9 ms·

We are still a small company of 40+ people and have quite unprecedented issues with H-1Bs, from transfer though extension. Literally every single H-1B extension

by doh 7y ago

We are still a small company of 40+ people and have quite unprecedented issues with H-1Bs, from transfer though extension. Literally every single H-1B extension or transfer got slapped by RFE. The amount of documents we had to produce to prove that an employee, who works for us for 3 years, is still valuable, is just mind-blowing. BTW we got RFE equally for people that are from Europe and India. PS: because it was brought up by someone in this thread, we don’t employ immigrants to save money. Check any of my “who is hiring” posts [0] and you can see, that we pay equally across the US to all employees based on their skill level. We bring immigrants because we’re having hard times finding skilled workers locally. The competition for talent is quite brutal and we just can’t pay the same as FAANG. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20587535

dnsiz 7y ago
Then hire Americans. Happy to see they are making the process so inconvenient that you won't hire from outside just to save money.
- miaklesp 7y ago
  Unfortunately, Americans aren't worthy or anything beyond flipping burgers or making Frappuccino.
  - achingtooth 7y ago
    I'd take a burger flipper over an Indian that poos all over the code base.
    - dang 7y ago
      We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - dang 7y ago
    We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - miaklesp 7y ago
      No worries, I'll create a new one!
- mciancia 7y ago
  Why do you assume that they are saving money that way? Quite a lot of companies pays people with h1b exactly the same _and_ they go through the effort of getting the visa itself which is not free. They wouldn't if they could hire someone locally
  - mrchicity 7y ago
    If they could hire someone locally at their desired level of pay, they wouldn't. But while a legitimate talent shortage (at any price) may exist for super elite, specialist roles, there are plenty of citizens who can do typical engineering or IT work. Companies that don't pay enough will have a hard time with hiring though, thus perceiving a shortage. Employers know it's harder for them to switch jobs so they have leverage. They can't complain or do much if management requires they be on-call in the evening or work late. This makes the H-1B worker more attractive to management at the same salary level, since they'll do more work and won't rock the boat. I've also seen H-1Bs receive the same base salary offer, but over time their variable compensation/RSUs (large portion of TC at many tech jobs) and salary progression are much worse. I don't think it's unreasonable to limit H-1Bs to exceptional talent, or at least review their total compensation more thoroughly to ensure they aren't putting excessive downward pressure on the wages of ordinary middle-class citizens.
    - doh 7y ago
      Each company treats their employees differently but we don’t. Our compensation is equal and based on position (so two people that do the same job are paid the same). We do differentiate options but only based on the current state of 409a (so person joining earlier gets more). We pay the best we can. It’s completely open and transparent to all our employees. But there is no way to compete with $400k salaries paid to selected workers by few companies. So what should we do? Close?
      - mrchicity 7y ago
        That's great that you don't do that. Sorry if this is blunt: Paying low 100s + de minimis equity for distributed systems and DSP engineers in a super high COL city like LA is going to be a hard sell for most. People with real experience in those fields will be older, can't reasonably support a family there on that salary, and have a lot of options. The type of inexperienced employee who could pick these things up quickly is already being courted by FANGs on campus, for more money. To get someone to work for that salary, the equity needs to be meaningful, or the startup needs to be the next Facebook or Google, not a niche product. If I'm thinking of working for you, at the max equity you list, the rosiest picture I could paint myself is an exit 4 years from now for $500mm, after which I'd get $500k assuming no dilution = $125k a year. And that's assuming all the stars align to make that happen. I don't think you should close, since you have a cool product, but maybe consider moving to a lower COL area? I'm sure you could find plenty of people in a place like Huntsville, AL. Lots of defense contractors have engineers with the skills you need and I bet working for a fun startup would be more exciting than what they're doing now.
Franciscouzo 7y ago
All the other commenters are saying you should hire Americans, but why don't you instead hire remote?
- doh 7y ago
  Remote is the new open-office. It’s quite hard to make it work and you have to be set up that way from the start.
  - daveslash 7y ago
    >>"It's quite hard to make it work" Agreed, but that won't stop companies from trying anyway. From my experience, a lot of large companies can't really tell that their remote setups aren't really working. [Edit] Added to word 'Agreed'.
    - doh 7y ago
      Agreed. For a company of our size, we would not last long.
      - xtracto 7y ago
        I work for a 35 person startup with hq in the valley. We are 10ppl here in Mexico (gdl) and the rest are up there. There are numerous start ups that have setup shop here (humanapi, scalable press, grainchain, brightcove, wizeline among many others). Given the time zone closeness and culture similarities, it is normally a win-win situation. My company even moved someone from India who lost his H1B to work here. Apparently it's easier.
        daveslash 7y ago
        Your company very well might be doing remote-work "the right way" and getting a lot of productive work done, in which cause I would applaud your company. I'm not arguing that it can't be done successfully. However, I still stand by my statement that remote work is hard to do well, but despite this companies will try anyway. I should also clarify -- I was mostly speaking from the position of a large enterprise (40,000+ people).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ForHackernews 7y ago
Please don't take this the wrong way, but your post is unintentionally hilariously oblivious. > we don’t employ immigrants to save money... the competition for talent is quite brutal and we just can’t pay the same as FAANG. No, no, we're not doing it to save money...we just can't pay the local market rate so we import cheaper workers. But it's not to save money.
- doh 7y ago
