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H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

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Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#151

Post by austincheney »

mykowebhn wrote: post #8

Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents, but in all honesty are the Department of Labor's allegations really that surprising? In the Bay Area, qualified job candidates are so scarce that it's quite common for citizens/permanent-residents to change jobs frequently. H1-B candidates are attractive for companie…

> Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents

Sorry the be the bearer of bad news but American developers, on the average, must suck.

Developers, on average across the country, make around twice the local average yearly income, so there is clearly not a shortage for a lack of financial compensation.

In my experience there is no shortage of candidates for developer positions. When I last went through the hiring process I was first pick out of 79 candidates interviewed (9 candidates were ultimately selected) and that was only a fraction of the resumes that were considered.

The problem is that in many cases developers and hiring managers are looking for different things. Hiring companies need people who can solve problems. Many junior developers want easy. Many companies have to settle for button pressers either because the available candidates have a high rate of incompetence or insecurity. This discrepancy is clear in most job postings where the company details what it wants in a paragraph and then follows up with a bullet list of requirements that don't match the language of what they just described. For example the paragraph might talk about solving new challenging problems in a team environment but then the bullet points only talk about tools, frameworks, and configurations.

> Rather than going after the companies, shouldn't we be focusing on fixing the H-1B visa process instead?

So long as companies distrust developer confidence they will continue to rely on immigrants as a candidate pool of greater potential. Changes to immigration policy does not address the core problem of hiring competent developers.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#152

Post by Ericson2314 »

vowelless wrote: post #135
yholio wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like such a simple issue to fix: the only condition for getting a specialist visa should be to find an employer willing to pay a specialist salary, say above 150K. Doctors included, I see no reason to protect them from competition. Hop jobs at will but need to maintain within 85% of that level. If a company can't find workers, it should pay more up until a level that puts the competitiveness of the economy unde…

When I was on an h1b, I was making around 60k in the middle of the country, working for an amazing startup where we were ramen profitable. My skill set was highly specialized for the job. However, I couldn’t be a founder due to my visa status and we couldn’t pay each other even basic salaries. But we did some pretty amazing stuff for DARPA, DOD, and eventually some commercial enterprises. You would price out people l…

Yes there's nativism, but that's not the only thing here. In purely economic terms h1bn visa holders are potential employess that are extra attractive because they have less power; power they cannot get back and power other classes of residents cannot give up.

This is classic artificially divide the market and race to the bottom.

> You would price out people like me and make it virtually impossible for me to become a citizen eventually.

> Historically, america has attracted the best minds. Historically.

You are making the classic mistake of holding the macroeconomics constant. If we had sane immigration policies as proposed in this thread, the going rate might have been different.

Maybe you have been payed more, matching the coasts. Maybe we all would have been paid less, matching you. Maybe the incumbents wouldn't have had a competitive advantage such that you all had to be underpaid to be even ramen profitable.

The big point is given a skill set (projection of the labor market), residency status shouldn't be economically observable. Policy should be constrained to affecting the residency status distribution accross slices.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#153

Post by m0zg »

School-Cotton wrote: post #147
m0zg wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now would be a good time for dang to get involved.

...why? Whether you agree with it or not, “people should have the right to relocate to other countries for work” doesn’t seem like an outrageously offensive or trolling opinion. Why does it cause such an emotional reaction for you?

Because immigration is not a "right". It's a privilege. And if this privilege is afforded at all, it should be afforded in such a way as to not screw the citizens whom the government represents, through social contract and otherwise. Otherwise the citizens should elect the government that will represent their interests. I mean it's not rocket science, it's civics 101.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#154

Post by akhilcacharya »

tejaswiy wrote: post #112
yholio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, if you can find cheap programmers in Des Moines, Iowa, then by all means expand there, spread the love within the country before going for import labour. As for bubbles, that's the point, there shouldn't be any if labour is available and willing to come in.

Most IT / h1 roles are not based out of the Bay Area [1]. Significant amounts of H1b population goes to doing cookie cutter consulting projects spread across the country and setting a 150k min on the wage means that you won't be able to hire H1s at all in other parts of the country. Obviously this creates a lot of demand for American programmers and personal experience suggests that this will cause a labor shortage.…

I think it’ll just be more likely that they’ll hire 5 30k offshore consultants instead of 1 local immigrant.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#155

Post by maksimum »

jorblumesea wrote: post #73
B0btheBuilder wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the salaries, but let's keep in mind that Alibaba and Tencent are two of the biggest companies in the world.

