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New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

science.org

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Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#301

Post by abduhl »

lesuorac wrote: post #286
abduhl wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patent examiners are rated on office ACTIONS. Grants and denies both count as actions, although denials often take more effort (and complaints from the potential patentee).

I mean they're not rated on ACTIONS. They're rated on their PRODUCTION UNITS; of which an ALLOWANCE yields twice as many PRODUCTION UNITS than a REJECTION yields. So; clerk are incentivized to grant a patent as it takes less effort and yields more production units. If a patent is of poor quality and later is invalidated in a lawsuit; the clerk will not lose production units. Therefore; the clerk is incentivized to gr…

This is a misunderstanding of the slideshow. As can be seen on slide 10, productivity is "Number of office actions / period of time" and slide 12 shows the breakdown of how production units are calculated from office actions. A final disposition (allowance, appeal, or abandonment) is worth twice as much as a final rejection; however, that does not mean an examiner is incentivized to allow patents. Rather, they are incentivized to get to the end of the process by either allowing the patent, having the patentee appeal the examiner's final rejection, or by the patentee abandoning their application. Which of these three occurs is irrelevant to the examiner, although as I said before: an allowance take the least amount of effort.

In fact, the most production units that can be obtained by a patent examiner for any particular patent is to issue a final rejection, get the patentee to ask for re-examination, reject again, and then have the patentee abandon the patent.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#302

Post by bradlys »

drivebyhooting wrote: post #259
fallingknife wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do that with rapid valuation increases in tech shares over the last 10 years inflating your RSU award, and even then you're talking < 1% of engineers at that comp level. And that path is very likely closed now at FAANG (poor staff SWE will have to suffer with $400K TC). TCs in the millions will be reserved for high ranks at large companies, a few lucky early engineers at billion dollar startups, and phds in…

I still see L7 and L8 offers like this handed out. You act like 99% of people can work profitably in hard science. What parent poster said is also available sub 1% of talent.

L7 and L8 aren't staff. That's senior staff and principle. They're both pretty hard to get and are very small portions of any company.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#303

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #209
aiisahik wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hire a ton of engineers in LATAM who have no interest in migrating to US. They get paid well in USD, they live in kings and queens in their respective low cost countries. In fact, looking at their live inspired me to make the decision to leave.

It sounds like a good deal for them. Plus, they don’t have to leave their families and social networks behind.

It's a great deal for them. It's not the best deal for us, though, since they're not part of our tax base, nor are they growing families and social networks here for us to benefit from. It's a great outcome morally (Latam, African, and Asian countries deserve greater participation in global industries), but the one thing it doesn't do is optimize for the interests of America.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#304

Post by bradlys »

throwaway34916 wrote: post #280
photochemsyn wrote: post #232

[flagged]

>I suppose the counterargument is that the US educational system is generally so poor that it's not generating enough people with the necessary technical capabilities to meet employer demand... It's not the quality of the education system, it's the motivation of the students. In the mid-2000s, it was very fashionable to believe that all programming jobs should be offshored to India. People imagined that the startups…

I think you're exaggerating the idea of offshoring. The reality is that tech is not a sexy sector at all and that's what pushes Americans away from it more than anything.

The people who work in tech are usually people who were never going to fit into mainstream roles anyway. If you went into tech, you weren't ever going to be in sales or marketing. Same for those who went into the arts, they didn't see offshoring of tech jobs and went, "Yeah, I should really pursue the arts."

Most of the decisions people make in the US around careers has more to do with image than it does with financial sense.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#305

Post by fallingknife »

alephnerd wrote: post #211
fallingknife wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that instead of building a domestic talent pipeline for high demand skills we take the easy route and grab immigrants for it. So the talent pipeline never gets built, and then we continue to be dependent on immigration. This is obviously not your company's fault because they are not policy makers, but if companies like yours were told "too bad, hire and train locally" you would get it done. e.g. I am a…

> companies like yours were told "too bad, hire and train locally" Companies would collapse and fail, unless the government gave a massive corporate stimulus package (probably 4-5x the size of PPE). > none of the skills you need, but I could easily be trained It would take at least 1-2 years. At that point, an Israeli or Indian startup has taken market share and won. Welcome to cybersecurity and networking.

