On Immigration, Engineers Simply Don’t Trust VCs • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by pm24601 » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 9:47 AM UTC

cbsmith wrote: post #58

curiousDog wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be nice if someone extrapolated how the wages would look like today if the H1-B program wasn't put into place. Would programmers be making WallStreet salaries? How would that have impacted the start-up ecosystem? Also, numerous H1-Bs are the core of companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook etc. How would things have looked without any of them?

There is a very reasonable case to be made that H1-B's in particular actually push domestic salaries up at the expense of foreign salaries.

No there isn't. H1-B workers can't leave their current employer easily. (green card applications go to back of the line, must get a new job fast if they are laid-off, etc.)

H1-B employees are not mobile thus their salaries lack other workers.

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

#162

Post by raverbashing » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 9:52 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #139

minthd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time zone issue can be solved easily.find a south american country that is immigration friendly and open an office their ,recruiting from all over the world.

Why not Canada?

A lot of companies do that already

However, it's not as simple as it seems, you think "let's send everybody to Canada and then grow our offices there with all the foreigners we want" but that doesn't happen and you wonder why.

Maybe they don't want to outgrow their main offices, or maybe it's got to do with Canadian work culture

I've seen people being "parked" in Ireland before applying for their H1B

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

#163

Post by MrDom » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 9:54 AM UTC

sanxiyn wrote: post #139

minthd wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time zone issue can be solved easily.find a south american country that is immigration friendly and open an office their ,recruiting from all over the world.

Why not Canada?

Snow.

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

#164

Post by waterlesscloud » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 9:58 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #162

sanxiyn wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not Canada?

A lot of companies do that already However, it's not as simple as it seems, you think "let's send everybody to Canada and then grow our offices there with all the foreigners we want" but that doesn't happen and you wonder why. Maybe they don't want to outgrow their main offices, or maybe it's got to do with Canadian work culture I've seen people being "parked" in Ireland before applying for their H1B

It seems to be quite common with movie visual effects companies. And the Toronto or Vancouver offices are often bigger than the LA staffs.

Of course, that industry is being priced down to survival levels.

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

#165

Post by greenyoda » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 9:58 AM UTC

morgante wrote: post #141

kmonsen wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

150k is pretty bad for a senior dev in NYC fyi. Perhaps you have answered your own question. Banks will pay at least 2x more and large tech companies closer to that than what you are offering. Note I'm not talking about truly great developers, merely good senior ones.

I'm not sure I agree, especially when you factor in substantial equity. We have interviewed numerous people from banks and large tech companies and our salaries certainly don't seem out of whack. For reference, $150k is right on target according to AngelList data: https://angel.co/salaries

"especially when you factor in substantial equity"

Unless your company ends up being the next Google or Facebook (which is a statistically unlikely outcome for any startup), your "substantial equity" may never be worth any significant amount of money. Living in NYC is expensive, and you can't pay your rent with stock options.

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

#166

Post by morgante » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 10:03 AM UTC

minthd wrote: post #155

morgante wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Given that nobody's turned an offer down, there's something that your job postings are missing that people are learning during the interview process. You are quite correct—I haven't yet figured out how to convey the interesting product/technical challenges we're working on in a mass way: especially not well enough to overcome must developers instinctual reaction to "publishing." If you have a minute, I would love t…

A cynical man would read your salary offer(for lead developer) - " As we haven't taken any outside funding, we can offer you meaningful equity with a competitive salary." as: not-so-good salary , with promises of getting rich on a startup that wasn't even able to convince investors.

Heh, interesting read. Maybe I should adjust. I meant to imply that our equity is sizable (because we're still early-stage) while our salary is still competitive with later-stage startups (our founder is self-funding off his last $545M exit).

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

#167

Post by morgante » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 10:05 AM UTC

napperjabber wrote: post #153

mkozlows wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the thing is, I share your general opinion -- there is a legit shortage of talented developers, and it's hard to find them. BUT: I guarantee you that there is in fact a wage and benefits package you can offer that would get you more good applicants. Maybe it's more money (sure, "above market" is nice, but I'm not going to leave a job for $5K more than my "market" rate -- but for $50K more, well, let's talk). Maybe…

This is what I'm running into right now. Our CEO will not buy health insurance or computers for Dev. In a second breath, he gloats about paying people damn near nothing because they 'want to work in the industry.'

Where are you based? It seems absurd to not buy (great) computers for developers, at least by NYC startup standards.

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

#168

Post by minthd » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 10:10 AM UTC

morgante wrote: post #166

minthd wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cynical man would read your salary offer(for lead developer) - " As we haven't taken any outside funding, we can offer you meaningful equity with a competitive salary." as: not-so-good salary , with promises of getting rich on a startup that wasn't even able to convince investors.

Heh, interesting read. Maybe I should adjust. I meant to imply that our equity is sizable (because we're still early-stage) while our salary is still competitive with later-stage startups (our founder is self-funding off his last $545M exit).

If you add the last part about $545M, things would sure look different. :)

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

#169

Post by morgante » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 10:10 AM UTC

pm24601 wrote: post #157

morgante wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Training is part of the solution, but I truthfully don't think that can be driven by startups. We might not even be around years from now to receive the rewards from our investment in junior developers. More practically, I wouldn't feel right hiring junior developers when I don't think we'd be giving them the best training given our current staffing levels and product needs. Since we already have too few senior devs,…

This is nonsense. I am part of a 5 person company and we do training in the form of mentoring, helping each other, etc. Training is a benefit - not a cost.

We of course help each other, but bringing on a junior developer is absolutely considered an investment. There is a tangible decrease in the amount of time senior developers have available for other tasks, not to mention the cost of any off-site training we might invest in.

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

#170

Post by morgante » Sun, Dec 28, 2014, 10:16 AM UTC

pm24601 wrote: post #143

morgante wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, I agree with most commentators on HN that if there were actually a shortage we'd expect to see salaries rising. Yet, in practice, it does seem that there's simply an absolute shortage of experienced developers. I've been hiring developers at my job for most of the past year, yet we have never had an offer turned down. Rather, we see only a trickle of applicants, very few of whom are event remotely quali…

I suggest looking outside of NYC for a developer that would be willing to move to NYC. In Silicon Valley, the talent pool is very picked over. I suggest to anyone in SV to look outside the immediate area. Post ads in Kansas or Michigan. Some place where getting paid a NYC salary seems great. You have to get creative. Even if there was a dramatic increase in engineers - there is no guarantee that they would be interes…

Thanks for the feedback! We do actively recruit outside the NYC area, but could probably ramp this up somewhat (admittedly, recruiting is not my favorite part of the job).

We avoided listing our tech stack because people frequently read it as a requirement, but I think you're right. Will add it soon.

We aggressively recruit on LinkedIn, GitHub, Stack Overflow, and AngelList, but the majority of our qualified applicants have actually come through my network and Hacker News. I'm trying to expand this though, particularly because I want to avoid building a mirror image engineering team (young, white, males in their 20s).