4 ms·

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

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?
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  Offer perks that they can't or won't: A four-day work week, no-questions-asked remote, the chance to do something other than soulless ad-tech. Finance pays better than anyone else, and yet people apply for jobs with non-finance firms.
  - doh 7y ago
    That’s what we (and others) do. There is just not enough skilled people available.
    - ForHackernews 7y ago
      ...at the rate you're willing/able to pay. There are plenty of skilled people out there -- they're just getting top dollar for their skills.
      - doh 7y ago
        Really. So why do need FAANG bring any immigrants if there is so much talent and it’s just a question of money, which they have plenty of.
      - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
        If doh offers more and poaches an engineer from a FAANG company, that company will now be down one engineer. The shortage of skilled engineers will still exist. The fact that salaries are so high for skilled engineers is an indication of the labor shortage.
        Amezarak 7y ago
        Salaries are so high only in Silicon Valley and a couple of other major tech hubs. In the rest of the country, junior engineers make somewhere between 35-65k and a senior engineer can expect to cap out at the end of their career between 100-120k. This suggests there is no nationwide labor shortage, just a shortage of people willing to move to major tech hubs. By allowing tech companies to evade the underlying problem by hiring immigrant labor, we are making the knock on effects (eg SF housing prices, salaries outside of SV) even worse.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Are you running at the size and complexity of a FAANG? Do you need them? There are plenty of developers that would gladly take less than half of the salary of a FAANG to not have to move to the west coast.
  - doh 7y ago
    You should’ve just checked my profile. Yes, we run at the complexity of Google [0]. We do almost exactly the same thing with a bit different use case. There are not many people that could work for us at the scale we run. [1] [0] https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2018/06/22/video-search-with-rasty-turek/ https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2018/06/22/video-search... [1] https://cloud.google.com/customers/pex/ https://cloud.google.com/customers/pex/
    - Amezarak 7y ago
      I'm sorry, and I don't mean this in a hateful way, but what you're saying is that you run at a level of complexity that requires top engineering talent you can't afford (since it would require FAANG levels of compensation) in the location you set up in, so you hire H1Bs. So yes, your business would not exist in a country with sane immigration visa laws and I believe the ethical thing to do would be to close. That doesn't mean your business might not be a great idea or be doing something good for the world. We could create a lot of great businesses if we could import infinite labor. There are other things you can ethically try besides closing. Are you sure you really need top engineering talent? I read your links and I'm not really convinced that this is true. It's certainly not an easy problem, but it doesn't seem like something that, say, a team of the top 50% of comp-sci graduates who can actually program couldn't solve. It also seems hard to understand how you're hiring the best talent out there, but remote is too hard - I agree there are problems with remote, but experienced, top talent employees are usually the ones that are going to do great. Even aside from that, are LA and Boulder the best places to have offices? There are literally millions of skilled programmers in the US, and most of them have no interest in moving to California or Colorado.
      - doh 7y ago
dang 7y ago
Would you please review the site guidelines and stop breaking them? They include: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." Also: "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  Sarcasm is not the same as snark. I'm not engaging in a content-free sneer, I'm trying to make a real point: Wannabe capitalists are whining about being on the losing end of capitalism. But whatever, mods r gods. I think I'll take a break from HN for a while.

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?
ForHackernews 7y ago
Offer perks that they can't or won't: A four-day work week, no-questions-asked remote, the chance to do something other than soulless ad-tech. Finance pays better than anyone else, and yet people apply for jobs with non-finance firms.
- doh 7y ago
  That’s what we (and others) do. There is just not enough skilled people available.
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    ...at the rate you're willing/able to pay. There are plenty of skilled people out there -- they're just getting top dollar for their skills.
    - doh 7y ago
      Really. So why do need FAANG bring any immigrants if there is so much talent and it’s just a question of money, which they have plenty of.
    - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
      If doh offers more and poaches an engineer from a FAANG company, that company will now be down one engineer. The shortage of skilled engineers will still exist. The fact that salaries are so high for skilled engineers is an indication of the labor shortage.
      - Amezarak 7y ago
        Salaries are so high only in Silicon Valley and a couple of other major tech hubs. In the rest of the country, junior engineers make somewhere between 35-65k and a senior engineer can expect to cap out at the end of their career between 100-120k. This suggests there is no nationwide labor shortage, just a shortage of people willing to move to major tech hubs. By allowing tech companies to evade the underlying problem by hiring immigrant labor, we are making the knock on effects (eg SF housing prices, salaries outside of SV) even worse.
scarface74 7y ago
Are you running at the size and complexity of a FAANG? Do you need them? There are plenty of developers that would gladly take less than half of the salary of a FAANG to not have to move to the west coast.
- doh 7y ago
  You should’ve just checked my profile. Yes, we run at the complexity of Google [0]. We do almost exactly the same thing with a bit different use case. There are not many people that could work for us at the scale we run. [1] [0] https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2018/06/22/video-search-with-rasty-turek/ https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2018/06/22/video-search... [1] https://cloud.google.com/customers/pex/ https://cloud.google.com/customers/pex/
  - Amezarak 7y ago
    I'm sorry, and I don't mean this in a hateful way, but what you're saying is that you run at a level of complexity that requires top engineering talent you can't afford (since it would require FAANG levels of compensation) in the location you set up in, so you hire H1Bs. So yes, your business would not exist in a country with sane immigration visa laws and I believe the ethical thing to do would be to close. That doesn't mean your business might not be a great idea or be doing something good for the world. We could create a lot of great businesses if we could import infinite labor. There are other things you can ethically try besides closing. Are you sure you really need top engineering talent? I read your links and I'm not really convinced that this is true. It's certainly not an easy problem, but it doesn't seem like something that, say, a team of the top 50% of comp-sci graduates who can actually program couldn't solve. It also seems hard to understand how you're hiring the best talent out there, but remote is too hard - I agree there are problems with remote, but experienced, top talent employees are usually the ones that are going to do great. Even aside from that, are LA and Boulder the best places to have offices? There are literally millions of skilled programmers in the US, and most of them have no interest in moving to California or Colorado.
    - doh 7y ago

dang 7y ago

Would you please review the site guidelines and stop breaking them? They include: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." Also: "Don't be snarky." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ForHackernews 7y ago
Sarcasm is not the same as snark. I'm not engaging in a content-free sneer, I'm trying to make a real point: Wannabe capitalists are whining about being on the losing end of capitalism. But whatever, mods r gods. I think I'll take a break from HN for a while.