7 ms·

Seems like an open secret that tech cos like H1-Bs because they can pay them less and they’ll work hard because the alternative is getting fired and being kicke

by tempsy 6y ago

Seems like an open secret that tech cos like H1-Bs because they can pay them less and they’ll work hard because the alternative is getting fired and being kicked out of the country. It’s a really backwards system with messed up incentives that probably needs to be reformed.

wow_yes 6y ago
Serfdom. That's what the system is.
mlboss 6y ago
I will disagree with the pay less part. I know people who get > $500K as a software engineer on H1b. Getting worker on H1b requires 1-2 month legal process, lot of paperwork and extra money. I think it is more expensive for companies to hire foreign workers. Some startups straight out reject visa holders since they don't have resources to hire them.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  They're hiring the kind of person that would command $750,000 a year or more as a native American, then. I have a good friend who was network ops for Riot Games some years back. He is a German who is in America on an H1-B visa. He and I spoke openly about his salary once, which was $97,500. I know Felix is great at his job... but given the experience and knowledge he had, along with the insane responsibilities he was tasked with, I wouldn't have done it for less than $125,000.
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    > They're hiring the kind of person that would command $750,000 a year or more as a native American, then. No, they're not. Facebook employees have very thoroughly reverse-engineered the compensation bands in internal groups. We know for a fact that it makes no difference whether one is on a visa.
    - tempsy 6y ago
      base salary is similar everywhere. equity comp is highly dependent on how much leverage you have and what other offers you have.
      - umanwizard 6y ago
        Equity is part of what was reverse-engineered and is also in clear bands. There was no obvious difference between visa holders and others. Indeed, H1B holders might have less negotiation leverage. That’s a real problem but not really what we’re discussing.
        tempsy 6y ago
        So you’re arguing compensation has zero to do with preference for H1-Bs over American workers?
        umanwizard 6y ago
        I'm arguing that there is in fact no preference for H1-Bs over American workers, at least for software engineers. Facebook wants to hire anyone who passes its interview process.
        username90 6y ago
        Facebook doesn't prefer H1-B's over American workers. This suit isn't about Facebook hiring H1-B's over American workers. It is about Facebook not properly advertising the jobs of H1-B's they have already hired to American workers. It is pretty obvious that you'd rather keep a worker that has already worked for you for many years over hiring a new guy who would need to get up to speed etc, even if they cost the same.
      - vkou 6y ago
        umanwizard is correct, in that salary + bonus + equity has been thoroughly reverse-engineered by FANG employees, and that H1Bs get equal pay for equal work, as their non-immigrant co-workers. FANG hires anyone who can pass their hiring bar, regardless of their background, and there is always a shortage of applicants passing that hiring bar.
- tempsy 6y ago
  It’s less than what an American worker of the same skill level would get because their ability to negotiate is way reduced. Some companies do care about costs. FB cares more about the second part. And knowing that someone is getting $500k is an outlier given that more senior engineers would likely not be on H1-B at that point in their career because they’d have a green card by then. So your anecdote doesn’t apply to the majority of cases I’m talking about which is at entry or mid level.
- claudeganon 6y ago
  They hire H1Bs because it's much harder to change jobs with the visa. In an industry that otherwise has high turnover, even for people in the > $500k range, this gives the companies leverage over workers that they wouldn't otherwise have.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- wil421 6y ago
  What company? It’s public information and the salaries can be looked up. Here is Facebook: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook+Inc&job=&city=&year=2020 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook+Inc&job=&city=&ye...
  - ra7 6y ago
    You are only required to report base salary in H1B petition, so that's what you see there. It doesn't account for total compensation, most of which is equity.
- coredog64 6y ago
  It’s bi-modal. Big companies playing nice and using the law as intended pay well. Smaller companies and body shops abuse the process: I’ve seen H1B jobs advertised via legally required notices that were tens of thousands less than what I was being paid for the same position/experience.
  - microtherion 6y ago
    The big companies I have seen did indeed pay well. But I would not quite say that they used the law as intended. The hiring process for highly qualified contributors I've sometimes seen was more along the lines of: 1. Evaluate resumes and interview candidates, both US and foreign, practically without taking into account national origin and visa status (With the possible exception of national bans / not eligible for visa due to past deportation, etc). 2. Once decision is made, let the immigration department figure out a legal way to get the person hired a visa (through H1B, internal transfer, whatever). 3. If the H1B process prescribes advertising the position to US applicants, that will be done, but the decision for that particular job has really already been made (then again, big companies are constantly hiring, so maybe US applicants get considered for other suitable jobs). So while I don't think these companies, in general, are trying to get cheap labor, or discriminating against US applicants, some of the provisions of the law (giving strict priority to US applicants) are only being followed in a ceremonial way, and, giving the fluid nature of job characterizations in the industry, are probably near-impossible to follow in a realistic way.
