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So all these Indian outsourcing companies like Infosys, Wipro and TCS (just like FAANG, they accronymize to WITCH) hog the American H1B immigration system by su

So all these Indian outsourcing companies like Infosys, Wipro and TCS (just like FAANG, they accronymize to WITCH) hog the American H1B immigration system by submitting an application for as many candidates as possible, and get a large number of H1Bs approved and send their employees to the US. The salary for these employees isn’t exactly great. If I’m not wrong they still work through these witch companies and get their wages garnished. So these employees generally try to jump ship once they come to the US. A second pool is the metric ton of immigrant students who come study an MS in vaguely computer related degrees - typically CS MS degrees are a bit more discerning but one example is this MIS degree from a BUSINESS SCHOOL in TAMU that’s just an Indian immigrant degree mill churning out people without much coding abilities at all. Both these groups now go to these “consultant firms” in the US which take their money, fill out their resume with fake experience and train them to pass your interviews. I have heard all manner of illegal crap including person A attending the interview (even in person) and person B actually turning up for work. How many times have you looked closely enough to confirm it’s the same dude anyway. These people are shrewd. Doing all of this does take brains. They’re just shit at coding. Some do actually improve over time but some never do. Source: Indian dude who had college roommates, relatives, friends, acquaintances, etc all do various versions of these shenanigans. Only way to protect yourself is to have a culture fit interview component, confirm their LinkedIn history isn’t super shady and have at least an informal verification step post offer to ensure you don’t let a rat into the ship.

sicp-enjoyer 4y ago
I find it strange that there appears to be international networks within American universities. I have noticed a large number of people from the same countries, attending similar vague programs (like you mentioned), writing theses with advisors from their home country. It makes me wonder if they are just getting into a completely different program with the "American university" name. Do you have any insight into this?
- csa 4y ago
  > It makes me wonder if they are just getting into a completely different program with the "American university" name. Not op, but I can answer this. Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: Most non-terminal Masters degree programs are degree mills, even at well known universities. These are almost always pay-to-play with few opportunities for scholarships, TAships, or whatever. Most “real” students will enter a doctoral program and take a masters if they decide a doctorate is not for them. Note that there are exceptions, especially for folks who are changing their career/degree path from undergrad, but these are relatively rare in my experience (at least at good schools). A few simple examples from Harvard: - the LLM law degree is a cash cow for the law school. It is only open to foreigners, and it is almost always funded by a company or the government. Ostensibly this program exists because other countries have undergrad law degrees, but the reality imho is that it’s a juicy cash cow that also generates a strong network. - Harvard EdM degrees are a 9-month program with no thesis — coursework only. There is nothing wrong with this, but it’s a very weak academic program imho. It might be a good practitioner degree, but that doesn’t seem very Harvard-esque. - The MA degrees in the yard (esp arts and humanities) and the div school are pay-to-play ways for Ivy/Harvard wannabes to get the Harvard stamp of approval. You have to be a decent student to get in, but nothing exceptional (e.g., compared to doctoral students). The key point is that the student is willing to pay. These degrees don’t really say much about the program or the student other than they were an above-average college student who was willing to pay to get the Harvard badge. I’ve seen similar programs at very good state schools, with the standards lowered a bit. You see a lot of foreign nationals (looking for h1b jobs after graduation) and vets on the gi bill (often coasting on the government dime with no academic skills or ambition) in these state school programs. If a professor is from a foreign country and/or has a relationship with schools/businesses in foreign countries, it is very easy to use masters degrees as a gateway to employment and residence in the US, and the school largely doesn’t care as long as the student pays and (in some fields) is able to get a job.
  - EddySchauHai 4y ago
    I interviewed at Oxford for an MSc in Software Engineering with no bachelors degree lol. There are sneaky gateways into a lot of top universities.
stephenhuey 4y ago
Half a decade ago at a large energy company, there was a group that had ramped up hiring of a lot of contract developers for full stack greenfield app dev (not Salesforce or SAP, etc). Lots of us employees were pulled into interview candidates that staffing agencies were throwing us. Many turned out great, but 2 in particular were suspected of being different people from the interviewee. There was a month or more since the interviews and the people managing the teams often weren’t the same as the people who had participated in the interviews but after comparing notes, we realized that the people on the phone were certainly more astute than those who had come on-site (this was before video interviews had taken off). All of these teams were using IntelliJ and one of the team leads I managed expressed concern about how he noticed a contractor assigned to his team was using Windows Notepad to write Kotlin for his Spring Boot server controllers. He also heard of some other developers seeing this guy with his laptop on the far side of the large floor quietly talking on a cell phone for an hour or so. I think we let him hang out for almost a week before we told the staffing agency.
TMWNN 4y ago
>MIS degree from a BUSINESS SCHOOL in TAMU that’s just an Indian immigrant degree mill churning out people without much coding abilities at all I see what you mean (<https://mays.tamu.edu/ms-management-information-systems/ https://mays.tamu.edu/ms-management-information-systems/>). Clear signaling toward foreign applicants.
drdec 4y ago
You mentioned H-1Bs and I'm running with it. H-1B visas should be given out using an auction system. The minimum salary for the position should be some percentage of resulting price. I think this would go a long way to ensuring that companies use the program for what it was intended for and stop the abuses.

