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Laid Off, Now What?

bharathpbhat.github.io

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Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#311

Post by kazagistar »

minot wrote: post #36
mancerayder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration, but in reality they don't care much about H1B style immigration and are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions hating H1Bs, Wait, what? Tech unions? I've never seen a single union in my entire 20 year career. I was sympathetic up until you complained about that. What unions? The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask me, if the econ…

> The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask me, if the economy is poor then there's no excuse for encouraging immigration, especially of high paid labor. If unemployment is high, that is (and that's the part that fluctuates). Exactly why it should be easy, frictionless, and risk-free to tell on your employer for any labor violation as an H1-B. Make it abundantly clear to the visa holder that if their…

I wish there were worker unions in tech.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#312

Post by ctvo »

dccoolgai wrote: post #12

These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing sense of depression driven by the following thoughts: I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out. This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed…

> I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose.

This is a little myopic.

Those other fields you don't mention? They use things like education (did you graduate from an Ivy?), connections (do you know these people in your niche field?), certification (do you have the blessing of a known body / board?) or even insurance (you're covered for malpractice if anything goes wrong) as alternatives.

I value software development not requiring those things, and I understand the trade-offs. Yes, I'll have to do a 5-8 hour single day interview that I may need to prep for once every 3-5 years. For 300k+ a year? I'll find a way to deal with it.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#313

Post by singron »

notxnphbk wrote: post #291
dccoolgai wrote: post #12

These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing sense of depression driven by the following thoughts: I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out. This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed…

> I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. Well, I highly doubt American companies are pushing for this treatment. They benefit the most from getting whoever they want to hire however they want to hire them. So, you must be implying that this "treatment" is coming from a non-corporate entity? > that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed to treat…

The H1B makes it more difficult to change jobs or negotiate salary. Any interruption to employment is a huge risk to staying in the country. Thus those employees are more likely to accept lower offers and stay in those jobs longer.

E.g. a citizen can decline an offer in order to negotiate it up, but if the clock is ticking on your h1b, then you wouldn't want to get called on that bluff.

The limitations don't seem to dissuade H1b applicants, so companies like that they have more control over those employees without decreasing total supply.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#314

Post by ram_rar »

austincheney wrote: post #301

The advise in the article is great for beginners or people willing to work as beginners. For people who are senior developers or who have previously been in corporate management these tips won’t work. If you are a senior developer you shouldn’t be spending any time on practice interview whiteboards. You should already know how to code with confidence and be ready to honestly disclose where your experience ends. A goo…

As much as I love this advice, reality is stark different from this. End of the day, you're judged by how accurately could you solve some random leetcode problem.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#315

Post by kaitai »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #304
sushshshsh wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much any international person can emigrate to the USA by marrying an American. If they're already here on some type of visa like H1B or student visa, just simply upload your passport to NYC's marriage website (or go to Vegas I guess) and get a marriage license. Then have someone officiate your wedding and for a few hundred bucks and maybe 48 hours of planning total you are now legally married. You can take thi…

Oh okay, I was actually looking at citizenship. If you don’t care about being a citizen and just want to work, I can understand that’s an easier process.

I gotta disagree with the "just marry an American" advice; sure, it makes some things easier, but due to a paperwork mistake in 1979 or so my mother-in-law was almost deported two years ago after being married to an American and living in the US for almost forty years (the mistake was a date on a form that no one had looked at for those forty years...). Green card was still quite slow for my dad even though he married a citizen....

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#316

Post by epmaybe »

ctvo wrote: post #312
dccoolgai wrote: post #12

These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing sense of depression driven by the following thoughts: I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out. This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed…

> I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose. T…

Is that really what the field is paying right now? Is that after 5-10yrs or right out of school?

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#317

Post by kaitai »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #186
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,…

> 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…

This is straight BS from my experience. My local Dems are spending time on the Temporary Protected Status groups, especially Liberians who've been here since the 1990s, Haitians who don't have a home to go back to, Nepalese. They've spent a lot of time on immigration from Asia and since we have a large Indian- and Pakistani-American community where I'm from that's been an issue my representatives have worked on. I feel like you have a pretty narrow view -- maybe you're from a place where that's true, but it's not true out here in the rest of America.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#318

Post by xtracto »

dudul wrote: post #284
TrackerFF wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be a mostly US-centric thing. I live in Scandinavia, and I have yet to encounter the levels of rigor I see in the US (tech) interviewing process - which is kind of weird, as we have much, much more stringent workers rights/laws, making it more difficult to get rid of a bad hire. Sure, US companies, especially in tech hubs, operate on a completely different scale than companies over here - at least in term…

I definitely went through a stupid interview process when I lived and worked in Sweden. "Name and define 5 design patterns", "sort this array", followed by the "personality test". Everyone was nice and all, and I got the job, but it was definitely on par with what I see now in the US.

this_array.sort()

I hate stupid leetcode based interviews. It's like "gotcha journalism " just to have a justification for a subjective rejection

It's like when as couple of weeks ago some random recruiter was interviewing me and asked "what's your weak point as a manager" ... I was sincere and if course the reason I was rejected is because they are looking for someone who doesn't have THAT exact weakness. GOTCHA!!

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#319

Post by kaitai »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #19
mancerayder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration, but in reality they don't care much about H1B style immigration and are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions hating H1Bs, Wait, what? Tech unions? I've never seen a single union in my entire 20 year career. I was sympathetic up until you complained about that. What unions? The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask me, if the econ…

https://ustechworkers.com/ for example. I don't know what makes something 'officially' a labor union but at least they call themselves that. There was also Washington state Tech Workers Union.

Uh, when I go to that page I don't see the word "union" anywhere on it. I tried searching for "union" on it and didn't get anything either. Where's the union part?

I am truly confused. How did you get the impression they have anything to do with being a union? I don't see the union part, or the members part, or the collective bargaining part; seems to me a union ought to have those components.

Re: Laid Off, Now What?

#320

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

ctvo wrote: post #312
dccoolgai wrote: post #12

These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing sense of depression driven by the following thoughts: I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out. This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed…

> I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose. T…

>For 300k+ a year? I'll find a way to deal with it.

I would too even for half that but unfortunately, in Europe, lots of the fancy tech corps. are adopting the SV style mult-day take home project/on-site interview grind but only paying $65-85k/year.

I'm still thinking whether I can make it in this field till retirement(FIRE is out of the question at this pay) or if I should just change to something else while I still can.

Edit: correct statement

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