5 ms·

Microsoft hires thousands of H1B workers for generic roles like project manager and software developer. Do you really think there aren’t Americans that could f

Microsoft hires thousands of H1B workers for generic roles like project manager and software developer. Do you really think there aren’t Americans that could fill those roles? Of course there are but it would cost more. A true shortage would not affect Microsoft at all. They have as much money as anyone. This is a dirty secret of tech that you can’t discuss without being labeled racist or xenophobic no matter how untrue that is.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> Do you really think there aren’t Americans that could fill those roles? Would they fill them at a similar level of quality? That is to say, if you forced similar wages on both and removed the cost of bringing someone from overseas into the country, would the employer hire the foreigner? If so, I see the visa programme as fulfilling one of its roles: adding to the American braintrust. If not, you have a point. Most studies I've seen don't attempt to answer this question, instead devolving to the easier-to-answer if useless "could they have found an American who met the job requirements".
- slantedview 9y ago
  > Would they fill them at a similar level of quality? That is to say, if you forced similar wages on both Forcing certain wages on American workers is not the way that H1B is intended to work which is basically the point here. H1B is ostensibly intended to allow employers to fulfill roles that cannot be filled at any salary by US workers.
  - oh-kumudo 9y ago
    If anything, coders aren't the ones who are under paid in US. Their salary are HIGH. To be the devil's advocate, the H1B visa is created specifically for the purpose to bring down the cost of employers, by opening up to global talent supply, no matter under what disguise. And software industry seems to me is exactly the sector what H1B is intended to apply on.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      The interesting metric is "salary - costs of living". Since the costs of living are very high in SF, they are not paid that well.
      - oh-kumudo 9y ago
        Not every programmers are living in SF. And I do think it is misleading to say programmers' salary is not high because of the cost-of-living. Cost-of-living applies on EVERYONE, there are many waiters/drivers/artists living in SF, and I don't believe they get additional rebate because they are not doing computer work.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- muninn_ 9y ago
  It's a side-point. If somehow there aren't Americans that could fill generic roles like "Project Manager" then sure, bring in somebody that can. But before doing that you should be doing work to do on the job training, or finding some other way to bring an American into that job. If your company is located here, your executives reside here, and you make use of our government, taxpayer funded infrastructure, university system, etc... then you should be doing what you can to ensure your fellow Americans have access to jobs from your company. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, just move your company out of the country, renounce your citizenship, and relocate your executives and other workers. I get that there can be trouble filling specialty roles, jobs like data scientists, cancer researchers, university researchers, etc... but project manager? Nope sorry. Analyst? Nope sorry. Those jobs just about anybody off the street could do with the right amount of training, experience, or motivation. And before somebody says "oh but the poor corporation will have to pay or spend time training somebody" yeah that's just too bad.
praneshp 9y ago
> Do you really think there aren’t Americans that could fill those roles The onus is on you (or an authority) to show that that they ignored Americans. I'm sure they could hire a person of any nationality to put a body on the seat, but probably not someone who could solve their whiteboard problems. I'm especially biased about MS because I failed to clear their interview twice. I downvoted your other comment about Google (that's now dead) because I thought you were making nonsensical claims with zero evidence; I don't think your comments were racist or xenophobic.
- hackits 9y ago
  Curious any reason why you failed the interview twice?
  - praneshp 9y ago
    Atrocious performance the first time. Probably a close miss the second time; I was not too happy with 2/5 interviews.
    - hackits 9y ago
      Congrats on getting to the interview phase. I've heard horror stories of Microsoft interview process and reluctant to go through their interview meat grinder.
      - praneshp 9y ago
        If I remember correctly, the initial phone screen was a joke. They literally just asked me to code fibonacci once, and something similar the other time. All the interviewers themselves were nice to me, etc.
      - rrhd 9y ago
        Best interview experience I've ever had. They had me do a quick online thing then come to an event with a bunch of people. No waiting around for weeks between each stage, no multiple phone screens, no waiting for weeks after for a yes/no.
albertoavila 9y ago
I feel that hard to believe, if anything, I would say foreign workers are more expensive than local talent, in big tech firms they are paid just the same as Americans, but they come with added expenses due to international relocation, visa feeds, etc. * I might be biased thou, since I work on the US under a work Visa.
- rrhd 9y ago
  No, you are just being paid a pittance and working 80 hour weeks. Didn't you realize that. Oh and that guy they dragged out of your office when you arrived was the American you totally replaced.
ActsJuvenile 9y ago
I have hired a few H1-Bs, and here is how the first step goes: Before you file for a H1-B visa with USCIS, employer needs to get Department of Labor (DOL) certification. Employers have to advertise the job in local media for 30 days. Jobs have to offer median salary for the given skill based on DOL numbers (Roughly $104K per year). All resumes received, and interview notes must be included in DOL application for labor certification. If a qualified American applied for the job, DOL rejects the certification request. I would love to hear where you see a material flaw in this process. To me it signifies there is a real talent shortage.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- majormajor 9y ago
  The way I've seen people bypass these requirements is by advertising a highly specific job with attributes very few people will match exactly.
- dominotw 9y ago
  Flaw is this: employers are guaranteed loyalty on h1b for that price. So a local cannot compete with that /
  - supergarfield 9y ago