almost_usual 6y ago
Facebook seems like the last company that cares about paying less. They typically give out offers higher than other employers in SV.
- tempsy 6y ago
  Some companies do care about costs. They care more about the second part. But it’s also silly to say FB doesn’t care about overhead when they made a big deal about paying workers less if they moved to a lower cost of living area.
  - almost_usual 6y ago
    I mean I think people will work harder for ~2m in vested RSUs and comp over 4yrs than getting kicked out of the US. Maybe that’s just me personally.
    - tempsy 6y ago
      Not everyone at FB gets paid $500k a year, especially if you’re on H1-B which is mostly for entry or mid level immigrants who have just graduated. And if they do at the entry or mid level it’s because they joined at a favorable time and seen their unvested stock appreciate. There is a reason why Facebook likes H1-Bs.
      - almost_usual 6y ago
        > Not everyone at FB gets paid $500k a year, especially if you’re on H1-B which is mostly for entry or mid level immigrants who have just graduated. I don’t think mid level or new grads get that comp anywhere H1-B or not. > And if they do at the entry or mid level it’s because they joined at a favorable time and seen their unvested stock appreciate. That’s the upside of working for a public company.
        tempsy 6y ago
        I agree but everyone on HN regardless of whether they actually work in SV or not seems to be under the impression that every new grad working in tech are all pulling $500k right off the bat :)
Reedx 6y ago
Eric Weinstein makes the case that it's a wage tampering program for scientists and tech workers generally. https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1070327318185267202 https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/107032731818526720... https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/Weinstein-GUI_NSF_SG_Complete_INET.pdf https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/Weinstein-GUI_N...
- microtherion 6y ago
  Who says a founding member of the Intellectual Dark Web can't recognize discrimination, at least when it's their peers being discriminated against?
at-fates-hands 6y ago
The whole system is rife with fraud and abuse. I've worked at several large corporations were workers would drift around different business groups, picking up work and getting another short term contract in order to stay in the country and continue to be gainfully employed. There was a running joke between managers about recycling developers so they never had to sponsor any of them. I also worked at two different startups where they hired a developer and then a few weeks into the gig, they figured out this wasn't the person they thought they had hired. The second time, I wondered to a co-worker about it and he said there's a huge problem with one person (the qualified candidate) doing the interview and then they send a totally unqualified person to the gig. I also experienced large teams were an Indian developer would be getting close to his H1-B expiring and suddenly send a manager an email about a "sick family member" and having to return to India, never to show up again. One of co-workers said its pretty common and the H1-B devs are constantly interviewing and if they get a fresh contract, they'll just leave the current company and start at the new one - without any heads up to anybody, they just ghost. The whole program is so unregulated and so many loopholes for both sides to take advantage of, it needs to be changed for sure.
lacker 6y ago
Facebook pays software engineers on an H1-B with the same salary scale that they pay all software engineers. Some companies might work that way, but the top tier like Facebook and Google do not.
- tempsy 6y ago
  Base salary is similar everywhere. It’s the equity comp that is the difference, and the part that is more a function of the leverage you have as a candidate. H1-Bs are more desperate and less likely to have leverage to ask for high equity comp without a bunch of other offers. And again the bigger part of wanting H1-Bs is that they’ll work a lot harder and turnover will be lower due to threat of having to leave the country.
  - damnyou 6y ago
    I know H-1Bs at Facebook who are pulling in 500k per year in RSUs.
    - tempsy 6y ago
      and? with tech stocks at record highs it’s useless to look at current value of RSU comp vs what they got when they first signed. all i’m articulating is that there are incentives that tech companies like FB have for hiring H1-B over American workers of the same skill level. Is your point that compensation has nothing to do with it and that’s it’s exclusively for other reasons?
      - wippler 6y ago
        I think the argument was that it has nothing to do with it, companies don't sit and follow a rule that prioritizes hiring H1Bs (talking about companies like Facebook here). In fact there are quite possibly a ridiculous number of steps in hiring an employee on visa. What is alleged in the lawsuit seems purely self preservation, if FB doesn't jump through the hoops of getting PERM certified for the employee, they are going to leave and go to another company which does that. (Saying this without making a larger comment on immigration policies of USA)
908B64B197 6y ago
Don't forget it also drains the international talent pool. There are great schools outside of the US; it would be foolish for companies not to hire from there. Keep in mind that if right now I wanted to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup or A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same quota. Does that makes any sense to anyone?