Sure, but do the employees see any of that? Do Alibaba employees get generous equity grants? Vacation time? Cash bonuses? SV type salaries? I'm not doubting China has some great companies and things going on, it's just a very bold claim with seemingly no evidence behind it. It's the kind of claim I hate. "everyone knows" -> insert anecdote here

> Sure, but do the employees see any of that? Do Alibaba employees get generous equity grants? Vacation time? Cash bonuses? SV type salaries?

Logically speaking, the employees are probably paid near their global market value. The converse (they're grossly underpaid) seems less likely because of the global free market.

If Alibaba has SWEs of equal or greater skill than their global counterparts, they could get a job in the US or Switzerland. If they want to stay in China, they may be willing to trade a small amount of salary for that. I don't think most developers would be willing to trade more than 20% though.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#156

Post by raz32dust »

loosescrews wrote: post #138
enraged_camel wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have basically all H1Bs go to Silicon Valley/Seattle/NYC tech companies? (You really should think things through before suggesting them as solutions, especially when the problems are complex.)

Why can't companies in other locations pay competitively?

They pay competitively for their location. Pay is determined by demand and supply. If you sort H1Bs by pay, the places with highest cost of living will get all of the H1Bs. Perhaps a better idea is to do the same thing, but on pay that is normalized against a cost of living index.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#157

Post by googlemike »

austincheney wrote: post #151
mykowebhn wrote: post #8

Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents, but in all honesty are the Department of Labor's allegations really that surprising? In the Bay Area, qualified job candidates are so scarce that it's quite common for citizens/permanent-residents to change jobs frequently. H1-B candidates are attractive for companie…

> Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents Sorry the be the bearer of bad news but American developers, on the average, must suck. Developers, on average across the country, make around twice the local average yearly income, so there is clearly not a shortage for a lack of financial compensation. In my exper…

The best engineers I have ever worked with have been American.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#158

Post by alkibiades »

School-Cotton wrote: post #147
m0zg wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now would be a good time for dang to get involved.

...why? Whether you agree with it or not, “people should have the right to relocate to other countries for work” doesn’t seem like an outrageously offensive or trolling opinion. Why does it cause such an emotional reaction for you?

the first statement "sort of like hiring black people". is calling him racist outright. civil discourse stops there.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#159

Post by raz32dust »

d--b wrote: post #134

What's everyone so angry about? Having been through H1B, I think the system is designed fairly well. It's extremely hard to figure out whether a particular hire required a foreign worker. And, in doubt, the US in general always sides with what's easier for companies. So, in doubt, immigration will consider that there is more harm done if a company doesn't get the worker they need than if a US citizen's job is taken b…

"then they get sanctions, and abuse is reduced.."

Sure, but how about fixing the deeper issues that caused the problem? I agree H1B works well, but I also think it can be made better. Both statements can be true.

Re: H-1B: Oracle favored hiring foreign graduates of US colleges over American grads

#160

Post by acpetrov »

austincheney wrote: post #151
mykowebhn wrote: post #8

Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents, but in all honesty are the Department of Labor's allegations really that surprising? In the Bay Area, qualified job candidates are so scarce that it's quite common for citizens/permanent-residents to change jobs frequently. H1-B candidates are attractive for companie…

> Granted that H-1B visas should ostensibly be filled only for positions where it is difficult to find qualified American citizens or permanent residents Sorry the be the bearer of bad news but American developers, on the average, must suck. Developers, on average across the country, make around twice the local average yearly income, so there is clearly not a shortage for a lack of financial compensation. In my exper…

There's a side-effect, however, that's being ignored.

If US companies don't like/trust the talent coming out of US colleges, they should have a stake in improving those programs. But if their solution is just to hire immigrants, it cheats colleges out of feedback from industry.

Colleges really need more practical courses, at least starting in upper years, that set developers up for success in the workforce. How many devs today come out of college needing 3-6 months of learning just the basics? That shouldn't be happening.

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