6 ms·

It's not Tata and Infosys either. Those guys are too big to avoid playing more or less by the rules. The actual people playing games like this are small time b

It's not Tata and Infosys either. Those guys are too big to avoid playing more or less by the rules. The actual people playing games like this are small time bodyshops. It'll be two cousins from Ahmedebad starting a shop in the US and hiring a bunch of locals via their personal network. They then attempt to socially isolate their employees, getting them set up in the local Guju community, so they don't talk to outsiders and discover their true market worth.

WalterBright 10y ago
I'm not sure how anyone could be prevented from using google to research how much they are worth. Edit: To clarify, I am commenting on the parent's remark that employers are preventing employees from finding this out.
- patio11 10y ago
  Would you believe that I took a $30k a year programming job as a legal immigrant in the knowledge that it would require 60+ hour weeks because it was my impression that it was the best option available to me? "I'm clearly not Google material; I can barely get this J2EE app working", "I perceive that I am working uphill against racism in hiring managers", "I owe my sponsor for this job because they treated me fairly", "Literally no one in my friend group or family has a better job than this at my age", "I suppose this is what 'paying my dues' means and I have been aggressively cultivated to do so since before I could read", "My BATNA is deportation", "Well they are offering a 50% premium on a grad student stipend", etc, can do an awful lot of work.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - umanwizard 10y ago
    Was this in Japan? (I just read the first few sentences of the bio on your blog). If so, how different is 30k USD there from market rates? And what country are you from originally? I wonder if anything is at all different because of differences between Japanese and US culture with respect to discussing compensation, what is typically expected of workers, and so on. (Not trying to poke holes in your story -- just genuinely curious!)
    - keerthiko 10y ago
      patio11's comments rang perfectly true of the average Indian software engineer's line of thinking and contextual awareness as well. I didn't grow up or work in India, but I have a lot of friends who do/did and can see them constrained by this thinking.
    - patio11 10y ago
      This was in Japan. I'm from the US. It's market for a 25 year old in Nagoya, but the point is that despite the fact that there were really straightforward ways to get triple that I in fact did not.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I'm told that people in these situations often simply don't consider leaving for mostly irrational reasons. It's been described to me as something like "it's a big scary world out there, whereas the local community feels like an extension of nice familiar Ahmedebad." One of the people who told me about this (he was Malayalum) said he was uncomfortable when he came to the US because all the doctors were Bengali. They could speak to him in English or Hindi (both of which he knew), but he was only comfortable in Malayalum and another local language.
  - plinkplonk 10y ago
    >(he was Malayalum) should be "He was a Malayali (speaker of Malayalam)" or "he was a Keralite" (native of the state of Kerala, where Malalayalam is the language).
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Thanks.
- umanwizard 10y ago
  Leaving immigration aside -- there are order-of-magnitude compensation differences even among white US-citizen programmers. I.e., some are paid 50k a year; some are paid 500k a year. How is it possible for someone to figure out what they're "worth" in this environment?
  - empressplay 10y ago
    Work history, interviews, coding tests, side-projects...
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    I'd hazard a guess that a computer professional who was unable to use google to determine a salary range for his education and experience is probably worth at the bottom. The ones I know at the top end (and the $500k figure is low) are well aware of the value they bring to a corporation, and price accordingly.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      For example, suppose a corporation has a $100m server farm. If a programmer could make the server software run 1% faster, that's worth $1m to the corporation, and they'd likely be willing to bid $500k for such expertise.
      - rmellow 10y ago
        You're assuming they can't find anyone that will do it for less than 500k.
        sulam 10y ago
        Anyone spending $100M annually on servers is more than willing to spend $500K to someone who can speed it up by 1%. There aren't many of these companies!
        10y ago
bonzini 10y ago
They play by the rules, but they still game the system. The skill they require is widely available among US residents, just not at the wage they want to pay; and they can pay less because they can afford a high turnover among their H1B applicants. Furthermore, they don't really care _which_ of their thousands of candidates actually win the H1B lottery, which is another sign that their applicants' skills are not in short supply.
- raverbashing 10y ago
  Correct Meanwhile, whoever really (tries to get) an H1B because they really need their talent have a 1/3 chance of getting them It's a complete joke http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/no-us-jobs-junior-infosys-employees-company-restricts-h1b-visa-applications-58896 http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/no-us-jobs-junior-infos...

