Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry

swizec.github.io

81–90 of 250 posts

Re: Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry

#81
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tldr; turnover of visa holders vs. non-visa holders should be used as the metric more than wages. Significantly lower turnover of visa holders suggests they're being exploited since those who can quit and find another job do. But this doesn't work. For many people on H1B's the visa and greencard sponsoring has tremendous value. The do depress wages, but it's because of the risk around the visas. If you have an H1B, y…

You're less likely to get a H1B at a startup yes but it's not for the reasons you think. For a company to apply to a H1B visa they have to prove they have enough financial assets to not get bust. There are however several reasons why startups are not sponsoring H1B visas as much as they should: -It's time consuming. It really takes a lot of time, most of the immigration law firm are not startup friendly and are using…

I wonder how that affects pg's views on allowing more H1B workers. (http://www.paulgraham.com/95.html)

The H1B program doesn't really help or address the need by startups for qualified employees.

Re: Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry

#83
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is there an implicit assumption that the H1B visa program engenders fraud? A lot of H1B discussions on HN focus on fraud and avoid talking about legitimate talented foreigners because that stuff is not as interesting. H1B discussions on HN are like the crime beat in newspapers. Further, 'H1B' seems like a catchall term for hating on immigrant labor in the software industry. Here are some examples on HN that demon…

Because we have major unemployment inside of the US. We also have the highest ever rate of Computer Science graduates.[1] Those two combined make the 'need' for foreign tech workers seem very suspicious. On top of questionable need, there are other facets of the program that are obvious areas of potential abuse (employer reported prevailing wages, employer sponsorship forcing employees to stay out of the competitive…

> Those two combined make the 'need' for foreign tech workers seem very suspicious.

Anecdotally speaking, it's hard find and hire good engineers in Seattle.

Re: Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry

#84
post #54

If you know the one H1Ber in Alaska, you now know their salary.

THIS IS WHERE YOU NEED ANONYMITIZATION.

How do you retain the ability to filter and anonymize a single data point result?

Re: Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry

#87
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're less likely to get a H1B at a startup yes but it's not for the reasons you think. For a company to apply to a H1B visa they have to prove they have enough financial assets to not get bust. There are however several reasons why startups are not sponsoring H1B visas as much as they should: -It's time consuming. It really takes a lot of time, most of the immigration law firm are not startup friendly and are using…

I wonder how that affects pg's views on allowing more H1B workers. ( http://www.paulgraham.com/95.html ) The H1B program doesn't really help or address the need by startups for qualified employees.

It is actually alarming how 'anti startup' USCIS can be. Here are list of fraud indicators they released: http://www.happyschools.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/h1b-v...

Re: Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry

#88
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have known plenty of developers who may be great at coding a task but fall flat when architecting the same systems. There are often tradeoffs that must be made for business or technology purposes. These tradeoffs are generally product or engineering decisions that i would hesitate having a developer make. There are just functional differences between developing software and engineering it. The sooner the software i…

One company's developer is another company's engineer. Most companies name them one or another and don't have both positions in house. This is because they tend to do the same thing regardless of title, its more about what the company wants to call them. Edit: other than that, what you seem to be speaking of is more about experience. An experienced "developer" will have a better time at architecting a solution than a…

I have seen this at my jobs. Usually the titles are defined by HR so they can set the pay range to some sort of industry standard for that title. They often do not reflect the type of work being done to a highly specific degree. Some places are probably great at this classification of employees, but I've yet to see it personally.

Re: Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry

#89

I am an unabashed infographic fanatic, but one thing that really throws me off here is the changing scale between graphs. I think it'd be a lot easier to flip through these tabs if a) the pay scale was the same for each graphic, and b) the pixel count on the y-axis remained the same.

Similarly: placing higher values further down the page (lower) is highly unintuitive.

Re: Show HN: A histogram of salaries given to H1B workers in the software industry

#90

I'm wondering where the data came from and how accurate it it is. "In 2012 the Oregon software industry gave jobs to 38 foreign software engineers." Ok so here I am assuming you mean 38 new H1B engineers were hired in 2012. There is no way that could be true, I nearly hired and processed that many H1Bs personally in 2012. I was working with several others with similar or higher numbers. And that's just one company in…

Here is an interactive version

https://my.infocaptor.com/dash/mt.php?pa=h1b_metrics_5224efd...

Post reply on HN