    This is not really true: the main limiting factor with H1-B visas is the yearly cap; as others have said, the rest of the requirements are normally easy to check off (especially if you already have an H1-B). Since you are not subject to the H1-B cap when reapplying if you are already on an H1-B, and since there is so much demand for tech jobs, it's not clear that H1-B tech workers have to be loyal to their employer.
    - dominotw 9y ago
      you have to be loyal once you apply for your green card. most ppl on h1b don't want to leave after 6 yrs so they apply for their greencards.
nevir 9y ago
Yes, there's a shortage of qualified software developers, at least.
- wolfgke 9y ago
  Why not simply open offices in other countries instead?
  - nevir 9y ago
    It's often hard to split work between countries effectively (especially in large corporations). A lot of the larger & more impactful projects tend to be done at a home base - for political or logistical reasons. Speaking from experience at Amazon & Google.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > It's often hard to split work between countries effectively (especially in large corporations) How do you come to claim "especially in large corporations"? I would intuitively rather believe that it is much harder in small companies.
    - SubuSS 9y ago
      I don't know which part of Amazon you worked for - but this was totally done in Amazon: We had/have major pieces of kindle, aws, payments et. built out of India. I worked for one of those teams for two years. Amazon is so big that segmenting like this isn't a big deal at all. I am all for shutting the door on under-qualified engineers being hired just because they will work for much lower wages, But applying the same rule to companies like Amazon / Microsoft etc would just mean work moves to those offices. Personally I moved here because the team I wanted to work for was here (DynamoDB - given my history building storage engines before). I stayed because of the quality of life / opportunities. I mean if my visa gets revoked, I would sell my house etc here, pick up my money and probably end up in Canada / Europe offices of Snap anyway. I try not to attach myself to material stuff too much, I'd like to think I can make the best out of wherever I am, improve when I can. But not many (including my family) are like that. They like the security provided by a good immigration policy - means this will only take high paying jobs away from here.
innagadadavida 9y ago
In addition to technical skills, there are other considerations: 1. Diversity. 2. Cultural fit. 3. Results. Companies know better what they want/need -- not some loud random strangers on the internet, and definitely not the government/USCIS. That said, driving down US wages should definitely be punished as it is illegal.
tybit 9y ago
For international companies either they import overseas skilled employees to their headquarters (e.g Microsoft) and/or they open up offices in other countries where those skilled employees can work(e.g Google). There's a pretty good argument for the US to import those skilled employees rather than export those jobs. But as a non US citizen, I'd be more than happy for H1B workers to be more restricted and have more big tech companies open offices in my country.
wolfgke 9y ago
> Do you really think there aren’t Americans that could fill those roles? Of course there are but it would cost more. "Shortage" means that even if you pay insane salaries, you will not get a qualified employee. Thus a thought: make it a requirement for H1B workers that they are paid, say, 3 times what the average of a typical salary for a related job is. This way companies can solve their shortages via H1B, but they will only do it to stop shortages of qualified workers (for an insane price) and not to reduce costs.
- jldugger 9y ago
  By your definition, is it ever possible to have a labor shortage? As long as there's one qualified individual who doesn't already work for you, there should be some "insane salary" that would entice them, no?
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > By your definition, is it ever possible to have a labor shortage? Yes, it is quite possible, though not common. Centrally jobs, where you need highly intelligent people with qualifications that only very few have (and are insanely hard to get) or an insane amount of experience. Think of people with decades of experience developing chip architectures from ground up (example: Jim Keller). Think of willing to apply mathematicians of Field-medalist quality to work on your insanely hard problems (example: Microsoft Research (Station Q) applied Michael Freedman to work on the mathematical foundation for topological quantum computers; or it is well-known that Terence Tao also does consulting work for the NSA (source: http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/terence-tao-the-mozart-of-maths-20150216-13fwcv.html http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/terence-tao-the-mozart-of... )). Or think of gurus in AI/machine learning of an above-ordinary-human level of competence.
    - jldugger 9y ago
      And how many visas do you think this "literal world expert" definition would allow? 200?
stale2002 9y ago
"Jobs that Americans could fill" is not what people are talking about when they talk about H1B abuse. H1B abuse is when you do things like pay people the minimum salary as required by law, and THEN set up some illegal contract with the employee that says that if you leave before 2 years, the engineer has to pay back 10s of thousands of dollars. Or another common thing that happens is that the same company will submit a person multiple times through shell companies, so that the person has an unfair advantage in the lottery.
- justboxing 9y ago
  Not sure why you are getting downvoted, but this > THEN set up some illegal contract with the employee that says that if you leave before 2 years, the engineer has to pay back 10s of thousands of dollars is true, and VERY prevelant with Indian 'Companies' [called 'Bodyshoppers'] that abuse the H1B visa program. Some even hold your passport hostage (which is also VERY ILLEGAL). Again, speaking from personal experience of some of my Indian friends who came here on H1B around the same time as me...
  - rrhd 9y ago
    Holding someone's passport should be prison time, and not a small amount.
- rrhd 9y ago
  They will also just flood the process with applications then hire anyone who actually gets one. That shouldn't be cheap.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> Do you really think there aren’t Americans that could fill those roles? Would they fill them at a similar level of quality? That is to say, if you forced similar wages on both and removed the cost of bringing someone from overseas into the country, would the employer hire the foreigner? If so, I see the visa programme as fulfilling one of its roles: adding to the American braintrust. If not, you have a point. Most studies I've seen don't attempt to answer this question, instead devolving to the easier-to-answer if useless "could they have found an American who met the job requirements".

