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How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

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Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#231

Post by daemin »

lotu wrote: post #190
daemin wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that H1-B's get paid less than other workers, it is that by having more people available to do the same job it decreases the pay for all people doing said job. That's how the logic would appear to work, supply and demand, etc.

The thing with and H1-B is if they lose their job they have to leave the country the same day. That is a big incentive to work very hard and accept low compensation.

Is it actually the same day? That would be quite harsh. E3 Visa holders get 2 weeks IIRC.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#232

Post by nerfhammer »

trysomething wrote: post #56

This conduct is obviously despicable, though certainly not out-of-character for Steve Jobs (all due respect for his talents). However, I generally believe this will resolve (and has been resolving) itself via market mechanisms. The mistaken assumption is that the only competition here is between Apple, Google etc and that it is focused primarily on income. The market is a lot more subtle than that: 1. Hackers are not…

> "Acquihires" are a mechanism for the best engineers to get paid more "outside" the system.

Acquihires mainly benefit the managers/founders of the acquihired firm, not per se the "best" engineers

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#233

Post by judk »

nerfhammer wrote: post #219
wpietri wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but irrelevant. Market price is market price. These companies are generating massive income. They are paying high wages (and colluding to avoid paying higher ones) because engineers are necessary to that. The question you should ask during salary negotiations isn't, "Do I, based on my own value judgments and moral code, deserve this much money?" It's: "Are they paying me market price for my skills?" If…

> These companies are generating massive income. Illustration: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=profit+per+employee+app... Remember this is net rev, what they take in after paying everyone. Assuming the average employee makes $120K, and given that they can't exist long enough to make $1 without the engineers showing up, these companies should be willing to pay everyone up to 2-3x that

Wtf, wolfram alpha doesn't know how to display units properly?

Anyway, considering that employees also have equity, those numbers aren't obviously damning.

Nor are they particularly relevant, as "willing to pay" isn't the same as "market price"

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#234

Post by 001sky »

dredmorbius wrote: post #226
lmg643 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole episode is pretty depressing. But, it's far better for people to live without illusions about the nature of their bosses, etc. At the risk of a hundred downvotes, I wonder how many people can see the parallels in the current silicon valley push for "immigration reform." Having watched H1B farms style companies up close and personal, I can say there is very little to recommend about this model of employment…

The H1B issue is absolutely about providing cheap, endentured labour: visa holders are tied to their sponsoring employer and must appeal to be allowed to seek other employment. Norm Matloff of UC Davis has literally been trying to expose this for decades, with little luck: http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b.html http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b10min.html Moreover: this is entirely consistent with behavior o…

This is the dirtly little secret. Even if you hire at "market wages" there are all sorts of ways to exploit the relationship going forward. The power-assymetry this puts the H1B holder in is the opposite of 'negotiating leverage', and one can rest assure that this will not go un-noticed.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#235

Post by hrjet »

spiderPig wrote: post #76
firstOrder wrote: post #50

The typical response I hear to the idea of more widespread labor unions or AMA-like professional associations for programmers and network/systems/storage/database administrators is that if someone is really talented, they can negotiate a good salary, and that labor organizing together would just protect the lazy and the slackers. You hear this same thing when someone is lowballed a salary number, or has to put up wit…

As a H1-B myself, I think I'm pretty much a modern-day slave without the physical shackles. I hate going back to my home country and I love the intellectual, rational environment here. But I'm stuck with my current company until I get a green card which isn't bound to happen in the foreseeable future. I read his book on this and I agree with one of Matloff's points that H1-B should be solely for talent and I also agr…

> Most people in the operations group running our service for instance are on H1-B and frankly, the work they do can be done by any average American working at a BK/McDonalds.

That doesn't make sense. If they can be easily replaced, then why aren't they? Wouldn't it directly benefit the company hiring them to not hire them?

Also, I don't like your characterization of people based on where they work. A person may choose to work in BK/McDonalds but that doesn't imply anything (positive or negative) about their capability.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#236

Post by judk »

accountoftheday wrote: post #216
peterb wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wage-theft stuff lowers the curve for everyone, not just the top tier. It lowers the entire wage curve.

