3 ms·

" I never look at my coworkers and think if it weren’t for them I would be making even more than 3x to 4x the median income in the US." You should think that,

by sidlls 4y ago

" I never look at my coworkers and think if it weren’t for them I would be making even more than 3x to 4x the median income in the US." You should think that, though: their presence is helping reduce wages, including yours. The fact that labor in tech is relatively well paid compared to other fields is entirely irrelevant.

scarface74 4y ago
Yes because I’m such a selfish human being I’m going to bemoan the fact that my coworkers who are also able to have a good life that ability because even with my unvested RSUs that are at half their all time highs, I’m still going to make over three times the national median household income. For context: I’m not bragging, I’m not officially a software engineer by title and I only fell into BigTech three years ago at 45 by doing a slight pivot from software engineering. I’m still paid less than an equivalent mid level software dev at my own company. Not that I’m complaining I work remotely from - all over the US.
- sidlls 4y ago
  I look at it differently: tech companies get away with paying our immigrant peers less because they can, and we should work toward addressing that so that all of us benefit.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    From looking at my companies internal “anonymous” #pay-equity Slack channel. I don’t see that as being the case. The Slack channel is anonymous via a Slack workflow that posts on your behalf. As part of the workflow, it allows you to self identify your ethnicity and location.
    - sidlls 4y ago
      Those self-reported salaries would be higher, on average, if companies didn't have access to a labor pool with workers willing to work for less.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Yes you’re right. We need to unionize. How are we going to feed our families and have and live the American dream only making $160K+ straight out of college up to $350k+ and the tech company I work for is considered the “frugal FAANG”. If you stymie immigration, what’s to stop companies from just expanding their overseas offices?
- onetimeusename 4y ago
  I don't get why they can't just hire more citizens; can't most people agree that would be good? If you don't want the money, fine, but it just seems unreasonable that we force Americans to compete against people who are the top 0.001% of some other country with a billion people. Who benefits from that? The tech company does, that one person who may or may not even like Americans does. That person's former country could lose since their best leave or maybe they pressure them to steal tech who knows? I don't think immigration is a cost free win for America in 100% of the cases. I am worried we are creating a caste of elite immigrants and their progeny who occupy the country's most elite positions and we're prioritizing foreign education to the detriment of US citizens. We have no reason to make things more competitive here if we can just import people from another country. It's bizarre to do this on a lot of different levels. I think we should do what China is doing with their own citizens and try to make Americans more competitive and then we could talk about skilled immigration.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    So do you think they should hire less skilled people? Isn’t that the much hated “affirmative action” instead of hiring based on merit? As an American citizen you wouldn’t want to be considered a “diversity hire” would you?
    - onetimeusename 4y ago
      Do Japanese people who work at an all Japanese company feel they were diversity hires because their company did not hire Indians, Americans, and Chinese people who had nicer credentials?
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Are you saying you are unable to compete in an open market? All of the Big Tech companies make a lot if their money internationally. Why shouldn’t they recruit worldwide? And holding up China and Japan as exemplars of economic development is not the winning argument you think it is…

by sidlls 4y ago

scarface74 4y ago

Yes because I’m such a selfish human being I’m going to bemoan the fact that my coworkers who are also able to have a good life that ability because even with my unvested RSUs that are at half their all time highs, I’m still going to make over three times the national median household income. For context: I’m not bragging, I’m not officially a software engineer by title and I only fell into BigTech three years ago at 45 by doing a slight pivot from software engineering. I’m still paid less than an equivalent mid level software dev at my own company. Not that I’m complaining I work remotely from - all over the US.

sidlls 4y ago
I look at it differently: tech companies get away with paying our immigrant peers less because they can, and we should work toward addressing that so that all of us benefit.
- scarface74 4y ago
  From looking at my companies internal “anonymous” #pay-equity Slack channel. I don’t see that as being the case. The Slack channel is anonymous via a Slack workflow that posts on your behalf. As part of the workflow, it allows you to self identify your ethnicity and location.
  - sidlls 4y ago
    Those self-reported salaries would be higher, on average, if companies didn't have access to a labor pool with workers willing to work for less.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Yes you’re right. We need to unionize. How are we going to feed our families and have and live the American dream only making $160K+ straight out of college up to $350k+ and the tech company I work for is considered the “frugal FAANG”. If you stymie immigration, what’s to stop companies from just expanding their overseas offices?
onetimeusename 4y ago
I don't get why they can't just hire more citizens; can't most people agree that would be good? If you don't want the money, fine, but it just seems unreasonable that we force Americans to compete against people who are the top 0.001% of some other country with a billion people. Who benefits from that? The tech company does, that one person who may or may not even like Americans does. That person's former country could lose since their best leave or maybe they pressure them to steal tech who knows? I don't think immigration is a cost free win for America in 100% of the cases. I am worried we are creating a caste of elite immigrants and their progeny who occupy the country's most elite positions and we're prioritizing foreign education to the detriment of US citizens. We have no reason to make things more competitive here if we can just import people from another country. It's bizarre to do this on a lot of different levels. I think we should do what China is doing with their own citizens and try to make Americans more competitive and then we could talk about skilled immigration.
- scarface74 4y ago
  So do you think they should hire less skilled people? Isn’t that the much hated “affirmative action” instead of hiring based on merit? As an American citizen you wouldn’t want to be considered a “diversity hire” would you?
  - onetimeusename 4y ago
    Do Japanese people who work at an all Japanese company feel they were diversity hires because their company did not hire Indians, Americans, and Chinese people who had nicer credentials?
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Are you saying you are unable to compete in an open market? All of the Big Tech companies make a lot if their money internationally. Why shouldn’t they recruit worldwide? And holding up China and Japan as exemplars of economic development is not the winning argument you think it is…