The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage • Hacker News Board

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#121

Post by dougabug » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 7:30 AM UTC

Glyptodon wrote: post #53

aghull wrote: post #25

I have a lot of problems with this article. > What there is is a shortage of ultra-elite American-born talent, and Silicon Valley wants to hire the very best in the world. The view from Silicon Valley is that a lot of the US talent, while bountiful in number, just doesn't stack up. So you're saying that the US has a shortage of the world's best talent? And that Silicon Valley wants to be able to hire the world's best…

I have a huge issue with what the article says because we constantly also hear about how foreign scientists and engineers aren't as creative, innovative, or competitive and how countries like Japan, China and India have issues fostering creativity, independence, innovation, individualism, etc., which are supposedly exactly what we need in developers. Likewise the most talented scientists, engineers, and developers I…

Richard Feynman's account of his experience teaching in Brazil speaks to your first point. Focusing purely on test scores, fact regurgitation, and formulaic problem solving misses far more important abilities such as grasping underlying fundamental concepts and applying them to novel situations.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#122

Post by pandaman » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 7:43 AM UTC

dougabug wrote: post #120

pandaman wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been when he got job in Transmeta in early 2000s. At that time he has already been very well known. You obviously have not been involved in O visa process otherwise you'd known that the qualifications for O visa are chiefly publications (other qualifications would be academic awards, involvement with awarding those awards and such). So any PhD can get one while a programmer who is not into writing books and arti…

That seems indicate a flaw in the O visa process, in terms of its ability to recognize outstanding talent, rather than the need to expand a lottery based system not designed to bring the "best and brightest." A best and brightest program should also include a hard compensation floor. $120K is far from an elite level wage for a SV SW Engineer, but I suspect even that would be a non-starter for the interests lobbying f…

Well, if you have better ideas how to identify "best and brightest" that can be implemented by bureaucrats, backed by paper trail and not easily exploitable - everyone would be happy to hear it. O1 works for scholars quite well it's just programmers are not usually scholars so they are out of luck here.

H1B already has salary floor and protections against body shops built in. The problem is with enforcement: most recipients of H1Bs are working for "consulting" companies (Tata, IBM, Wipro, L&T, Cognizant etc) and one can safely guess that these people are going to be contracted out, something that you should not be able to do on H1B. However the USCIS ignores this and keeps stamping these visas.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#123

Post by dougabug » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 8:28 AM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #122

dougabug wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems indicate a flaw in the O visa process, in terms of its ability to recognize outstanding talent, rather than the need to expand a lottery based system not designed to bring the "best and brightest." A best and brightest program should also include a hard compensation floor. $120K is far from an elite level wage for a SV SW Engineer, but I suspect even that would be a non-starter for the interests lobbying f…

Well, if you have better ideas how to identify "best and brightest" that can be implemented by bureaucrats, backed by paper trail and not easily exploitable - everyone would be happy to hear it. O1 works for scholars quite well it's just programmers are not usually scholars so they are out of luck here. H1B already has salary floor and protections against body shops built in. The problem is with enforcement: most rec…

I've known H1Bs whose salaries were laughably below the median salary for a top SW Engineer in SV. A hard salary floor would be analogous to the AMT for income tax, ensuring that actual salaries reached a minimum acceptable level.

The desire for tech companies to underpay the very people who make this industry possible simply does not represent a crisis for me. The non-poaching arrangements between major tech giants demonstrates their desire to hold down engineering compensation.

