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Laid Off, Now What?

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Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#241

Post by m0zg »

jdashg wrote: post #202
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the other side doing pretty much all the can within the legal powers they have to improve the situation Except they aren't. There is a clear 'caste' system when it comes to the immigration Democrats care about. Their primary focus is on immigration across the Mexican border (a lot of which is often technically or borderline 'illegal') which they want to make as legitimized as possible as the Hispanic community…

Democrats do not desire Hispanic immigration because they're likely to vote democrat. It's convenient but not all convenient things are causal. By and large Democrats prioritize the most disadvantaged first, and that's poor immigrants, many of whom happen to be coming across from Mexico.

> the most disadvantaged first

How about prioritizing the most disadvantaged _US citizens_ first instead of kicking the stool from underneath them by importing cheap labor?

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#242

Post by newhotelowner »

vsskanth wrote: post #151
addicted wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole argument that Democrats, who have voted for bills that help resolve H1B issues by vast majorities and Obama passed executive actions that among other things allowed H1B spouses to work, provided a grace period, and until Republicans sued and had it rolled back in court allowed for H1 B green cards to be filled from infilled green cards in other categories, don’t really care is a remarkably wrong statement,…

It's not that simple. All those democratic actions for H1B you've described are merely tokens when you consider how much attention they paid to undocumented immigrants (DACA). They've completely neglected the kids of H1B workers who have been here decades but have to leave the country when they turn 21. None of what they've done provides an attainable pathway for permanent residency for legal, tax paying high skilled…

The majority of the illegals pay taxes too.

DACA kids go to school. They graduate from schools here. They serve in military. They pay taxes when they join the workforce.

The majority of Indians/Asians also vote for Democratic candidates. 80+% of Asians voted for Clinton in 2016.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#243

Post by stack_underflow »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #73
TrackerFF wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most interview questions around data structures, algorithms, etc. follow the same patterns. In the end, it's just a pattern recognition problem (IMO). Once you recognize the different variations, you solve a bunch of those problems to become more efficient at 'em. Really, it's no different than solving certain calculus problems. If you've solved enough integrals that require certain substitutions and identities, you'…

I've done nearly 300. I still can't crack Google or Facebook etc and I'm still extremely depressed that I"m just inherently unable to because my CS education wasn't good enough (because I wasn't good enough to get a better SAT score etc etc). I work at Amazon, so I know what the "elites" think of people like me. I've gone and reread Skiena, etc but the end result ends up just my eyes glazing over proof notation and c…

Sounds to me like you're focusing on the wrong things or don't have the right resources for the task at hand. (that is, I don't think I've ever had to brush up on a proof for any algorithm or data structure when prepping for interviews)

Take it from someone who also had a shit background/education in math/CS and had to teach myself a lot of these things from scratch - it's doable, you just need time, and I guess the mindset that you can learn these things. See my comment history for some book recommendations. If you really feel like you need to learn things from scratch to give yourself the confidence of having a solid foundation, look at some of the intro computer science courses on Coursera. When I realized most of my uni's cs courses were... not great, I just ended up going through courses like Stanford's Introduction to Algorithms on Coursera and teaching myself.

I can also tell you as someone who was in Seattle for a while and had a bunch of friends at Amazon, I don't think anyone is going to think less of you, if anything, being able to survive at a place like Amazon seemed to be recognized as its own accomplishment...

edit: I'll also add (from personal experience), if it still feels like these things are difficult even once you feel like you have all the right resources, look into seeing medical professionals to make sure you're not being held back by anything, like sleep apnea, any cognitive disability (not sure if that's the right term...) etc

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#244

Post by creato »

rhexs wrote: post #116
marcinzm wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US pays a lot and there's a lot of competition for positions. The H1B system doesn't help that competition. When you have 50 well qualified applicants (ie: could pass most interviews) per position then you need some way to weed out 49 of them. Resumes can be exaggerated and downright lied on so once there's enough competition using them just means you're selecting the best liars/sociopaths.

I think there's certainly some truth to coding interviews being an effective mechanism in shifting hiring towards H1Bs. It's much easier to say that Americans can't do the job when you create a test around studying for 500 hours to memorize hundreds upon hundreds of coding puzzles in order to build up a mental encyclopedia of how to quickly apply your algorithmic "training" to the puzzle of the day. I'd bet H1Bs are…

This is an absurd characterization of coding interviews. I've been on both sides of big tech interviews, and I've been at a few companies. I've seen two extremes. At one end, the company had pretty lax interviews, and I rarely interviewed anyone while I was there. The quality of people at this company was relatively low, from my small sample size of coworkers. At the other end, a company well known for challenging coding interviews, and I regularly interview people. The quality of people at this company was relatively high, again from my small sample size of coworkers.

