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"Stripe’s engineering department would be at least twice as large if we could get working papers for the programmers we are eager to hire." It looks like Strip

"Stripe’s engineering department would be at least twice as large if we could get working papers for the programmers we are eager to hire." It looks like Stripe has decided hiring foreign workers is the only solution to the problem instead of trying to find another solution. There are _plenty_ of good programmers who could work for Stripe in the US, maybe they just aren't attracted to the company, to living in SF, don't know about the company, etc. Maybe they should think about their hiring process more generally rather than waiting on hiring some particular group.

Symmetry 14y ago
Are there? I know a fair number of people who are unemployed right now, but none of them are programmers. Most of the places I've worked have been constantly looking for more competent programmers too.
- muzz 14y ago
  Not sure why you are implying that only the unemployed can fill jobs. There is plenty of tech talent in the San Francisco area (shocking! I know) and people are free to switch jobs. If Stripe offered competitive-enough compensation, they should be able to attract them.
  - pepr 14y ago
    But that would increase prices for programming work to the point where some projects simply would not make financial sense. So there would less projects and therefore less non-programming jobs associated with those projects.
    - muzz 14y ago
      No, it would bring supply and demand into equilibrium, and ensure that resources are utilized where they have the most economic value. Econ 101 tells us that in free markets, price is variable that moves to equate supply and demand, resulting in neither shortage nor surplus.
  - pc 14y ago
    We're not short of people who want to work at Stripe, we're short of the bandwidth to identify the best ones. And so we focus on those we know to be good. Some of them live outside the US; some grew up outside the US and now live here; some are US natural-born US citizens. We're performing a BFS of our personal networks. Sometimes, visas get in the way.
    - basiceconomics 14y ago
      "As foreigners, we have many foreigners in our personal networks who we'd prefer to employ rather than going to the inconvenience of seeking out qualified Americans to work at our US company" is a rather different argument from "the best technical talent can only be found outside the US". It's also probably not an argument that will elicit much sympathy from American workers.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - muzz 14y ago
      So your problem is not immigration, but rather talent-identification at your compensation level. Increase your compensation level and the talent will find you.
      - btilly 14y ago
        Increasing compensation will increase how many people want to work for you. However it does not help you identify which of those people are any good. There is a lot of research demonstrating that interviews - even the best - are pretty bad filters. Ditto standardized tests. What does work well? As a lot of organizations have found, personal referrals from people you trust. Which is what Stripe sounds like it is trying to do. Which returns us to the grandfather's point that they are identifying people that they want, and then are unable to hire them.
        muzz 14y ago
        Wow. So we must change our immigration policies because of Stripe's chosen solution to their talent identification problem? What other profession would that work for? e.g., s/engineer/day-care-provider . I need to hire a good day care provider, and can't find one. But I know a good one in another country. Laws get in the way of my hiring them. Let's change the law!
  - Symmetry 14y ago
    Yes, stripe can get more workers by stealing them from their competitors, but then their competitors will be short workers. We aren't considering these reforms for the benefit of stripe in particular but technology companies in general, and one company luring away employees from another isn't going to help that. A general rise in wages would help somewhat with the number of new programmers being trained, but that only explains the number of people entering STEM versus non-STEM majors. But we'd be totally ok if everybody who enrolled in college in engineering graduated with a degree in engineering. A big problem is that engineering degrees suffer from high attrition, and I suspect that's because teaching undergraduates is a profit center for the English department but a cost center for the engineering department (it distracts grad students from bringing in research grants).
    - jquery 14y ago
      So you are saying that VCs are entitled to tech workers at a price that can make them a profit? Am I entitled to affordable housekeeping?
      - Symmetry 14y ago
        Well, generally I tend to think that liberty should be the default in most cases, and rather than asking whether or not something has enough justification to be allowed we should be asking if there is sufficient justification to prohibit it. So I'd tend to be all for only the minimum restrictions on immigration necessary to not be swamped, rather than just allowing STEM grad students in. Still, Congress generally feels that the US's technology related industries are more important than other industries, and so are privileging it. I'm not going to complain about someone doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, so I'll just applaud and hope that they do even better next time.
        jquery 14y ago
        Liberty sounds great. I can't wait to be liberated from my mortgage when I lose the earning power to pay for it.
pc 14y ago
"It looks like Stripe has decided hiring foreign workers is the only solution to the problem instead of trying to find another solution." That makes no sense. Hiring people from outside the US is harder, slower, and more expensive than hiring US citizens. We just care a lot about working with the best people, and we're willing to spend months obtaining visas for them in order to do that.
- basiceconomics 14y ago
  Liar.
- jquery 14y ago
  What do you mean by the "best" people? Are there not people in the USA that would work for you, who fit your qualifications? If they won't, why not? Think about it, stop trying to fool us with your red herring about wanting the "best". What you really want is the "best" at prices competitive with the "average" American. One might almost think you were getting them for cheap. Hmm
  - btilly 14y ago
    Given the quality of work that Stripe is known for, I strongly suspect that in their case "best" really means "the best they can find for what they are trying to do." Which is what you'd want it to mean. If Stripe was known for producing lots of subtly substandard work, I'd have a very different impression of them.
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    "Hiring foreign workers for cheap" is a myth. The US Labor Department has specific laws that it strongly enforces to ensure foreign workers cannot be hired below market rates.
    - jquery 14y ago
      You know how they get around this, right? They simply change the title. I.e., they hire a senior engineer and slap them with a mid-level title. If you haven't seen that happen, you haven't been paying attention. There's also the more important and salient benefit of hiring H1-Bs--the strong bond it creates between the employee and their visa status. You'd have to pay a US citizen much more to make them sign such an onerous and one-sided contract.

