Interesting stats on the 2014 H-1B job Visa applications
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Nish, you failed to mention in the OP that you have a horse in this race. You, as mentioned elsewhere, are involved in tech recruiting currently correct? I am sure that was just an oversight though. The reality is the H-1B hires making the 100K+ at the big tech firms are taking jobs that would probably cost the tech firms 200K+ to hire a native to fill. To just say "well look at how well these folks are paid surely this cannot be holding down wages" is patently disingenuous. Companies in general and tech companies in particular collude to hold down developer wages; this is a fact. Hiring good talent is easy if a company is willing to pay for it. The problem is that people at companies like to redline developers into price brackets and interestingly enough wont pay more than that - none of them will. It's no longer a supply/demand situation. If the free market was actually at work here software developers would make a lot more in the US. It is greed and collusion imo.
Rowdy Raider wrote:
Nish, you failed to mention in the OP that you have a horse in this race. You, as mentioned elsewhere, are involved in tech recruiting currently correct? I am sure that was just an oversight though.
Uhm not really. I have been involved in hiring software engineers for my team, but I am not a recruiter. And I've never been involved in hiring someone on an H-1B, which is interesting as I was myself once an H1-B visa holder. Well the Microsoft positions were for software developers, and senior software developers. I don't think they'd be paying 200K+ to hire a native (I know many natives that work there :)). Also these positions are usually filled by someone with 3-4 years of experience and even for Seattle, 110K is a very good salary.
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
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Nish, you failed to mention in the OP that you have a horse in this race. You, as mentioned elsewhere, are involved in tech recruiting currently correct? I am sure that was just an oversight though. The reality is the H-1B hires making the 100K+ at the big tech firms are taking jobs that would probably cost the tech firms 200K+ to hire a native to fill. To just say "well look at how well these folks are paid surely this cannot be holding down wages" is patently disingenuous. Companies in general and tech companies in particular collude to hold down developer wages; this is a fact. Hiring good talent is easy if a company is willing to pay for it. The problem is that people at companies like to redline developers into price brackets and interestingly enough wont pay more than that - none of them will. It's no longer a supply/demand situation. If the free market was actually at work here software developers would make a lot more in the US. It is greed and collusion imo.
Rowdy Raider wrote:
Hiring good talent is easy if a company is willing to pay for it.
Not true, in my experience. We were offering salaries well above industry average and got 100s of resumes but only a handful were remotely hirable. A lot of people think they are very good at writing software, and when they are turned out they assume it's because the company was doing some kind of dummy interview. There may be companies that play wage suppression tactics, but I've never worked for one. So my experience may not reflect yours.
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
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Rowdy Raider wrote:
Nish, you failed to mention in the OP that you have a horse in this race. You, as mentioned elsewhere, are involved in tech recruiting currently correct? I am sure that was just an oversight though.
Uhm not really. I have been involved in hiring software engineers for my team, but I am not a recruiter. And I've never been involved in hiring someone on an H-1B, which is interesting as I was myself once an H1-B visa holder. Well the Microsoft positions were for software developers, and senior software developers. I don't think they'd be paying 200K+ to hire a native (I know many natives that work there :)). Also these positions are usually filled by someone with 3-4 years of experience and even for Seattle, 110K is a very good salary.
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
Microsoft is one of the companies named in the scandal. So yes you are correct they obviously would not pay 200K+ because they can just import foreigners instead - plus lets not forget they're colluding with the other tech firms *specifically* to avoid paying those kinds of salaries.
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Rowdy Raider wrote:
Hiring good talent is easy if a company is willing to pay for it.
Not true, in my experience. We were offering salaries well above industry average and got 100s of resumes but only a handful were remotely hirable. A lot of people think they are very good at writing software, and when they are turned out they assume it's because the company was doing some kind of dummy interview. There may be companies that play wage suppression tactics, but I've never worked for one. So my experience may not reflect yours.
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
And that ladies and gentlemen is text book redlining. Also, and not to be mean/rude to you Nish, just because you have a hard time hiring people doesn't mean it is hard to high technical talent in general. I am willing to accept that it is hard for you to hire within the given price constraints artificially imposed on you by the business owner/sponsor though.
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Microsoft is one of the companies named in the scandal. So yes you are correct they obviously would not pay 200K+ because they can just import foreigners instead - plus lets not forget they're colluding with the other tech firms *specifically* to avoid paying those kinds of salaries.
