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Not my experience in big tech and HFT. We spent a ton of time and effort trying to find anyone to our standards, never able to find enough. H1B (and other wor
by lokar 26d ago
Not my experience in big tech and HFT.
We spent a ton of time and effort trying to find anyone to our standards, never able to find enough. H1B (and other work visas) were generally better and more Sr compared to locals we found. They got paid as much or more than everyone else.
When we had great people we could not get here we would instead build a team overseas, taking a bunch of other jobs with them.
- andrewla 26d agoI can't speak to your particular situation, but in my experience this has been two factors; one is location -- it is sometimes hard in some locations to find senior talent whereas H1Bs are (naturally) more amenable to moving. The other is pricing, which is echoing the GP's point. Senior talent is expensive and you can get it at (apparently) considerably lower cost by looking for H1B applicants.
- lokar 26d agoI found that once you are paying mid to high 6 figures the company is not trying to save by hiring a foreigner.
- sokoloff 26d agoHow many H1-B or non-H1-B jobs are “high 6 figures”? That’s a tiny, tiny minority of the tech employment market and one which would readily shrug off a one-time $100K expense. (That would be less than 2 months’ salary for a high-6-figure position.)
- lokar 26d agoMost of my friends and colleagues ended up in that range (or higher). It’s more common then people think
- sokoloff 26d ago$600K+ is around 1% of the US tech market and tends to run in clusters (so your circle is more likely to have people near you in comp than a random selection). I'm not doubting your first statement. For your second statement, I think people probably estimate it reasonably accurately as "rare, but not extraordinarily rare nor unheard of".
- lokar 26d agoIMO the “tech market” is uselessly broad. Why include Google fellows with desktop IT at a regional insurance brokerage in the same group? I don’t think it helps set policy well for either group.
- franktankbank 25d agoYou are in a bubble.
- Nicook 26d agoif theres higher supply, then companies pay less.
- spicyusername 26d agoThis has definitely not been my experience.
- deleted 26d ago[deleted]
- jvanderbot 26d agoBoth can be true. Finding the top 1% gets better results if you have a wider net. Finding the cheapest 20% does too...
- lokar 26d agoThere is absolutely a ton of abuse. It actually hurts efforts to get the best people. They end up getting put in overseas offices.
- jvanderbot 26d agoI'm absolutely sure there is. Any poorly specified constraint will be abused.
- lokar 26d agoAnd it’s a hard problem to fully specify. A lot of people here seem to think that CS style analytical thinking can solve every real world problem precisely. That’s just not true.
- infecto 26d agoI think I would reframe the OP less about cost cutting and more that the company has an unrealistic cap on salary. Would be interesting to see where geographically your experience was. Having worked in the Midwest the problem I have found is that the population wanting to live in the Midwest is small and then when you are trying to recruit top talent it is even harder. You would need to pay more but then most companies do this analysis where they say the median level 1 junior tech salary is x for this region. Which on face value is maybe ok but then you look at the job market and there is low to no real tech jobs. To hire smart people you are asking them to move to a place that has less to do and no interchangeable market for their talent.
- lokar 26d agoIn software, groups of people (teams) have value far more than individuals. You need a large pool of talent to reliably build good teams. This includes some amount of the very best people world wide. These people gravitate towards big cities where they can earn more, access more amenities and work with other top talent. Remote could have changed that, but it seems to have fizzled for now.
- fillskills 26d agoLooks like there is need for 2 separate visa categories: - One to bring top 0.1% talent from across the globe to the US - Another to bring in temporary talent as needed Current version of H1B had become a big basket to hold both, and abused too for just finding cheaper labor. It may be time to segment these out. Also, given that US has ~400 million local citizens, there should be less need for either.
- sunshowers 26d agoYou understand that people get better at things over time?
- gosub100 26d agoThere is no need for "temporary talent" from foreign countries. US is graduating plenty of CS grads from our schools. There is a need for wage suppression and exploitation (for anyone not aware, if you get fired from your H1B job you have 2 weeks to leave the county). That's why they have a reputation for being "better", another word for it is indentured servitude.
