681–690 of 1001 posts
The number one issue software engineers should care about is using foreign talent to undercut wages. A cursory look at H1B salaries shows this is rampant. There’s a big difference between “we can’t find any talent” and “we can’t find any talent at our price point”. The former should be granted an H1B. The latter is abusing the system.
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Why would I work in person for less money when I can work remote? For in person work on critical applications like satellites, I'd expect (spitballing here) a staff eng to be making 300k base with substantial bonus/espp on top. Consider that most midsize tech companies are going to pay staff level 200k or above and ask how the company in question compares, before pricing in the crushing inflexibility of in person wor…
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Seem like sensible changes, though more is still needed. Requiring H1B holders to leave the country to renew paperwork is an insane anachronism. The per-country caps also seem like a throwback to the early 1900's era immigration exclusion policies. Re: the concerns over "immigrants taking our jobs!". As a native-born American working in a large tech company today - the threat is very clearly not from H1B's and other…
It’s never been clear to me why this program exists in the first place, other than to put downward pressure on US STEM wages. What am I missing?
A supposed shortage of qualified US applicants for tech jobs, especially software developers, doesn't jibe with the huge numbers of US developers currently looking for work, including highly experienced older workers suffering from age discrimination. I'd be surprised if more than 5-10% of H-1B positions are ones where the hiring company has even looked for US applicants.
Developers aren’t fungible, and are hard to hire. Try getting a bunch of people to sling some boring Java or mainframe code. They don’t exist. The trap with the older worker is a guy wants $250k, but will perform at the level of a $75/hr body shop guy. Skills don’t align - that’s always the risk of engineering.
Casual ageism as if it won’t be you one day
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Not to pile on, but if linear algebra is really a part of the day-to-day job and not some manager’s mistaken idea of a proxy for more general talent, then you’re hiring specialists and the pool will not be that large. People who remember all their math and enjoy it and can also code, are also very employable at all the AI companies and departments, including at Meta. And how do you know if someone’s eligible for secu…
> if linear algebra is really a part of the day-to-day job [...] then you’re hiring specialists It kind of bothers me that the parent and other readers here are passing off knowing linear algebra as some kind of esoteric skill. Linear algebra is a year 2 course in a undergraduate eduation. There are polished libraries to make it fast. Unless you mean enough knowledge to be writing linear algebra libraries , there is…
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>It's much much better for America if tech companies hire workers in the US, regardless of whether they are citizens. Americans are eligible for those jobs, and that money stays within our economy. Versus employing workers elsewhere, where American's can't easily be hired, and those resources leave the US. I want to pick on this point, because it's the general refrain about this topic. If there is some thing that Ame…
The median American is not smart enough to do complex software engineering, just like they're not smart enough to be a doctor or college professor. All cognitively demanding jobs compete for the same (probably single-digit) percent of the workforce. Better education could certainly prepare more people to do these jobs, but it's not a given that there are enough smart people in the domestic workforce to do all the cog…
This point, assuming for a moment that it's actually true, would matter if "complex software engineering" was all that this was being used for. Complex for whom?
Ah, classic regulatory theater. The administration, after 4 years of not introducing these changes, is now suddenly scrambling to roll them out. They’re dropping them right before a major transition, with an implementation timeline conveniently set for after the transition. It’s a clever little maneuver. When the inevitable reversal happens, they can show up at fundraising galas telling donors, “We tried! We were so…
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Yeah. Do people really think that Silicon Valley would be such a huge economy (and a huge job creator for US citizens) if the US had never allowed immigrants to work there?
Which came first?