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

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#611

Post by seanmcdirmid » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 7:50 PM UTC

Amezarak wrote: post #581

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately it's a world market for labor at the top end. Barring artificial distortions (immigration/emigration restrictions), people will move to where they can get the best deal; since good Chinese programmers can immigrate to the states, it puts a floor on Chinese salaries, the same is true in India actually. It is a whole different game for soso programmers. If you want a soso programmer in China, they will be mu…

> Barring artificial distortions (immigration/emigration restrictions), people will move to where they can get the best deal; No, they won't. Many people value staying near home more than they value additional salary. That's especially true for people who'd have to move house thousands of miles into a new culture, but it's true even of people within the US.

There is some of that, but not when wages are a magnitude off. If I can only make $50k in saint Louis and $150k in SF, there is huge pressure to move and start climbing the ladder. The programmer making $20k in Bangalore will move to the Bay area to add an extra zero to the end of their salary if they have the ability.

This mobility checks salary bottoms for those who do want to stay (e.g. for the market I'm in over in China).

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#612

Post by Amadou » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 8:09 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #539

curun1r wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have bands, but they can be pretty wide...the top of the band is easily 125% of the bottom. And managers are only limited by the top of the band when extending an offer. And some of the salaries listed on that site are below band. We also get salaries below band through acquisitions. In those cases, managers aren't really given leeway to get their salaries up to market. We've go a mostly-fixed pool of raises to ap…

If this is overwhelming behavior, Department of Labor can crack down on the company for not paying the "prevailing" wage. If the offers do tend to be around the bottom of the band, but there's also a good supply of non-immigrant employees working at the bottom of the band then yeah, the company will have an easy argument saying the prevailing wage is closer to the bottom of the band.

> Department of Labor can crack down on the company for not paying the "prevailing" wage.

That is technically true, but effectively impossible. The DoL simply does not pursue H1B abuses. They do not have the political will nor the budget to even look for them.

There is literally zero budget allocated to "prevailing wage" enforcement. That is a deliberate oversight by congress and has been that way for the 20+ years I've been observing the H1B process. To the best of my knowledge the DoL has only twice ever initiated action for H1B prevailing wage violations and in both cases it was the result of a disgruntled employee tipping them off to a series of violations that were so egregious that the political fallout of ignoring them would have gotten senior bureaucrats fired.

You might also want to read up on how classifications are gamed in order to work around even the very minor risk of prevailing wage violations.

http://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know-...

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#613

Post by Amezarak » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 8:31 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #611

Amezarak wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Barring artificial distortions (immigration/emigration restrictions), people will move to where they can get the best deal; No, they won't. Many people value staying near home more than they value additional salary. That's especially true for people who'd have to move house thousands of miles into a new culture, but it's true even of people within the US.

There is some of that, but not when wages are a magnitude off. If I can only make $50k in saint Louis and $150k in SF, there is huge pressure to move and start climbing the ladder. The programmer making $20k in Bangalore will move to the Bay area to add an extra zero to the end of their salary if they have the ability. This mobility checks salary bottoms for those who do want to stay (e.g. for the market I'm in over…

There certainly is some pressure, but be careful not to overestimate it. Most programmers are not in Silicon Valley and feel no pressure to be even though they would make much more money. And this isn't even about "great" programmers versus competent programmers.

I'm one of them. If you can excuse my lack of humility, I am a great programmer. I've been described by management and teammembers regularly as a rock star. I could easily make 10x the salary were I to move to SV.

I have zero desire to and I've never felt like I was missing anything. Out of my graduating class, only one guy moved to California - in fact, he's the only guy I know of at all who moved to California. I know at least a dozen "great" programmers who live here quite happily.

Of course the extra money is an incentive and there obviously has been and is an influx of programmers to Silicon Valley and the surrounding area. But the wage impact (in terms of setting floors) of the migration is pretty minimal relative to other effects. That's why there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of programmers worldwide, including very close to the full 5% of "great" programmers from those areas, that are working for what you and I would consider garbage wages.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#614

Post by dang » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 8:49 PM UTC

aceperry wrote: post #563

dang wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems to miss my point, which is not about immigration, but about the quality of discussion on Hacker News.

dang, what can I say, you seem to have missed my point. You're criticizing the way people have responded to pg's post. While that may be valid, you fail to criticize pg's 'quality' of writing, which can also be considered inflammatory. How about a little balance here?