I think coding interviews are actually working fairly well. They divide people into at least two groups: a first group is people that can pass them without too much trouble, and they mostly seem to get hired, but of course there are mistakes. A second group is people that need to spend 500 hours cramming to appear qualified, and basically are trying to game the system. These people mostly don't get hired, and I suspect also are completely driving the conversation on HN and elsewhere about how coding interviews are a terrible failure.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#245

Post by Der_Einzige »

lowiqengineer wrote: post #123
marcinzm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a large place, you can save money for a decade in one location and then use that $1-2 million you built up to move somewhere cheap, buy a mansion and not give much a shit for the next 40 years. Taxes are also generally lower so you keep more. Healthcare costs don't matter since your employer pays for that and gives you good health insurance. School/child only matters later, and you can either move away by t…

I grew up with a dad working for 70-120k and a mom at home. I can’t even imagine how nice the lifestyles of Bay Area kids are.

350K is about enough to start considering buying a house in the bay area. Less than that and you have to make big compromises.

The life you can't imagine are all the lucky Engineers to be paid bay area salaries at reasonable cost of living locations like Seattle. You may laugh at me calling Seattle "reasonable" but compared to the bay it is.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#246

Post by humanlion87 »

triceratops wrote: post #206
tomp wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not from India but from an almost-first world EU country, and I’ve been working in London for a while. My advice for someone else in my position (starting out) would definitely be to try to go to the US. Salaries are just so much better, it’s incomparable. You could save in the US in a year as much as you would make (post tax) in Europe in 5 years. Even in London and Switzerland, pribably the best-paid countries…

Combining your advice and that of GP, it sounds like the optimal course of action is "Work in the US for 6 years, save as much as you would in 30 years in Europe, then move somewhere else"

That is a pretty optimal plan and that is what quite a few colleagues I know are doing. Not moving to Europe, but planning to move to Canada. Save up some money in the US, move North and settle down.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#247

Post by YZF »

yibg wrote: post #154
YZF wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a job offer and TN status with a US company and I decided (last minute practically) not to move to the US for precisely this reason. That I'd have to leave the country on the same day I lost my job. Doing this with a family seemed too risky for me. I'm not sure what my parallel universe life in Seattle would have looked like but I've no regrets staying in Canada.

FYI TN also has a 60 day grace period.

This was prior to the 60 day grace period. I know there's a 60 day grace period these days.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#248

Post by HarryHirsch »

sushshshsh wrote: post #217
moises_silva wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an immigrant in another country (thankfully more immigration-friendly), I completely understand the frustration. I think however we must see beyond the incompetence of some front-line workers and turn the frustration and complaints towards who's running the country and its policies, not providing training and overall setting a bad example on how to treat immigrants (legal or illegal). I've declined good offers to…

Just marry an american lol

This suggestion always comes up during presentations from immigration attorneys. They know how fucked up the system is.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#249

Post by marcinzm »

creato wrote: post #244
rhexs wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's certainly some truth to coding interviews being an effective mechanism in shifting hiring towards H1Bs. It's much easier to say that Americans can't do the job when you create a test around studying for 500 hours to memorize hundreds upon hundreds of coding puzzles in order to build up a mental encyclopedia of how to quickly apply your algorithmic "training" to the puzzle of the day. I'd bet H1Bs are…

This is an absurd characterization of coding interviews. I've been on both sides of big tech interviews, and I've been at a few companies. I've seen two extremes. At one end, the company had pretty lax interviews, and I rarely interviewed anyone while I was there. The quality of people at this company was relatively low, from my small sample size of coworkers. At the other end, a company well known for challenging co…

FAANG nowadays wants you to be able to solve 2 leetcode mediums (or an easy+hard) without errors and with optimal computational complexity in 35 minutes. This is done up to three times so that's six problems and if you miss even one you likely fail the whole thing. To me that's really really hard unless you study to the point of having the solutions memorized. It's not the problems that are difficult per say but the time constraint which means going down the wrong path leaves you with no time to fix things.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#250

Post by dllthomas »

xxpor wrote: post #88
nrmitchi wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration? My worst situation dealing with this was a TN status rather than an H1B, where I was told at a border that I could be ineligible for admission to the US because I had no left the day that I was laid off from a previous position. I had to tell the CBP officer that there was a 60 day grace p…

Granted, someone working at the US/CA border should know the TN rules, but in general there's so many visa classes and different rules that it's a UX failure if they have to go ask someone about these things. If they put in your passport and type in TN, it should display the relevant rules right on their screen.

That sounds like a good UX if we need to keep things complicated. Maybe we don't need to, though? (https://www.smbc-comics.com/openborders/)
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