If bringing the best sw engineers to America is truly a priority, and I would say that it should be, then that problem should be solved as it has been for scholars. The argument that the H1-B program is that solution is disingenuous at best.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#124

Post by pandaman » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 9:32 AM UTC

dougabug wrote: post #123

pandaman wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you have better ideas how to identify "best and brightest" that can be implemented by bureaucrats, backed by paper trail and not easily exploitable - everyone would be happy to hear it. O1 works for scholars quite well it's just programmers are not usually scholars so they are out of luck here. H1B already has salary floor and protections against body shops built in. The problem is with enforcement: most rec…

I've known H1Bs whose salaries were laughably below the median salary for a top SW Engineer in SV. A hard salary floor would be analogous to the AMT for income tax, ensuring that actual salaries reached a minimum acceptable level. The desire for tech companies to underpay the very people who make this industry possible simply does not represent a crisis for me. The non-poaching arrangements between major tech giants…

Right now the DOL is supposed to set the minimum salary for H1B, judging by your dissatisfaction it's not doing this job. Why do you think it's suddenly going to be better if you set some arbitrary figure for salary? Not to mention the H1B is not exclusively for programmers, is it going to be $120K for everybody, including nurses and models?

> If bringing the best sw engineers to America is truly a priority, and I would say that it should be, then that problem should be solved as it has been for scholars.

The problem with programmers is that there is no objective criteria for what is "best". There is hardly one for scholars. Scholar criteria are objective but they do not select the best, it's assumed that you would not want to bring sub-par scholars yourself. It's same with other skilled professions - you can only verify they have skills objectively, it's impossible to verify they are the best. So I am not making argument that H1B is bringing only the best and nobody else.

However I don't see a practical way to bring the best without getting also a bunch of fake resume "consultants". Personally I don't care much - "consultants" cannot do my job so they are not competing with me. I am just a bit annoyed with the people who barely can open a text editor and copy/paste code calling themselves "sw engineers".

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#125

Post by bayesianhorse » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 1:25 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #102

dyno12345 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=profit+per+employee+goo...

Or in words: each of Google, Apple, and Microsoft make enough profit per man-year that they could double their salaries without becoming unprofitable.

If you assume that they can hire for example a 1000 more engineers and receive the same about of "profit per employee", then this is correct.

But in reality "hire more people, increase revenue/profit" isn't remotely as simple...

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#126

Post by yekko » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

dougabug wrote: post #119

yekko wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then those other companies are not competitive and will wither away in a Capitalist economy. Problem solved. tl;dr: paying high salaries is becoming a competitive advantage.

Anti-poaching agreements between top tech giants notably Steve Jobs' Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel, Pixar, etc. clearly showed that the industry was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent/minimize bidding wars against one another.

Then they ask for more H-1Bs

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#127

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Jun 02, 2013, 7:46 PM UTC

bayesianhorse wrote: post #125

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or in words: each of Google, Apple, and Microsoft make enough profit per man-year that they could double their salaries without becoming unprofitable.

If you assume that they can hire for example a 1000 more engineers and receive the same about of "profit per employee", then this is correct. But in reality "hire more people, increase revenue/profit" isn't remotely as simple...

No, I was assuming they can raise salaries for their current employees without affecting productivity levels.

Re: The Real Truth About the STEM Shortage

#128

Post by tutufan » Mon, Jun 03, 2013, 12:38 AM UTC

arohner wrote: post #76

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very definitely a pay issue. It's also a hiring issue: most of Silicon Valley deliberately makes it as difficult as possible to pass the hiring bar. There is one company with whom I've interviewed once, gotten an offer, and then been rejected when I applied later in a separate round after a year and a half doing other things. There's another company where I interviewed once, got an offer, did something else, int…

> It's very definitely a pay issue. How do you know this? From my own experience trying to hire in this economy, and from talking to other people hiring, the problem is finding good engineers that are hirable at all [edit: local or remote, for any amount of money]. When I've lost a candidate due to him taking another offer, the reasons have always been unrelated to money. Things like "The other company's problems are…

I had an offer from an extremely famous Silicon Valley company, did the numbers very carefully, and realized that I simply could not afford to live there on what they were offering. (I have kids and a non-working spouse.)

I don't think of myself as being a particularly greedy or spendthrift person. I've never owned a new car, for example, and I'm typing this on a five year old laptop. But the Bay Area is simply a no-go for me, sad as that makes me feel.