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H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

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Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#91
post #63

[flagged]

I'm genuinely curious who these experts are that claim that the Paris Accord is useless and why they assert such a claim. Seeing as it was put together with the consultation of hundreds of scientist from all over the world who've spent their career studying climate change, I'm guessing the objections come from political experts, not scientific ones.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm yeah hard winters or having your spouse deported. Hard choice.

I feel like the number of tech people who legitimately worry about their spouse being deported is extremely small. And it's only two years until the next election anyways.

It will be really interesting to see how the community reacts when they revoke H4-EADs. It is one thing that you did not had ability to work for years and then you did and suddenly you don't.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#93

> As the administration of President Donald Trump has increased scrutiny of H-1B visas Has it? All that has been done is a study of potential H-1B reforms that is still under way. I'd bet that nothing changes in the next two years. The puppet masters wouldn't want it any other way.

Unfortunately, it has. The process is now more opaque, and it’s taking longer to get an approval. The number of requests for evidence has increased by close to 40%. There seems to be a deliberate attempt to frustrate legal immigrants out of the US, or at least, it feels like it. This is anecdotal, but I personally know 4 families that threw in the towel and moved to Canada. So, yes, in terms of policy, nothing’s chan…

Second that. I am a legal immigrant. Been in US for 5+yrs. Work in a FAANG company. Have a valid work permit (h1b) till 2021. Came back to home country for stamping, now my case is in administrative processing for 4+ months. House/Job/Child Education, all impacted because of this.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#94
post #20

I can attest to this. I have three friends who are preparing to migrate to Canada or Australia. Mind you, these are not the typical H1B workers from Infosys. These are smart legitimate people with a masters degree who work at top tech companies. They have no hopes to get a permanent residency in US because of long queues. Renewing H1B is a big hassle. Surely its a big change to pick up your life up and move to a diff…

Why don’t they get an E2 visa which is designed for immigration for those with high skills and advanced degrees?

An H visa is a temporary, non-immigrant visa and was never intended as a path to a green card. Frustration around long queues for green cards for H visas doesn’t make any sense because that is, by its very definition, a non-immigrant visa.

Expecting permanent residency from a non-immigrant visa is no different than expecting a French tourist visa to lead to residency.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#95
post #76

Dunno. Salary in Silicon Valley - $300k. Salary in Vancouver - $80k. Rent almost the same. Weather in Silicon Valley - year-round sunny. Weather in Vancouver - 2 months of sun, rest gloomy. Are you sure you want to move to Canada? It used to be that MS/AMZN had a back up base in Vancouver for anyone who didn't make the cut with H1B/O-1.

your salary numbers seem a little off, and, at least in sf rent numbers are not the same. compare new 1bdrm apts between sf and yvr and you'll see.

amazon/microsoft just regularly employs people in YVR, not just for L1 purposes. they've been causing salaries (and rents) to rise.

anyhow, you're discounting a lot of things about Vancouver because you make a little more and the weather is a little sunnier.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#96

While many in the comments are throwing salary/cost of living/taxes numbers left and right but no one is making a case for extreme winters in Canada vs the Bay Area. I can understand that it might not mean a lot to some but for me it can be a deal breaker.

I'm born in Brazil and lived in both Toronto and SF. Honestly, the weather in Toronto is really not that bad. My wife calls it "having proper seasons". SF weather is somewhat cool all year round and you always need a sweater at dusk/dawn, whereas Toronto summer is actually hot. Also, going to the beach in Toronto is surprisingly nice - lake water is always calm (great for kids), no freezing wind and no fog.

If the problem is only winter, Vancouver's winter can hardly be called extreme, since it rarely dips below freezing point in the city.

The elephant in the room when it comes to salaries in the US-vs-Canada discussion that young people seem to not realize is that, in Canada, it's fairly trivial for a spouse to get a work visa and get a decent income even outside of the tech sector, whereas you're more or less forced to be a stay-at-home-mom family if you're planning to build a life in the US.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the number of tech people who legitimately worry about their spouse being deported is extremely small. And it's only two years until the next election anyways.

> And it's only two years until the next election anyways. At this point with 50% approval rating, I doubt you'll see an incumbent lose 2020

Not sure you are looking at the right source but have not seen an approval rating that high on any polls.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#98

Isn't compensation, even after adjusting for cost of living and health insurance, much lower in Canada than anywhere in the U.S.?

As more of the best engineering talent moves to Canada (or decides not to come to the US in the first place), it should: 1) increase salaries in the Bay Area in the short-term as their a shortage of engineers 2) decrease salaries in Canada in the short-term as their is a surplus of engineers

The more interesting thing to consider is whether US tech companies will begin to build out more aggressively in Canada instead of the US. Amazon HQ3 might make a lot of sense in Canada.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#99
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. For a new grad its still not hard to get an initial job offer in the excess of 200k TC in the Bay. If you're a DINK that's 400k. There are simply no jobs that a fresh grad can get paid that much in Canada. And thats not even factoring in future cash flow from working in the Bay (better prospects, prestige etc). Also currency, it sucks. Everything is more expensive. You can't get anywhere without 1-2 stops…

As someone in the big 4 I can tell you 200k TC in SV is nowhere near 200k annually starting out. That would involve 70-80k in RSU that vest over 4 years, and in companies like Amazon(whose stock has been going up like crazy) that is divested 5%, 15%, 40% and 40% annually, so you get the bulk of it only later on.\ It wasn't long ago that Google was offering 100k base in the valley(where If you want to maximise disposa…

Thanks for you input.

But I am aware of the breakdown of the compensation packages and I stand behind my statement having just accepted a new grad role at FAANG. 70-80k RSUs are on the lower end.

For example standard Facebook offers are 140 base, 100k signing, 150 stock / 4y.

I will be living with my partner and we calculated that with an apartment of 3-4k a month will be still saving at least tens of thousands of dollars a month, factoring in car lease, food, and what not.

Re: H-1B: As immigration furor roils Silicon Valley, Canada smooths way for techies

#100

Isn't compensation, even after adjusting for cost of living and health insurance, much lower in Canada than anywhere in the U.S.?

That doesn't particularly matter when you can't get or retain a visa to work in the US. Maybe salaries in those places will increase as a result.

Why would salaries increase? If anything, they would drop due to increased supply.
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