Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#191

Post by moftz » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:33 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #118

yummyfajitas wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up another reason why 90% of applications might be rejected: false negatives. Consider a hiring filter which rejects 90% of good applicants and 99% of bad applicants. In such a world, consider a population of 10 good applicants. These 10 applicants will go on 100 interviews, be rejected on 90 of them and each will find a job. So in this world where every applicant finds a job , you still get 9/10 applicatio…

I've come to accept that I'm no good at whiteboard interviews. The only way I can get hired nowadays is either via a personal referral and/or an employer so desperate (or serious enough about hiring someone in a reasonable time-frame) that they short-circuit their interview process and skip the whole whiteboard hazing process. For my current job, I had a total of 2 phone conversations (first with a recruiter, second…

I'd love to have an interview where I got to show off what I know with some whiteboard problems. Every interview I've ever had usually goes like "So tell us about the kind of projects you've done in school or on your own." I don't have any huge personal projects, just a million little ones and for the most part, my school projects have been very uninteresting and not 100% towards the interests I have. I end up sounding pretty dull and lazy. If I was given some whiteboard problems, I would at least be able to show off what I know rather than just talking about it. In interviews, I'm always afraid of sounding like I'm bullshitting something when I'm not an expert in something but know enough to carry a conversation about the subject. The job I got hired for, the skills they were looking for were things I've done as a hobby in my spare time. I was surprised they offered me the job since I figured there had to be a bunch of masters grads out there much more qualified than me. Now I sit here and feel like I'm maybe a bit too underqualified for the job. It's going to take a bit of time just getting up to the knowledge level that I think they were expecting me to have. If I had some whiteboard-style questions during the interview, maybe I would have gotten weeded out. Maybe they really are looking for someone of my experience. I'm really not 100% sure but I'm not about to tip my hand and be branded as a bullshitter. I really do like the job and the projects they already have me working on are way cooler than I'd ever imagine. But I wish I was a bit more prepared for the level of knowledge required before coming in here.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#192

Post by Existenceblinks » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

RestlessMind wrote: post #146

yummyfajitas wrote: post #22

I'll just suggest that it's probably a great time for tech companies to open a Bangalore or Gurgaon office. Bangalore in particular is a good choice - the people are smart, the infrastructure is good, and it's a very pleasant place to visit. Perfect weather all year and the best breakfast in India. Also a very strong tech culture; second in the world to SF, in my view, and without many of the social pathologies [1] t…

I respectfully disagree about Bangalore / Gurgaon office. The time difference between west coast and Bangalore is 13.5hrs now (or 12.5hrs for ~8 months). That makes it very hard to have even meetings, let alone meaningful collaboration. Even 7am in SF means its 8:30pm in Bangalore (or 7:30am in Bangalore means its 6pm in SF). With east coast, time difference is still 9.5hrs vs 10.5 hrs - only slightly better. Source:…

As a remote worker based in Thailand had worked with guys in CA (14 hrs difference) for almost 2 years. It is true that life style and physical body got seriously affected.

My regular meeting time is 1-2am, paring with designers at 5-6am sometimes. Always not sure when to sleep during daylight, eating time messed up. Biological cells never get used to it. Anyway, I love my team.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#193

Post by myf01d » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:34 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #181

MrZongle2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm sure that won't stop many "enlightened" individuals from lecturing you. Unfortunately.

The flu kills more people every week than "radical Islam" has killed in the last decade; but yes, keep telling us how much of an existential threat to Western civilization it is. Us "enlightened individuals" are lecturing you because you are terrible at evaluating risk and are afraid of your own shadow.

The flu also killed more people than the Jews killed by Hitler during that time. High blood pressure killed more than the two combined. Nice logic you've got here.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#194

Post by antisthenes » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #32

at-fates-hands wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There is no way SV would have grown to what it is now without foreign talent. So the shortage has been real for the last 30+ years. Not sure why this point is still controversial. Mainly because we have over 7 million people unemployed. The controversy is why are we bringing in so many foreign workers when we have so many people out of work here? The argument basically comes down to what would we need to do to get…

Realistically, most of our 7 million unemployed are unemployed by choice. They are unwilling to do many jobs they perceive as being "below their station" and they are unwilling to move to places where the jobs are. We need to import a better working class to pay for our leisure class since pushing our leisure class into work is considered socially unacceptable. Here's a great first person account of this: http://www.…

Realistically, the only thing in support of a ridiculous statement like "most of our 7 million unemployed are unemployed by choice" is that one article, where a person, for multiple reasons not explicitly stated in the article might not want to take a certain demanding manual labor job.

