Live data from Hacker News

Gaming the H-1B system for good

blog.triplebyte.com

31–40 of 227 posts

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can help end this by supporting legislation. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/213

That legislation has absolutely nothing to do with employers helping their employees gain a green card. It just redistributes the H1Bs differently. Did you reply to the right post?

If the H1Bs are distributed differently, couldn't employees move to the employers who are willing to help them?

This benefits helpful employers. Seems right.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#33

I was on H1B with a true blue American startup. They developed cold feet when it came closer to sponsoring Green Cards. To start with GC wage levels are much higher than H1B levels. Also close to 15K+ needs to be spent for processing+ years of patient follow up to USCIS queries/denials and surprise site inspections. The new fangled startups won't have the long term strategy/planning to get me a green card. I had much…

I'm sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, the Green Card sponsorship process is way more involved (AFAICT) and with much longer time-to-completion. I'd personally find it hard to believe that a startup would be able to take you through the whole process, given the probability they're out of business within a year or so.

Similarly, once you start the Green Card process with an employer, you aren't likely to go through with an H1-B transfer. It's a broken system...

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#34

I sort of like this except startups typically pay below market salaries which is sort of against the spirit of the H1-B visa right? And if the startups aren't paying below market salaries then why do they need H1-Bs? Suppose I am an SF based startup and I get a candidate from triplebyte that is on H1-B and is paid 66k by a body shop as a Level 1 Computer Programmer [0] but she is obviously talented and got taken adva…

[deleted]

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#35
post #25

Does Triplebyte do TN visas? They're almost trivially simple to do, so the candidate could take care of it themselves without any help from the sponsoring company.

Careful about TN though. The T in TN is temporary, so it prevents you from applying for say a Greencard or an H1-B (which are attempts to be not temporary).

Disclaimer: IANAL but I recently looked into a lot of this.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can help end this by supporting legislation. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/213

That legislation has absolutely nothing to do with employers helping their employees gain a green card. It just redistributes the H1Bs differently. Did you reply to the right post?

Look at the chart below. This should explain why H1B employees(Mostly Indians and Chinese) stick with their outsourcers. The legislation would help resolve the backlog. http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/law-and-policy/bull...

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#37
I read through the article and I wouldn't refer to their approach as 'gaming' the H-1B system. People who are on H1-B tend not to leave their companies for 2 main reasons

1) They've entered into some agreements where they agree to pay the company some big penalty if they leave. This is clearly illegal but still happens. So, the employee knows he/she can do a job transfer but the penalty holds them back. Some of them might be advised to seek a lawyer but they worry about the expense involved. Bottom line is they are scared to move because of this.

2) The person has started the Green Card Process and does not wish to 'go back to the end of the line' which happens if they switch jobs unless they have gotten to the final stage of the Green Card Process and have waited for 180 days with no decision taken on their application.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#38
post #21
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wouldn't be transferred to us or spend any time unemployed. Once someone goes through our process, we become their advocate and find them startups they'd be a good match for. They don't have to leave their employer until they've found one willing to hire them, at which point they can begin the transfer process.

If you are acting as any recruiter, how exactly are you gaming the h1b system?

By improving the mobility of h1b holders and depleting the return on investment for the staffing agencies.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#39

I sort of like this except startups typically pay below market salaries which is sort of against the spirit of the H1-B visa right? And if the startups aren't paying below market salaries then why do they need H1-Bs? Suppose I am an SF based startup and I get a candidate from triplebyte that is on H1-B and is paid 66k by a body shop as a Level 1 Computer Programmer [0] but she is obviously talented and got taken adva…

Its a myth that H1b visa employees are not paid in par with local employees and are hired solely to save/cut costs, you cannot make that allegation without data that shows the wage gap between H1 vs non H1 workers, keeping all other factors same. Yes some outsourcing companies do pay less, but that's not the industry norm, most companies that hire H1b visa holders as direct employees (as opposed to contracting them from outsourced firms) pay them on par with existing employees if not better.I am a H1b employee from past 7 years and I have always been paid the same as rest of the employees doing that kind of work and was hired for being best amongst those who interviewed for the position and not because I was any cheaper than the next guy who interviewed. PS: edited to correct a typo.

Re: Gaming the H-1B system for good

#40
post #30
post #15

This assumes that the H1B's filed by the outsourcing companies are engineers your startup would want to hire. Unfortunately thats not true, most good quality engineers are almost never employed by these outsourcing firms. The general nature of their work also is mostly maintenance based , and it tends to attract bottom of the barrel 'engineers' who often couldn't find any other job. I am skeptical whether any of thes…

This is why we think there's an opportunity for us (Triplebyte). Smaller companies have to focus their recruiting on pools with a high expected ROI (top technology companies/schools/etc). We're specializing in identifying talent without using any of the the usual signals (we do our technical interviews without looking at resumes). We can focus on pools of talent that other companies might not consider because they ex…

It also assume they won't terminate the H-1B when the employee is leaving.
Post reply on HN