  Save money implies that we make the money in the first place and then take it for ourselves instead of paying it to our employees. Almost nobody can compete with the comp provided by FAANG. Do you want 5 companies running everything in your life? Isn’t far enough already?
  - number1dangfan 7y ago
    If this were true, why do FAANGs all support raising the H1B cap?
    - doh 7y ago
      Because they compete against all of us and each other. Google has tens of thousands of engineers and wants more.
      - number1dangfan 7y ago
        >Almost nobody can compete with the comp provided by FAANG. Do you want 5 companies running everything in your life? Isn’t far enough already? But your argument was that H-1B favors small companies and hurts large ones. So if Google agreed with your argument they would oppose H-1Bs. edit: quoted doh's comment
        doh 7y ago
        Where did I make that argument?
  - 7y ago
mixmastamyk 7y ago
I live nearby in LA and (when I was looking) submitted my resume with twenty years experience. Didn’t even get to a phone screen. My guess is you’re making the same mistake so many companies do. Hyper focused on tech X rather than Y or Z. Refusal to train for a month, but would rather wait a year and chase HB1s to nowhere. i.e. Looking for a unicorn instead of developing them. I’m happily employed on the east coast working remotely now. Had to pick up a new skill or two. Never used Solr before, now I have. Took a few weeks to get proficient in between other responsibilities.
- doh 7y ago
  We are far from perfect and make plenty of mistakes. Hiring is no different. I’m glad you found a better opportunity than us. Just maybe a note. If you read my original post, all are our existing employees or transfers.
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    Right, no one is perfect. Would be great if the issue wasn’t so endemic.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- weq 7y ago
  Amen. Startups are like the import car scene. They all go out with a shopping list, get the same bootstrap launch page, hire the same social networking team, get wooded by a hire company with l33tcode screening, and then wonder why they develop long-term relationships with recruiters --- instead developers. The reality is, any good programmer can screen another programmer within 15 minutes. A conversation about there last implementation, the challanges and how they responded to them is a good start. Coding professionally is an expression of ones self. A missing semi-column is tell, not a linting issue.
  - Areading314 7y ago
    you mean semi-colon? check your linter!
rayiner 7y ago
> we don’t employ immigrants to save money. > The competition for talent is quite brutal and we just can’t pay the same as FAANG. You don't have to pay immigrants less in order to be saving money by employing immigrants. The whole point is that by expanding the labor pool, you're reducing salaries and negotiating power for everyone. That's not what the H1-B system was designed for. It was designed to facilitate hiring folks with specialized skills you can't get locally. E.g. you want to hire an Indian person who did his PhD on something relevant to a project you're working on.
- komali2 7y ago
  > you're reducing salaries and negotiating power for everyone. Rather, you're leveling it by expanding the labor pool to include the rest of the world, aka via globalization. Not inherently bad imo, but I could understand why someone patriotic would find this problematic.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    I'm not making a value judgment on it, I'm just pointing out the economic effect.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Also someone who was part of the expanding labor pool, including immigrants who have already got in.
  - addicted 7y ago
    Well, H1B visas do not expand the labor pool. H1B visas allow members of an already expanded labor pool to join and contribute to the US economy. The alternative to fewer H1B visas is not just hiring Americans. In fact, hiring Americans is far less likely than simply hiring Indians and letting them work in India. Or, as is happening increasingly, having Chinese and Indian employees who were educated in the US, move to Canada.
karlakush 7y ago
> we don’t employ immigrants to save money > we just can’t pay the same as FAANG Sounds like you're having a hard time finding skilled workers locally because you don't pay as well as other employers. How is that any different than employing immigrants to save money?
quaquaqua1 7y ago
How much does it cost to train a new hire who isn't technically proficient but is willing to work for half price? If you are worried about retention, a non-compete agreement is an option considering you are deliberately investing resources into hiring them for a position they are currently unqualified for. I signed such an agreement and have been enjoying a nice career ever since.
- doh 7y ago
  Lets start with the fact that non-competes are illegal in California [0]. Even if they were not, that's not a great way to retain an employee and we would not like to go down that path. Problem with training is not just cost, but mostly time. If you need to grow the business but your employees are not ready to for the scale, there is not much you can do about it. A few companies died because of this, notably Digg and Friendster. [0] https://www.sanjosebusinesslawyersblog.com/are-non-compete-agreements-enforceable-in-california/ https://www.sanjosebusinesslawyersblog.com/are-non-compete-a...
  - belltaco 7y ago
    >A few companies died because of this, notably Digg and Friendster Interesting, never heard about that. Any place where I can read more about it?
    - doh 7y ago
      Digg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg#Digg_v4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg#Digg_v4 Friendster http://highscalability.com/blog/2007/11/13/friendster-lost-lead-because-of-a-failure-to-scale.html http://highscalability.com/blog/2007/11/13/friendster-lost-l... There are, of course, others. Twitter wasn't far from meeting the same fate. That's (partially) why Dorsey was fired.
kaitai 7y ago
To add to the chorus, I'm seeing that too. Work with a professional masters' program in a highly technical (non-software) field and all our non-US grads are getting hit with RFEs. It's making a lot of work for some of the folks in our program administration, as writing letters of support outlining the specific and substantial technical skills of these people is not trivial -- and these letters are under increased scrutiny from the feds. These folks are getting market-rate positions -- since I'm in flyover country, there are no FAANG competitors here.

