patrick.net

finehoe says

The complain I heard is about IT consulting companies getting H1-Bs in the form

of cheap labor. Even it is true, there is nothing wrong with it.

If you don't understand why it is wrong, there's nothing more I can say.

120K / year is NOT cheap labour !!!!

finehoe says

I don't know where you're getting the 120k figure from. The average salary for H1B sponsorship jobs is half that: $64,000.

do you have any proof ?

also who gives a fuck!
As a skilled software engineer with 6 years experience you get 120K in bay area.
I don't care about the wage pressure due to H1b's

finehoe says

gsr says

The complain I heard is about IT consulting companies getting H1-Bs in the form

of cheap labor. Even it is true, there is nothing wrong with it.

If you don't understand why it is wrong, there's nothing more I can say.

In conclusion, if you're an American, leave the STEM fields for medicine, trading, patents, or TV/entertainment. Your peers, like a gsr or a jaldi1, will sell you up the river, so that they can advance into management. This thread and the responses to it, sort of hint at those intentions, conscious or not.

BTW, as a hedge fund manager, I'll say this... we do not hire postdocs for any reason. Basically, if you show up at the door with a PhD, you need to bring in some clients. In other words, you're out of the academy and a well seasoned financial professional.

Next, we see IT persons as *tools*. Yes, those types of monikers are thrown around at techies. The people we respect are salesmen, elite prop traders (who're the closest thing to a rock star), some tax consultants, and a professional secretary who makes the entire enterprise look good to visiting clients.

By working in finance, I've realize how little S&Es mean to our society outside of Sci-Fi movies.

gsr says

New Renter says

Casey Serin--the self-dubbed 'World's Most Hated Blogger

You did not get the fundamental point.

Housing affordability and low mortgage rates affect everyone equally. So if everything else is constant, we would see homeowner-ship rate proportional to earned income and assets.

I don't think an average H1-B would stretch more in terms of getting loan than an average local person. In fact, a foreigner would typically be fiscally more conservative.

So perhaps H1B are renters rather than buyers and the "chindians" you are referring to are simply rich absentee buyers. Whatever, it has nothing to do with the OT which you continue to evade.

jaldi1 says

finehoe says

I don't know where you're getting the 120k figure from. The average salary for H1B sponsorship jobs is half that: $64,000.

do you have any proof ?

also who gives a fuck!

As a skilled software engineer with 6 years experience you get 120K in bay area.

I don't care about the wage pressure due to H1b's

Clearly!

finehoe says

If you don't understand why it is wrong, there's nothing more I can say.

Seriously, do you really think protectionism protects jobs?
If so, then you probably don't know people can get jobs outside this country as well.

What do you think will happen if you block foreigners from working here? Will it reduce or increase outsourcing?

Let me give you another example. Go to an island with no humans around.
Create all sorts of jobs and position, and assign them all to yourselves. Don't allow any other human to immigrate to that island.
See, you will have 100% employment. Will that solve all the problems?

See protectionism has been benefiting Hawaiians so greatly.
http://www.UhQ4d8g3tHc

New Renter says

So perhaps H1B are renters rather than buyers and the "chindians" you are referring to are simply rich absentee buyers.

That's completely untrue. In SFBA, places like Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Fremont have a large number of Asian population. Most of them are 1st generation immigrants, and work in Tech companies. Do you even live in San Jose, CA ?

Rin says

In conclusion, if you're an American, leave the STEM fields for medicine, trading, patents, or TV/entertainment.

Here is someone who disagrees with you.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/one-skill-every-american-needs-learn-153037730.html

gsr says

New Renter says

So perhaps H1B are renters rather than buyers and the "chindians" you are referring to are simply rich absentee buyers.

That's completely untrue. In SFBA, places like Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Fremont have a large number of Asian population. Most of them are 1st generation immigrants, and work in Tech companies. Do you even live in San Jose, CA ?

I do indeed. You don't.

You also don't read.

gsr says

Rin says

In conclusion, if you're an American, leave the STEM fields for medicine, trading, patents, or TV/entertainment.

Here is someone who disagrees with you.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/one-skill-every-american-needs-learn-153037730.html

And here is someone who disagrees with your author:
What a load of bovine excrement this article is. Sure, bust your butt, major in CS, not exactly the easiest field of study, get a job where you're required to work 50+ hours/week but only paid for 40, have to be on call 24/7, have to keep your skills current mostly on your time and money, then once you get a few gray hairs you're forced to train your Indian replacement then fired. Good luck finding another job at that point.

gsr says

The complain I heard is about IT consulting companies getting H1-Bs in the form of cheap labor. Even it is true, there is nothing wrong with it.

