downvoted for simply saying I'm noticing a
| lot of racism from the (you know who) crowd - as all the comments
| against this are often followed with "trump will fix this" or
| "your country needs birth control" or "india shouldn't be allowed
| to get visas"
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I am slowly coming to grips with the fact that this is a
| genuine widespread hate movement, and the average person that
| supports it deeply feels this hatred, and personally blames
| their problems on anyone from another country, culture, or skin
| color- and doesn't believe those people deserve to be treated
| as human. I couldn't be more disappointed, angry, and terrified
| about what comes next.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Right there with you.
|
| Also now seeing my comment is shadowbanned.
|
| HN has really been pretty strong in silencing "counterpoints"
| as of late. No idea why the moderation team would read a
| comment like mine and feel compelled to hide it, for simply
| saying there's a lot of hate speech regarding this topic.
| There's still tons of comments on this thread that are very
| accusatory of foreigners abusing a fully legal system and
| logical path towards becoming an american citizen.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| It's not the moderation team, your post was flagged dead by
| regular users, and is vouched for and back (for now).
|
| I agree it is very disappointing that even labeling hate
| speech for what it obviously is wouldn't be acceptable. I'm
| curious what peoples reasoning could possibly be for why
| your comment shouldn't be allowed.
|
| In general HN is supposed to encourage civil, not
| provocative, and non inflammatory discussion based around
| good faith arguments. However, there is no way to sugarcoat
| or steel man hate speech that isn't fundamentally
| dishonest- hate speech itself would seem to violate HN
| guidelines, and pointing it out should not.
| edc117 wrote:
| Far too extreme a view. I'm very unhappy with the H1-B
| program and how it has been used to depress wages for
| engineers, but I understand (and agree with) the need for us
| to compete globally and not stagnate. I have nothing but
| respect for a lot of overseas engineers and have worked with
| some very intelligent, kind, generous individuals in my time.
|
| What I strongly oppose is - and I've seen this up close and
| personal three times in the last five years - large companies
| or investment companies buying/merging smaller companies,
| then gradually offshoring/firing (about 10-20% per year) US
| jobs in favor of overseas jobs while keeping their customer
| base. These companies, their revenue streams, their customers
| exist because of US employees and engineers, and yet they're
| thrown out at the first chance because someone overseas will
| do the work for less (often one third of a US salary). This
| is a complete betrayal of the people who worked to build
| these companies in the first place. These revenue streams
| would not exist without them.
|
| H1-B is used in a very similar way: they get anyone they can
| over here, and pay them 10-20% less than a US counterpart,
| then use that to justify lower wages/raises to existing
| employees.
|
| I agree that some people unfairly blame the overseas
| engineer, but don't simply write them off as racist or
| hateful - they're having their livelihoods taken from them,
| and leadership is very good at hiding or shifting blame.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Reasonable criticisms of specific policy or programs (like
| you mention) is not what I or the poster above was
| referring to- there is a widespread cultural zeitgeist
| going on right now that is fundamentally emotionally based
| on hatred, and will broadly advocate for any policy that
| will harm groups they hate. Comments in this HN post show
| how widespread and normalized these feelings are, which
| wouldn't have been normal to express publicly until now.
|
| This is a terrifying time to be in the USA for anyone with
| the "wrong" skin color, accent, culture, religion,
| disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.- and
| many of the people I know in those groups are actively
| preparing and planning for the worst imaginable outcomes.
| People in those "wrong groups" are terrified right now, and
| people not in them - which includes much of HN - are in a
| bubble and not aware of what is happening.
| edc117 wrote:
| I understand, and broadly agree for what it's worth - as
| someone with friends and peers in those groups, I'm very
| worried about the tone of the discourse.
|
| That said, I think it's good to recognize it's not a 0 or
| 1, open minded vs racists, or however it could be framed.
