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America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

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Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#241

Post by QuercusMax »

stale2002 wrote: post #232
jki275 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's amazing to me. Not arguing you're wrong, I'm not interviewing people, just amazes me that anyone with degrees in CS would not be able to solve such a basic problem.

Well, it is a little bit more complicated than that. I am sure that any CS major couos write fizz buzz, on their computer, for the purpose of their homework assignment or whatever. Whether or not they can do the same thing, in 15 minutes, on a whiteboard in front of someone is a different story. The moral of this story is that writing code, on a blank slate, while having to have all the syntax memorized, and having e…

If you're applying for a job as a full-time software developer, you should be able to write something that is comprehensible without having a syntax reference.

I straight-up tell people I don't care if you use the wrong method name (in Python is it ends_with() or endswith? toupper, to_upper, or upcase?). Heck, I even tell them I don't care what language it is as long as it's not too weird.

A few months back I interviewed someone who was currently employed as a software engineer at a major company in Silicon Valley, who couldn't even figure out how to write a tiny little program which kept track of state across method calls. I told him that he could store the state in global variables, make an object to track the state, or anything else he wanted; still couldn't make any progress outside creating a single stateless function. I was truly puzzled.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#242

Post by JoeAltmaier »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #240
tabtab wrote: post #146

The H-1B topic strikes a personal tone with me. After the dot-com crash in the early 2000's, IT jobs in California were hard to come by. I almost got one job, but the company decided to go with an H-1B worker instead. I had a new young family, but had to go out of state to find work, leaving my family behind. I'm NOT summarily against H-1B's but wish to insist they be used ONLY to fill in true skill shortages instead…

> I almost got one job, but the company decided to go with an H-1B worker instead. This scenario is explicitly forbidden by the provisions of the visa program and it is illegal to select a guest worker in preference to a domestic candidate. That is why there is a public notification requirement for all jobs open to guest workers. Obviously all it takes is one minor reason to deem you unqualified. The Disney IT incide…

They can go get hired elsewhere I suppose. Does it rise to 'abuse'? Who is entitled to a particular job anyway?

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#243

Post by robotrout »

kasey_junk wrote: post #116
robotrout wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I"m not sure this should be a consideration. If that midwest company cannot compete, it should not exist. That is tghe essence of capitalism. You should not subsidize it by making it not compete fairly for H1B applicants.

It’s a bit of an odd argument to make against a state sanctioned limit to labor that it should be driven by pure capitalism/free market principles.

The premise of the article was to use a capitalist supply and demand metric (salary) as a way to fairly allow merit based immigration. I think that strategy makes a lot of sense, and was making the point that our hypothetical midwest company should not be allowed to scuttle the non-gameable merit-based proposal in favor of something more political and squishy. Our hypothetical midwest company can either pay enough wage to get the employees it needs, or it can't, and if it can't, capitalism has a solution for that. (creative destruction)

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#244

Post by x0x0 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #180
x0x0 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or both? ie grant them to people being paid the highest wages first, and limit the h1b holder to mandatory 1 year employment with the sponsoring company then 5 years of free to switch at will. We'd still be willing to sponsor as we aren't keeping h1bs via the visa; we keep employees because they want to work here. The pain with sponsoring isn't the cost; it's the time and uncertainty. Sponsoring costs compare favorab…

>> grant them to people being paid the highest wages first I'm against that because it would give FAANG a massive advantage, since they can afford to pay really high salaries compared to, say, a startup.

average salary of h1b holder in bay area is $91k [1]. If startups can't beat that, they don't deserve employees.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/h-1b-visa-workers-earn-six-f...

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#245

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

mo1ok wrote: post #175
Kephael wrote: post #7

The supply of technical workers is artificially limited by Leetcode style interviews. There doesn't seem to be an actual supply side limitation, especially not at the entry level.

Piggybacking off the fizzbuzz comment, but at my job we we don't ask hard whiteboard questions - just simple ones that prove people can code, and 75% of them can't do it. If you can't do fizzbuzz, you can't do this job. It's an effective filter.