Nothing wrong with it? IT'S AGAINST THE LAW! The H1-B is to supply skills that employers allegedly can't find in the US; it most certainly is not designed to undercut American workers' wages.

That you freely admit you see nothing wrong with corporations intentionally breaking the law in order to squeeze out a few more pennies of profit shows you are no better than the scum who operate firetrap Bangladeshi factories or exploding Texan fertilizer plants.

Your contempt for the law is disgusting.

New Renter says

What a load of bovine excrement this article is. Sure, bust your butt, major in CS, not exactly the easiest field of study, get a job where you're required to work 50+ hours/week but only paid for 40, have to be on call 24/7, have to keep your skills current mostly on your time and money, then once you get a few gray hairs you're forced to train your Indian replacement then fired. Good luck finding another job at that point.

So, the end result is the American worker, discouraged by this prospect, will resign him/herself to some lowly service job. And that benefits us how?

The other side says, "it's inevitable!", "get with the program!". But the program is low wages and a loss of American competitiveness. A race to the bottom.

New Renter says

gsr says

Rin says

In conclusion, if you're an American, leave the STEM fields for medicine, trading, patents, or TV/entertainment.

Here is someone who disagrees with you.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/one-skill-every-american-needs-learn-153037730.html

And here is someone who disagrees with your author:

What a load of bovine excrement this article is. Sure, bust your butt, major in CS, not exactly the easiest field of study, get a job where you're required to work 50+ hours/week but only paid for 40

Well, there's nothing wrong with taking courses in data structures/algorithms, computer & network architectures, discrete math, etc, to get a general knowledge base. Our secretary, who's got a humanities BS, took a lot of those type of undergrad courses [ as electives ] and now, she's doing a science masters, part-time, to later sit for the Patent Agent exam. So, she's doing quite well in life, without needing to necessarily go all hardcore STEM to do it.

In the article, that guy's teaching at Stuyvesant, the top entrance exam magnet HS in NYC. If anything, for a HSer, attending Stuy is a huge mistake. Everyone there competes to be near the top ~10%, so that they can win a full scholarship to NYU undergrad. Sure, some Stuy guys do great [ typically, the best test takers ] but others, who gravitate towards the middle of the pack, end up at a City College type of school, with limited FA package [ since class rank matters for free money ] , where they're rather bitter and don't find themselves any higher on the totem pole than others. So much for the value of *elite* early bird STEM type of training.

Abbey Cohen of Goldman once made a superfluous statement that she's more impressed with a Stuy HS diploma than someone with a Harvard undergrad. Now, the question is whether or not she would hire a Stuy grad, if he didn't also attend Harvard (or some other Ivy) later?

And yes, my firm doesn't hire Stuy grads w/o a college degree afterwards.

In fact, we place nearly zero value on where one attended high school, including Philips Exeter or Eton.

In every field where outsourcing/offshoring/H1B is possible, it will be done. It is not that upper management wants to necessarily pay the least amount of money in general, it's that they want to pay the least amount of money possible for a minimum acceptable quality threshold. They have their ratios.

dublin hillz says

In every field where outsourcing/offshoring/H1B is possible, it will be done.

And once the labor has all been outsourced to the third world, management can be too. In fact, it will be necessary. Those managers better be close to retirement.

Dan8267 says

And once the labor has all been outsourced to the third world, management can be too. In fact, it will be necessary. Those managers better be close to retirement

And closer to the people and resources they manage. It's the same logic applied for the factories. Why build a Caterpillar dirt mover and ship it to China when they Chinese can build it and use it locally? And while we're at it, we might as well hire the Chinese workers to build them.

Perfect. Let's all go to college, if you can afford it.

CL says

And closer to the people and resources they manage. It's the same logic applied for the factories. Why build a Caterpillar dirt mover and ship it to China when they Chinese can build it and use it locally? And while we're at it, we might as well hire the Chinese workers to build them.

Perfect. Let's all go to college, if you can afford it.

Seems like some forgot about Jeep and China not to long ago...

While you will certainly see lots of US made Jeeps in Europe, that was not the
case for china which slaps a tax on all imports. But will not tax if Jeeps were made
in USA.

Ring a bell ?