I would suggest coming up with better arguments for the debunked supply side economics you're trying to push.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#195

Post by ehosca » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

just make the H1-B visa transportable (not tied to an employer) and the problem fixes itself.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#196

Post by Bartweiss » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

Existenceblinks wrote: post #161

Bartweiss wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is a “talent shortage” among Americans I see a bait and switch conducted here all the time, where thinkpiece writers will count up the number of annual graduates in Computer Science (or sometimes Information Technology in general), subtract the number of new software jobs per year, and conclude that we have massive overproduction of programmers. This is obviously stupid, but I keep seeing it. It ignores CS gr…

> implication that any CS graduate can fill any software job regardless of specialization, experience, or interest. Your basic calculation is still right although I'd add more numbers to the opposite site. "Potential graduates" with or without CS can potentially enter to any software sector, or even hardware. Though this is just a small factor.

This is a good point. Lots of these 'calculations' neglect bootcamp or self-taught programmers, electrical/computer engineers who end up in software, and a lot of other grey-area work like embedded systems programming. The calculations are sloppy enough that I ignore them, but I'm not sure what the total weight of the errors ends up being.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#197

Post by wnevets » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

rhapsodic wrote: post #176

wnevets wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link that isn't extremely partisan political commentary? The reality is even without Obama's CPP coal is dying world wide, between china pouring billions into clean energy and the natural gas boom in the states coal can't compete.

>Do you have a link that isn't extremely partisan political commentary? It was the first result in a google search for [obama coal fired power plant]. I was just looking for that quote, and I found it. If you think additional context will refute my point, feel free to provide it.

I did provide it, attempting to kill an industry that is already dying is hardly acting tough on that industry

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#198

Post by valuearb » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

davidf18 wrote: post #183

t1o5 wrote: post #29

ex H1B here. Yes Trump is right.(though I do not like him personally, he is right in this matter) Most of the corporate America is exploiting H1B workers. I have worked in one of those firms and I have friends in many other firms. These are not Indian body shops, these are American companies. Everyone's topic of discussion when we hangout is how our H1B visas were being exploited and there is nothing we could do abou…

Of all of the political candidates, only Trump and Sanders spoke out against H1-B visa abuse used to depress wages. (Former) Presidential Candidate Senator Marco Rubio of Florida wanted to triple the number of H1-B visas to 250,000 from 85,000 and accepted $2 million donation from Disney. Disney of Florida had recently replaced 250 US IT workers with foreigners on H1-B. Trump especially spoke out against this move. C…

The "depressing wages" point is dumb. These engineers will still be part of the labor pool, they'll just be doing work for our foreign competitors. And HP can still hire them, do you want them to just open up more space in Bangalore, or would you rather those wages go to US based locations?

And it's not a zero sum game. One of my H!B hires had unduplicatable skills and created about 20 high paid jobs in our company. Other H1B hires enabled a contracting firm I worked for to get a large contract that kept 7 other people employed.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#199

Post by antisthenes » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #165

anjc wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last major study I saw on this showed that a large proportion of IT and STEM graduates had to move into unrelated industries due to an inability to find employment. This meme that there are hordes of people who would choose poverty because of an unwillingness to work is disgusting.

60% of poor adults choose not to work. I'm sorry you consider reality to be "disgusting". http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publication... Table 3 Page 21 My uncited study says that your uncited study is wrong and the authors of your study are Nazis.

> 60% of poor adults choose not to work. I'm sorry you consider reality to be "disgusting".

Which is not evidence of them being lazy. They could be acting in their own economic best interest by being in a welfare trap.

Not sure what your point is here, other than some welfare programs are poorly structured.

Re: Trump Is Right: Silicon Valley Using H-1B Visas to Pay Low Wages to Immigrants

#200

Post by jarsin » Mon, Feb 06, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #94

jarsin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total BS. I have seen this first hand both as a hiring manager and as an applicant. I have been rejected from jobs based on totally insane interview questions that have nothing to do with the job. In one case I interviewed at 2 competitors. One gave me nothing but trick whiteboard questions, the other emphasized my experience and gave me a real world interview. I was rejected by the whiteboard company and hired by th…

There's a lot wrong with that article, you're right. Another way the article is BS is that Joel assumes that it is only possible to get good candidates by being the employee's first employer, since "they already have jobs. Stimulating jobs. Jobs where their employers pay them lots of money and do whatever it takes to keep them happy." It's impossible! Here's a pro-tip for all you hopeless employers trying to hire the…

This exactly.

Right now I would love to be working on amazing challenging stuff for these companies. Instead I have to decide if i want to go gungho studying my ass off for whiteboard interviews...and if I am insanely lucky I will get offered a salary already in line with my current one at a company that doesn't have billions in the bank...like all these SV companies that are so convinced there is some shortage.