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On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

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Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#21

Post by jacquesm »

wdewind wrote: post #18
sheetjs wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone who cries foul about a shortage of workers Those people generally use the phrase to mean "a shortage of workers willing to accept below-market wages and invest all of their time and energy in a company while bearing the downside risk of a entrepreneur but none of the upside."

> Those people generally use the phrase to mean "a shortage of workers willing to accept below-market wages and invest all of their time and energy in a company while bearing the downside risk of a entrepreneur but none of the upside." I agree that salaries are an issue, but I can't agree with this attitude which seems so prevalent on hacker news recently. First of all, the downside risk an entrepreneur faces is huge…

> But the reality for an entrepreneur coming out of a business is usually not super easy. Few companies are looking to hire people who ran unsuccessful businesses - the entrepreneur skillset tends to make it hard to market oneself.

That's just about 100% opposite to my experience, both firsthand and by observing others.

Why do you state this with such certainty? Keep in mind that there are huge differences from country to country about how failure is perceived. In Germany what you write might by true to some extent, but in NL it wouldn't be and in the US it would be a badge of honour and people would be more than glad to have you.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#22

Post by nitrogen »

bradleyjg wrote: post #12
jacobolus wrote: post #11

On one of the previous threads about this topic, someone suggested that accepting H1-B applicants in order from higher to lower salaries instead of based on a lottery would clear up a lot of the lottery spots that currently go to the below-market-wage-indentured-servant type shops to be used for more deserving companies and applicants. Seems like a solid change to me, without an obvious downside. (But I am not an exp…

As much as it may sometimes seem like it is, the H1-B isn't a programming or IT visa. It's applicable to a wide range of specialty occupations, across the entire nation. The suggested change would block out virtually all applicants from many other professions.

Regardless of the industry, if the H-1B is designed to allow employers to hire specialists they can't find locally, then a salary-sorted approval process should still be desirable.

Machine shops fighting over top-1% welders with deep materials science knowledge should be no different to software shops fighting over top-1% developers with deep computer science knowledge.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#23

Post by jacquesm »

This whole immigration thing sounds like an excellent opportunity for someone to put together a better way to work remotely. We're all supposed to be internet savvy, why can't we come up with something better than skype and github? Is something better even required? Why the emphasis on getting people into the country? We're selling virtual presence solutions to industry and telepresence to doctors and we're trying for surgeons. IT is the easiest job to do from a remote location. I work with people every other day that I've never even met in person and I have never visited the co-location of a large chunk of the server hardware that I've worked with over the last couple of years.

Why the accent on physical presence?

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#24

Post by bradleyjg »

nitrogen wrote: post #22
bradleyjg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as it may sometimes seem like it is, the H1-B isn't a programming or IT visa. It's applicable to a wide range of specialty occupations, across the entire nation. The suggested change would block out virtually all applicants from many other professions.

Regardless of the industry, if the H-1B is designed to allow employers to hire specialists they can't find locally, then a salary-sorted approval process should still be desirable. Machine shops fighting over top-1% welders with deep materials science knowledge should be no different to software shops fighting over top-1% developers with deep computer science knowledge.

That'd be fine if the applicant pool was first sorted by profession and geography and like compared against like. But how do you decide the distribution of visas across those sub-groups?

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#25

Post by cellis »

hw wrote: post #14

Instead of a 'shortage of workers', the situation should be more adeptly described as a 'shortage of skilled workers'. I do think there are tech workers floating around, but the really good ones are hard to come by. Extending immigration helps, but does not solve it, as only a bunch of the pool are actually good talent. Maybe immigration needs to be tweaked to help filter down the pool even more, for example, raising…

  >> would that necessarily result in higher wages for everyone else?
Unless companies like Google relocate ( to where? ) then yes, wages would absolutely rise, because they don't allow WFH [1], ergo the only engineers available would be those in the Bay Area, NYC, etc. No, they wouldn't outsource critical infrastructure to places like India or China, who hacked them. I also don't see them picking up and leaving and going to e.g. Vancouver.

I think the only way to address this "great engineer" thing without American engineers crying foul is to gasp introduce standardized testing that all the American tech companies -- who can't get the amazing talent -- agree upon and then select the 99th percentile of the candidates that pass it and pay them in the 99th percentile of wages for the bay area. This would be an objective measure and Americans wouldn't be suspicious of whatever criteria VCs/founders use to measure "great programming ability". Make the interviews and the criteria public, bring it to the light, then people would be more inclined to believe them. Right now I simply hear a bunch of hand-wavey math and see a bunch of rich people whining about how they don't have engineers to build their things. Yes, I know there are flaws with standardized tests, but it's the best of bad things.