CL says

Why build a Caterpillar dirt mover and ship it to China when they Chinese can build it and use it locally? And while we're at it, we might as well hire the Chinese workers to build them.

what was IBM is now Levenno ..

thomaswong.1986 says

CL says

And closer to the people and resources they manage. It's the same logic applied for the factories. Why build a Caterpillar dirt mover and ship it to China when they Chinese can build it and use it locally? And while we're at it, we might as well hire the Chinese workers to build them.

Perfect. Let's all go to college, if you can afford it.

Seems like some forgot about Jeep and China not to long ago...

While you will certainly see lots of US made Jeeps in Europe, that was not the

case for china which slaps a tax on all imports. But will not tax if Jeeps were made

in USA.

Ring a bell ?

How does it not bode poorly for the US though? All jobs are vulnerable, which I think was Dan's point.

finehoe says

ntentionally breaking the law in order to squeeze out a few more pennies of profit

Ok, you are ignorant outside of your world. Here is a news flash.
Look at this link:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cities-where-americans-earn-the-most-165055703.html

Number one is San Ramon, mostly due to money from tech. In this city, 43% of population is Asian, many of whom are 1st generation immigrants, who have had H1bs at some point.

It disproves two myths that exist in your universe.
1. Tech workers are paid less.
2. Immigrant tech workers are paid less that others.

Dan8267 says

And once the labor has all been outsourced to the third world, management can be too. In fact, it will be necessary. Those managers better be close to retirement.

That should be. Most products that go into maintenance mode are no longer developed here. Eventually they will be done by robots.

What you and a few other don't understand there is no law of conservation of jobs. Jobs are created and destroyed. That's how human civilization has been progressing. No government can change that natural progress through legislation.

Only hard work creates wealth, and that creates real productive jobs. Hiding inside the cradle of the almighty government doesn't create wealth and prosperity.

The country will do well no matter how many jobs are created overseas as long as there are many doers and less whiners.

gsr says

Only hard work creates wealth, and that creates real productive jobs. Hiding inside the cradle of the almighty government doesn't create wealth and prosperity.

The country will do well no matter how many jobs are created overseas as long as there are many doers and less whiners.

That's right, trading currencies and futures is "hard work". BTW, that's how I'd earned $700K last year. It was a part of the P/L split of the overall company.

The fact of the matter was that, as an applied chemist, I'd worked a lot harder than in my current line of work, corralling money for trades. The difference is that today, I'm closer to the money action and thus, I get a piece of it. And in a few years, I'll be done and pursue medical school, so that I can derive some intrinsic value from my work, without some MBA-ologists, offshoring it for their benefit.

And yes, I agree, eventually most of the work will be done by robots and we'll all be living in a welfare state. But that's 2030, not today.

gsr says

What you and a few other don't understand there is no law of conservation of jobs.

When did I claim that?

What you don't realize is that the Tech Worker Shortage lie is simply a race to the bottom. A race to burn the nation's economic infrastructure and to sell the scrap at rock bottom prices. A few will make a profit on this, but ultimately productivity will plummet as a result. And it turns out that productivity, not growth, is what distinguishes a good economy from a bad one. But for those who cannot understand that, consider this: growth will be negative when the economic infrastructure is dismantled.

gsr says

Only hard work creates wealth, and that creates real productive jobs.

Are you claiming that the American STEM workers aren't working hard? That's bullshit. I pull 70 hour weeks regularly and I'm damn productive.

It is precisely the hard work of STEM workers that create wealth. Replace that with economic slave labor and you won't get the same wealth generation. This has already been empirically proved.

Furthermore, the decrease in wages and employment will reduce consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of economic activity. Gee, what's going to happen to all that economic activity as all jobs are shipped to third world countries? Outsourcing may be good in the short run for a company, unless of course, all other companies are also doing it. Then it's the Tragedy of the Commons and no one will by the company's product because all other companies have laid off the prospective customers.

Outsourcing is a far greater "vicious circle" than saving could ever be. Tell that to the Keynesians.

Rin says

That's right, trading currencies and futures is "hard work". BTW, that's how I'd earned $700K last year. It was a part of the P/L split of the overall company

Blame your uncle Ben for that. Not H1bs.

Dan8267 says

Are you claiming that the American STEM workers aren't working hard? That's bullshit. I pull 70 hour weeks regularly and I'm damn productive.

Are you saying anyone H1bs are not productive? That's damn prejudiced view point you have. Many people are productive. The world is competitive.

