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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

#251

America is the most powerful nation in the world today not because it has the most number of people, but because it has the best and the brightest, gathered from around the world. There are 4x as many geniuses in China as in the US. This is not because they are superior genetically. This is simply because the population of China is 4x that of USA. If one in 1,000,000 people are geniuses, then China must have 4x more…

That’s not why America is the most powerful. To sum it up “cheap credit.” No other place will give you access to money so cheaply.

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

#252
post #236

America is the most powerful nation in the world today not because it has the most number of people, but because it has the best and the brightest, gathered from around the world. There are 4x as many geniuses in China as in the US. This is not because they are superior genetically. This is simply because the population of China is 4x that of USA. If one in 1,000,000 people are geniuses, then China must have 4x more…

Legal and controlled immigration is absolutely beneficial for the US overall. But targeting specific industries is unfair - the software industry has been the main target, lowering the income levels respective to other, protected professions (physicians, etc.), or business executives. Since people in the trades like plumbers or electricians do not fall under the umbrella of "importing the best & brightest", their hou…

In rural America, we have been importing doctors from other parts of the world because we don't have enough American doctors who want to serve outside the big cities and high-paid specialties.

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

#253

I will tell you what they do in India In 2015, I got a call from Oracle India and interviews were arranged and I got hired into Oracle India. It was my first job change. Before to that, I used to work as a contractor for one of the US companies via one of the services company in India. Oracle offered me way less than what they are offering to other engineers in the same BU, for the same value generated. Reason Oracle…

If you accepted a job offer based on verbal promises as opposed to written then you only have yourself to blame. Learn your lesson and move on.

Why are you blaming the victim? Also, have you ever succeeded in getting clauses added to a megacorp's written offer?

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

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be better for the world. Maybe if everyone wasn’t moving to America, they’d make their own countries better... spread the love out. I’d be fine with a few less tech companies. Life would go on. I care more about the impact on American workers and as I’ve said, bringing in severely underpaid workers that they can abuse isn’t really going to help. Yeah, China is really somewhere people are desperate to get i…

> Yeah, China is really somewhere people are desperate to get into... I know a lot of Africans and Southeast Asians that are desperate to go to China.

How many Africans does China let in? How many Southeast Asians does China let in? I.e., what kinds of quotas does China have for non-Chinese?

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that there's two very different things achieved by the H1B process: a) Getting talented entry-level employees who graduate from US schools to stay in the US b) Getting talented experienced employees to move to the US The H1B is actually rather bad for b) due to the long processing time (6 months) during which a candidate cannot work in the US and high chance of not winning the lottery. Revamping the O1…

> Revamping the O1 visa makes more sense for that case. Canada has a pretty sane skilled worker visa program that gives you points for academic achievement, proficiency in English, French, age and other factors. I see no reason the US couldn't have that. Having said that, factors that would increase the wish to move to the US would be things like universal healthcare, a sane schooling system (with less inequality bet…

>Without that, I don't think it's that much attractive.

Given that salaries can be something like 5x what you get in Europe for the same experience level with lower taxes there is a big reason. Probably even more compared to places outside of Europe. If you're working at a large tech company making good money then healthcare doesn't matter (since you got solid medical insurance), school district doesn't matter (since you can afford to live in the good district), labor laws don't matter (in fact their lack is probably why you're making 5x the money) and social security doesn't matter (that's what saving the decent chunk of money you make is for).

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

#256
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well... This "immigration as a right" certainly didn't work well for native Americans, did it? Now, seriously, don't you think America (as it is currently) gains a lot from its diversity? Since when did it abandon its "melting pot" culture?

[deleted]

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

#257

America is the most powerful nation in the world today not because it has the most number of people, but because it has the best and the brightest, gathered from around the world. There are 4x as many geniuses in China as in the US. This is not because they are superior genetically. This is simply because the population of China is 4x that of USA. If one in 1,000,000 people are geniuses, then China must have 4x more…

As far as I know, while Chinese students are way more than India students in USA, Indian H1B holders are about 4~5 times more than Chinese. In short, the vast majority(about 50+%) H1Bs are taken by India, Chinese is about 10%.

Indians abuses the system severely by setting up phony staffing companies and do fake multiple filings on h1b application, etc.