| There are a whole host of people in the middle, and
| actions like the one I mentioned push people towards the
| crazier views we see. It makes good people stand to the
| side and say nothing, maybe, instead of pushing back
| against it.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| Absolutely, you make an important point. The reason this
| hate movement is gaining so much momentum is that they
| are the only group validating peoples concerns, but then
| pointing the finger and telling them who to blame, and
| claiming to have a solution. Effectively countering it
| will require a non hate based movement that still
| validates those concerns.
| souvlakee wrote:
| If you're interested in judging others' work in hackathons for
| your O1 or EB1a, email me at halloumee [at] proton [dot] me.
| nojvek wrote:
| They still left the multiple applications for one person rule.
|
| Seems the lobby was strong to allow consultancies like Tata and
| wipes to continue what they are doing to get most of cap.
| jmspring wrote:
| If there are US Citizens available (even if not local), H1s
| should not be a consideration. Period.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| Frictional unemployment exists, so this effectively bars H1s.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Sentiments like this make someone automatically
| racist/xenophobic now. God forbid someone care about their
| fellow countrymen over foreigners...
| rayiner wrote:
| Why is this dropping the week before Christmas.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| I always see a lot of people arguing that H1bs are taking away
| jobs from qualified Americans by willing to work long hours and
| work cheaper. That may be true, but in my brief exposure to the
| tech industry it does not feel true because the salaries and
| perks are so high, it doesn't seem like tech companies are
| exploiting workers and hiring "cheap H1b labour".
|
| A lot of my batch (all H1b masters) when to Meta and Amazon. All
| of them were paid 200k+ right out of masters, one was even paid
| 430k. So is the claim that if these H1bs did not exist, companies
| would pay 250k+ to those out of masters? And 500k+ to exceptional
| candidates? If OpenAI was legally allowed to hire anyone from
| India, China etc, would they stop providing 800k+ salaries? In
| fact, we know from experience that this is not true because if
| you go to OpenAI'a website they explicitly mention apply from
| wherever you want and they will handle immigration. And you also
| see that they did successfully hire some folks from remote
| countries with exorbitant salaries.
|
| A much simpler explanation, is that in tech companies employees
| are not a cost center but a profit generation center. And so tech
| companies are not looking to save costs by paying H1bs less, but
| are simply looking to hire the best and pay whatever is needed to
| keep them. Market competition tends to determine salaries far
| more than employee labour pool, especially when talent is always
| in short supply.
|
| This theory also seems more correct to me, in that it predicts
| places where H1b labor would shortchange existing tech workers.
| It would be wherever employees are a cost center, legacy
| businesses that need software but would like to just get it done
| as cheaply as possible. By definition most of these companies
| would not be FAANG adjacent, but would instead be companies like
| say Target that needs simple software that works reasonably well
| at a low cost. An equitable solution then would be to put a flat
| minimum salary on H1b's, say 200k, that would remove most of the
| cases where H1bs are hired to short change Americans, and not
| affect much of the talent hiring that big tech does. It's only
| negative affect would be on startups, which generally pay low
| salaries, but would now have to pay high salaries for immigrants.
| basiccalendar74 wrote:
| this is a well-studied tradeoff with immigration. high-skilled
| immigration helps US economy and innovation but low-skilled
| immigration depresses wages for citizens. you are making this
| distinction for a narrow case i.e. tech.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| show me the study for broad-spectrum lasting wage depression
| for low-skilled immigration? The mariel boatlift study shows
| basically no effect:
| https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf
| schappim wrote:
| It's encouraging to see DHS attempting to update the H-1B program
| in ways that address longstanding pain points like the
| unpredictability of transferring jobs, the complexity around
| defining a "specialty occupation," and the painfully slow
| application processes. The US economy benefits when companies can
| more easily hire and retain the talent they genuinely need,
| rather than having the system incentivise questionable staffing
| practices or endless guesswork over whether a given degree is
| "close enough" to the job description.
