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Laid Off, Now What?

bharathpbhat.github.io

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Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#11

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

oDot wrote: post #9
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Edit: Parent commenter has now reworded their comment to remove confusion] Huh? OP wasn't a rando who just 'studied' for a few weeks and passed. He has been working in Tech for 7+ years [1]. If anything the moral of this story is it doesn't matter that you have a 7 year experience, you still have to do fucking Leetcode for 2 months if you want to get a new job. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/bharathpbhat/

> ... it doesn't matter that you have a 7 year experience, you still have to do fucking Leetcode for 2 months if you want to get a new job Exactly my point -- two weeks of leetcode do not significantly affect the candidate's ability to perform the job, but it has immense influence on how well s/he'll do in the interview

If that was your point I think you didn't state it correctly. Your original comment makes it sound like you think OP undeservedly got a job merely be hacking through a couple weeks of interview prep.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#12

Post by dccoolgai »

These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing sense of depression driven by the following thoughts:

I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out.

This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed to treat this way puts a hard ceiling on your own compensation.

My grandparents were labor leaders and I'm pretty certain they'd be ashamed I can't or haven't done more to rectify this.

I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#13

Post by oDot »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #11
oDot wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... it doesn't matter that you have a 7 year experience, you still have to do fucking Leetcode for 2 months if you want to get a new job Exactly my point -- two weeks of leetcode do not significantly affect the candidate's ability to perform the job, but it has immense influence on how well s/he'll do in the interview

If that was your point I think you didn't state it correctly. Your original comment makes it sound like you think OP undeservedly got a job merely be hacking through a couple weeks of interview prep.

Edited for what I hope is clarity ;p

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#16

Post by WilTimSon »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #10

H1B rules are quite ridiculous (or more accurately, cruel). Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration? Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you were laid off. Never mind that you might have a house a family and might have been living here for more than a decade. You would officially be staying illegally if yo…

> Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration?

This is what happens when the people making the laws for unique experiences have never been even in the proximity of those experiences. (Well, in this case it's more likely just cruelty.) You get lawmakers who lived a standard life of an upper-class person and don't realize that finding a job isn't as easy as it may seem or as easy as it was 60 years ago. All that talk about "just go in, do a firm handshake and talk to the owner" might seem funny when it's loons on Facebook saying it but when it's what people base their perception of the world and their lawmaking on... that gets disturbing.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#17

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

dccoolgai wrote: post #12

These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing sense of depression driven by the following thoughts: I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out. This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed…

> "My grandparents were labor leaders and I'm pretty certain they'd be ashamed I can't or haven't done more to rectify this.

Unfortunately tech unions are typically the ones railing against H1Bs entirely. The mere presence of H1B workers fundamentally increases worker supply (by definition). In fact it was the "US Tech Workers Union" that championed recent actions against H1B workers. And let's be honest they were not fighting to make our lives easier (by making H1B less draconion), only theirs, by reducing the supply of workers.

And while some of them will sugar coat this by pretending to care about H1B worker's conditions and all that, the truth is that as long as the US continues to be a more desirable place to live compared to many other countries, and as long as you need a job to live here, foreign workers will always tilt the equilibrium a bit towards lower wages compared to a domestic worker supply. The true solution would be if you made the path to permanent residence easy for skilled individuals so that they don't need to take these employment decision under duress.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#18

Post by mancerayder »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #10

H1B rules are quite ridiculous (or more accurately, cruel). Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration? Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you were laid off. Never mind that you might have a house a family and might have been living here for more than a decade. You would officially be staying illegally if yo…

> Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration, but in reality they don't care much about H1B style immigration and are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions hating H1Bs,

Wait, what? Tech unions? I've never seen a single union in my entire 20 year career. I was sympathetic up until you complained about that. What unions?

The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask me, if the economy is poor then there's no excuse for encouraging immigration, especially of high paid labor. If unemployment is high, that is (and that's the part that fluctuates). Not to mention H1B is used to reduce wages and dump tech workers when they get old or expensive. However, the uncertainty you describe is intolerable, it should be a clear path and if someone is laying down roots and family, they shouldn't be living in fear. It's obviously a very mixed bag.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#19

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

mancerayder wrote: post #18
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #10

H1B rules are quite ridiculous (or more accurately, cruel). Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration? Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you were laid off. Never mind that you might have a house a family and might have been living here for more than a decade. You would officially be staying illegally if yo…

> Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration, but in reality they don't care much about H1B style immigration and are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions hating H1Bs, Wait, what? Tech unions? I've never seen a single union in my entire 20 year career. I was sympathetic up until you complained about that. What unions? The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask me, if the econ…

https://ustechworkers.com/ for example.

I don't know what makes something 'officially' a labor union but at least they call themselves that. There was also Washington state Tech Workers Union.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#20

Post by contingencies »

I had a commercial investment related visa in the US. Our mobile digital video company, in which I was basically #2 right under the CTO, was very successful and was acquired by HTC. Unfortunately, my position disappeared in the restructuring. I phoned up the immigration department and they said I had 10 days to get out of the country. This was 2011.
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