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India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

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Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#91

Post by actsasbuffoon »

VLM wrote: post #57
Lord_Yoda wrote: post #34

Trying to play a devil's advocate, I might be downvoted here right away. Disclosure: I am not going to be affected by this, but I do work in tech industry. 1. With the decline of low-wage tech workers, where do you think the mundane/non-value added work they do will go? Not everything will/can be outsourced, and you don't want to your USD 130K employee to do that. There is a real scarcity of tech skilled workers in t…

"There is a real scarcity of tech skilled workers in the US." That is a blatant falsehood it only exists due to "culture fit" where you can only hire a skilled tech worker if they're also a 20-something white male Stanford grad living in SV or maybe NYC. Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys, but on the…

I can only speak for the Boston tech scene, but I've gotten to work with a number of highly skilled women, people of color, and people born in other countries. I'd say ~80% of the women I've interviewed have been offered jobs. The biggest problem is that it's hard to find candidates who aren't white guys. I can't hire people who don't come in for interviews!

Unfortunately I have seen some solid 40+ year-old engineers turned away by other team members due to "culture fit." Fortunately my current company has been great about this.

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#92

Post by sandGorgon »

bruceb wrote: post #85
sandGorgon wrote: post #11

nobody is freaking out. Infosys and TCS are NOT India's representative companies anymore. They are the Flipkarts and the Olacabs and Paytms now. Or even Freshdesk, Zoho and Helpshift. I think most people welcome the move - we have lost many good potential employees who were headhunted by outsourcing companies by showing them the American dream and then chained to the yoke in some dreadful job. The services business i…

Infosys has market cap 34b, Flipkart valuation is tumbling and now at 5b. While not as cool as startups, Infosys and TCS are still much bigger and more stable companies.

by that measure all other startups suck and only microsoft or yahoo/alibaba is worth anything.

I'm talking about aspirational reach - a H1B+TCS is not aspirational anymore.

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#93

Post by CodeSheikh »

gmarx wrote: post #89
RestlessMind wrote: post #25

As an Indian who spent a lot of years on H1-B visa, I welcome this move. Though while talking about this subject, one should bear in mind that "Indians on H1-B" are not a homogeneous group. There are those, employed by the likes of AmaGooFaceSoft / Unicorns or graduating from mid-top tier universities, who will benefit by the proposed changes and who were indeed the "target audience" in mind when H1-B was linked to "…

I've never understood why it is okay for outsourcing companies to "own" HIB visa people. A colleague told me long ago that it was like indentured servitude unless/until you could escape to a regular company that was willing to sponsor.

Imagine living under the fear that your visa can be canceled the next business day and you have to leave US soon before you have enough time to make alternative plans. Especially when you are a newcomer in the USA, a overwhelmingly unknown land. If this happens, then you have I believe 30 days to find another company who is willing to sponsor you and then you have to go back to India to reapply for another H1-B visa with new employer. Also, your outsourcing company keep a close eye on you in terms of if you are job hunting, in some s=cases there is some sort of collateral kept backhome as well. Also, if you are an average skilled employee then you don't have much leverage to jump ships.

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#94

Post by geebee »

horshod wrote: post #87
geebee wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not as convinced about these cost of living arguments. One could argue that pay is higher in SF and NY because developers create more value in these locations, not because these locations are more expensive. In short, why should someone in Wisconsin get to pay only 100k when someone in NY or SF would pay $130k, or $200k? In fact, why should an employer get to hire anyone at all, even at "market rate"? Normally, w…

Yes, I agree with the latter part of your response if the assumption that there are Americans available to do this job, just not at such a low salary, is true. I don't see how developers in SF or NY create more value just by virtue of being geographically located there. The cost of living argument IS about the free market at work, isn't it? Forget about the immigrants vs citizens aspect of it for a minute. Company A…

I think the argument is that if a company didn't get more value from its programmers by locating them in San Francisco, they wouldn't pay more to locate them there.

For instance, christmas tree light manufacturers don't locate their assembly plants in downtown san francisco. If they did, they would certainly have to pay the workers more. You just can't generate enough value this way to justify that kind of pay for christmas tree light assemblers, so the work is done elsewhere.

And if it turns out assembling christmas tree lights doesn't pay enough, and the workers who are capable of assembling christmas tree lights find higher paid work, that's not a shortage, that just means people have found higher value things to do. If the price of christmas tree lights doesn't rise to a point where it is worth hiring people, that just means people don't really value christmas tree lights as much as the other things they an spend their money on. I see no problem here.