I read that article, it seems to imply that they have an agreement to not hire each others' devs. It doesn't really say they use H-1B hires to lower wages. That said, I am curious here - do you really think a 25 year old writing 40 hours of C++ needs to be paid 200K?
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
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I read that article, it seems to imply that they have an agreement to not hire each others' devs. It doesn't really say they use H-1B hires to lower wages. That said, I am curious here - do you really think a 25 year old writing 40 hours of C++ needs to be paid 200K?
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
The no hire agreements are a pretext to build a case under which firms can lobby for more H-1B's. The H-1B holders even if they come in making roughly the same as their US counterparts still have the effect of suppressing wages. Because obviously to hire similar native talent these companies would have to compete against each other for said talent - that competition would logically result in higher wages. I'll be honest the 200K figure is something I pulled out of thin air - not what I think people ought to make. That said should a 25 year old working 40 hours a week writing C++ get paid 200K+ a year? My answer is it depends. If that 25 year old is writing code that will literally have life/death consequences then yes I want the pay to be as much as it takes to find the best talent.
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The no hire agreements are a pretext to build a case under which firms can lobby for more H-1B's. The H-1B holders even if they come in making roughly the same as their US counterparts still have the effect of suppressing wages. Because obviously to hire similar native talent these companies would have to compete against each other for said talent - that competition would logically result in higher wages. I'll be honest the 200K figure is something I pulled out of thin air - not what I think people ought to make. That said should a 25 year old working 40 hours a week writing C++ get paid 200K+ a year? My answer is it depends. If that 25 year old is writing code that will literally have life/death consequences then yes I want the pay to be as much as it takes to find the best talent.
Thanks, some good points there. I've read anti H-1B sentiments on forums before, but many of those are posted by people with views so extreme that they dilute their own cause. So it was nice to read some well balanced opinions from you. I am mostly neutral about these things. I just fancy myself to be good enough to not be affected by wage suppression or other similar tactics. Of course, it's possible I may be wrong about myself :-)
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
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Thanks, some good points there. I've read anti H-1B sentiments on forums before, but many of those are posted by people with views so extreme that they dilute their own cause. So it was nice to read some well balanced opinions from you. I am mostly neutral about these things. I just fancy myself to be good enough to not be affected by wage suppression or other similar tactics. Of course, it's possible I may be wrong about myself :-)
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
To be clear I am not against the concept of H-1B visa's to the contrary I have met and worked with some fine folks from other countries. The concept is actually genius really - bring more smart talented people to the US... its a no brainer. What bothers me are the fallacies so commonly used to argue for more H-1B's. I would be happy to support that case if companies could find an argument that doesn't amount to US citizens are too stupid/lazy/stubborn/etc. to fill these jobs so we need to import somebody. I feel that companies are beginning to abuse the H-1B visa program, using it as a tool to suppress wages rather than bring smart talented people to the US.
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Well, that may or may not be so. My focal point in this thread was primarily how the big companies like Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google all have salaries that are well above industry averages for their H-1B employees (contrary to what several people assumed). That side post I made was my personal experience where it's been a massive struggle to find even a few really good candidates. You need to go through dozens before you get a good one.
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
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I read that article, it seems to imply that they have an agreement to not hire each others' devs. It doesn't really say they use H-1B hires to lower wages. That said, I am curious here - do you really think a 25 year old writing 40 hours of C++ needs to be paid 200K?
Regards, Nish
Blog: voidnish.wordpress.com Latest article: C++ 11 features in Visual C++ 2013 Preview
Nish Sivakumar wrote:
do you really think a 25 year old writing 40 hours of C++ needs to be paid 200K?
Do you think a 29 year old needs to be one of the 100 richest people on the planet? A software developer, just like a plumber, cashier and day laborer needs to be paid what the market conditions dictate. Otherwise it isn't a "free market".
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The no hire agreements are a pretext to build a case under which firms can lobby for more H-1B's. The H-1B holders even if they come in making roughly the same as their US counterparts still have the effect of suppressing wages. Because obviously to hire similar native talent these companies would have to compete against each other for said talent - that competition would logically result in higher wages. I'll be honest the 200K figure is something I pulled out of thin air - not what I think people ought to make. That said should a 25 year old working 40 hours a week writing C++ get paid 200K+ a year? My answer is it depends. If that 25 year old is writing code that will literally have life/death consequences then yes I want the pay to be as much as it takes to find the best talent.
Rowdy Raider wrote:
Because obviously to hire similar native talent these companies would have to compete against each other for said talent - that competition would logically result in higher wages.
Not to forget of course that it is much harder for the H1B to change jobs.