Symmetry 14y ago

Are there? I know a fair number of people who are unemployed right now, but none of them are programmers. Most of the places I've worked have been constantly looking for more competent programmers too.

muzz 14y ago
Not sure why you are implying that only the unemployed can fill jobs. There is plenty of tech talent in the San Francisco area (shocking! I know) and people are free to switch jobs. If Stripe offered competitive-enough compensation, they should be able to attract them.
- pepr 14y ago
  But that would increase prices for programming work to the point where some projects simply would not make financial sense. So there would less projects and therefore less non-programming jobs associated with those projects.
  - muzz 14y ago
    No, it would bring supply and demand into equilibrium, and ensure that resources are utilized where they have the most economic value. Econ 101 tells us that in free markets, price is variable that moves to equate supply and demand, resulting in neither shortage nor surplus.
- pc 14y ago
  We're not short of people who want to work at Stripe, we're short of the bandwidth to identify the best ones. And so we focus on those we know to be good. Some of them live outside the US; some grew up outside the US and now live here; some are US natural-born US citizens. We're performing a BFS of our personal networks. Sometimes, visas get in the way.
  - basiceconomics 14y ago
    "As foreigners, we have many foreigners in our personal networks who we'd prefer to employ rather than going to the inconvenience of seeking out qualified Americans to work at our US company" is a rather different argument from "the best technical talent can only be found outside the US". It's also probably not an argument that will elicit much sympathy from American workers.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - muzz 14y ago
    So your problem is not immigration, but rather talent-identification at your compensation level. Increase your compensation level and the talent will find you.
    - btilly 14y ago
      Increasing compensation will increase how many people want to work for you. However it does not help you identify which of those people are any good. There is a lot of research demonstrating that interviews - even the best - are pretty bad filters. Ditto standardized tests. What does work well? As a lot of organizations have found, personal referrals from people you trust. Which is what Stripe sounds like it is trying to do. Which returns us to the grandfather's point that they are identifying people that they want, and then are unable to hire them.
      - muzz 14y ago
        Wow. So we must change our immigration policies because of Stripe's chosen solution to their talent identification problem? What other profession would that work for? e.g., s/engineer/day-care-provider . I need to hire a good day care provider, and can't find one. But I know a good one in another country. Laws get in the way of my hiring them. Let's change the law!
- Symmetry 14y ago
  Yes, stripe can get more workers by stealing them from their competitors, but then their competitors will be short workers. We aren't considering these reforms for the benefit of stripe in particular but technology companies in general, and one company luring away employees from another isn't going to help that. A general rise in wages would help somewhat with the number of new programmers being trained, but that only explains the number of people entering STEM versus non-STEM majors. But we'd be totally ok if everybody who enrolled in college in engineering graduated with a degree in engineering. A big problem is that engineering degrees suffer from high attrition, and I suspect that's because teaching undergraduates is a profit center for the English department but a cost center for the engineering department (it distracts grad students from bringing in research grants).
  - jquery 14y ago
    So you are saying that VCs are entitled to tech workers at a price that can make them a profit? Am I entitled to affordable housekeeping?
    - Symmetry 14y ago
      Well, generally I tend to think that liberty should be the default in most cases, and rather than asking whether or not something has enough justification to be allowed we should be asking if there is sufficient justification to prohibit it. So I'd tend to be all for only the minimum restrictions on immigration necessary to not be swamped, rather than just allowing STEM grad students in. Still, Congress generally feels that the US's technology related industries are more important than other industries, and so are privileging it. I'm not going to complain about someone doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, so I'll just applaud and hope that they do even better next time.
      - jquery 14y ago
        Liberty sounds great. I can't wait to be liberated from my mortgage when I lose the earning power to pay for it.

pc 14y ago

"It looks like Stripe has decided hiring foreign workers is the only solution to the problem instead of trying to find another solution." That makes no sense. Hiring people from outside the US is harder, slower, and more expensive than hiring US citizens. We just care a lot about working with the best people, and we're willing to spend months obtaining visas for them in order to do that.

basiceconomics 14y ago
Liar.
jquery 14y ago
What do you mean by the "best" people? Are there not people in the USA that would work for you, who fit your qualifications? If they won't, why not? Think about it, stop trying to fool us with your red herring about wanting the "best". What you really want is the "best" at prices competitive with the "average" American. One might almost think you were getting them for cheap. Hmm
- btilly 14y ago
  Given the quality of work that Stripe is known for, I strongly suspect that in their case "best" really means "the best they can find for what they are trying to do." Which is what you'd want it to mean. If Stripe was known for producing lots of subtly substandard work, I'd have a very different impression of them.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  "Hiring foreign workers for cheap" is a myth. The US Labor Department has specific laws that it strongly enforces to ensure foreign workers cannot be hired below market rates.
  - jquery 14y ago
    You know how they get around this, right? They simply change the title. I.e., they hire a senior engineer and slap them with a mid-level title. If you haven't seen that happen, you haven't been paying attention. There's also the more important and salient benefit of hiring H1-Bs--the strong bond it creates between the employee and their visa status. You'd have to pay a US citizen much more to make them sign such an onerous and one-sided contract.