by tempsy 6y ago

wow_yes 6y ago

Serfdom. That's what the system is.

mlboss 6y ago

I will disagree with the pay less part. I know people who get > $500K as a software engineer on H1b. Getting worker on H1b requires 1-2 month legal process, lot of paperwork and extra money. I think it is more expensive for companies to hire foreign workers. Some startups straight out reject visa holders since they don't have resources to hire them.

cbozeman 6y ago
They're hiring the kind of person that would command $750,000 a year or more as a native American, then. I have a good friend who was network ops for Riot Games some years back. He is a German who is in America on an H1-B visa. He and I spoke openly about his salary once, which was $97,500. I know Felix is great at his job... but given the experience and knowledge he had, along with the insane responsibilities he was tasked with, I wouldn't have done it for less than $125,000.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  > They're hiring the kind of person that would command $750,000 a year or more as a native American, then. No, they're not. Facebook employees have very thoroughly reverse-engineered the compensation bands in internal groups. We know for a fact that it makes no difference whether one is on a visa.
  - tempsy 6y ago
    base salary is similar everywhere. equity comp is highly dependent on how much leverage you have and what other offers you have.
    - umanwizard 6y ago
      Equity is part of what was reverse-engineered and is also in clear bands. There was no obvious difference between visa holders and others. Indeed, H1B holders might have less negotiation leverage. That’s a real problem but not really what we’re discussing.
      - tempsy 6y ago
        So you’re arguing compensation has zero to do with preference for H1-Bs over American workers?
        umanwizard 6y ago
        I'm arguing that there is in fact no preference for H1-Bs over American workers, at least for software engineers. Facebook wants to hire anyone who passes its interview process.
        username90 6y ago
        Facebook doesn't prefer H1-B's over American workers. This suit isn't about Facebook hiring H1-B's over American workers. It is about Facebook not properly advertising the jobs of H1-B's they have already hired to American workers. It is pretty obvious that you'd rather keep a worker that has already worked for you for many years over hiring a new guy who would need to get up to speed etc, even if they cost the same.
    - vkou 6y ago
      umanwizard is correct, in that salary + bonus + equity has been thoroughly reverse-engineered by FANG employees, and that H1Bs get equal pay for equal work, as their non-immigrant co-workers. FANG hires anyone who can pass their hiring bar, regardless of their background, and there is always a shortage of applicants passing that hiring bar.
tempsy 6y ago
It’s less than what an American worker of the same skill level would get because their ability to negotiate is way reduced. Some companies do care about costs. FB cares more about the second part. And knowing that someone is getting $500k is an outlier given that more senior engineers would likely not be on H1-B at that point in their career because they’d have a green card by then. So your anecdote doesn’t apply to the majority of cases I’m talking about which is at entry or mid level.
claudeganon 6y ago
They hire H1Bs because it's much harder to change jobs with the visa. In an industry that otherwise has high turnover, even for people in the > $500k range, this gives the companies leverage over workers that they wouldn't otherwise have.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wil421 6y ago
What company? It’s public information and the salaries can be looked up. Here is Facebook: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook+Inc&job=&city=&year=2020 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook+Inc&job=&city=&ye...
- ra7 6y ago
  You are only required to report base salary in H1B petition, so that's what you see there. It doesn't account for total compensation, most of which is equity.
coredog64 6y ago
It’s bi-modal. Big companies playing nice and using the law as intended pay well. Smaller companies and body shops abuse the process: I’ve seen H1B jobs advertised via legally required notices that were tens of thousands less than what I was being paid for the same position/experience.
- microtherion 6y ago
  The big companies I have seen did indeed pay well. But I would not quite say that they used the law as intended. The hiring process for highly qualified contributors I've sometimes seen was more along the lines of: 1. Evaluate resumes and interview candidates, both US and foreign, practically without taking into account national origin and visa status (With the possible exception of national bans / not eligible for visa due to past deportation, etc). 2. Once decision is made, let the immigration department figure out a legal way to get the person hired a visa (through H1B, internal transfer, whatever). 3. If the H1B process prescribes advertising the position to US applicants, that will be done, but the decision for that particular job has really already been made (then again, big companies are constantly hiring, so maybe US applicants get considered for other suitable jobs). So while I don't think these companies, in general, are trying to get cheap labor, or discriminating against US applicants, some of the provisions of the law (giving strict priority to US applicants) are only being followed in a ceremonial way, and, giving the fluid nature of job characterizations in the industry, are probably near-impossible to follow in a realistic way.

