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I've worked in quite a few fairly sophisticated technical environments, have many friends working in professional positions who have discussed the issue (from e

I've worked in quite a few fairly sophisticated technical environments, have many friends working in professional positions who have discussed the issue (from engineering, to academia, to medicine), and I've yet to encounter this situation where a unicorn from another country is the only option for a skill in the entire country with a population of over 300 million. What I often do see instead are situations where local markets seeking a skill can't or don't want to compete with the labor rates needed for to attract or contract the skills they desire. They instead have to look for more leveraged labor abroad to pass their desired cost savings onto who is willing to accept living in undesired locations, working at below market rates to escape even less desirable situations, etc. Obviously, this is anecdotal. I'm sure the case does arise where you actually need some highly specialized labor abroad but nothing near the labor pools the H1B program allows. If there are labor supply shortages, you shouldn't need to artificially inflate the market with labor through visa programs. Raise compensation and let the markets adjust to attract talent. This sort of competition is what's forced on the labor market while businesses, yet again, avoid competition when it's against their interests. If you truly need international labor you should absolutely be required to pay near the top of market rates for the talent is truly that rare. If businesses aren't willing to pay above market rates this talent, it must not be so critical or rare. This should prevent the case of manipulating labor markets under the guise of projected artificial scarcity. I have nothing against immigration, let people move to this country if they so desire and seek opportunity but let them do so without being leveraged by a business holding their citizenship, freedoms, and future hope of prosperity hostage while suppressing local wages, all to make a quick buck.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> Raise compensation and let the markets adjust to attract talent. But this can take decades. If Google wants to start a large new compiler project, them opening a job position with a high salary isn't going to convince anyone to go away and do a PhD in compilers, and if it does they wouldn't be available for five years. If Google want to build a compiler now and they aren't able to hire anyone locally with the skills, what do you want them to do? Abandon the project? That's not great for the US economy is it?
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  You need a PHD to be able to build a compiler?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    In my experience most people working on compilers have PhDs in compilers, yeah. But if you don't agree, take any example you like that requires at least a few years to come up to speed. People aren't going to become an expert tomorrow on whatever subject you're hiring for, no matter how much you pay. If you offered me a million dollars to play the trombone for you I'd love to accept that, but I can't do it until I go away and learn the trombone which would take me years. Offering me ten million dollars wouldn't make me learn it any faster, either. We say that markets are 'inelastic' - they don't adapt to demand magically.
    - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
      But there are other trombone players in the country, google will just have to pay them more than the competition to get them and/or the competition will have to raise their pay to make them stay. In the long run, some orchestras might be a trombone player short, but with high(er) average wages, you'll get more people who take trombone-playing as a career path. There are very very few positions, that you can't fill if you offer above-average pay and working conditions, and most H1B visa carriers now, are not unicorns, but usually just someone willing to work for less money than locals (example: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff... )
    - travisoneill1 6y ago
      I don't think there really is an example that takes years to get up to speed, because if you can't find someone who has the exact experience, you can find someone in a related field. It took me less than a year from writing my first line of code to working as a software engineer. I bet it would take even less now to be a useful compiler engineer.
- 6y ago

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Raise compensation and let the markets adjust to attract talent. But this can take decades. If Google wants to start a large new compiler project, them opening a job position with a high salary isn't going to convince anyone to go away and do a PhD in compilers, and if it does they wouldn't be available for five years. If Google want to build a compiler now and they aren't able to hire anyone locally with the skills, what do you want them to do? Abandon the project? That's not great for the US economy is it?

travisoneill1 6y ago
You need a PHD to be able to build a compiler?
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  In my experience most people working on compilers have PhDs in compilers, yeah. But if you don't agree, take any example you like that requires at least a few years to come up to speed. People aren't going to become an expert tomorrow on whatever subject you're hiring for, no matter how much you pay. If you offered me a million dollars to play the trombone for you I'd love to accept that, but I can't do it until I go away and learn the trombone which would take me years. Offering me ten million dollars wouldn't make me learn it any faster, either. We say that markets are 'inelastic' - they don't adapt to demand magically.
  - ajsnigrutin 6y ago
    But there are other trombone players in the country, google will just have to pay them more than the competition to get them and/or the competition will have to raise their pay to make them stay. In the long run, some orchestras might be a trombone player short, but with high(er) average wages, you'll get more people who take trombone-playing as a career path. There are very very few positions, that you can't fill if you offer above-average pay and working conditions, and most H1B visa carriers now, are not unicorns, but usually just someone willing to work for less money than locals (example: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/last-task-after-layoff... )
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    I don't think there really is an example that takes years to get up to speed, because if you can't find someone who has the exact experience, you can find someone in a related field. It took me less than a year from writing my first line of code to working as a software engineer. I bet it would take even less now to be a useful compiler engineer.
6y ago