- lokar 26d agoAnd it’s well known all CS grads are equally good
- gosub100 26d agoyes, it's called ABET Accreditation https://www.abet.org/accreditation/find-programs https://www.abet.org/accreditation/find-programs Thats literally the point of getting a degree, to determine that all grads meet a set of minimum qualifications
- lokar 26d agoWell, it’s not even close to working
- deleted 26d ago[deleted]
- DragonStrength 26d agoComparing getting an American to uproot themselves from their entire community to move to the Bay Area for a job vs. someone on the other side of the world who is looking to get into America just aren't the same. Ultimately, H1Bs are used to lower the working standards of Americans and enrich tiny pockets of existing regional capital holders. Regional wealth inequality in America has not gotten better as Silicon Valley has gotten richer and brought in more foreign labor. At some point, the people making money hand over fist need to show how they're improving the situation for Americans instead of just saying "trust us, bro." The AI discussion hasn't helped Silicon Valley seem more in touch with "flyover" states either. It's pretty clear there's a lot of disdain and hostility from Silicon Valley towards the "average" American.
- lokar 26d agoThe best people I worked from (in the bay area) were from Switzerland, Germany, the UK, France , Israel, etc.
- DragonStrength 26d agoWere they on H1Bs? Most I knew from similar countries in the Bay Area wouldn’t have been. But these visas aren’t about best, btw. They’re about none available. The goalpost has moved to “none available for my price in the most expensive place on earth.” In my experience, the overall effect of these policies was hiring foreign masters students who were more exploitable over American undergraduates who would require the same training. The graduate pipeline, where domestic students were being warned off during the early 2000s already due to poor working conditions, became a credentialism excuse which was also exploited by researchers. Again, we keep coming to these tertiary arguments which don’t deal with the issue: domestic born Americans are unhappy with their outcomes. Immigration is about the dumbest solution to Americans not being able to afford kids I can imagine. If that’s Silicon Valley’s best solution to a biological imperative, I expect things to only get worse. No, dorm-style housing that requires two tech incomes is not the American Dream. Please look at housing costs in San Jose before asking for more exploitable labor.
- 26d ago
- filoleg 26d agoI think that both you and the grandparent comment are correct at the same time. It feels like there is a strong dichotomy between how H1B visa is treated across different realms of tech. I have been working in big tech for a decade, and have a few friends working in the more technical financial firms (think more TwoSigma/HRT/Citadel, not JPM/GS), and my experience matches yours. Every H1B I knew at the companies I worked at was absolutely not hired as a cost-cutting measure. It was just simply difficult to find people who could qualify. And god knows we tried, I remember my team interviewing roughly 50 people just to fill a position of just a baseline decent dev (not a rockstar math olympics winner with multiple groundbreaking publications; though that would've been nice). And absolutely none of them were underpaid either, they were on the exact same comp range for the level, with plenty of them topping out the range. In fact, they actually ended up costing more to the employer than a local would, due to having to deal with immigration lawyers/filing fees/etc. (all while being paid the same as everyone else). Meanwhile, I have a lot of acquaintances from undergrad working as devs at tech consultancy firms and more "general/traditional finance" companies. The stories I hear from them about H1B at their workplaces are pretty much exactly what the grandparent comment describes, and even worse.
- lokar 26d agoRe: cost Also, very expensive relocation packages
- wegwerper 26d ago> In fact, they actually ended up costing more to the employer than a local would, due to having to deal with immigration lawyers/filing fees/etc. (all while being paid the same as everyone else). I mean, you were actually underpaying the local workers if this was the case? If you offered the fully loaded salary to the local workers they might have accepted. Or the local going rate for qualified personel were higher than you were willing to pay (which per def is true, if you had to bring in foreign work?).
- Ajedi32 26d ago> Or the local going rate for qualified personel were higher than you were willing to pay (which per def is true, if you had to bring in foreign work?). Yeah, by definition this is pretty much always true, no? No matter how scarce local workers are, if you were willing to offer double the market rate you could probably find someone. Scarcity and price are two sides of the same coin, that's how markets work. Bringing in labor from another country when local talent is scarce both reduces costs/wages and reduces scarcity.
- Kznzbjs 26d agoWhile I’m more open to this kind of H1B use, you all should be investing in training local talent as well. Ideally using those H1Bs to train local talent. We put people on the moon. I find it hard to believe the people here lack the raw ability. I find it much more likely businesses don’t want to give back to the country that they’re residing in.
- tonyhart7 26d ago"We put people on the moon." using german nazi scienties, which is irony since they are definition of immigrant
- Kznzbjs 26d agoYes, there’s a great story about von Braun training a local American. Using imported talent to the benefit of Americans is good.
- lokar 26d agoI learned a tremendous amount (and was very successful as a result) from foreign born colleagues (some of whom went on to be ACM fellows, and other major awards). Having a disproportionate share of the best people world wide to work with is a great privilege and advantage.
- chucksmash 26d ago[dead]
- golly_ned 26d ago+1 to this at big tech. H1B were no less skilled (and no less paid) than their US-based counterparts.