slantedview 9y ago
> Would they fill them at a similar level of quality? That is to say, if you forced similar wages on both Forcing certain wages on American workers is not the way that H1B is intended to work which is basically the point here. H1B is ostensibly intended to allow employers to fulfill roles that cannot be filled at any salary by US workers.
- oh-kumudo 9y ago
  If anything, coders aren't the ones who are under paid in US. Their salary are HIGH. To be the devil's advocate, the H1B visa is created specifically for the purpose to bring down the cost of employers, by opening up to global talent supply, no matter under what disguise. And software industry seems to me is exactly the sector what H1B is intended to apply on.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    The interesting metric is "salary - costs of living". Since the costs of living are very high in SF, they are not paid that well.
    - oh-kumudo 9y ago
      Not every programmers are living in SF. And I do think it is misleading to say programmers' salary is not high because of the cost-of-living. Cost-of-living applies on EVERYONE, there are many waiters/drivers/artists living in SF, and I don't believe they get additional rebate because they are not doing computer work.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
muninn_ 9y ago
It's a side-point. If somehow there aren't Americans that could fill generic roles like "Project Manager" then sure, bring in somebody that can. But before doing that you should be doing work to do on the job training, or finding some other way to bring an American into that job. If your company is located here, your executives reside here, and you make use of our government, taxpayer funded infrastructure, university system, etc... then you should be doing what you can to ensure your fellow Americans have access to jobs from your company. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, just move your company out of the country, renounce your citizenship, and relocate your executives and other workers. I get that there can be trouble filling specialty roles, jobs like data scientists, cancer researchers, university researchers, etc... but project manager? Nope sorry. Analyst? Nope sorry. Those jobs just about anybody off the street could do with the right amount of training, experience, or motivation. And before somebody says "oh but the poor corporation will have to pay or spend time training somebody" yeah that's just too bad.