|
| However, this final rule doesn't magically solve the deeper
| structural issues. For example, the per-country caps on green
| cards still leave many H-1B workers stuck in decades-long queues
| if they're from certain countries. That reality discourages risk-
| taking, entrepreneurship, and long-term roots,something that runs
| counter to the very idea of welcoming skilled people. While
| allowing spouses to work and making it easier to switch roles
| will improve day-to-day life for some, the broader immigration
| pipeline remains complicated and slow.
|
| The real test will be in implementation and enforcement. Will the
| new definitions and stricter oversight actually reduce abuse by
| staffing firms who've flooded the lottery with dubious
| registrations? Will the simplified criteria for specialty
| occupations translate to smoother hiring and fewer headaches for
| workers and employers alike?
|
| In short: good steps, but we're still a long way from a truly
| balanced system that reliably identifies, welcomes, and retains
| global talent without leaving them in extended legal limbo. It's
| progress, but the ultimate success depends on how these rules
| play out in the real world,and whether future administrations
| build on these changes instead of rolling them back.
| moosedman wrote:
| Well I'm never voting for a Democrat ever again. Doesn't matter
| what the GOP does.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| how about an insurrection? Would the fake electors scheme do it
| for you?
| janalsncm wrote:
| The number one issue software engineers should care about is
| using foreign talent to undercut wages. A cursory look at H1B
| salaries shows this is rampant.
|
| There's a big difference between "we can't find any talent" and
| "we can't find any talent at our price point". The former should
| be granted an H1B. The latter is abusing the system.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| Is a startup that has to make do with the funding it has
| abusing the system by hiring an H1B?
|
| "Raise more money" is not an acceptable or reasonable answer.
| valicord wrote:
| > A cursory look at H1B salaries shows this is rampant.
|
| Where does one get a cursory look at H1B salaries? If you're
| referring to various websites that publish H1B petition data,
| then you might be interested to know that they don't show
| actual salaries, only the minimum amounts that the company is
| required to pay by law. The actual salary can and often is
| higher, based on the specific employee
| negotation/performance/etc, same as any regular non-H1B job.
| laptopdev wrote:
| Shoe horn-y
| SaintSeiya wrote:
| Great, as if we needed more outsourcing, I cannot even get a
| single interview despite being an ex FAANG software developer,
| unemployed for more than a year. Not even for entry level jobs.
| The final nail in the coffin.
| cadamsau wrote:
| For everyone who thinks H-1B and its ilk make it possible to hire
| foreign workers at below what citizens are paid - have a look on
| your favorite search engine for:
|
| "Prevailing wage condition"
|
| It's a requirement that's part of the Labor Condition Application
| wherein based on the location you'll work (the "Metropolitan
| Service Area" or MSA) to be granted a visa your employer must
| prove they'll pay you above publicly available and published
| minimum wages for each job title.
|
| These wages are public. If you have a problem with what they're
| permitted to pay H-1B workers, the published prevailing wages are
| what you have a problem with. Spoiler though: they're actually
| pretty accurate.
|
| Here is one example of how hard it is to underpay workers on
| visas: during the pandemic, workers on visas were not legally
| allowed to be furloughed, because they would run the risk of not
| meeting the prevailing wage that year, putting the employer out
| of compliance with the LCA and subject to fines in the event of
| an audit. So what happened in practice was negotiated unpaid
| leave or in most cases the US gov covered wages via programs like
| PPP.
|
| Now this is all out the window if the published prevailing wage
| for a given occupation is too low or the employer somehow sneaks
| one by the consular officials approving petitions - by selecting
| a title too junior for the applicant's years of experience, for
| example. There will always be anecdata that makes this seem like
| a huge problem so be wary because one story does not a trend
| make. As mentioned above, by and large the prevailing wages are
| pretty on point with what American citizens are paid.
