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Immigration is about talent, not costs

aerofs.com

541–550 of 644 posts

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#541
I think chanting "talent shortage" as many Silicon Valley tech companies do is hurting the immigration reform cause rather than helping. Also lobbying to increase the size of the pool makes no sense - it's just going to get fill the insatiable desire of body shops like Wipro, Infosys, TCS etc that are the main cause for tech salary undercuts -- by mass importing workers who jump ship asap willing to take low pay.

One of the things we really need is for a skilled graduate or immigrant to be allowed freedom of employment. This stops driving salaries down, because employees then aren't bound to an employer to get their green card or maintain their legal status (giving the employer freedom to put the salary where they want because of desperation). Yes, the H1B portability exists in theory, but in practice they're unusable - with only 60 days of legal unemployed time between jobs, having to secure a new offer before initiating the transfer process, and having any active green card application processes (which can take more than 5 years usually) killed if you transfer, we might as well pretend the portability option doesn't exist.

I would also like to note this reformed H1B shouldn't be awarded to the body-shop-type employers (basically anyone employing over 40% immigrants and over 100 people). Technically this clause exists today, but these body shop companies have a lot of phantom "US Citizen" employees to bloat their total employee numbers and then all the actual staff is imported. Those practices need to be audited more closely at least for the larger companies and curbed.

At the very least, I think it makes sense for someone who has spent 4 or more years in US in the capacity of a student to be given freedom of employability a little more easily, without restricting them to having to go to one of very few employees that can secure them a H1B visa now and commit the first 5-10 years of their career at that one place (or leave the country) to stop being treated worse than illegal immigrants.

More importantly, I think the process needs to recognize the fact that there is no room for company founders, other than the atrocious O1 process which is expensive and time consuming and subjective. I personally believe anyone who can demonstrate basic intent to create a job and shows qualifications for it (maybe after operation of the company for some period of time) should be given a visa with weird restrictions on salary and job title and whatnot, with an audit clause for every 2 years or something. All the existing visa programs are extremely constrained for most founder circumstances (which are quite varied, because founders are supposed to be about finding creative ad hoc solutions).

Disclaimer: Cofounder of a silicon valley startup gone digital nomad because of 2 failed H1B attempts and not being able to justify 2-4 months company-wide paychecks to apply for an O1+lawyer.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#542

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

>>> I've worked at multiple companies (managed their websites) -- where we would temporarily post a job description to appear that it was a fair playing field for local workers -- when in reality that position was definitely, absolutely going to be filled by a cheaper, exploitable H1B visa position.

"Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage." -- Paul Graham

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#543
post #519
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But more to the point, it's short-sighted and selfish to judge policy decisions solely based on their effects on your salary. Especially since those of us in tech are, by and large, ridiculously well-compensated. Maybe it's selfish for you, but what about the ~50% of STEM grads who can't find a job in their industry? And wages are stagnant for STEM workers, and lowering for CS workers. Hundreds of thousands have be…

> what about the ~50% of STEM grads who can't find a job in their industry? According to the Census bureau, 74% of STEM grads don't work in STEM [1]. I was pretty surprised to read this, until I looked up what the Census bureau considers to be STEM [2]. You can see from this graphic that CS, math, statistics, and engineering majors all end up working in STEM in relatively high proportions. It's the psychology, social…

Of that group of STEM majors not in STEM, how many do you think could work in a STEM field after going through a professional masters program? Clearly, some do, but it takes a lot of money and valuable time. If under greater pressure, I'd imagine a lot more established tech companies would recruit with a masters program in exchange for a several year commitment. Some places do, but if it were harder to recruit, it is a fair guess more places would.

I'm not really sure what to think about those sorts of arrangements. If I were an employer, I'd greatly prefer skill-based immigration, excluding questions of exploitation, and that's the point, particularly when referring to STEM as a whole.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your remarks about "divisive ethic-neuveau-ghettos" with "communities insulating themselves rather than assimilating" just makes it worst. Part of the "social contract" when you immigrate to the US is to at least make an effort to join your new country. We aren't the Borg, but we would like to see you learn at least a little English, accept your new country, and generally participate. You are already most of the way…

How many tech companies apply for H1-B visas for developers who are unable to speak any English at all? Your post has such an overwhelming air of nationalistic, racist sentiment. "These foreigners come over here, they don't even speak english, and they take all our jobs". The reality is that most of the foreign developers I've met speak english and communicate at least as well as other developers we've hired here, an…

you are accusing someone else of racism but at the same you make this comment "not all H1-B visa holders are dirt-farming Indians who read Ruby on Rails for Dummies in their native language and got tired of farming themselves out on glance for $10/hr. A lot of them are from well-educated western countries" . So only western countries engineers are well educated but Indian developers are dirt-farmers ?