praneshp 9y ago

> Do you really think there aren’t Americans that could fill those roles The onus is on you (or an authority) to show that that they ignored Americans. I'm sure they could hire a person of any nationality to put a body on the seat, but probably not someone who could solve their whiteboard problems. I'm especially biased about MS because I failed to clear their interview twice. I downvoted your other comment about Google (that's now dead) because I thought you were making nonsensical claims with zero evidence; I don't think your comments were racist or xenophobic.

hackits 9y ago
Curious any reason why you failed the interview twice?
- praneshp 9y ago
  Atrocious performance the first time. Probably a close miss the second time; I was not too happy with 2/5 interviews.
  - hackits 9y ago
    Congrats on getting to the interview phase. I've heard horror stories of Microsoft interview process and reluctant to go through their interview meat grinder.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      If I remember correctly, the initial phone screen was a joke. They literally just asked me to code fibonacci once, and something similar the other time. All the interviewers themselves were nice to me, etc.
    - rrhd 9y ago
      Best interview experience I've ever had. They had me do a quick online thing then come to an event with a bunch of people. No waiting around for weeks between each stage, no multiple phone screens, no waiting for weeks after for a yes/no.

albertoavila 9y ago

I feel that hard to believe, if anything, I would say foreign workers are more expensive than local talent, in big tech firms they are paid just the same as Americans, but they come with added expenses due to international relocation, visa feeds, etc. * I might be biased thou, since I work on the US under a work Visa.

rrhd 9y ago
No, you are just being paid a pittance and working 80 hour weeks. Didn't you realize that. Oh and that guy they dragged out of your office when you arrived was the American you totally replaced.

ActsJuvenile 9y ago

I have hired a few H1-Bs, and here is how the first step goes: Before you file for a H1-B visa with USCIS, employer needs to get Department of Labor (DOL) certification. Employers have to advertise the job in local media for 30 days. Jobs have to offer median salary for the given skill based on DOL numbers (Roughly $104K per year). All resumes received, and interview notes must be included in DOL application for labor certification. If a qualified American applied for the job, DOL rejects the certification request. I would love to hear where you see a material flaw in this process. To me it signifies there is a real talent shortage.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
majormajor 9y ago
The way I've seen people bypass these requirements is by advertising a highly specific job with attributes very few people will match exactly.
dominotw 9y ago
Flaw is this: employers are guaranteed loyalty on h1b for that price. So a local cannot compete with that /
- supergarfield 9y ago
  This is not really true: the main limiting factor with H1-B visas is the yearly cap; as others have said, the rest of the requirements are normally easy to check off (especially if you already have an H1-B). Since you are not subject to the H1-B cap when reapplying if you are already on an H1-B, and since there is so much demand for tech jobs, it's not clear that H1-B tech workers have to be loyal to their employer.
  - dominotw 9y ago
    you have to be loyal once you apply for your green card. most ppl on h1b don't want to leave after 6 yrs so they apply for their greencards.

nevir 9y ago

Yes, there's a shortage of qualified software developers, at least.

