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Broadly speaking, there are two types of H1B applicants[1]: 1. Applicants being hired directly by US companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft etc. These applic
by __sr__ 8y ago
Broadly speaking, there are two types of H1B applicants[1]:
1. Applicants being hired directly by US companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft etc. These applicants have either worked for a while at one of their offshore subsidiaries or were hired directly after a thorough interview process. They are typically paid on par with their US counterparts. These applicants are usually very good at what they do — regardless of their educational background — which is why they were hired in the first place.
2. Applicants working for outsourcing companies who are being sent to work for their clients. Unfortunately, not all of them are good and are hired mostly to reduce costs.
Most of the stereotypical immigrant engineers fall in the second category. A lot of them moved to the US in late 1990s and throughout the 2000s. Companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple etc. don’t typically hire incompetent people — barring a few exceptions which may have slipped through the cracks.
Unfortunately, the second category of applicants give all of them a bad name.
I don’t know exactly how this can be solved completely. Perhaps H1Bs should be allowed to stay in the country after quitting their jobs for a certain period of time so they can look for another one — eliminating low employee mobility? Perhaps the minimum H1B wages should be increased — eliminating the low cost H1Bs? Perhaps there should be additional scrutiny for applicants going to work for a third party client? Perhaps there should be subcategories of H1B with different limits for the two types of applicants? Perhaps a combination?
In any case, treating the two categories as one is probably not a great idea.
[1] I know I am generalizing here and that the world is not black and white and that there are exceptions. But in my experience, these are the broad categories.
- dmode 8y agoBoth me and my wife fall in category 1, but were unceremoniously denied H1 visa extensions this year. Both of us have Master's degree in the US. As you would note from other comments in this thread, there is a lot of misunderstanding about H1B among Americans. For most people H1B = cheap, which is grossly incorrect
- __sr__ 8y ago> For most people H1B = cheap, which is grossly incorrect >> In any case, treating the two categories as one is probably not a great idea. That is exactly what I said.
- NTDF9 8y ago@dmode what did you and your spouse end up doing?
- dmode 8y agoThankfully my wife's second petition was approved. I am currently negotiating to work out of an international office. It is really complicated due to tax issues, transfer, wage leveling, timezones etc. Personally, it is tough for me as I have a toddler. The thought of a prolonged separation with her is stressing me out. We are also planning to move out of the US next year. Researching best destination currently
- NTDF9 8y agoI hear you. Sorry about this! What other countries are you considering?
- amf12 8y ago> I don’t know exactly how this can be solved completely. One thing I don't understand is why there is no ranking of all the H1-B applications? Score and sort all the applications based on some metrics like education, compensation, work exp, company, etc. Currently, applications are picked using a lottery. This does not make sense for an employment based visa! I know so many good engineers from Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc who did not get their applications selected in the lottery after they studied and worked here and had to be moved to another country.
- candiodari 8y agoYou did read the part about outsourcing companies faking all of these credentials, right ? To the point of having "senior c++ developers" that don't know what a compiler is. But even if not faked, how would you compare people from wildly different institutions and countries ?
- amf12 8y ago> You did read the part about outsourcing companies faking all of these credentials, right ? Yeah, I agree that's a challenge. But I am sure there could be some metric buckets like compensation bucket based on the location, employers market cap bucket( granted this could again be unfair to certain companies). > But even if not faked, how would you compare people from wildly different institutions and countries ? US Educational Institutes and immigration agencies of other countries have already solved this problem. There are institutions like WES which do a GPA and educational credentials evaluation.