Dan8267 says

Furthermore, the decrease in wages and employment will reduce consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of economic activity. Gee, what's going to happen to all that economic activity as all jobs are shipped to third world countries?

That's should have happened years ago. Easy credit prevented the restructuring. You are prejudiced and foolish if you believe in race to bottom nonsense.
Under right conditions, new technology is created, which in turn generates new demand.

Netflix has cause loss of jobs of video store clerks. Manufacturing has been returning to the country, but with mostly robots, as they are cheaper than humans anywhere.
That's a race to the bottom as well according to you? Damn you are confused.

gsr says

Dan8267 says

Are you claiming that the American STEM workers aren't working hard? That's bullshit. I pull 70 hour weeks regularly and I'm damn productive.

Are you saying anyone H1bs are not productive? That's damn prejudiced view point you have. Many people are productive. The world is competitive.

And again you are trying to turn this into an immigrant bash fest.

ok got it...we all agree that there is no tech workers shortage at unlimited wage.
there is tech workers shortage at 80K starting salary and 120K salary for a 6 years experienced guy.
So do you guys propose we ban h1b program till the salaries skyrocket for engineers again ? what salary would be OK for you guys before we start the h1b program ? who decides that salary ?
will 400K/year be OK ? any numbers ?

also , who will guarantee that we will not lose our competitiveness in tech industry to other countries if we start protectionism similar to what auto unions did in Detroit to our car industry?

do you think toyota and honda were a product of outsourcing ?
do you guys realise that we were getting our ass kicked even in electronics industry in 80's. the world is not static. US as a country competes in world market place with other countries. you cannot limit your labour pool to your own country when you compete with other countries. You use your existing brand and position while its still there and attract more talent and create a ruthless competitive talented team. imagine creating a basket ball team. lets have the lakers ban all the non la county players and see how it works out for them against other teams who source the talent from all over the country. talent in tech industry does not mean you have to always be super smart. if i have a tech company , i'll have certain jobs which need high skills and some which need medium and some which will need low skill and lots of hard work. for each category, i'll want to source from all over the world. That means that american workers have to compete in each category.

gsr says

It disproves two myths that exist in your universe.

But it doesn't disprove that you condone lawbreaking.

"USCIS moved to boost enforcement of H-1B laws after an internal study released about a year ago disclosed widespread violations of H-1B rules by employers. The study found that one in five visas involved either fraud or 'technical violations.'"

I guess you equate following the law with "ignorance".

gsr says

you are ignorant outside of your world

Dan8267 says

What you don't realize is that the Tech Worker Shortage lie is simply a race to the bottom.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

If you lived in the bay area and have a decent tech background then you'd know that the tech worker shortage is not a myth. The question is whether H1Bs can fill that gap. There used to be a real shortage back during the tech bubble, these days it is a perceived shortage of above average skilled and experienced tech workers. Companies are not willing to hire mediocrity anymore although they might not know how to distinguish so they let their current engineers roam free in their interviews - and interviewing with nerds is anything but easy. I started out as an H1B (though I do have some family here in the US as well as Canada) and luckily can be somewhat picky now in choosing my employers, but let me tell you that the interview process is nothing like it used to be. Almost every company will make you go through several rounds (one or 2 days) of interviews plus usually a written test and even if you score well all it takes is to disagree with the nerd-in-chief on some concurrency or testing issue/philosophy and you won't get the job. Employers do need a lot more engineers but they have become very picky, often to their own detriment, and would do better in giving a junior or mid-level engineer who is willing to learn a fair chance rather than waiting for the rockstar that never comes. Some of those rockstars happen to be H1Bs so they can fill the gap occasionally, but I doubt that there is any singnificant difference in skills between American and foreign tech workers over all.

Here are the types to recognize when interviewing and when later working with them ;)

http://www.daedtech.com/the-code-warriors

New Renter says

And again you are trying to turn this into an immigrant bash fest.

You know very well I am not bashing any immigrant, and neither are you.
There are some other people, however, have a different view point.

Overall, I agree with one point as as some of you mentioned. The employers have become overly cautious. The interview process has become overly complicated in many cases.
Many of them want the rockstar for every post, kinda like some overly choosy men and women in the dating game.

What I contest here is this. It does not have anything do with existence of H1Bs.

finehoe says

But it doesn't disprove that you condone lawbreaking.

There is no reason to support anyone who breaks the law. They should be punished.

