3 ms·

At one of the companies I’ve worked for the H1b and associated limits was getting significant enough that there were tons off meeting about what to do and so on

At one of the companies I’ve worked for the H1b and associated limits was getting significant enough that there were tons off meeting about what to do and so on. At one point a guy was getting pretty heated about it so I asked why we didn’t just hire in Poland, south and Central America and so on? At least the americas time zone would be a major improvement. The guy who I was responding to reacted like I was crazy. His reaction made no sense. We weren’t a body shop and high tech isn’t somehow exclusive to India. After the meeting, basically, a few of the other participants pointed out the flaw in my argument: the problem was that I was crazy, obviously, as there aren’t Indians in those places to hire. The point here isn’t india bad or whatever it’s that there is more going on at the hiring manager level than simply filling area under the curve with solid talent. Personal preferences, clannishness and racism of all varieties distorts the outcome and that by and large H1b has been hijacked to serve other goals.

tristor 4y ago
> Personal preferences, clannishness and racism of all varieties distorts the outcome and that by and large H1b has been hijacked to serve other goals. It isn't lost on casual observers either. It's not just that there's an expectation that these roles will be filled with Indians, but Indians of a particular caste from a particular region of India. It seems largely, in my opinion, to be the result of promoting Indians to executive leadership roles in engineering departments. When that happens, there becomes a clear driving factor towards growing the number of Indians from their origin region in that engineering department completely divorced from other goals. It's normal executive empire-building behavior, but recast through the lens of national and regional origin and ethnicity/caste. One thing I like about the BU I work in is that we have a lot of staff around the world from many different places and have helped people immigrate to the US from many different places, but when I look around my company more broadly it's very heavily dominated by Indians in engineering, beyond any reasonable expectations. There are many talented people in Central and Eastern Europe, in Central America, and in South America that are completely ignored in favor of trying to hire more Indians particularly in many companies, including mine. I've even been told before it's due to "cultural fit", which used to be a phrase used to discriminate against anyone that wasn't a straight white bro, and is now being used to discriminate against anyone that isn't an Indian from the same ethnic, caste, and regional origin as the rest of the team/hiring manager. It seems absurd to me that we're in a situation where someone can say that with a straight face for a team that's based in an office in a major US city, and truly expect that the only possible answer is to hire more Indians without considering anyone else.
- splitstud 4y ago
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- mrguyorama 4y ago
  For a specific example of this happening, Oracle got hit by the US DOJ for "racist" hiring practices because they preferred Indian applicants over "white" applicants.
  - tristor 4y ago
    Not just Oracle, at Cisco we got sued by California for Indian managers discriminating against other Indians on the basis of caste. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952698 https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/tech/cisco-lawsuit-caste-discrimination/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/tech/cisco-lawsuit-caste-disc... It's not just that Indian applicants get preferred, it's that Indian applicants only from specific regions, caste, and ethnic groups get preferred.
- gorbachev 4y ago
  Apparently caste based discrimination is such a widely prevalent problem that some US jurisdiction are now making it specifically illegal: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/21/seattle-ban-caste-based-discrimination https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/21/seattle-ban-... I had absolutely no idea this was even a thing in the US before reading about it.
  - tristor 4y ago
    > I had absolutely no idea this was even a thing in the US before reading about it. Yeah, it's absurd, but it's highly impactful because of the prevalence of Indians in high-paying careers in the US. Indians make up nearly 2% of the US population, and the Indian diaspora is heavily concentrated in just a few coastal tech hub cities, so they make up a sizeable proportion of both the population and the workforce in the tech industry. Caste-based discrimination is therefore highly impactful, and it makes sense that it's now getting the attention from US authorities.

tristor 4y ago

> Personal preferences, clannishness and racism of all varieties distorts the outcome and that by and large H1b has been hijacked to serve other goals. It isn't lost on casual observers either. It's not just that there's an expectation that these roles will be filled with Indians, but Indians of a particular caste from a particular region of India. It seems largely, in my opinion, to be the result of promoting Indians to executive leadership roles in engineering departments. When that happens, there becomes a clear driving factor towards growing the number of Indians from their origin region in that engineering department completely divorced from other goals. It's normal executive empire-building behavior, but recast through the lens of national and regional origin and ethnicity/caste. One thing I like about the BU I work in is that we have a lot of staff around the world from many different places and have helped people immigrate to the US from many different places, but when I look around my company more broadly it's very heavily dominated by Indians in engineering, beyond any reasonable expectations. There are many talented people in Central and Eastern Europe, in Central America, and in South America that are completely ignored in favor of trying to hire more Indians particularly in many companies, including mine. I've even been told before it's due to "cultural fit", which used to be a phrase used to discriminate against anyone that wasn't a straight white bro, and is now being used to discriminate against anyone that isn't an Indian from the same ethnic, caste, and regional origin as the rest of the team/hiring manager. It seems absurd to me that we're in a situation where someone can say that with a straight face for a team that's based in an office in a major US city, and truly expect that the only possible answer is to hire more Indians without considering anyone else.

splitstud 4y ago
[dead]
mrguyorama 4y ago
For a specific example of this happening, Oracle got hit by the US DOJ for "racist" hiring practices because they preferred Indian applicants over "white" applicants.
- tristor 4y ago
  Not just Oracle, at Cisco we got sued by California for Indian managers discriminating against other Indians on the basis of caste. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952698 https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/tech/cisco-lawsuit-caste-discrimination/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/01/tech/cisco-lawsuit-caste-disc... It's not just that Indian applicants get preferred, it's that Indian applicants only from specific regions, caste, and ethnic groups get preferred.
gorbachev 4y ago
Apparently caste based discrimination is such a widely prevalent problem that some US jurisdiction are now making it specifically illegal: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/21/seattle-ban-caste-based-discrimination https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/21/seattle-ban-... I had absolutely no idea this was even a thing in the US before reading about it.
- tristor 4y ago
  > I had absolutely no idea this was even a thing in the US before reading about it. Yeah, it's absurd, but it's highly impactful because of the prevalence of Indians in high-paying careers in the US. Indians make up nearly 2% of the US population, and the Indian diaspora is heavily concentrated in just a few coastal tech hub cities, so they make up a sizeable proportion of both the population and the workforce in the tech industry. Caste-based discrimination is therefore highly impactful, and it makes sense that it's now getting the attention from US authorities.