|
| The reality of the way this system works is it's WAY more
| technical than fearmongerers would have you believe. Visa holders
| are very much NOT undercutting anyone and the H-1B is not a
| completely broken system - even though the lottery and the
| fraudulent applications cause hell for applicants and employers
| it does basically do what it's intended to do. So besides the
| exploitative situation these changes seem to proactively address,
| it mostly works and alongside the O-1 and a few other visa
| categories, has played a key role in the US' ongoing supremacy in
| AI and many other industries.
|
| Source: Australian citizen spent over 6 years working in SF on an
| E-3 visa which is very similar to H-1B.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Hire junior aerospace engineer with senior aerospace
| experience. Subject engineer to working conditions and long
| hours that domestic labor wouldn't tolerate. Get 1.5 - 3 senior
| aerospace engineers for the price of 1 junior.
| JackYoustra wrote:
| let them all in! People can earn three times more just by being
| in the US and we benefit by lower inflation.
|
| EDIT: I encourage people to read two stories
|
| Qian Xuesen - what happens when you deport skilled laborers
|
| https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf - one of
| the first studies on immigration econ effects on wages. A good
| starting point
| darkhorse222 wrote:
| No offense to the very hardworking H1B guys I've worked with, but
| I'm not a fan because they'll do anything the company says. They
| are used as scabs to undermine developers leverage. This was
| especially clear during RTO. It's the same issue of manufacturing
| stuff in china. Of course an H1B will be a good puppet, if you
| threaten to fire them you're sending them back home to another
| country!
| ggm wrote:
| Maybe it's just me, but the vast amount of illegal and semi legal
| migrant workers being exploited suggests what the US needs is a
| visa system for unskilled labour, not for skilled.
|
| Why does everyone think the cure to the worlds ills is to have
| more doctors and not more toilet cleaners? People can die from
| dirty hands on doorknobs faster than from smoking: Basic
| sanitation work, food work is important. If current US residents
| won't do this stuff, pick food, clean up, then isn't the answer
| to bring them in or do we really prefer to have them live in a
| twilight, semi-illegal world? Really?
| ein0p wrote:
| Biden (or whoever actually runs the country, since it's most
| definitely not Biden) is trying to undermine Trump's plan to turn
| H1-B into an auction, which is how it should be run, IMO. That's
| all there is to it. This will be canceled next year.
| gadders wrote:
| This is just the result of lobbying by big business so they can
| import cheap labour to suppress wages.
| zeroc8 wrote:
| I'm a highly specialized software developer with 30 years of
| experience.
|
| I could save our customer, a huge US entity, a lot of money by
| moving to the states for the duration of the project. I don't
| have a college degree though, which seems to be a requirement for
| the H1-B.
|
| What a bummer.
| JCM9 wrote:
| Will probably get undone in the first 10 minutes of the next
| administration.
| rednafi wrote:
| H-1B is a terrible visa. I went through it with a few of my
| peers. Working in the US is great, but it's not the only option.
| I moved out after two years and settled somewhere that values
| stability over the churn-and-burn culture. Couldn't be happier.
| witnesser2 wrote:
| I can say sth: - particularly in SC market, the computer science
| or related areas (almost all JDs have this sentence). The
| 'related areas' brought in so many in-qualified that even can not
| answer what is a truth-table (we are not the DOJ). - The whole
| thing has been abused for decades "."
| witnesser2 wrote:
| Also many anxious parents with children graduated from UC etc
| with absolute CS,CE degrees staying at home.
| witnesser2 wrote:
| The companies hiring H-1x should publish all job hiring process
| (interviews, exams questions) at least at closing to all
| candidates. Thus it is subject to "objective" review.
| witnesser2 wrote:
| I mean it won't be difficult to use gen ai to analyze where a
| candidate is compared to the peers. So it is a 'objective'
| offer or rejection.
| witnesser2 wrote:
| Particularly for public-list companies (no security clearance
| needed etc), they should 'open-source' or 'wiki' their hiring
| process to 0-opacity.
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