Having said that, I maintain there is a problem with the law when it is so difficult to enforce and it is so easy to break.

The same goes for illegal immigration as well. The laws are overly tight and complicated. There would be less illegal immigration from Mexico if more people get the work permit from there.

jaldi1 says

So do you guys propose we ban h1b program till the salaries skyrocket for engineers again ?

I don't want a ban just a more free market which would take only minor adjustments.

When the last of my ancestors arrived in America everyone was welcome except the Chinese, we were the best country on the planet, and I believe the effects were causal.

A move closer to that except without the prejudice would work great. Continue the H1B program with the current numbers but allow employees to move them to any company. If some one brought over as a Software Engineer I for Infosys at $100K realizes that they can move to Amazon as a Software Engineer III for $200K and then Senior Staff Engineer at Google for over $300K the impact on salaries will be a lot less. He/she could also move to a startup so such companies wouldn't be at the same competitive disadvantage they are with the current system. Limit contract termination costs to actual relocation expenses and require companies bringing employees over to state them up-front so we're less likely to end up with a de facto replacement for the current de jure situation. Things have gotten too imbalanced for an immediate return to open borders to be viable but we can get there in steps.

Eventually globalization will finish leveling out costs of living and salaries around the world with variations for more and less attractive places like we see in our big coastal cities compared to fly over country, not an orders of magnitude or two.

The best we can do is be smart moving in that direction to minimize the pain and stop manipulating the costs of living in America so that the resulting wages land something closer to the "American Ideal" of a 3/2 house with a white picket fence, two cars in the garage, and good schools for the 1.8 children as opposed to a chunk of cage apartment with a bathroom shared by 10 unrelated strangers.

what salary would be OK for you guys before we start the h1b program ? who decides that salary ?

will 400K/year be OK ? any numbers ?

Salaries should be whatever the free market will bear. With negligible costs for each additional unit sold software companies can hit 90% gross profit margins so there's a lot of room.

It's sort of like professional sports for big brains instead of big muscles. The NFL's $9.5B in revenue with 32 teams allowed to have 53 man rosters is an average of $5.6M/player with plenty of room to pay the lowliest $400K and best performing $10M/year.

There are other American football leagues with less media revenue that don't pay as well, just like there are companies where doing software better has less impact on the bottom line and wages aren't as high

drew_eckhardt says

resulting wages land something closer to the "American Ideal" of a 3/2 house with a white picket fence, two cars in the garage, and good schools for the 2.1 children as opposed to a chunk of cage apartment with a bathroom shared by 10 unrelated strangers.

You should know, many people do get that "Ideal" outside SFBA, with one Software Engineer's salary or even less.

gsr says

You should know, many people do get that "Ideal" outside SFBA, with one Software Engineer's salary or even less.

One (senior) software engineer's salary still effectively does the trick in Sunnyvale within comfortable bicycling distance of jobs between Redwood City and San Jose which pretty much covers Silicon Valley (in which 41% of 2011 American venture capital was spent) for software purposes.

drew_eckhardt says

jaldi1 says

So do you guys propose we ban h1b program till the salaries skyrocket for engineers again ?

I don't want a ban just a more free market which would take only minor adjustments.

When the last of my ancestors arrived in America everyone was welcome except the Chinese, we were the best country on the planet, and I believe the effects were causal.

A move closer to that except without the prejudice would work great.

In all fairness, those who were welcomed during the early 20th century were essentially whites from western or eastern Europe, who'd dropped their parents' native non-English languages, and then became fully Anglo-Saxon-ized in culture. Thus, the American melting pot story was really about the assimilation of various caucasian ethnicities into one composite Anglo-American one.

As for what's a fair STEM salary, let's first get the postdocs into real jobs (thus, accepting the fact that they won't ALL have 6+ years of Oracle PL/SQL [ or whatever aberrant reqs are ] on their resume) and then, we'll see where the barometer falls. I suspect that the salaries will be ensemble range bound, with a lot of entry levels in the $44-$55K range, mid-tier from $65-$75K, & some experts in the $80K-$120K range. Then, many from the mid-tier will opt out, go for business school/management, health care, or finance/trading. Those who'll sort of stick around, will be content with the work and the job stability that it offers.

Businesses outsource or get visas to import workers because USA unions still have unsustainable demands in spite of global competition so essentially unions are shipping jobs overseas or forcing businesses to import overseas workers at lower rates.