With programming being a sexy job now, and all of the bootcamps pumping out people, supply is higher than it's ever been before. I haven't seen non-anecdotal e

With programming being a sexy job now, and all of the bootcamps pumping out people, supply is higher than it's ever been before. I haven't seen non-anecdotal evidence that salaries are inordinately high. "Silicon valley" tech salaries rose by a total of 13.7% from 2010-2014. (Look at the interactive chart at http://media.dice.com/report/check-and-check-u-s-technology-salaries-and-bonuses-rise/ http://media.dice.com/report/check-and-check-u-s-technology-...) A little more than 3% increase a year isn't ridiculous. Especially when US inflation has averaged around 2% over that time period. And considering that other places in the US aren't nearly as "hot" as the bay area. The real shortage is in people who live in the bay area, who can code a prefix tree on a white board in under 30 minutes, who want to add routes all day for the company's boring app, and who want to do it for less than the 3% a year average increase. If you add enough bizarre qualifications, you can say that there's a shortage of anything: There's a shortage of Swift developers with 5 years experience! American companies are notoriously bitchy about a talent shortage, but I think it just about always comes down to "overqualified people don't want to take underwhelming salaries". Right now, i believe good programmers are dramatically underpaid for the value they create I have a vested interest in keeping out foreigners who are being screwed over with artificially low salaries and subsequently screwing natives over by driving salaries down (like with Tata + Infosys). I'm fine with people coming in, but it needs to be on a level playing field, and H1B doesn't do that. I'm arguing for less restrictions around foreigners, and more restrictions on companies gaming the system