Had one guy who insisted on using C++ in favor of C for a problem despite being hinted to use the latter. He was a self proclaimed "expert". All was good until forgetting to use delete[] instead of delete.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#246

Post by jorblumesea »

CodeMage wrote: post #226
firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

> Both of these would ensure that we can get smart and talented individuals from outside the US and would drastically improve the ability for the US to compete while continuing to provide broad-based wage increases. As an immigrant, I'm all for better and easier immigration system. As a parent of an 11 year old, I can tell you that what your country really needs is not more smart and talented immigrants, but better e…

It really depends on the region and city, the US educational system has zero consistency across the nation. It also varies considerably by income, where rich school districts have educational standards above European levels, and where poor districts have standards on par with Latin America or even Africa.

It's not that we don't produce educated people, it's we don't consistently produce educated people across the board and your location and income is a huge factor in your future success.

Those living in West Virginia have almost no chance, and those living in California have much better opportunities. The US, like many countries, falls prey to sweeping generalizations that are at best partly true.

Some state schools in not well known areas of the country are excellent and very affordable (IU, Purdue, Case Western, Carnegie Mellon).

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#247

Post by i_phish_cats »

CodeMage wrote: post #226
firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

> Both of these would ensure that we can get smart and talented individuals from outside the US and would drastically improve the ability for the US to compete while continuing to provide broad-based wage increases. As an immigrant, I'm all for better and easier immigration system. As a parent of an 11 year old, I can tell you that what your country really needs is not more smart and talented immigrants, but better e…

Nice anecdote. Here's another theory: American kids are being priced out of universities with good CS programs because those universities have burdensome pension programs that can only be paid by importing international students with rich parents.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#248

Post by whyaduck »

gdilla wrote: post #219
tabtab wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please elaborate. The time-period was after the dot-com crash. Companies were laying off IT employees left and right, often because the companies died. CA was flooded with excess IT workers. I even put an ad on Craigslist around 2002 that I'd do development for minimum wage. No takers. What else do you want? I nearly left IT. Okay, I'm not the cream of the crop I admit, but are you saying average developers should ge…

But companies in CA were still hiring, as you mentioned. If the labor pool was flooded with laid off workers, then it's a buyers market. You would think the companies can just hire from that pool for whatever they wanted to pay (cuz in such a climate, they would have takers), without bothering with the H1B search and paperwork hassle.

Hiring isn't as simple as paying the least possible in the current climate. Significant variance in salary among people with similar jobs will be an issue (people talk). Additionally, labor surpluses don't last forever. Low-ball salaries in that situation will lead to turnover at the worst time - when the economy is recovering.

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#249

Post by protomyth »

bduerst wrote: post #33
firedrakerage wrote: post #11

I do not typically post, but these suggestions seem like genuine improvements to the existing system: "Kerr suggests allocating H-1Bs not by lottery as they are now, but by salary — the more that a company is willing to pay for a foreign worker, the quicker they can get a visa." "A second change would be to allow H-1B workers to apply for permanent residency green cards on their own, without having to be sponsored by…

The problem is that pay isn't uniform across skilled labor demand, and the purpose of the H1B program is to fulfill demand in the economy. If you set a quota and give to the highest bidder, you're going to see private sector executives and financial roles being filled in cities with high costs of living and competitive wages. Salary is a function not only of demand but also location and industry. This will discrimina…

> This will discriminate against rural and middle America by depriving them of the skilled labor that they need to survive.

What jobs are rural American companies hiring H1Bs?

Re: America’s Need for Skilled Immigrants Isn’t Going Away

#250

Post by thedaemon »

sillyquiet wrote: post #106
thedaemon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want only the rich and privileged to be allowed into the USA? I find this highly negative.

Having people immigrate who are guaranteed to be able to make their own way is not only NOT negative, it's written into the immigration policies of virtually every nation. This is a separate argument from allowing economic refugees asylum into a country.

So you want to hire managers and other upper level people but not skilled technicians or artists? If we are going by the whoever has the highest salary idea, we obviously won't get real skilled workers. Just more managers. I am not talking about economic refugees.
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