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#545

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

The fact that this comment has been upvoted so many times shows how low HN has sunk. Sad.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#546

The experience for getting a working visa in the US is absolutely atrocious, and let me preface this with the fact I am Australian and Australia offers an E3 visa which allows you to work in the US indefinitely for the sponsoring company. It doesn't have the same issues as a H1-B visa (lottery, restrictions on when you can apply), but offers just as much flexibility and power. I am currently a remote worker for a US…

I hate to say this, but in your position I'd suggest you collude with your employer to fake a degree.

So what you're saying is you only want white people coming in? Australia is also pretty diverse you know.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#547
post #20

Notice OP is hiring in SF. Does aerofs want remote workers? They'd open up several orders of magnitude more applicants if they would do so.

We prefer local as much as possible. But, we do now have a Canadian office, so... :)

as a European, I think I'd rather live in Canada, it seems like a nicer country.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there is an income discrepancy, western countries and companies are hungry for developing markets. You can't have entry into those markets while putting up barriers of your own. Go to any street corner in India or Mexico and you will see US and other western brands everywhere.

Trade protectionism is a completely different issue from immigration and I don't see how it's relevant here. That being said, you definitely can have entry into those markets while putting up barriers of your own, there are many historical examples when this was successfully done, e.g. 19th century was probably a peak of such practices. The only question is if you should , and if it's worthwhile right now - you can g…

>Trade protectionism is a completely different issue from immigration and I don't see how it's relevant here.

This has gone into both immigration and outsourcing, so it does become relevant.

>there are many historical examples when this was successfully done

This was to the detriment of those who were blocked from trade. The power balance between the west and the rest of the world isn't as skewed today so such would not be possible.

>a large wage disparity means that the developing markets aren't as "useful" as is their cheap labor;

This is a fundamental flaw in your logic and most in this thread. A person is both a worker and consumer. The same person that is working for money is going to consume with that money.

When an immigrant arrives to the US, they become both worker and consumer. Their consumption drives the creation of more products, including software products.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a software engineer and green card holder from Brazil and there is nothing I want more than to see many of my friends who work in Brazil have the opportunity to come here to work in a great industry. That being said, both you and the anon person you replied to are right about the situation. The position you came to fill is a relatively rare skill here in the US and it helps the US to bring in talent from abroad,…

It is already illegal to pay H1B visa holders less than "the actual or prevailing wage for your occupation, whichever is higher." http://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/h-1b-specialty-occupatio... Thus, when I hear people complain of companies who hire H1Bs only because they want to pay them less, I always want to ask, "why haven't you reported them?" Either they don't actually know that the companies are exclusively pa…

When I was working at apple IS&T 6 months ago, I saw paystubs of people working for TCS and Cognizant Technology solutions. Cognizant is paying $65K per annum in the bay area; TCS is paying $85K per annum in the bay area.

Think of rents in Sunnyvale: $2K per 1b/1b. Still people save, even on $65K salary, because one lives with 4 other roomies.

Re: Immigration is about talent, not costs

#550

Look HNers, let's be honest with each other. There's a lot of H1B's on here. You have friends overseas who you want to see succeed in the Bay Area. In my experience at many tech companies in the Bay Area, H1B Visas exist for one reason, and one reason only - to get skilled engineering/STEM labor -- and to exploit connections (primarily Indian/Pakistani) among these workers to continue to get cheap labor. It absolutel…

The other important and often overlooked missing piece of the equation is that programming is a brutally ageist profession and that the typical programming career is short. If you haven't made it into management by 30 you will find it increasingly hard to get rank & file coding jobs. So even if the typical programmer's salary is relatively high you mustn't forget that this career may only last 10-15 years in many cases.

It's pretty simple IMO. The programmer shortage would evaporate if programmers were paid according to the value they create.

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