wolfgke 9y ago
Why not simply open offices in other countries instead?
- nevir 9y ago
  It's often hard to split work between countries effectively (especially in large corporations). A lot of the larger & more impactful projects tend to be done at a home base - for political or logistical reasons. Speaking from experience at Amazon & Google.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > It's often hard to split work between countries effectively (especially in large corporations) How do you come to claim "especially in large corporations"? I would intuitively rather believe that it is much harder in small companies.
  - SubuSS 9y ago
    I don't know which part of Amazon you worked for - but this was totally done in Amazon: We had/have major pieces of kindle, aws, payments et. built out of India. I worked for one of those teams for two years. Amazon is so big that segmenting like this isn't a big deal at all. I am all for shutting the door on under-qualified engineers being hired just because they will work for much lower wages, But applying the same rule to companies like Amazon / Microsoft etc would just mean work moves to those offices. Personally I moved here because the team I wanted to work for was here (DynamoDB - given my history building storage engines before). I stayed because of the quality of life / opportunities. I mean if my visa gets revoked, I would sell my house etc here, pick up my money and probably end up in Canada / Europe offices of Snap anyway. I try not to attach myself to material stuff too much, I'd like to think I can make the best out of wherever I am, improve when I can. But not many (including my family) are like that. They like the security provided by a good immigration policy - means this will only take high paying jobs away from here.

innagadadavida 9y ago

In addition to technical skills, there are other considerations: 1. Diversity. 2. Cultural fit. 3. Results. Companies know better what they want/need -- not some loud random strangers on the internet, and definitely not the government/USCIS. That said, driving down US wages should definitely be punished as it is illegal.

tybit 9y ago

For international companies either they import overseas skilled employees to their headquarters (e.g Microsoft) and/or they open up offices in other countries where those skilled employees can work(e.g Google). There's a pretty good argument for the US to import those skilled employees rather than export those jobs. But as a non US citizen, I'd be more than happy for H1B workers to be more restricted and have more big tech companies open offices in my country.

wolfgke 9y ago

> Do you really think there aren’t Americans that could fill those roles? Of course there are but it would cost more. "Shortage" means that even if you pay insane salaries, you will not get a qualified employee. Thus a thought: make it a requirement for H1B workers that they are paid, say, 3 times what the average of a typical salary for a related job is. This way companies can solve their shortages via H1B, but they will only do it to stop shortages of qualified workers (for an insane price) and not to reduce costs.

jldugger 9y ago
By your definition, is it ever possible to have a labor shortage? As long as there's one qualified individual who doesn't already work for you, there should be some "insane salary" that would entice them, no?
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > By your definition, is it ever possible to have a labor shortage? Yes, it is quite possible, though not common. Centrally jobs, where you need highly intelligent people with qualifications that only very few have (and are insanely hard to get) or an insane amount of experience. Think of people with decades of experience developing chip architectures from ground up (example: Jim Keller). Think of willing to apply mathematicians of Field-medalist quality to work on your insanely hard problems (example: Microsoft Research (Station Q) applied Michael Freedman to work on the mathematical foundation for topological quantum computers; or it is well-known that Terence Tao also does consulting work for the NSA (source: http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/terence-tao-the-mozart-of-maths-20150216-13fwcv.html http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/terence-tao-the-mozart-of... )). Or think of gurus in AI/machine learning of an above-ordinary-human level of competence.
  - jldugger 9y ago
    And how many visas do you think this "literal world expert" definition would allow? 200?

stale2002 9y ago

"Jobs that Americans could fill" is not what people are talking about when they talk about H1B abuse. H1B abuse is when you do things like pay people the minimum salary as required by law, and THEN set up some illegal contract with the employee that says that if you leave before 2 years, the engineer has to pay back 10s of thousands of dollars. Or another common thing that happens is that the same company will submit a person multiple times through shell companies, so that the person has an unfair advantage in the lottery.

justboxing 9y ago
Not sure why you are getting downvoted, but this > THEN set up some illegal contract with the employee that says that if you leave before 2 years, the engineer has to pay back 10s of thousands of dollars is true, and VERY prevelant with Indian 'Companies' [called 'Bodyshoppers'] that abuse the H1B visa program. Some even hold your passport hostage (which is also VERY ILLEGAL). Again, speaking from personal experience of some of my Indian friends who came here on H1B around the same time as me...
- rrhd 9y ago
  Holding someone's passport should be prison time, and not a small amount.
rrhd 9y ago
They will also just flood the process with applications then hire anyone who actually gets one. That shouldn't be cheap.