There is a saying, that if an Indian becomes a manager, soon all his department becomes Indians, which really stands out among all other races. I will not be surprised someday they will be sued for not following equal job rights.

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

#258
Hiring manager at Oracle here- Oracle is very balkanized, different business units have different practices and policies, so I can only speak (unofficially) about the one I am part of.

Whenever I have openings for junior positions, I get flooded with resumes from men and women with degress at universities in China and India, and only a very small fraction from people educated entirely in the US. My personal speculation is that younger software engineers in the US would rather not work at a company that is perceived to be a dinosaur, and is definitely not as sexy as other FAANGs or startups. People who want to be H1-B sponsored have fewer options, and I think Oracle's name isn't as tainted in China or India.

Also, for the (unofficial) record, the women and those with H1-B visas (incl women with H1-B visas) on my team are paid the same as US born men on my team with similar experience.

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

#259

Top teir software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program. It allows consulting/contracting firms to hire low wage tech workers who are desperate to stay in the US and lock them into a form of indentured servitude because the road to a green card or citizenship is now a decade long journey and changing y…

> Top tier software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program.

I am fine with immigration as it is a feature of a good system which people want to join, the US should attract the best and people looking to contribute, but it is obvious the H-1B system is rigged and bad for pretty much all but large companies in many cases. I have known many H-1Bs and I feel bad for their situation when they want to leave a company or feel locked in. The moment H-1Bs can work at other companies other than the sponsor, all that becomes more market priced via competition and will improve pay and discourage the H-1B abusers just looking for low wage ownership of workers.

If companies REALLY wanted to hire the best and brightest from around the US and the world, remote development would be bigger and more widespread to the US and around the world. But as with most things, companies use it to own people rather than compete fairly or pay market rates. Remote development can be a cost savings and make companies more robust to employee/worker life changes over time rather than need employees to live near the company. Companies that abuse H-1Bs would rather have employees on site that they can lock into lower wages and control more.

There is also the O visa that would really mean they want to hire the best from around the world [1][2]. But ultimately companies that abuse H-1B just want to lower wages and lock in their workers. Cringely in 2012 wrote this:

> H-1B isn’t the only way for foreigners to work in America. They can work to some extent on student visas and, in fact, many student visas are eventually converted to H-1B for those who have a job and want to stay but maybe not immigrate.

> There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas. So when Bill Gates complained about not being able to import enough top technical people for Microsoft, he wasn’t talking about geniuses, just normal coders.

> I don’t want to pick on just Microsoft here, but I happen to know the company well and have written over the years about its technical recruiting procedures. Microsoft has a rigorous recruitment and vetting process. So does Google, Apple — you name the company. All of these companies will take as many of O visa candidates as they can get, but there just aren’t that many who qualify, which is why quotas aren’t required.

> So when Microsoft — or Boeing, for that matter — says a limitation on H-1B visas is keeping them from getting top talent, they don’t mean it in the way that they imply. If a prospective employee is really top talent — the kind of engineer who can truly do things others simply can’t — there isn’t much keeping the company from hiring that person under the O visa program.

> H-1B visas are about journeyman techies and nothing else.

Oracle though, will literally do anything to save a penny and the last thing on Oracle's list is developer pay and developer usability/user experience. Oracle tools and systems are a nightmare and Oracle is only sold in on the golf courses from top down. Oracle is still in legacy licensing land. Oracle sees developers as nothing but resources to extract value from then discard. Oracle == IBM == SAP and all those are not developer or employee/contractor/worker friendly systems and all of them do the same gaming of H-1B systems just like the TCS, Infosys and Cognizant type companies of the world.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...

[2] https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know...

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

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From my point of view - both excluding you from the job market or giving you general purpose work visa are better for the rest of the people in your industry(with second option better for you of course). Than work permit depending on sponsorship. If you are valuable enough to work in US, you are valuable enough to do it as a full market participant without shackles or handicaps.

Exactly. The reason startup salaries are low is that the companies don't have the cash to pay. If they had customers who believed in them they would have cash. If they had investors who believed in them they would have cash.

Asking the government to let in someone whose company might eventually make it big enough to pay "the going rate" is asking the government to take a risk -- it's like asking them to invest in the company on the promise that the payoff will be as good or better than the next person in line.

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