I think that would be a mistake. There's a reason why the Principle of Charity doesn't add "except when you feel provoked". It's a human bias to always feel like the other person started it and did worse, was more provocative, etc.—so a principle which said "just do better than the other person" (or, to translate into the present terms, "just don't be as low-quality as you feel the article is") would never get applied at all.

So no, the onus is on all of us to contribute substantively even in response to something we consider unsubstantive. When we can't do that, posting nothing is a fine option.

The reason we're considering adding the Principle of Charity to the HN guidelines is that it gives practical guidance on how to comment substantively, which is what HN has always called for. I'm racking my brains trying to think of why anyone would object to having this rule, and so far haven't found a good reason.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#615

Post by aceperry » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 11:20 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #614

aceperry wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dang, what can I say, you seem to have missed my point. You're criticizing the way people have responded to pg's post. While that may be valid, you fail to criticize pg's 'quality' of writing, which can also be considered inflammatory. How about a little balance here?

I think that would be a mistake. There's a reason why the Principle of Charity doesn't add "except when you feel provoked". It's a human bias to always feel like the other person started it and did worse, was more provocative, etc.—so a principle which said "just do better than the other person" (or, to translate into the present terms, "just don't be as low-quality as you feel the article is") would never get applie…

dang, as many others have pointed out very well, pg's post contains "low quality," and in my view inflammatory comments. You refuse to call him out on it, not a peep at all. Instead, you call out others for responding in disagreement. Would you apply the "Principle of Charity" to the remarks of those that you think to be low quality? If not, can you justify why the "Principle of Charity" should not apply to pg but to everyone else who disagrees with him?

You say, "the onus is on all of us to contribute substantively even in response to something we consider unsubstantive." How about the responsibility of the original poster? Is it acceptable to write that way? Can he be legitimately criticized for that? If you don't accept that, then you've created an unfair situation.

(regarding your refusal to criticize pg) "I think that would be a mistake" The real mistake is the way you try to shut down dissent by painting it as "uncharitable" or misguided/mistaken. Can you point out the many examples of "much of this thread is of low quality" ? I don't think you can make that case, because it seems that you disagree with the opinions more than anything else.

Some of the dissenting opinions are passionate. And there is nothing wrong with that. Just look at pg's original post, there is a lot of passion there. I would suggest that you be an adult and understand that there are controversial topics which will cause passionate discussion. It makes no sense to a accuse everyone of being wrong in their interpretation and to scold them as if they're children. Just read the comments and you'll see that a lot of people here have unique knowledge and understanding of the topic. Your point is incorrect, and adds nothing to this very important (and passionate) subject.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#616

Post by gdwatson » Sat, Dec 27, 2014, 11:22 PM UTC

Shish2k wrote: post #242

buro9 wrote: post #44

There is more than immigration in the way of non-US programmers moving to the US: 1) Immigration 1) Health care 3) Living standards (some part cost of rent, some part accessible lifestyle, some part relationships and future plans, etc) I'm a London programmer and yes immigration is an issue, but health care (for themselves and their partner) is joint #1 on that front. It's hard not to look on US healthcare as being t…

This. I was offered a job at a top-10 US tech company, which would have been a massive pay and career boost, and turned it down largely because the US seems so screwed up (politics and healthcare being prime examples). (They then offered me pretty much the same job, but working in their European office, so win/win :D )

I hope you're making those judgments on a broader set of sources than HN and its ilk. HN has smart users, but there are big sampling biases in more areas than just intelligence.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#617

Post by cottonseed » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 12:32 AM UTC

yellow_and_gray wrote: post #603

cottonseed wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. How is this not the top comment? The story that it is about talent and not about wages is terribly convenient for an industry that has shown it is willing to flagrantly violate the law to drive down engineer wages.

Because it's incorrect. Maybe it is about wages for companies that don't understand there's huge variance in productivity of programmers. But it is about talent and not wages for companies that do. You do have a valid argument that when you increase supply prices drop. But they drop in proportion to the supply. It would be nice if one could estimate the total number of those great programmers, and then calculate what…

It can only be about wages. That's supply and demand. If more people are fighting over fewer programmers, that means they just have to pay more to get them. If pay is not an issue, then you'll get them.

