Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employees on work visas are the first and easiest employees to lay off because we don't see our insurance premiums rise when laying them off (it's what most of us did early during COVID). And now with the $100K fees we have no incentive to hire most employees on a work visa anyhow. Hear that sound? It's the sound of GCCs opening in Poland, Romania, Israel, and India with those employees who were on work visas in the…
Meta MLE hiring seems to still be going strong. They recently picked up a whole slew of people - all H1B - from one of the UCSD labs to work at HQ.
> from one of the UCSD labs
That's why.
For bleeding edge R&D, we still hire domestically because the capacity, network, and capital remains in the US, but these roles will overwhelmingly be in the Bay or NYC as I mentioned above, and will overwhelmingly recruit from a handful of top programs with an established track record.
Most HNers are median or below median (that's how medians work because life is a Gaussian distribution) so a large portion will be negatively impacted.
Sam who did his BSCS at Michigan State and Sandeep who did his MSCS without a thesis at SUNY New Platz will be negatively impacted, but Sarah who did her BSCS at UT Austin or Sarita who did her MSCS with thesis at UIUC will be hired.
Similarly for L1/2, it ain't happening unless you have a proven track record at a US comparable office like MSRL Bangalore, but that candidate would have ended up at a top CS program doing an MS/PhD anyhow and have a relatively easy path to immigrate to the US.
Basically, the same funda that exists in India about university tiers for hiring has returned to the US, but a lot of HNers aren't ready for this level of competition.
The difference between Kamal who is slogging at a mid-level SWE at Infosys in Indore and Karl who's working as a SWE at Cisco's NC office is marginal - both are going to be made structurally unemployed, with Kamal's work going to be automated with a CodeGen LLM in the hands of a junior SWE, and Karl's job being moved to a Cisco GCC in India, Eastern Europe, or LatAm.
The only way either can protect themselves is to find a way to end up at a top employer in a major hub.
Edit: can't reply
> What do you mean
Basically, it's best for all of us (be us SWEs, PMs, VCs, or SEs) to assume that we are average or below average, as that allows us to think strategically and defensively, thus allowing us to reduce our risk and take any advantage that we can.
That requires a level of competitiveness and strategic thinking that some may find distasteful, but it's the only way you can survive in the industry long term.
It doesn't mean hurt or negatively impact anyone always, but it requires one to be realistic and recognize that we are not in a stag-hunt but a Hobbesian trap.