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H1B Salaries in the US

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Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#61

Post by dotBen »

oscarleung wrote: post #30

What we really need is a good Startup Visa. There are too many skilled entrepreneurs and programmers out there who are not getting their legit shot at the startup scene because of visa issues. Also with something like Tech, there happens to be a large amount of skilled talent outside the US.

We do need a good Startup Visa but I don't think the majority of folks working at out-sourcing companies are really the audience. They tend to be risk averse and instead value working for a blue chip client for a steady salary.

(I'm a foreign national working in SF/SV on a different type of visa, not H1B)

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#62

Post by mbesto »

dmix wrote: post #5

Its interesting how the top H1B companies are IT consultancy companies. There are far too many enterprise I.T. consultants and I'm all for B2B adoption of software. I question how much value these consultants add sometimes. I hear so many stories of failed deployments and spending millions on projects a few competent individuals could of accomplished.

Enterprise IT is all about money, cost reductions, etc. Good people are expensive as hell (we're talking bill rates of $2000-$5000/day). So outsourcing (and near sourcing) companies offer rates like "I'll give you 3 .NET guys that are three times as productive as that one guy who costs $3k/day and we'll only charge you $2k/day. Great savings!". These IT companies have fantastic profit margins. There is a complete disregard for the Mythical Man Month, thus all of the failure stories.

So the value they add is "we're cheaper and we can usually get you to where you want to be".

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#63

Post by chaostheory »

anamax wrote: post #51
chaostheory wrote: post #25

I could be wrong, but I believe that Alpharetta is part of the Atlanta metro. It's result should be merged into Atlanta. IMO the results for all Bay Area cities (SF, Palo Alto, Fremont, Cupertino, San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mtn View) should also be merged into a single result.

> IMO the results for all Bay Area cities (SF, Palo Alto, Fremont, Cupertino, San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Mtn View) should also be merged into a single result. Why? The housing prices are very different. Heck, SF alone has a huge price range. I agree that NYC is too coarse.

Because they are effectively in the same geographic area.

The housing prices aren't that different until you hit outlying areas like Livermore.

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#64

Post by furtivefelon »

jbjohns wrote: post #46
gojomo wrote: post #44

...being an H1B programmer in Houston doesn’t seem to be all that lucrative... The 'Avg. WAGE_RATE_1' table puts the Houston salary at 67K, the NYC Salary at 112K. But Houston has no city or state income tax, and much cheaper housing, food, transport, and other goods. In fact, according to the Cost-of-Living calculators at... http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofliving/costofliving.htm... ...or... http://www.bankrate…

I don't trust these cost-of-living calculations. Every time I've lived somewhere with a supposedly great cost-of-living I've felt poor (had to conserve my money) and every time I've lived somewhere with a supposedly bad cost-of-living I've felt wealthier. I can't think of a single exception.

I think it's because many things are constantly priced anywhere, such as cars, food etc. The only thing that is expensive is local, such as housing.

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#65

Post by gojomo »

furtivefelon wrote: post #64
jbjohns wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust these cost-of-living calculations. Every time I've lived somewhere with a supposedly great cost-of-living I've felt poor (had to conserve my money) and every time I've lived somewhere with a supposedly bad cost-of-living I've felt wealthier. I can't think of a single exception.

I think it's because many things are constantly priced anywhere, such as cars, food etc. The only thing that is expensive is local, such as housing.

Food prices vary greatly by region. Of the two cost calculators I referenced, one identifies Houston groceries as costing 45% less than Manhattan, and the other has a long list of representative food prices, many of which are around twice as much in NYC. This roughly matches my personal experience comparing Bay Area grocery prices to those in the Austin, TX region.

Same goes for cars — though less so for new cars, even there, when you check prices at a site like Edmunds, there are regional adjustments. For used cars, the same model/year/mileage combinations go for much less in Texas than California. And that's before transfer taxes and registration.

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#66

Post by georgieporgie »

vosper wrote: post #22
georgieporgie wrote: post #6

It must really suck to be a senior software engineer making less than 95k knowing that there are probably some new grads that get an initial offer of more than that. Wait, really? By "some" we're talking "very, very few" right? Surely salaries haven't come that far since when I graduated.

I have heard from a friend at Zynga that highliy-skilled grads are being hired straight out of college on 100k or slightly more.

highliy-skilled grads

I can't help but find that rather contradictory.

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#67

Post by kokey »

dmix wrote: post #5

Its interesting how the top H1B companies are IT consultancy companies. There are far too many enterprise I.T. consultants and I'm all for B2B adoption of software. I question how much value these consultants add sometimes. I hear so many stories of failed deployments and spending millions on projects a few competent individuals could of accomplished.

I think these companies are only called consulting companies because they are a vehicle for skilled programmers, engineers, etc. to get into the country and then placed at a client as a 'consultant' to fill roles specific to projects where the client wouldn't or couldn't arrange for an H1B visa themselves.

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#68

Post by danssig »

cpeterso wrote: post #60
shalmanese wrote: post #38

There was another analysis a while back which showed pretty convincingly that the H1B outliers were due to someone fat fingering the salary and inserting another 0.

I hope that explains the $836,000 software developer at Microsoft and the $1,040,000 consultant at Mantis Technology!

Executives make multiples of those numbers. Why should it be unheard of that any software developer ever make that?

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#69

Post by danssig »

201studio wrote: post #55

Actually the whole H1B is a problem for a lot of immigrant workers. Some people I worked with at my previous employer were contracted through Patni. Patni employs foreign workers to companies (mainly Indian) and takes a cut of their pay. Once their visa is up(5 years I think) they have to go back to India for at least a year then re-apply. Also, when they sign contracts with Patni, they sign a non compete where they…

Did any of them try it? Just because you sign something doesn't mean you can be held to it. It would be worth a try.

Re: H1B Salaries in the US

#70

Post by cageface »

gojomo wrote: post #65
furtivefelon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's because many things are constantly priced anywhere, such as cars, food etc. The only thing that is expensive is local, such as housing.

Food prices vary greatly by region. Of the two cost calculators I referenced, one identifies Houston groceries as costing 45% less than Manhattan, and the other has a long list of representative food prices, many of which are around twice as much in NYC. This roughly matches my personal experience comparing Bay Area grocery prices to those in the Austin, TX region. Same goes for cars — though less so for new cars, ev…

I haven't seen that much difference in basic food prices, at least not enough to account for the huge disparities in cost of living I've seen in calculators like these. I lived in Brooklyn for two months earlier this year and restaurants and little boutique organic foods shops were very expensive there were also big supermarkets that were pretty affordable. The only thing that was far more expensive than, Houston, for example, was rent.
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