by doh 7y ago

dnsiz 7y ago

Then hire Americans. Happy to see they are making the process so inconvenient that you won't hire from outside just to save money.

miaklesp 7y ago
Unfortunately, Americans aren't worthy or anything beyond flipping burgers or making Frappuccino.
- achingtooth 7y ago
  I'd take a burger flipper over an Indian that poos all over the code base.
  - dang 7y ago
    We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 7y ago
  We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - miaklesp 7y ago
    No worries, I'll create a new one!
mciancia 7y ago
Why do you assume that they are saving money that way? Quite a lot of companies pays people with h1b exactly the same _and_ they go through the effort of getting the visa itself which is not free. They wouldn't if they could hire someone locally
- mrchicity 7y ago
  If they could hire someone locally at their desired level of pay, they wouldn't. But while a legitimate talent shortage (at any price) may exist for super elite, specialist roles, there are plenty of citizens who can do typical engineering or IT work. Companies that don't pay enough will have a hard time with hiring though, thus perceiving a shortage. Employers know it's harder for them to switch jobs so they have leverage. They can't complain or do much if management requires they be on-call in the evening or work late. This makes the H-1B worker more attractive to management at the same salary level, since they'll do more work and won't rock the boat. I've also seen H-1Bs receive the same base salary offer, but over time their variable compensation/RSUs (large portion of TC at many tech jobs) and salary progression are much worse. I don't think it's unreasonable to limit H-1Bs to exceptional talent, or at least review their total compensation more thoroughly to ensure they aren't putting excessive downward pressure on the wages of ordinary middle-class citizens.
  - doh 7y ago
    Each company treats their employees differently but we don’t. Our compensation is equal and based on position (so two people that do the same job are paid the same). We do differentiate options but only based on the current state of 409a (so person joining earlier gets more). We pay the best we can. It’s completely open and transparent to all our employees. But there is no way to compete with $400k salaries paid to selected workers by few companies. So what should we do? Close?
    - mrchicity 7y ago
      That's great that you don't do that. Sorry if this is blunt: Paying low 100s + de minimis equity for distributed systems and DSP engineers in a super high COL city like LA is going to be a hard sell for most. People with real experience in those fields will be older, can't reasonably support a family there on that salary, and have a lot of options. The type of inexperienced employee who could pick these things up quickly is already being courted by FANGs on campus, for more money. To get someone to work for that salary, the equity needs to be meaningful, or the startup needs to be the next Facebook or Google, not a niche product. If I'm thinking of working for you, at the max equity you list, the rosiest picture I could paint myself is an exit 4 years from now for $500mm, after which I'd get $500k assuming no dilution = $125k a year. And that's assuming all the stars align to make that happen. I don't think you should close, since you have a cool product, but maybe consider moving to a lower COL area? I'm sure you could find plenty of people in a place like Huntsville, AL. Lots of defense contractors have engineers with the skills you need and I bet working for a fun startup would be more exciting than what they're doing now.

