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Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

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Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#71

Post by davidw »

tokenadult wrote: post #59
davidw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the United States already receives more net immigrants from all the rest of the world than any other country on earth In terms of absolute numbers, yes. In terms of percentages, no: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migrat... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-bo... > To make a strong policy case for immigration reform takes a more nuanced and tightly reasoned factual argu…

The other countries with higher intake (as a percentage of national population) of migrants or of foreign-born persons, as you can see from the Wikipedia links you have kindly shared, are mostly special cases of countries with a very high percentage of refugees or guest workers. For countries accepting permanent residents with a path to citizenship, the United States still ranks plenty high on a percentage basis, and…

> mostly special cases of countries with a very high percentage of refugees or guest workers.

Yes, there are certainly plenty of those (and there are some arguments in favor of that, too: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120179/how-reduce-global-... )

But there are also others, like Sweden, Canada, Norway, Australia and Spain (and even Italy) that are broadly similar to the US - and in most cases offer much more in terms of government benefits.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#72

Post by big_astrocyte »

I'm not sure if I want to see any particular country progress as much as I want to see tech and the world at large progress. I also agree with the fact that when a lot of people skilled in one particular domain gather at one place, amazing things happen!! But would a small area 100% full of programmers be better or worse than something like SV? At what point does the innovative progress being produced by a city start to plateau? 25% full of high earning programmers, 50% full of high earning programmers, 75% full of high earning programmers?

The point that I'm trying to make is that, without a lot of empirical evidence, I think it would be a much better idea to try and create more such centers across the world. Thus, for those focusing strictly on tech progress (as opposed to American progress) it might be a better idea to let the US immigration laws be the way they are, while encouraging VCs to travel a bit more (even to other American cities, for starters) and helping the amazing culture travel to other cities. I can't understand why we focus on one particular country instead of combined innovation of the world!

The future doesn't lie in Silicon Valley being 100% full of programmers from across the world. It is just not big enough!! The future lies in a 1000 silicon valleys having a certain threshold of programmers. Just a thought.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#73

Post by davidw »

patio11 wrote: post #57
abalone wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems highly improbable that cash-based Wall Street compensation packages could be offered by Silicon Valley startups. Maybe established companies could, but it would massively increase the fundraising requirements for early stage companies, with probably bad effects on the SV ecosystem. Perhaps you can argue that startup equity grants should be higher. Would hiring issues be resolved if the average equity grant t…

"That totally blows out my business model!" may be true [+], but is not an objection which should escape the lips of someone who has the word "capitalist" literally in their job title. [+] I'm agnostic on this. Pinterest just raised, what, $450 million dollars? That's presumably not intended to buy the world's biggest vat of chocolate pudding.

Out of curiosity, what are programmer salaries like in Japan, and how is immigration there?

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#74

Post by hawkice »

mgkimsal wrote: post #69
abalone wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems highly improbable that cash-based Wall Street compensation packages could be offered by Silicon Valley startups. Maybe established companies could, but it would massively increase the fundraising requirements for early stage companies, with probably bad effects on the SV ecosystem. Perhaps you can argue that startup equity grants should be higher. Would hiring issues be resolved if the average equity grant t…

> It seems highly improbable that cash-based Wall Street compensation packages could be offered by Silicon Valley startups. Maybe this would force VC companies to be more selective in who they fund, vs "fund 100 and hope for 1 to be the next google".

A first approximation would suggest doubling programming salaries would only change their strategies from "fund 100 and hope for 1 to be good" to "fund 50 and hope for 1 to be good". More selective, sure, but not game-changingly so.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#75

Post by geebee »

encoderer wrote: post #64
ryanSrich wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $120k base plus an equity grant with expected value in the $X0k range. Or not even $120k. You'd be surprised at what some SV companies get away with. Take a look at angel list and you'll commonly see wages lower than $100k for experienced developers. I'd say the only epidemic that exists in the US's technology field is a lack of adequate compensation, not a lack of talent.

Using job ads to gauge market salaries will leave you at a disadvantage. There aren't many engineers in the bay area taking work today at $100k or below. Those that are are usually right out of school, or working for a cause they believe in.

