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Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

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Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#11

Post by renewiltord »

perl4ever wrote: post #10
renewiltord wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People ask me why I don't want programmer unions. This is why. This will be in the top 5 things on their agenda. Not interested in making America some sort of loser fiefdom operated by the inadequate who need regulation because they cannot compete. No way. Besides, if Europe is so great, maybe there would be this massive collection of great tech companies there. Instead, 49 square miles in America has produced more e…

Has it? Or is that like saying 2500 square miles of Delaware has produced more economic value than half the globe, let alone the rest of the US?

Companies started in SF, grown in SF, serve the world. SF engineers with SF money in SF offices made that. These mythical super-Europeans we're supposed to pin our hopes on have nothing to show for it but Jetbrains, Deep Mind, and SAP (successful companies, yes, but three countries' worth to match one tiny piece of land).

No disrespect intended. They run things in Europe the way they want to. But regulating to ensure only immigration from Europe is not in America's interests.

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#12

Post by IlyaMoroshkin »

intopieces wrote: post #6
IlyaMoroshkin wrote: post #5

The US needs to improve its immigration system so that it can hire these smart engineers, from places like Europe in particular. Right now, the current H1B system is totally dominated by Indians, who make up 70% of the intake. The scheme seems designed to undercut American salaries, rather than enhance American companies with highly skilled workers. The scheme should be redesigned with a higher minimum salary, and a…

Why should there be a limit on intake from any one country? Let companies hire who can get the job done. Else, they'll set up shop in those countries and just import the work for a cheaper rate.

Because otherwise people from the biggest countries dominate the system simply due to their high population numbers, and then distort the host society and its immigration system to suit their needs. Immigration knowledge becomes monopolised.

To put it simply - Indians, when they have established themselves, hire more Indian migrants, at the expense of others. Lookup Infosys discrimination in the USA, this is established fact.

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#13

Post by Dylan16807 »

renewiltord wrote: post #8
IlyaMoroshkin wrote: post #5

The US needs to improve its immigration system so that it can hire these smart engineers, from places like Europe in particular. Right now, the current H1B system is totally dominated by Indians, who make up 70% of the intake. The scheme seems designed to undercut American salaries, rather than enhance American companies with highly skilled workers. The scheme should be redesigned with a higher minimum salary, and a…

People ask me why I don't want programmer unions. This is why. This will be in the top 5 things on their agenda. Not interested in making America some sort of loser fiefdom operated by the inadequate who need regulation because they cannot compete. No way. Besides, if Europe is so great, maybe there would be this massive collection of great tech companies there. Instead, 49 square miles in America has produced more e…

> Not interested in making America some sort of loser fiefdom operated by the inadequate who need regulation because they cannot compete. No way.

Only if ability to compete is defined as accepting a much smaller wage for the same job with the same skill level.

The way you get 'fiefdoms' is by helping companies build up enormous piles of profit without paying their workers well.

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#14

Post by notafraudster »

IlyaMoroshkin wrote: post #5

The US needs to improve its immigration system so that it can hire these smart engineers, from places like Europe in particular. Right now, the current H1B system is totally dominated by Indians, who make up 70% of the intake. The scheme seems designed to undercut American salaries, rather than enhance American companies with highly skilled workers. The scheme should be redesigned with a higher minimum salary, and a…

RE: national quotas -- it seems a bit weird that an engineer applying to Facebook would be told she can't get a job there because Disney hired too many people from her home country. Not that there aren't pockets of such weirdness baked into the current system, but this in particular is a negative consequence of what you're proposing.

I say this to reply to the first 3 paragraphs. I object to the last two paragraphs on moral grounds but have no desire to continue a conversation about them.

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#15

Post by perl4ever »

renewiltord wrote: post #11
perl4ever wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it? Or is that like saying 2500 square miles of Delaware has produced more economic value than half the globe, let alone the rest of the US?

Companies started in SF, grown in SF, serve the world. SF engineers with SF money in SF offices made that. These mythical super-Europeans we're supposed to pin our hopes on have nothing to show for it but Jetbrains, Deep Mind, and SAP (successful companies, yes, but three countries' worth to match one tiny piece of land). No disrespect intended. They run things in Europe the way they want to. But regulating to ensure…

I have no disagreement with your final sentence, but I still take issue with attributing purported value created by people in the vicinity of SF with SF itself and concluding that the key to that sort of success is how SF is run.

