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Updates to H-1B

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Re: Updates to H-1B

#841

Post by kbolino »

titanomachy wrote: post #539
remarkEon wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 is just brain-draining the rest of the world for the short-term boosting of some myopic statistics. This isn't going to improve the employability of median-intelligence people, and in the long run, it's going to exacerbate the same problem, but now globally.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#842

Post by DanielHB »

0086b416f103 wrote: post #454
snakeyjake wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My employer cannot hire H-1Bs. You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed. You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance. You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you in for a clearance. We cannot find qualified appl…

> We cannot find qualified applicants. Your company is incompetent. I've applied to hundreds of companies like yours within Huntsville, AL in the past year, rejected or ghosted all the time. Defense morons will talk about how hard their work is and how they can't find anyone to do it. Completely skip over how prevalent affirmative action is in their hiring process; who were you guys interviewing in 2020? Why is the d…

They want top tier talent to work on crappy quality products/code

Meaning people who can unravel all the crap they have to maintain but with no agency to enact any sort of long term fix.

Plenty of this kind of work going around, the older the codebase is the less willing people are to work on it. Soon good engineers don't want to anymore and mid engineers are not good enough to even tweak it. Leaving the only lever these companies can pull being salary and they can't compete with FAANG on that.

Reminds me of those anecdotes you hear from Oracle and ASML engineers. The difference there is that they can still use the salary lever.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#843

Post by willcipriano »

cadamsau wrote: post #581

For everyone who thinks H-1B and its ilk make it possible to hire foreign workers at below what citizens are paid - have a look on your favorite search engine for: “Prevailing wage condition” It’s a requirement that’s part of the Labor Condition Application wherein based on the location you’ll work (the “Metropolitan Service Area” or MSA) to be granted a visa your employer must prove they’ll pay you above publicly av…

Hire junior aerospace engineer with senior aerospace experience. Subject engineer to working conditions and long hours that domestic labor wouldn't tolerate. Get 1.5 - 3 senior aerospace engineers for the price of 1 junior.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#844

Post by greentxt »

snakeyjake wrote: post #342
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #161

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.

My employer cannot hire H-1Bs. You must be a US citizen to work for my company. No "US Persons" (visa holders) or foreigners allowed. You have to be eligible for a Secret security clearance. You don't have to get one if you don't want to as there is usually plenty of uncleared work to go around, but you have to be eligible in case that goes away and we need to put you in for a clearance. We cannot find qualified appl…

Look, by "won't reteach" you give it away. Those who are not rusty in linear algebra will tend to be recent grads, younger people who are probably not looking for a boring defense job with no remote somewhere in Alabama. Those jobs appeal to people who may have had enough time to forget how to implement a SVD without googling.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#845

Post by lovich »

yazzku wrote: post #605
fn-mote wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Why is this down-voted? I was going to add most people have already seen some sort of linear algebra even in high school. Determinants, Gaussian elimination, etc. It's unclear what "linear algebra" means to GP, though. I agree writing linear algebra libraries is next level, since that involves numerical code and knowing FP math well.

This is a real life version of this comic

https://xkcd.com/2501/

Re: Updates to H-1B

#846

Post by scarface_74 »

tgma wrote: post #502
scarface_74 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 4.8 million developers in the US most of them are not making Meta salaries and I would say that 80% will never see 200K inflation adjusted in thier lives. Instead of going to levels.fyi go to salary.com and choose any major city in the US that is not on the west coast. No most developers don’t get RSUs or anything else aside from their salaries and maybe a bonus. And before someone replies that I’m “bitter”…

You are actually proving my point. If there are 4.8 million developers who are not commanding Meta salaries, and they "pay well" it should be fairly straightforward to get labor. It's simple: the more picky you are the more you will have to pay. The GP admitted the upper bound of Meta, which is a company that is sustainably operating in the same country. If you cannot compete in a labor market, either raise your prod…

I can’t believe that his work is so complicated that he can’t take a good older developer in thier 30s, who would be more than willing to move to a lower cost of living area where they can raise a family affordability and design an internal training program to get them up to speed.

Offer things that we care about like free health insurance, “unlimited PTO”, a generous 401K match with immediate vesting, etc.

I personally wouldn’t move to Alabama. But many would.

At 50, I need to work. But I don’t need to chase after FAANG salaries. I optimize for my other priorities. As I said in my previous post, I’m not “disdaining what I can’t have”. I’ve been there done that.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#847

Post by tivert »

pilotneko wrote: post #832
ponector wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many contradictions! You pay well, but not so much. You search for qualified applicants but can hire a student. You require linear algebra but ok with technical writer. Looks like your managers don't know who they need to hire or don't want to really hire.

Don’t forget “we don’t build weapons…well the company does but my team doesn’t.”

> Don’t forget “we don’t build weapons…well the company does but my team doesn’t.”

It's totally possible. There's an defense contractor in my area where all the work at the local office is on non-defense government projects.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#848

Post by contagiousflow »

happytoexplain wrote: post #316
ritcgab wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guy who born with natural citizenship is too privileged to imagine how hard it is to get a green card.

This is a hideous tone that will do nothing but antagonize proud citizens and sour voters on the idea of generosity. Thoughtful discourse is predicated first on basic respect.

> generosity

I'm sure you think of your own citizenship as charity as well...

Re: Updates to H-1B

#849

Post by asoneth »

darth_avocado wrote: post #462
asoneth wrote: post #336

I wonder if switching from a lottery to an auction would help curtail some of the abuse? That is, for each position a company wants to fill with a non-citizen they also have to bid on the visa fee they're willing to pay. The highest ~7,000 bids that month are accepted and paid to the government in exchange for a visa. We could debate things like sealed-bid versus open auction and uniform-price versus paying your bid…

Remember, H1B isn’t always about tech, even if we’d all like to pretend it is. You’ll have to have separate bidding process for different occupations, otherwise you’ll end up with a system where Facebook will get all the visas, while in some cases, doctors would not be sponsored.

I'm curious what makes you think tech workers would monopolize the top spots? I would expect that companies desperate for experts in medicine, research, engineering, law, business (which, like tech, already pay high salaries) would be similarly willing to pay a premium to be able to hire the best from other countries.

Re: Updates to H-1B

#850

Post by lovich »

sokoloff wrote: post #509
mfer wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is a software developer who has done non-trivial things and linear algebra but not recently and needs to be refreshed, do you provide time/training to refresh on the math skills?

I’d imagine that the rusty candidate could refresh themself on linear algebra in what, two three-hour evenings before the interview.

Who’s putting in the work to study for a niche skill set for a place that will pay you less than the market?

Normally that kind of requirement leads to _higher_ compensation

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