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I recently worked at a major retailer who has offices in the Bay Area. Part of the role involved migrating the ERP and ATS system, which had employees, salary,

I recently worked at a major retailer who has offices in the Bay Area. Part of the role involved migrating the ERP and ATS system, which had employees, salary, details etc. In the building I was in, which had incredible developers btw some of the best I’ve ever seen (and despite working on a legacy system!)...209 out of 209 were H1-B’s. Our consulting team at the time was about 20, and 19/20 of the team were H1-B’s. The really sad part about it was as we were leaving, they were establishing a training program for junior H1-B’s with liberal arts degrees to learn programming. I have no idea how they got the visa licenses for those folks. At the same time, they were the best people I ever worked with. But it’s not a sustainable way to run an economy.

s_Hogg 7y ago
I thought the H-1B was supposed to be a lottery, how is any company having this much "good fortune"?
- jumpinggenes 7y ago
  They could be "older" H-1Bs , folks from India are waiting for a GreenCard since 2010, they can renew their H-1Bs in 3-year increments (perpetually) if they have a pending application for permanent residency.
- giovannibonetti 7y ago
  Well, the article mentions how many visas were approved, not how many were requested. Maybe there were many more that were requested, so that even with the lottery they got a huge number of accepted requests.
  - semerda 7y ago
    Right, and here’s the dirty part of this process... some applications are under hiring agencies that later push those approved to the likes of Uber who might have maxed out their own allocations.
    - dmode 7y ago
      This is extraordinarily wrong. There are no allocations. Lottery only happens for first time H1 workers. But the number represented here includes first times, renewals, transfers. etc. There is no concept of allocations
- semerda 7y ago
  Not lottery. There are allocations (or were) per country to give it a more even spread. I know greencard applications still work like that based on origin of birth. Also the H1B process has always felt like who can create the most compelling application. Remember this is a specialization visa and you are basically demonstrating why (a) you cannot find such talent locally and (b) the value it will add to the US economy. So large companies with creative legal counsel do have an advantage over small shops.
  - aksx 7y ago
    H1B is a lottery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Lottery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Lottery You might be thinking of the L1 visa
kec 7y ago
> The really sad part about it was as we were leaving, they were establishing a training program for junior H1-B’s with liberal arts degrees to learn programming. I have no idea how they got the visa licenses for those folks H1b places no requirement on the degree you have, only that you have one.

s_Hogg 7y ago

I thought the H-1B was supposed to be a lottery, how is any company having this much "good fortune"?

jumpinggenes 7y ago
They could be "older" H-1Bs , folks from India are waiting for a GreenCard since 2010, they can renew their H-1Bs in 3-year increments (perpetually) if they have a pending application for permanent residency.
giovannibonetti 7y ago
Well, the article mentions how many visas were approved, not how many were requested. Maybe there were many more that were requested, so that even with the lottery they got a huge number of accepted requests.
- semerda 7y ago
  Right, and here’s the dirty part of this process... some applications are under hiring agencies that later push those approved to the likes of Uber who might have maxed out their own allocations.
  - dmode 7y ago
    This is extraordinarily wrong. There are no allocations. Lottery only happens for first time H1 workers. But the number represented here includes first times, renewals, transfers. etc. There is no concept of allocations
semerda 7y ago
Not lottery. There are allocations (or were) per country to give it a more even spread. I know greencard applications still work like that based on origin of birth. Also the H1B process has always felt like who can create the most compelling application. Remember this is a specialization visa and you are basically demonstrating why (a) you cannot find such talent locally and (b) the value it will add to the US economy. So large companies with creative legal counsel do have an advantage over small shops.
- aksx 7y ago
  H1B is a lottery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Lottery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Lottery You might be thinking of the L1 visa

kec 7y ago

> The really sad part about it was as we were leaving, they were establishing a training program for junior H1-B’s with liberal arts degrees to learn programming. I have no idea how they got the visa licenses for those folks H1b places no requirement on the degree you have, only that you have one.