Franciscouzo 7y ago

All the other commenters are saying you should hire Americans, but why don't you instead hire remote?

doh 7y ago
Remote is the new open-office. It’s quite hard to make it work and you have to be set up that way from the start.
- daveslash 7y ago
  >>"It's quite hard to make it work" Agreed, but that won't stop companies from trying anyway. From my experience, a lot of large companies can't really tell that their remote setups aren't really working. [Edit] Added to word 'Agreed'.
  - doh 7y ago
    Agreed. For a company of our size, we would not last long.
    - xtracto 7y ago
      I work for a 35 person startup with hq in the valley. We are 10ppl here in Mexico (gdl) and the rest are up there. There are numerous start ups that have setup shop here (humanapi, scalable press, grainchain, brightcove, wizeline among many others). Given the time zone closeness and culture similarities, it is normally a win-win situation. My company even moved someone from India who lost his H1B to work here. Apparently it's easier.
      - daveslash 7y ago
        Your company very well might be doing remote-work "the right way" and getting a lot of productive work done, in which cause I would applaud your company. I'm not arguing that it can't be done successfully. However, I still stand by my statement that remote work is hard to do well, but despite this companies will try anyway. I should also clarify -- I was mostly speaking from the position of a large enterprise (40,000+ people).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ForHackernews 7y ago

Please don't take this the wrong way, but your post is unintentionally hilariously oblivious. > we don’t employ immigrants to save money... the competition for talent is quite brutal and we just can’t pay the same as FAANG. No, no, we're not doing it to save money...we just can't pay the local market rate so we import cheaper workers. But it's not to save money.

doh 7y ago
Save money implies that we make the money in the first place and then take it for ourselves instead of paying it to our employees. Almost nobody can compete with the comp provided by FAANG. Do you want 5 companies running everything in your life? Isn’t far enough already?
- number1dangfan 7y ago
  If this were true, why do FAANGs all support raising the H1B cap?
  - doh 7y ago
    Because they compete against all of us and each other. Google has tens of thousands of engineers and wants more.
    - number1dangfan 7y ago
      >Almost nobody can compete with the comp provided by FAANG. Do you want 5 companies running everything in your life? Isn’t far enough already? But your argument was that H-1B favors small companies and hurts large ones. So if Google agreed with your argument they would oppose H-1Bs. edit: quoted doh's comment
      - doh 7y ago
        Where did I make that argument?
- 7y ago

mixmastamyk 7y ago

I live nearby in LA and (when I was looking) submitted my resume with twenty years experience. Didn’t even get to a phone screen. My guess is you’re making the same mistake so many companies do. Hyper focused on tech X rather than Y or Z. Refusal to train for a month, but would rather wait a year and chase HB1s to nowhere. i.e. Looking for a unicorn instead of developing them. I’m happily employed on the east coast working remotely now. Had to pick up a new skill or two. Never used Solr before, now I have. Took a few weeks to get proficient in between other responsibilities.