It's very hard to get real data, so I can't really fault you for the lack of a good cite. However, it's not like the companies claiming a shortage are exactly forthcoming with the data themselves. Here's a pretty eye-opening story about a journalist and professor trying to get good data to study the issue

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/09/20/profs-immigr...

I find it remarkable that people make claims of shortages without sharing information about the skill set they need and the compensation they're offering. Well, I don't find it remarkable, in the sense that I don't find PR-speak especially surprising anymore. I guess I should say I find it galling.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#76

Post by peterchon »

bilbo0s wrote: post #31
peterchon wrote: post #12

I'm an immigrant, served in USMC, after service had to pay and take a test to become a citizen (funny right? can die for the country but won't let me be a citizen). I love my country(both), but when did immigration become something to benefit the corporations?

I'm a bit confused by your question ??? Immigration, at the root, has always been about economic necessity in North America. Why would it be any different now ?

Maybe I'm just naive. But I'd like to think that immigration is for a greater cause than for companies to make more money.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#77

Post by [deleted] »

palakchokshi wrote: post #9
31reasons wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not zero-sum ? companies like Google, Facebook pick 1 out of 100 programmers, if there was 10 fold increase in programmers, they would start picking 1 out of 1000. Instead of complaining shortage of programmer it makes sense to build software development processes around "average" programmers rather than insisting on superstar programmers. How many other fields do that ? Have you read an ad about hiring only su…

Angie's List does explicitly that, showing you superstar plumbers, electricians, doctors, etc. If I am given the choice to hire a great plumber vs. an average plumber I would always hire a great plumber if I can afford him. Your argument that development processes should be built around average programmers is like saying open heart surgical procedures should be designed around average surgeons.

[deleted]

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#78

Post by tptacek »

pen2l wrote: post #66
tokenadult wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pity your thoughtful comment is losing visibility as the submitted story has been flagged off the front page.

Sadly, it hasn't truly been "flagged off", it was done by the volition (or rather, the acquiescence of HN mods). This has happened for almost every immigration-related submission critical of pg's point-of-view. When you call them out for this, they go back to the excuse "the users voted it off!" But that's not really a good response, since they do routinely take the initiative of bringing to life stories that were vo…

That's a rather inflammatory claim to make without a lick of evidence, and attributes a whole lot of agency in story selection to a person who appears to have no current involvement with HN whatsoever.

It's also a drive-by from an anonymous throwaway account.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#79

Post by kasey_junk »

encoderer wrote: post #68
vasilipupkin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. Generally, there is no shortage of tech resumes on Wall Street - because wages are higher.

Also because there are fewer choices in NYC than engineers have in the SF Bay Area.

Citation needed for this. The New York metro area has more than 2x the population of the Bay Area and an extremely diverse economic base. That makes claims about availability of choice being limited in NYC in comparison to SF pretty hard to believe.

Re: Immigration to increase the supply of programmers

#80

Post by pen2l »

tptacek wrote: post #78
pen2l wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it hasn't truly been "flagged off", it was done by the volition (or rather, the acquiescence of HN mods). This has happened for almost every immigration-related submission critical of pg's point-of-view. When you call them out for this, they go back to the excuse "the users voted it off!" But that's not really a good response, since they do routinely take the initiative of bringing to life stories that were vo…

That's a rather inflammatory claim to make without a lick of evidence, and attributes a whole lot of agency in story selection to a person who appears to have no current involvement with HN whatsoever. It's also a drive-by from an anonymous throwaway account.

I would back up my claims with evidence other than my stated observations if HN software wasn't so opaque. And anyway, the burden of proof falls upon the party with the pertinent pattern of the acts which they are being accused of. HN often slowbans folks who don't toe the line (michaelochurch, larrys, rayiner (rayiner was rankbanned precisely because of disagreeing with pg on the immigration issue), etc., as well as manipulates ranking of comments to put YC-funded startups in a positive light. Considering all of this, I'm fine making the accusation, YC-staff has to defend this with solid evidence. Anyway, to be clear, I'm not accusing pg, or really anyone particular of doing anything -- I'm saying HN mods (whoever they may be) are behind this story falling off from #1 to not being on the frontpage in a matter of a minute.
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