Same with code. If you can't pay enough to convince the people capable of writing code to do this instead of something else, I have trouble believing the code you want written is all that important. Certainly not so important that you should have the power to force people to write it for you as a condition of living and working in the US!

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#95

Post by wavefunction »

vthallam wrote: post #55
bobosha wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

130K in Kansas City >> 130K in SF. Hope they take geography into consideration.

Even better imagine houston where there is no state tax. There's no way one can pay 130K.

There are plenty of developers making 130k in Texas.

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#96

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

tetromino_ wrote: post #79
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? This is great for programmers in areas like KC.

Are there any programmers earning 130K in KC? Depending on where you are in the country, the new H1-B pay floor may be above the local pay ceiling for non-managerial positions.

I'm sure there are a few but isn't that the point? If all the H1B's are in CA/NY/WA maybe KC (and cities like it) will become more attractive to programmers as they raise their wages.

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#97

Post by tn13 »

LyndsySimon wrote: post #9
tn13 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when the employers run a fake payroll to pay more money on paper but low in reality ?

This seems irrelevant to me. What's stopping them from doing that today?

They are already doing it today. That is why HN or DHS has no clue about the extent of abuse.

H1B comes with their wives who are on H4. Despite having a great career in India these women can not work. Eventually the stress breaks them and they approach consultancies who charge $8k per filing. To improve chances they even pay multiples of $8k to file multiple petitions.

Once petition is approved they work for $30K year without any benefits, no paid leave, no insurance etc. while the payroll is run of $60K. Taxes are paid on $60K. These H4 women are very thankful for this exploitation because other option is to be a housewife. (thanks for standing up for women's right murica)

Also, the hatred that Indian outsourcing cos get is totally unfair because eventually these companies are paid to do all this by American cos. Almost every large co out there in bay area is employing these people through outsourcing giants.

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#98

Post by vthallam »

actsasbuffoon wrote: post #91
VLM wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is a real scarcity of tech skilled workers in the US." That is a blatant falsehood it only exists due to "culture fit" where you can only hire a skilled tech worker if they're also a 20-something white male Stanford grad living in SV or maybe NYC. Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys, but on the…

I can only speak for the Boston tech scene, but I've gotten to work with a number of highly skilled women, people of color, and people born in other countries. I'd say ~80% of the women I've interviewed have been offered jobs. The biggest problem is that it's hard to find candidates who aren't white guys. I can't hire people who don't come in for interviews! Unfortunately I have seen some solid 40+ year-old engineers…

>I can't hire people who don't come in for interviews!

This. Many companies i know strive to hire them to maitain diversity, but again you find very few of them. This question goes back to STEM education in US.

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#99

Post by ohyes »

geebee wrote: post #76
horshod wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the most important issue here I think. This might be appropriate, at the most, for SFO and possibly NYC. But what about the rest of the country where the cost of living is much lower? I (an Indian H1B holder) worked in WI, where I made 73K as a fresher and was able to have a nice apartment and a good life in general and save half of my salary. I think, while the current 60K minimum pay may be too low, 130K…

I'm not as convinced about these cost of living arguments. One could argue that pay is higher in SF and NY because developers create more value in these locations, not because these locations are more expensive. In short, why should someone in Wisconsin get to pay only 100k when someone in NY or SF would pay $130k, or $200k? In fact, why should an employer get to hire anyone at all, even at "market rate"? Normally, w…

> SF and NY because developers create more value in these locations

does my emacs suddenly start producing bitcoin if i move to NYC or SF?

Re: India's tech industry panics over U.S. plans to change high-skilled visas

#100

Post by dhoe »

VLM wrote: post #88
mhurron wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Try just considering hiring a person of color or a woman. There's a hell of a lot of them, they're not much worse at their jobs than the young white boys Why do you believe women and minorities are worse workers than whites?

That was sarcasm. If read with an emphasis on the 'much' not the 'worse', even if you give the coastal tech employers the benefit of the doubt WRT the direction of the greater or less than symbol, the absolute value of the difference in performance observed has been unmeasurably small over the last couple decades. The coasties seem to claim its just a cost of doing business that companies will fall apart if a woman i…

So this is intriguing, I've never heard of the heartland as a great place for diversity. Do you have any evidence for this situation you describe?
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