Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In • Hacker News Board

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#221

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:46 PM UTC

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #75

Part of the reality of founding a company in the United States, and taking advantage of the freedoms and protections being in the USA offers, is that you have to work with the USA labor force. If you don't like it- well, go international. Fast food restaurants don't get to import the best burger-slingers from Germany. Software companies have to live in the same space. And it's complete and utter BS to suggest that th…

If someone wants to come to the USA on their own volition, and take their oath of citizenship- fantastic!

Except they can't - it's quite difficult for someone to do so without an employment or marriage relationship, and even after someone has a green card they are required to wait several years before an application for citizenship will even be considered.

Railroads in the 1890's didn't suddenly wake up with a million trained workers at their disposal, and they didn't have the option of importing trained workers from the UK where railroads were booming.

Why do you think there are so many Chinese people on the West coast of the USA? As well as those who arrived to dig for gold int he 1850s, a great deal of railroad construction was done with imported Chinese labor starting in the 1860s; both to relieve the labor shortage in the railroad industry and because they were cheaper and better-behaved than Irish laborers. If you're in the Bay Area the Oakland Museum of California has a permanent exhibit dedicated to this.

I am of course in favor of more training but you seem to be under the impression that the US railroad industry bootstrapped itself, when in fact it was heavily reliant on immigrant labor from the outset.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#222

Post by pastProlog » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:46 PM UTC

rgbrgb wrote: post #189

edgyswingset wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you touched at the end is part of a bigger problem, I think - people who write something as inconsequential as a shopping website, or Yet Another Chat App, are not worth $150,000/year. Maybe one out of one-hundred of those folks could use their talent on something that demands a wage like that outside of the absurdity that is the Bay Area. I don't feel the talent pool will be diluted so much as your run-of-the-m…

> something as inconsequential as a shopping website, or Yet Another Chat App Alright so first off, 150k will give you a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle in SF/SV (assuming you have no dependents, in which case it's just middle class). It's really not the astronomical salary that you seem to be imagining. Secondly, it is completely impractical to pay people based on the "difficulty" of their work. Difficulty,…

Also throw in all the college debt they require you to pile on before being hired, not to mention the hours spent studying instead of working. And that it is a cyclical feast or famine industry where it ping pongs between 70 hour weeks of deadline crunches and post-dotcom, post-bank bust periods where no one is hiring. And that the career of many ends at 40. Plus as you mentioned, the San Francisco rents for those requiring you work in the city.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#223

Post by YuriNiyazov » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:47 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #186

delive wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think waking someone up every night at 3am for a question/idea is 'seamless' or productive at all. Delayed email for when they wake up is what we generally deal with, but it definitely creates friction when working across large time zones.

The possibility for misunderstanding is much greater too. You and your colleague might speak perfect English, but you may still have trouble conveying to them exactly what the problem is with the vibrating mirror assembly is that's causing it to wobble without just showing them. That's difficult to do over email, and a conversation of that nature can take weeks, while if you're in the same office it might take hours.

I can see how the situation you are describing works in theory, but the example you are giving is weak. Every device I own has a video camera; I am sure yours do too.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#224

Post by trothamel » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:47 PM UTC

Isn't this what E-1 and E-2 visas are for?

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#225

Post by mbesto » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:47 PM UTC

mrottenkolber wrote: post #167

What I take away from the HN/Startup/Recruiting drama: * Companies don't know how find good people (they think they know how to attract them, but honestly, how can they tell? They don't notice the ones they fail to attract, which I'd argue is most people) * Companies are unable to produce (e.g. educate) good people * They want to solve their failures by increasing the search space of people I have no sympathy at all…

I've done exactly what you've suggested (and I would be confident enough to say I've done it successfully).

However, two flaws with your suggestions: time and risk. Increasing the search space of people eliminates/reduces both of these.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#226

Post by kenjackson » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:48 PM UTC

moocow01 wrote: post #79

How about Silicon Valley first working on actually optimizing the use of the current labor pool by letting in the REAL other 95% of programmers meaning ... - Anyone over 40 - Anyone who doesn't fit the profile of a 25 year old white male Until this happens in any real manner, these sort of pleas are just politics as usual for economic gain.

This is very true. Our industry has cultural issues that need to be fixed to unlock the potential out of those people who are already in this country.

PG may have a valid point down the line, but it is really not near the top of the pressing causes of labor shortage of the exceptional.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#227

Post by 23david » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:50 PM UTC

Skilled programmers are able to generate incredible economic value, and companies having difficulty hiring should consider whether they are undervaluing programmers when they set salary ranges.

It's possible to quickly test this by simply adjusting the salary ranges upwards until good candidates start accepting job offers. Believe me... it works.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#228

Post by tdicola » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:51 PM UTC

Why can't this argument be flipped on its side, if 95% of the best programmers are outside the US then why aren't the venture capitalists investing in and building companies outside the US? Surely we should see 95% of their portfolio companies are outside the US too...

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#229

Post by gaadd33 » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:51 PM UTC

petilon wrote: post #143

tsotha wrote: post #114

>The technology companies are right. What the anti-immigration people don't understand is that there is a huge variation in ability between competent programmers and exceptional ones, and while you can train people to be competent, you can't train them to be exceptional. What Paul Graham doesn't understand is hardly any of the H-1B people companies are importing are exceptional, and half of them aren't even competent…

Please read footnote [2] in Paul Graham's article. He is against the importation of low-cost programmers. He is only for the importation of exceptional programmers, regardless of where they were born.

Why don't exceptional programmers come in via the O-1 visa program? Obviously if they are exceptional it should be easy to meet the standards set by the government for the visa.

There's no limit on the number of O-1 visa's that can be issued in a year so you don't have the lottery effect that the H1B has. The downside for the company that helps their employee get it is that the visa doesn't indenture the employee to the company, so they are free to quit and find a new job at their own pace.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#230

Post by wallflower » Fri, Dec 26, 2014, 7:52 PM UTC

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #138

gaius wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, ageism.

This is so screamingly correct. Let's go see the startups hire some old COBOL (or now, VB) programmers and train them on the new stacks, before we listen to anymore of this "there's not enough programmers in the USA" garbage.

I used to be shocked at the 9-to-5 programmers. Those who code during the day and go home and (egads!) do not code on side projects. The day of the company Halloween party was always the most jarring. All these 9-to-5 programmers would bring in their kids for the parade. For one afternoon, young, naive me saw that the true meaning of life is your impact on the world. These kids were the world for their parents.

Coming back to retraining, I think some of us in the bubble lose fact of how much dedication is involved to successfully learn something new and become productive. Retraining is hard and, more importantly, not everyone wants to willingly do it.