WalterBright 10y ago

I'm not sure how anyone could be prevented from using google to research how much they are worth. Edit: To clarify, I am commenting on the parent's remark that employers are preventing employees from finding this out.

patio11 10y ago
Would you believe that I took a $30k a year programming job as a legal immigrant in the knowledge that it would require 60+ hour weeks because it was my impression that it was the best option available to me? "I'm clearly not Google material; I can barely get this J2EE app working", "I perceive that I am working uphill against racism in hiring managers", "I owe my sponsor for this job because they treated me fairly", "Literally no one in my friend group or family has a better job than this at my age", "I suppose this is what 'paying my dues' means and I have been aggressively cultivated to do so since before I could read", "My BATNA is deportation", "Well they are offering a 50% premium on a grad student stipend", etc, can do an awful lot of work.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- umanwizard 10y ago
  Was this in Japan? (I just read the first few sentences of the bio on your blog). If so, how different is 30k USD there from market rates? And what country are you from originally? I wonder if anything is at all different because of differences between Japanese and US culture with respect to discussing compensation, what is typically expected of workers, and so on. (Not trying to poke holes in your story -- just genuinely curious!)
  - keerthiko 10y ago
    patio11's comments rang perfectly true of the average Indian software engineer's line of thinking and contextual awareness as well. I didn't grow up or work in India, but I have a lot of friends who do/did and can see them constrained by this thinking.
  - patio11 10y ago
    This was in Japan. I'm from the US. It's market for a 25 year old in Nagoya, but the point is that despite the fact that there were really straightforward ways to get triple that I in fact did not.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
I'm told that people in these situations often simply don't consider leaving for mostly irrational reasons. It's been described to me as something like "it's a big scary world out there, whereas the local community feels like an extension of nice familiar Ahmedebad." One of the people who told me about this (he was Malayalum) said he was uncomfortable when he came to the US because all the doctors were Bengali. They could speak to him in English or Hindi (both of which he knew), but he was only comfortable in Malayalum and another local language.
- plinkplonk 10y ago
  >(he was Malayalum) should be "He was a Malayali (speaker of Malayalam)" or "he was a Keralite" (native of the state of Kerala, where Malalayalam is the language).
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Thanks.
umanwizard 10y ago
Leaving immigration aside -- there are order-of-magnitude compensation differences even among white US-citizen programmers. I.e., some are paid 50k a year; some are paid 500k a year. How is it possible for someone to figure out what they're "worth" in this environment?
- empressplay 10y ago
  Work history, interviews, coding tests, side-projects...
- WalterBright 10y ago
  I'd hazard a guess that a computer professional who was unable to use google to determine a salary range for his education and experience is probably worth at the bottom. The ones I know at the top end (and the $500k figure is low) are well aware of the value they bring to a corporation, and price accordingly.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    For example, suppose a corporation has a $100m server farm. If a programmer could make the server software run 1% faster, that's worth $1m to the corporation, and they'd likely be willing to bid $500k for such expertise.
    - rmellow 10y ago
      You're assuming they can't find anyone that will do it for less than 500k.
      - sulam 10y ago
        Anyone spending $100M annually on servers is more than willing to spend $500K to someone who can speed it up by 1%. There aren't many of these companies!
        10y ago

bonzini 10y ago

They play by the rules, but they still game the system. The skill they require is widely available among US residents, just not at the wage they want to pay; and they can pay less because they can afford a high turnover among their H1B applicants. Furthermore, they don't really care _which_ of their thousands of candidates actually win the H1B lottery, which is another sign that their applicants' skills are not in short supply.

raverbashing 10y ago
Correct Meanwhile, whoever really (tries to get) an H1B because they really need their talent have a 1/3 chance of getting them It's a complete joke http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/no-us-jobs-junior-infosys-employees-company-restricts-h1b-visa-applications-58896 http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/no-us-jobs-junior-infos...