almost_usual 6y ago

Facebook seems like the last company that cares about paying less. They typically give out offers higher than other employers in SV.

tempsy 6y ago
Some companies do care about costs. They care more about the second part. But it’s also silly to say FB doesn’t care about overhead when they made a big deal about paying workers less if they moved to a lower cost of living area.
- almost_usual 6y ago
  I mean I think people will work harder for ~2m in vested RSUs and comp over 4yrs than getting kicked out of the US. Maybe that’s just me personally.
  - tempsy 6y ago
    Not everyone at FB gets paid $500k a year, especially if you’re on H1-B which is mostly for entry or mid level immigrants who have just graduated. And if they do at the entry or mid level it’s because they joined at a favorable time and seen their unvested stock appreciate. There is a reason why Facebook likes H1-Bs.
    - almost_usual 6y ago
      > Not everyone at FB gets paid $500k a year, especially if you’re on H1-B which is mostly for entry or mid level immigrants who have just graduated. I don’t think mid level or new grads get that comp anywhere H1-B or not. > And if they do at the entry or mid level it’s because they joined at a favorable time and seen their unvested stock appreciate. That’s the upside of working for a public company.
      - tempsy 6y ago
        I agree but everyone on HN regardless of whether they actually work in SV or not seems to be under the impression that every new grad working in tech are all pulling $500k right off the bat :)

Reedx 6y ago

Eric Weinstein makes the case that it's a wage tampering program for scientists and tech workers generally. https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1070327318185267202 https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/107032731818526720... https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/Weinstein-GUI_NSF_SG_Complete_INET.pdf https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/Weinstein-GUI_N...

microtherion 6y ago
Who says a founding member of the Intellectual Dark Web can't recognize discrimination, at least when it's their peers being discriminated against?

at-fates-hands 6y ago

The whole system is rife with fraud and abuse. I've worked at several large corporations were workers would drift around different business groups, picking up work and getting another short term contract in order to stay in the country and continue to be gainfully employed. There was a running joke between managers about recycling developers so they never had to sponsor any of them. I also worked at two different startups where they hired a developer and then a few weeks into the gig, they figured out this wasn't the person they thought they had hired. The second time, I wondered to a co-worker about it and he said there's a huge problem with one person (the qualified candidate) doing the interview and then they send a totally unqualified person to the gig. I also experienced large teams were an Indian developer would be getting close to his H1-B expiring and suddenly send a manager an email about a "sick family member" and having to return to India, never to show up again. One of co-workers said its pretty common and the H1-B devs are constantly interviewing and if they get a fresh contract, they'll just leave the current company and start at the new one - without any heads up to anybody, they just ghost. The whole program is so unregulated and so many loopholes for both sides to take advantage of, it needs to be changed for sure.

lacker 6y ago

Facebook pays software engineers on an H1-B with the same salary scale that they pay all software engineers. Some companies might work that way, but the top tier like Facebook and Google do not.

tempsy 6y ago
Base salary is similar everywhere. It’s the equity comp that is the difference, and the part that is more a function of the leverage you have as a candidate. H1-Bs are more desperate and less likely to have leverage to ask for high equity comp without a bunch of other offers. And again the bigger part of wanting H1-Bs is that they’ll work a lot harder and turnover will be lower due to threat of having to leave the country.
- damnyou 6y ago
  I know H-1Bs at Facebook who are pulling in 500k per year in RSUs.
  - tempsy 6y ago
    and? with tech stocks at record highs it’s useless to look at current value of RSU comp vs what they got when they first signed. all i’m articulating is that there are incentives that tech companies like FB have for hiring H1-B over American workers of the same skill level. Is your point that compensation has nothing to do with it and that’s it’s exclusively for other reasons?
    - wippler 6y ago
      I think the argument was that it has nothing to do with it, companies don't sit and follow a rule that prioritizes hiring H1Bs (talking about companies like Facebook here). In fact there are quite possibly a ridiculous number of steps in hiring an employee on visa. What is alleged in the lawsuit seems purely self preservation, if FB doesn't jump through the hoops of getting PERM certified for the employee, they are going to leave and go to another company which does that. (Saying this without making a larger comment on immigration policies of USA)

908B64B197 6y ago

Don't forget it also drains the international talent pool. There are great schools outside of the US; it would be foolish for companies not to hire from there. Keep in mind that if right now I wanted to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup or A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same quota. Does that makes any sense to anyone?