doh 7y ago
We are far from perfect and make plenty of mistakes. Hiring is no different. I’m glad you found a better opportunity than us. Just maybe a note. If you read my original post, all are our existing employees or transfers.
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  Right, no one is perfect. Would be great if the issue wasn’t so endemic.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
weq 7y ago
Amen. Startups are like the import car scene. They all go out with a shopping list, get the same bootstrap launch page, hire the same social networking team, get wooded by a hire company with l33tcode screening, and then wonder why they develop long-term relationships with recruiters --- instead developers. The reality is, any good programmer can screen another programmer within 15 minutes. A conversation about there last implementation, the challanges and how they responded to them is a good start. Coding professionally is an expression of ones self. A missing semi-column is tell, not a linting issue.
- Areading314 7y ago
  you mean semi-colon? check your linter!

rayiner 7y ago

> we don’t employ immigrants to save money. > The competition for talent is quite brutal and we just can’t pay the same as FAANG. You don't have to pay immigrants less in order to be saving money by employing immigrants. The whole point is that by expanding the labor pool, you're reducing salaries and negotiating power for everyone. That's not what the H1-B system was designed for. It was designed to facilitate hiring folks with specialized skills you can't get locally. E.g. you want to hire an Indian person who did his PhD on something relevant to a project you're working on.

komali2 7y ago
> you're reducing salaries and negotiating power for everyone. Rather, you're leveling it by expanding the labor pool to include the rest of the world, aka via globalization. Not inherently bad imo, but I could understand why someone patriotic would find this problematic.
- rayiner 7y ago
  I'm not making a value judgment on it, I'm just pointing out the economic effect.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Also someone who was part of the expanding labor pool, including immigrants who have already got in.
- addicted 7y ago
  Well, H1B visas do not expand the labor pool. H1B visas allow members of an already expanded labor pool to join and contribute to the US economy. The alternative to fewer H1B visas is not just hiring Americans. In fact, hiring Americans is far less likely than simply hiring Indians and letting them work in India. Or, as is happening increasingly, having Chinese and Indian employees who were educated in the US, move to Canada.

karlakush 7y ago

> we don’t employ immigrants to save money > we just can’t pay the same as FAANG Sounds like you're having a hard time finding skilled workers locally because you don't pay as well as other employers. How is that any different than employing immigrants to save money?

quaquaqua1 7y ago

How much does it cost to train a new hire who isn't technically proficient but is willing to work for half price? If you are worried about retention, a non-compete agreement is an option considering you are deliberately investing resources into hiring them for a position they are currently unqualified for. I signed such an agreement and have been enjoying a nice career ever since.

doh 7y ago
Lets start with the fact that non-competes are illegal in California [0]. Even if they were not, that's not a great way to retain an employee and we would not like to go down that path. Problem with training is not just cost, but mostly time. If you need to grow the business but your employees are not ready to for the scale, there is not much you can do about it. A few companies died because of this, notably Digg and Friendster. [0] https://www.sanjosebusinesslawyersblog.com/are-non-compete-agreements-enforceable-in-california/ https://www.sanjosebusinesslawyersblog.com/are-non-compete-a...
- belltaco 7y ago
  >A few companies died because of this, notably Digg and Friendster Interesting, never heard about that. Any place where I can read more about it?
  - doh 7y ago
    Digg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg#Digg_v4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digg#Digg_v4 Friendster http://highscalability.com/blog/2007/11/13/friendster-lost-lead-because-of-a-failure-to-scale.html http://highscalability.com/blog/2007/11/13/friendster-lost-l... There are, of course, others. Twitter wasn't far from meeting the same fate. That's (partially) why Dorsey was fired.

kaitai 7y ago

To add to the chorus, I'm seeing that too. Work with a professional masters' program in a highly technical (non-software) field and all our non-US grads are getting hit with RFEs. It's making a lot of work for some of the folks in our program administration, as writing letters of support outlining the specific and substantial technical skills of these people is not trivial -- and these letters are under increased scrutiny from the feds. These folks are getting market-rate positions -- since I'm in flyover country, there are no FAANG competitors here.