I am unpersuaded as I have never heard of a company that collapsed and was replaced by foreign competition because they couldn't get enough H1Bs. But even if this is correct, the best that should get you is N visas for the next 2 years and then no more because you will have built the local talent pipeline you need by then.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#306

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #212
pavlov wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a win for the United States if American companies are employing less people in the country, and instead are paying remote workers who pay taxes elsewhere?

The US doesn’t understand the social burden of integrating an immigrant, and the resulting social conflict. Meanwhile, the prospective immigrant gets to stay in their homeland (most don’t really want to leave, money aside). If tax dollars are the issue, just tax the company.

There is no meaningful social conflict arising from importation of skilled labor. Gainfully employed immigrants building families in the US are an asset, not a burden.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#307

Post by jevoten »

commandlinefan wrote: post #285
alephnerd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a US citizen from the Midwest not getting it No offense, but maybe your resume didn't reflect that you had the skills required. The companies I worked at and now portfolio companies of mine pay Bay Area market rate to both citizens and non-citizens. We hire noncitizens because we didn't find the right talent we need.

> your resume didn't reflect One observation I've made throughout the years of reviewing tech resumes - if I get a resume from a U.S. citizen, I (and anybody else) immediately know the difference between MIT/Stanford vs. "The University of Wisconsin" without even researching it. OTOH, I have no idea what the difference between the University of Hyderabad vs. the University of New Delhi, and there's not really a good…

No wonder they can't find workers, if from a nation of 334 million, all but ~16k/year [1] are considered substandard because they couldn't get into an Ivy.

Edit: More relevant is comparing Ivy undergrads (64.5k) to all US undergrads (20.3 million) [2], meaning only the top 0.3% make the cut.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League - total number of undergrads (64.5k), divided by 4, assuming a 4-year college course.

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/235406/undergraduate-enr...

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#308

Post by mcmcmc »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #240
ta988 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree as it has no warranty you are good enough to keep a job, only that you could pay fees every year.

Sure. Nobody said you get citizenship. Just a work visa not tied to an employer.

Work visas and education visas are two different things that should be treated separately.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#309

Post by drivebyhooting »

bradlys wrote: post #302
drivebyhooting wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still see L7 and L8 offers like this handed out. You act like 99% of people can work profitably in hard science. What parent poster said is also available sub 1% of talent.

L7 and L8 aren't staff. That's senior staff and principle. They're both pretty hard to get and are very small portions of any company.

That’s true. L6 offers are 700k to 900k plus whatever stock appreciation and refreshers. L7+ has nominal value of 1M+.

My point is for the past several years staff has been clearing 1M W2 or more per year and the nominal offers are high 6 figures. L7 and L8 offers are nominally 1M.

If I could make that money working on cool science and aerospace I would. When I graduated, Boeing, Lockheed etc wouldn’t give me the time of day but adtech welcomed me and paid me more in 1 year than Boeing would have in 10.

Re: New U.S. immigration rules spur more visa approvals for STEM workers

#310

Post by jevoten »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #296
photochemsyn wrote: post #232

[flagged]

People on here don't seem to realize what an amazing asset it is that the US has a large pool of talented people that want to move there. I am from Europe and HN folks really like to look down on the European tech sector, but I would argue that the most important reason the US has a much stronger tech sector is because of the talent pool from around the world. Moving to Europe is a lot less interesting for people fro…

What an amazing asset, to not even have a country, just an economic zone where you get to compete with talent from all over the world. To slowly become a despised minority in what used to be your country, but the economy does so well!

I am also from Europe, and I pray the US doesn't give us this "amazing asset".

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