Delaware, a state of somewhere around a million people, has "over half" the companies on the S&P 500. That's like $15 trillion in market cap. That's a reasonable sized stock market for a billion people in the wider world. Should we conclude that everyone should emulate Delaware in how they organize their society? If they did do that, should we expect that the rest of humanity, unleashed, could produce $15 trillion in value for every million or so people? If they can't, does that mean they're inferior or failing to follow the example of Delaware? Not to put too fine a point on it, what about the Cayman Islands?

Edit once more: and, "SF engineers" and "SF money"? Come on!

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#16

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

IlyaMoroshkin wrote: post #5

The US needs to improve its immigration system so that it can hire these smart engineers, from places like Europe in particular. Right now, the current H1B system is totally dominated by Indians, who make up 70% of the intake. The scheme seems designed to undercut American salaries, rather than enhance American companies with highly skilled workers. The scheme should be redesigned with a higher minimum salary, and a…

Who cares if 70% are Indians? I would guess there are far more Indians seeking H1B. I do agree that H1B is broken- perhaps abolish H1B but streamline the process of becoming a citizen for in demand tech workers?

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#17

Post by geofft »

IlyaMoroshkin wrote: post #12
intopieces wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should there be a limit on intake from any one country? Let companies hire who can get the job done. Else, they'll set up shop in those countries and just import the work for a cheaper rate.

Because otherwise people from the biggest countries dominate the system simply due to their high population numbers, and then distort the host society and its immigration system to suit their needs. Immigration knowledge becomes monopolised. To put it simply - Indians, when they have established themselves, hire more Indian migrants, at the expense of others. Lookup Infosys discrimination in the USA, this is establis…

Still not sure what this has to do with the article - the article is saying there are tons of qualified Chinese for certain jobs and barely any qualified Americans. Should the American companies do without, then? How will that help American companies compete against Chinese companies?

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#18

Post by m463 »

IlyaMoroshkin wrote: post #5

The US needs to improve its immigration system so that it can hire these smart engineers, from places like Europe in particular. Right now, the current H1B system is totally dominated by Indians, who make up 70% of the intake. The scheme seems designed to undercut American salaries, rather than enhance American companies with highly skilled workers. The scheme should be redesigned with a higher minimum salary, and a…

I know some very smart very capable Indian engineers.

The problem they face is a little like the "tenure" problem.

How would your workstyle change if you were "on probation" for a number of years? In a highly competitive situation with lots of other folks like you? Would you say "no" technically or otherwise?

And after the probation period was over, would you be changed by it?

I'm not an Indian engineer, but I've worked somewhere where there were a few rounds of layoffs. The culture really changed when everyone had to show off their own skills and compete.

I think the trick is that apple has to create a really great culture for everyone, even folks with special situations. The recent articles about apple's internal tools groups makes me wonder[1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22804607

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#19

Post by Rury »

api wrote: post #3
kootling wrote: post #2

Main point of the article (quoted): > In 2017, Tim Cook came as close as he ever has to publicly addressing the issue. "In the US," he said, "you could have a meeting of tooling engineers, and I'm not sure you could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields." One possible reason for this is that US education is generally broad compared to other countries. No one in America majors in "tool engin…

Isn't there an obvious reason? The US outsourced everything physical to other countries. You can fill stadiums in the US with finance, marketing, software, and business experts.

Exactly, the problem is outsourcing.

Whatever you decide to outsource you gradually lose expertise in. Which should be obvious, as if I paid someone to fix my car for me all the time, I probably wouldn't come to be an expert in knowing how to fix it myself.

Re: Apple still depends on traditional American engineers, and is slowly losing them

#20

Post by unishark »

geofft wrote: post #7
IlyaMoroshkin wrote: post #5

The US needs to improve its immigration system so that it can hire these smart engineers, from places like Europe in particular. Right now, the current H1B system is totally dominated by Indians, who make up 70% of the intake. The scheme seems designed to undercut American salaries, rather than enhance American companies with highly skilled workers. The scheme should be redesigned with a higher minimum salary, and a…

There's nothing in the article to imply that these "smart engineers" exist in Europe, is there? Nor is there anything to imply that the US education system has the ability to produce them. But they certainly exist, and are being trained, in China.

> Nor is there anything to imply that the US education system has the ability to produce them.

Are you serious? Maybe you mean has the capacity or willing students or something?

Because if you're saying US education is somehow inferior to Asia or whatever, then you have been misled. US schools produce exactly what US firms demand of their graduates. Industry quite literally sets the demands for degrees in engineering. Asian education is memorization and rote practice. If that actually worked for students other than the top 1 percent or so who will excel in any system anyway, we'd do it too as it's so damn easy to teach that way.

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