The article does not support this claim. My reading is that GOOG's HR department kept/keeps the salary curve artificially flat (over-rewarding low performers) to manage pay within a narrow band and thereby prevent having to negotiate with top performers.

I don't understand how employee A's salary is a factor in whether Employee B gets negotiated with.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#237

Post by rgovind »

dredmorbius wrote: post #226
lmg643 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole episode is pretty depressing. But, it's far better for people to live without illusions about the nature of their bosses, etc. At the risk of a hundred downvotes, I wonder how many people can see the parallels in the current silicon valley push for "immigration reform." Having watched H1B farms style companies up close and personal, I can say there is very little to recommend about this model of employment…

The H1B issue is absolutely about providing cheap, endentured labour: visa holders are tied to their sponsoring employer and must appeal to be allowed to seek other employment. Norm Matloff of UC Davis has literally been trying to expose this for decades, with little luck: http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b.html http://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~matloff/h1b10min.html Moreover: this is entirely consistent with behavior o…

>The H1B issue is absolutely about providing cheap, endentured labour: visa holders are tied to their sponsoring employer and must appeal to be allowed to seek other employment

This is plain wrong. You can very easily shift and people do shift. You just interview with a different company, just like a citizen would.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#238

Post by alanh »

hashmap wrote: post #212
cs702 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt we will ever be able to "measure" the effect. We can only guess and debate it with hypothetical scenarios -- "what if all these CEOs had had to compete for talented employees, instead of fixing the market for them?" Regardless of the effect, it is a shame to see that these leading CEOs, who for years have vociferously complained about media & telecom oligopolies for preventing competition, were for years simu…

What are you talking about? A "free market" encourages exactly this behavior! If it weren't illegal it would go on indefinitely.

I think the parent meant that this collusion artificially denied what would otherwise be a fair market for the employees. Of course, you are entirely correct that this sort of thing is allowed if no regulation is placed on the corporations.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#239

Post by nerfhammer »

judk wrote: post #233
nerfhammer wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These companies are generating massive income. Illustration: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=profit+per+employee+app... Remember this is net rev, what they take in after paying everyone. Assuming the average employee makes $120K, and given that they can't exist long enough to make $1 without the engineers showing up, these companies should be willing to pay everyone up to 2-3x that

Wtf, wolfram alpha doesn't know how to display units properly? Anyway, considering that employees also have equity, those numbers aren't obviously damning. Nor are they particularly relevant, as "willing to pay" isn't the same as "market price"

> "willing[ness] to pay" isn't the same as "market price"

It should be the same if aggregate engineer negotiation for compensation was efficient

either that or there's a glut of engineers on the market, which would seem to be the opposite of what we're always hearing

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#240

Post by conanbatt »

sounds wrote: post #49
[deleted] wrote: post #12

[deleted]

To anyone just starting their tech career in the US, pay attention to the parent comment. Edit: parent deleted the comment, so here it is: (I sincerely hope the parent is not getting hauled off in handcuffs as we speak.) As a former Intel engineer the only thing that surprised me is how high up these abuses went. These companies and their leaders are scum to the highest degree. Between refusing to consider american c…

H1-B leaves as an indentured servant?

I am working in the US under a temporary work visa, and by no means Im enslaved or abused. I have a market competitive wage for my skills, and have the most engaging and rewarding job i ever found as a software engineer other than personal projects.

In fact, It's a huge effort and sacrifice to move to the US for work, leaving friends and family behind. US is not qatar, i can always leave whenever I want and work in argentina.

Increasing the number of workers would , by supply and demand, lower wages. And that of itself its a very reasonable goal for any big company. Thats why companies back "teach to code" programs, "teach science in school" and many other education related endeavors, simply to increase the worker base.

Also visas provide a very strong incentive for the US government to sponsor: tech is one of the most outsource-able jobs out there, and that means lots of money and taxes go to other countries. Moving the talent prevents that.

Just so you know, the problem of people going to the US for tech jobs is a huge concern in other countries, that cant provide competitive wages as the US.

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