[1] Most companies. Yahoo notoriously, but most companies aren't in favor of allowing WFH.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#26

Post by jacobolus »

bradleyjg wrote: post #24
nitrogen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the industry, if the H-1B is designed to allow employers to hire specialists they can't find locally, then a salary-sorted approval process should still be desirable. Machine shops fighting over top-1% welders with deep materials science knowledge should be no different to software shops fighting over top-1% developers with deep computer science knowledge.

That'd be fine if the applicant pool was first sorted by profession and geography and like compared against like. But how do you decide the distribution of visas across those sub-groups?

The current process has the advantage of being (somewhat) simple, but it clearly gets gamed in ways that lead to far-from-optimal outcomes.

Maybe figuring out a better alternative system would be a bit complicated, but it seems like it should be possible.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#27

Post by wdewind »

jacquesm wrote: post #21
wdewind wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those people generally use the phrase to mean "a shortage of workers willing to accept below-market wages and invest all of their time and energy in a company while bearing the downside risk of a entrepreneur but none of the upside." I agree that salaries are an issue, but I can't agree with this attitude which seems so prevalent on hacker news recently. First of all, the downside risk an entrepreneur faces is huge…

> But the reality for an entrepreneur coming out of a business is usually not super easy. Few companies are looking to hire people who ran unsuccessful businesses - the entrepreneur skillset tends to make it hard to market oneself. That's just about 100% opposite to my experience, both firsthand and by observing others. Why do you state this with such certainty? Keep in mind that there are huge differences from count…

True that I don't have any citation, like you only going off my own experience. My own experience in hiring has been that short of consultant positions ex-CEOs don't have specific enough skillsets to be put to work in many places in a company. When I have worked with them they have been unmitigated disasters.

I'm curious about your experiences because, correct me if I'm wrong, I think you were pretty successful early on in your career. I'm sure you've had failures, but having a win behind you tends to temper failures quite a bit.

Regardless, the entrepreneur will have to either change careers (go back to being a programmer - which is not difficult in this market), or negotiate successfully for much rarer positions than the programmer. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying the concept that there is a risk for entrepreneurs, and more so than their employees (at least the engineers).

Edit: And I'm curious what your thoughts on the comment I was replying to are as well.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#28

Post by blazespin »

gsibble wrote: post #16

This whole set of lies really makes me angry. Ever notice how it's only the most powerful of powerful who complain about "talent shortage"? Those who have the most to gain from reducing technology salaries? Sure, you might hear about it being a competitive market with high salaries and all, but that's what it's supposed to be! Engineering talent is in high demand and salaries are supposed to go up! If anything, they…

Agreed, it is brutal how awful the zucks and pgs of the world argue about this. What I find bizarre is aren't they aware of how dishonest / douchey they come off when they fail to mention the impact on wages?

There is a way to solve the immigration problem. Create a system where the companies can hire people if they poney up 50k. That way there will be minimal impact on salaries and companies can get all the super stars they can afford.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#29

Post by DenisM »

bradleyjg wrote: post #12
jacobolus wrote: post #11

On one of the previous threads about this topic, someone suggested that accepting H1-B applicants in order from higher to lower salaries instead of based on a lottery would clear up a lot of the lottery spots that currently go to the below-market-wage-indentured-servant type shops to be used for more deserving companies and applicants. Seems like a solid change to me, without an obvious downside. (But I am not an exp…

As much as it may sometimes seem like it is, the H1-B isn't a programming or IT visa. It's applicable to a wide range of specialty occupations, across the entire nation. The suggested change would block out virtually all applicants from many other professions.

Create separate auction pools, each for a different profession.

Re: On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs

#30

Post by [deleted] »

winter_blue wrote: post #4

A fundamental question not being answered is: Who gets to come to America ? Right now, our system massively favors immediate relatives and refugees, and only lets in a trickle of everyone else. If you are a person who wishes to move to the US, don't have relatives here, and are not a refugee -- then good luck, because you'll have a really hard time getting in. Stories of people who literally sell everything to get a…

[deleted]
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