If some companies don't appreciate the variance in programmers, either they have no excellent ones (because they wouldn't be willing to pay the price premium for a trait they can't see), or, more likely, they are lots of undervalued programmers out there you can hire if you can find them and you're willing to pay them more.

I don't see what you're getting at about the number of great programmers.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#618

Post by zodiac » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 4:05 AM UTC

kohanz wrote: post #5

There exists no practical, reliable method to identify the "great" programmers from the rest (other than by employing them or working with them over a significant amount of time). Many of them interview poorly. If you could actually identify these people, you'd have a billion dollar idea. So that implies that in order to grant entry to the "great" programmers, the door needs to be wide open to everyone. I'm not sayin…

You could, for example, grant entry to programmers whose sponsors would be willing to pay very high salaries for them. Sure, you end up with false negatives (there are some great programmers who for some reason wouldn't be able to command those salaries), but hopefully it's not high enough to matter.

Eg: 5% of great developers are in the US and 95% are outside. Assuming we have a false negative rate of 50% (a great programmer has a 50% chance of not being recognized as one), the policy would potentially let 47.5% of great developers in, which would potentially increase the number of great developers in the US by about 10x. The actual increase will be lower because not all of them will want to work in the US.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#619

Post by amerliore » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 4:31 AM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #609

amerliore wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When supply goes up price goes down. Logic 101 says that H1-B immigrants lower "the local market salary".

Therefore we shouldn't allow in immigrants? By that logic we should close down our schools too, those new graduates are also lowering salaries. Another thing that would lower salaries is the movement of the jobs themselves. If companies can't get enough workers here, at affordable salaries, they'll just move to a country that likes immigration, like Canada. In fact, this has already started: http://www.businessweek.c…

We already bring in 1,200,000 immigrants per year.

Limiting the number of new graduates is exactly what doctors and engineers have done to keep their wages high.

Only a fool would destroy his own livelihood. VCs would never, ever support a policy that would threaten their oligopoly on the good deals, for example.

Don't be a sucker. No one is looking out for tech workers but ourselves.

P.S. If these companies can successfully relocate to Vancouver it totally torpedoes the VC-sponsored idea that San Francisco is somehow essential. Limiting all the jobs to one city is NOT good for tech workers. Silicon Valley is not a good place to make money because the cost of living is stupid. I would go so far to say that the Silicon Valley anti-density and anti-development culture and government make Silicon Valley a shit place to start a company, and companies should be moving.

I would rather work in Vancouver or San Diego or most any other urban center than get raped by rent-seeking landowners in SV.

Re: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In

#620

Post by ryanSrich » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 5:45 AM UTC

tolmasky wrote: post #311

voidlogic wrote: post #297

IMHO the real issue isn't that they many companies can't find great programmers, its that they only want great programmers who live in their locality. For many (most?) startups in the valley, if you aren't living in the greater SFO area, or willing to relocate there, they are not interested. They are dinosaurs living in the past, fighting distributed collaboration. (Which is ironic as they are technology companies).…

Warning, anecdotal data ahead: I would not want to work under remote conditions again. In my career I have worked mainly under "startup conditions". At Apple on iPhone, everyone lived in the same place and worked non stop on the product, same as when I left to start a company. On my second company, I had many remote workers. The reality I experienced is that there was at least a 2-3x slowdown. When people are on diff…

I'm not sure when you worked remotely but I can tell you remote work in 2014 is much much different. First off, using email internally for communication makes no sense. If you're a truly distributed team[1] you use teamspeak, or hangouts, or slack, or IRC, or anything other than email.

Second there are no radically different timezones within the US. If you're on the east coast you work most days from 10 - 6, if you're on the west coast you work most days from 7 - 3.

Third if you're working on something pressing with your distributed team you schedule some time together to work later. If you're on the east coast you may have some nights during a sprint where you're wrapping up at 9pm or 10pm.

Fourth no matter where your team is located if you have members in different US (or even international) timezones you want at least 4 hours during the day spent together (employees are really only performing at the top of their game for a fraction of the day anyway [2]).

[1] A truly distributed team is one that supports remote workers via communication and culture as much as they do their local employees.

[2] http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/crunch...