sicp-enjoyer 4y ago

I find it strange that there appears to be international networks within American universities. I have noticed a large number of people from the same countries, attending similar vague programs (like you mentioned), writing theses with advisors from their home country. It makes me wonder if they are just getting into a completely different program with the "American university" name. Do you have any insight into this?

csa 4y ago
> It makes me wonder if they are just getting into a completely different program with the "American university" name. Not op, but I can answer this. Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: Most non-terminal Masters degree programs are degree mills, even at well known universities. These are almost always pay-to-play with few opportunities for scholarships, TAships, or whatever. Most “real” students will enter a doctoral program and take a masters if they decide a doctorate is not for them. Note that there are exceptions, especially for folks who are changing their career/degree path from undergrad, but these are relatively rare in my experience (at least at good schools). A few simple examples from Harvard: - the LLM law degree is a cash cow for the law school. It is only open to foreigners, and it is almost always funded by a company or the government. Ostensibly this program exists because other countries have undergrad law degrees, but the reality imho is that it’s a juicy cash cow that also generates a strong network. - Harvard EdM degrees are a 9-month program with no thesis — coursework only. There is nothing wrong with this, but it’s a very weak academic program imho. It might be a good practitioner degree, but that doesn’t seem very Harvard-esque. - The MA degrees in the yard (esp arts and humanities) and the div school are pay-to-play ways for Ivy/Harvard wannabes to get the Harvard stamp of approval. You have to be a decent student to get in, but nothing exceptional (e.g., compared to doctoral students). The key point is that the student is willing to pay. These degrees don’t really say much about the program or the student other than they were an above-average college student who was willing to pay to get the Harvard badge. I’ve seen similar programs at very good state schools, with the standards lowered a bit. You see a lot of foreign nationals (looking for h1b jobs after graduation) and vets on the gi bill (often coasting on the government dime with no academic skills or ambition) in these state school programs. If a professor is from a foreign country and/or has a relationship with schools/businesses in foreign countries, it is very easy to use masters degrees as a gateway to employment and residence in the US, and the school largely doesn’t care as long as the student pays and (in some fields) is able to get a job.
- EddySchauHai 4y ago
  I interviewed at Oxford for an MSc in Software Engineering with no bachelors degree lol. There are sneaky gateways into a lot of top universities.

stephenhuey 4y ago

Half a decade ago at a large energy company, there was a group that had ramped up hiring of a lot of contract developers for full stack greenfield app dev (not Salesforce or SAP, etc). Lots of us employees were pulled into interview candidates that staffing agencies were throwing us. Many turned out great, but 2 in particular were suspected of being different people from the interviewee. There was a month or more since the interviews and the people managing the teams often weren’t the same as the people who had participated in the interviews but after comparing notes, we realized that the people on the phone were certainly more astute than those who had come on-site (this was before video interviews had taken off). All of these teams were using IntelliJ and one of the team leads I managed expressed concern about how he noticed a contractor assigned to his team was using Windows Notepad to write Kotlin for his Spring Boot server controllers. He also heard of some other developers seeing this guy with his laptop on the far side of the large floor quietly talking on a cell phone for an hour or so. I think we let him hang out for almost a week before we told the staffing agency.

TMWNN 4y ago

>MIS degree from a BUSINESS SCHOOL in TAMU that’s just an Indian immigrant degree mill churning out people without much coding abilities at all I see what you mean (<https://mays.tamu.edu/ms-management-information-systems/ https://mays.tamu.edu/ms-management-information-systems/>). Clear signaling toward foreign applicants.

drdec 4y ago

You mentioned H-1Bs and I'm running with it. H-1B visas should be given out using an auction system. The minimum salary for the position should be some percentage of resulting price. I think this would go a long way to ensuring that companies use the program for what it was intended for and stop the abuses.