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

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

#201

Post by klipt »

negrit wrote: post #60
JOnAgain wrote: post #34

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…

Don't forget that currently H1-B applications exceed the quota, which means you can only hire H1Bs in October, if you sponsor them the April before, if they get through the lottery (~50% chance). So your hire turns into a maybe-hire-in-six-months.

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

#202

Post by uberneo »

njx wrote: post #90
JeremyMorgan wrote: post #35

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...

Looks like Infosys is the only route to get H1B

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

#203

Post by aceperry »

balls187 wrote: post #159
ild wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on pay. For 75k - yeah, hard.

> Depends on pay. For 75k - yeah, hard. Most positions don't list salary. From my experience, it's not a problem getting candidates to accept offers, but instead get qualified candidates to extend offers to. If there aren't enough engineers with skill X, and Y years experience, willing to work for pay Z, we need to adjust one of those 4 levers.

"willing to work for pay Z"

Is 'Z' a low number compared to the average employee? If that is, maybe that's the problem?

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

#204

Post by qdog »

facepalm wrote: post #154

I wasn't aware that there is a difference between Software Developer and Software Engineer? What does the latter entail?

I'm a Software Development Engineer.

Doesn't really matter what you are called, it's what salary you negotiate for the most part. Some titles are only bestowed on certain levels of people, but there are very few of those at all the companies I've worked at (Staff Engineer at one was a title only bestowed on people who had been promoted to a certain level and had certain compensation bonuses tied to it).

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

#205

Post by aceperry »

balls187 wrote: post #162
aceperry wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, would you have to go to India to find good engineers? And if you do, what is the interview process like?

We have an office in India that is staffed by a number of exceptionally talented engineers. Locally the talent pool is shallow, as most if not all the good engineers are well taken care of by their employers (as they should be). If you're lucky you'll contact one at the right time who is looking for new opportunities. If you're a Google, Amazon, or MSFT with deep pockets then you can pay to acquire talent. For others…

Just curious, is there a larger pool of good engineers in India than available locally? If there is, that sounds like an opportunity to fulfill the promise of the H1B program. From what I understand, the body shops that import most of the H1B workers don't source the high quality employees that employers are demanding here.

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

#206

Post by lsaferite »

nashashmi wrote: post #188
lsaferite wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

you remove the data entirely and lump it into "other". I guess states or entities with less than 5 occurrences should be categorized as other.

5 seems fairly arbitrary. If all 5 are almost the same then you are back in the same boat, no? If all data points for a given filter are substantially the same you still run into the same issue.

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

#207

Post by balls187 »

aceperry wrote: post #205
balls187 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an office in India that is staffed by a number of exceptionally talented engineers. Locally the talent pool is shallow, as most if not all the good engineers are well taken care of by their employers (as they should be). If you're lucky you'll contact one at the right time who is looking for new opportunities. If you're a Google, Amazon, or MSFT with deep pockets then you can pay to acquire talent. For others…

Just curious, is there a larger pool of good engineers in India than available locally? If there is, that sounds like an opportunity to fulfill the promise of the H1B program. From what I understand, the body shops that import most of the H1B workers don't source the high quality employees that employers are demanding here.

> From what I understand, the body shops that import most of the H1B workers don't source the high quality employees that employers are demanding here.

Have data to back up that statement?

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

#208

Post by gutnor »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #166
emcrazyone wrote: post #107

I own a company that specializes in hiring H1Bs and placing them into contract roles. The data doesn't look very accurate. For one thing, this data doesn't appear to represent what companies pay. I usually get bill rates up around $100/hr to $150/hr depending on skill and location. Like New York has higher cost of living than Michigan so I can often pull a higher bill rate. The payout to the H1B is works out to be $6…

So you're one of the companies giving H1-B a bad name by abusing it for cheap labor and taking money out of the foreigner's pockets then?

Presumably he also offers the applicant some sort of stability ?

Without a middleman, the H1B holder is very tied to its employer and has a difficult time changing job or bouncing back after being laid off. A middleman could smooth that out, by keeping the employee a bit longer on the payroll until they find another contract. I know people using those kind of services in the UK.

Also if you are a permanent employee with good benefits, getting a quarter of what your company sell you for is not bad.

Anyway, that's a lot of "if", I agree.

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

#209

Post by jacalata »

balls187 wrote: post #159
ild wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on pay. For 75k - yeah, hard.

> Depends on pay. For 75k - yeah, hard. Most positions don't list salary. From my experience, it's not a problem getting candidates to accept offers, but instead get qualified candidates to extend offers to. If there aren't enough engineers with skill X, and Y years experience, willing to work for pay Z, we need to adjust one of those 4 levers.

I have personally turned down offers in Seattle for being too low, as have other engineers I know. These days I would have to be very excited about a position to bother responding if it didn't list salary, because my assumption is that it's too low to list - so "we don't list the salary" is not necessarily the same as "we know that our salary isn't what's limiting our applicant pool".

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

#210

Post by jacalata »

aceperry wrote: post #203
balls187 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Depends on pay. For 75k - yeah, hard. Most positions don't list salary. From my experience, it's not a problem getting candidates to accept offers, but instead get qualified candidates to extend offers to. If there aren't enough engineers with skill X, and Y years experience, willing to work for pay Z, we need to adjust one of those 4 levers.

"willing to work for pay Z" Is 'Z' a low number compared to the average employee? If that is, maybe that's the problem?

Indeed, if 'Z' is not lower than average, then they shouldn't be having so much trouble. And if it is lower, then that is exactly the H1B fraud people are complaining about in this thread - paying below the prevailing wage.
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