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This (and the discussion around it) are bullshit. They somehow think on STEM job is equivalent to another, which is lunacy. - Talking about all STEM graduates

by pbiggar 14y ago

This (and the discussion around it) are bullshit. They somehow think on STEM job is equivalent to another, which is lunacy. - Talking about all STEM graduates as equal is pointless, because some people are useless and some are amazing. - Talking about STEM in general is useless, because software is booming, and nothing else really is. - Talking about all H1B jobs as the same is also bollox: half are employed by infosys (etc) as low cost (and low quality) contractors to avoid paying a fair wage (against the rules of the H1B program as I understand it). However, Google and Facebook (etc) are paying them great salaries, equal to what they pay US employees (even though the expenses are higher with visa and relocation costs). So startups and high growth companies are being starved of great talent, because chemists can't find jobs and Infosys is trying to depress wages of low-quality IT workers? Makes no sense.

jmduke 14y ago
because software is booming Do you have statistics for this? While the need for STEM is obviously rising, I feel like a lot of this conversation devolves into an echo chamber: I'd love to see hard statistics about STEM career demand.
- pbiggar 14y ago
  I know that when I sent an email to the YC founders list cause I needed a job (2 years ago, but that's recent), I got 100 replies. I also know I find it hard to find really good devs for CircleCI. But those are just anecdotes...
  - bicknergseng 14y ago
    Anecdotal evidence in the opposite direction: only half of my computer engineering peers in my graduating class of 2011 had jobs in the industry within 3 months of graduating. While I think some devs are in high demand, I think many have little horizontal or upward mobility if they can get a job at all. I don't have a lot of evidence to back this up, and that WP study seems to talk a lot more about IT than software development, but I think it's probably something to think about. I think there's a crisis in training and mentorship in our industry, rather than one of willing bodies.
    - pbiggar 14y ago
      I totally agree, and I don't think that's actually an argument in the opposite direction, but rather an affirmation: good people have great opportunity, bad people do not. Half of my classmates in college were poor programmers, so I don't doubt that yours were too. Which is my point above: we're starved of great devs because of stats about shit devs.
      - yen223 14y ago
        How would you differentiate a "great" dev, a "good" dev, and a shit one? Not being snarky, genuinely curious.
        pbiggar 14y ago
        A shit dev can't reverse a list. A good dev can code arbitrary problems you give him, and can actually ship working code. A great dev can discuss ins-and-outs of an arbitrary system you give him to design, moving up and down the stack with ease. That's a rough guide, with many edge cases, but that's how we go about it.
      - bicknergseng 14y ago
        But I think that misses my point... I don't think we get to complain about a lack of good developers without trying to do something to make the bottom 50% of developers better. Taken in the context of the general population, that bottom 50% is still highly intelligent and generally very capable group of individuals. IMO we're starved of great devs because we don't make bad devs better.
        ktsmith 14y ago
        It used to be that employers trained less skilled individuals and there was more incentive to stay with employers for a long time. Now there is very little loyalty between employees or employers. I think this is a significant part of the problem.
        14y ago
- microarchitect 14y ago
  One statistic I remember is from Brad Smith's talk at Brookings (http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/09/27-stem-education#ref-id=20120927_GS_fullevent2 http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/09/27-stem-education#re...). He says (around the 6:30 mark) that Microsoft has over 3400 open jobs for engineers and software developers in this US and this number is a 34% increase from last year.
  - tomkarlo 14y ago
    Is that because the job market is so tight, or because they're not paying enough for the level of talent they want, relative to alternatives like Wall Street and other major tech companies? Microsoft used to be able to pay market (for tech) but get all-stars because of their name and the perceived quality of their stock. Now that they don't have that kind of brand, those same people are going to places like Google, Apple, Facebook or [insert hot startup] instead.
    - wyclif 14y ago
      "There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel
      - tomkarlo 14y ago
        Exactly. Reminds me of a startup that complained to me they couldn't find any good engineers in Silicon Valley - when they were offering 25% below market comp.
jfoutz 14y ago
Natural gas is booming too. I think that employs a fair number of geologists and various types of engineers.
geebee 14y ago
"Google and Facebook (etc) are paying them great salaries, equal to what they pay US employees (even though the expenses are higher with visa and relocation costs)." Is there a possibility, though, that what they pay US employees is influenced by the ability to grant visas to non-citizen workers? In that sense, the program could still suppress wages.
- pbiggar 14y ago
  Undoubtably. If you run out of good talent, then the price of talent goes up. If you increase the pool of good talent, then it stabilizes. However, I believe (and the point of the H1B program is) that being able to hire great people is a competitive advantage of US companies, and is more important than increasing salaries of existing employees (to the economy).
  - geebee 14y ago
    This raises another question, though - why is it more important to do this in high tech than other fields? Nobel economist Milton Friedman scoffs at the idea of the government stocking a farm system for the likes of Microsoft and Intel. "There is no doubt," he says, "that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy." http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/72848/H_1B_Is_Just_Another_Gov_t._Subsidy http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/72848/H_1B_Is_Just_An... So why subsidize Microsoft and Intel rather than other sectors of the economy? Why specifically attach green cards to graduate STEM degrees? Much of the objection here isn't to liberalized immigration or bringing great people in general, it's about tailoring our immigration system to increase the size of the STEM workforce, when the evidence does not support the notion that there is any shortage. Also, keep in mind, there are long term dangers to restricting the domestic pipeline of talent into these fields. A sudden and massive increase in the size of a specific sector of the workforce through immigration will increase the pool of good talent in the short term, as the existing domestic workforce will not have had time to adjust to the new and reduced cost/benefit of a graduate degree in engineering. But in the long run, it may simply deter young people from entering the field and displace the existing workforce - not because it's a bad deal, but because talent can find a better deal in an area that is not targeted for increase through visa allocation. This could leave the US heavily dependent on foreign students. Some people will say "so what? we'll have good engineers, for cheap, and if later we can't recruit as easily, domestic interest will increase." I'm not nearly so optimistic. I think that a healthy pipeline isn't something you can kill off and revive on a dime. When you lose it, it is very difficult to revive. I want to be clear - I think it would be terribly foolish for the US to close the door to top talent from overseas. A healthy domestic pipeline requires a healthy infusion of talent from overseas as well. However, I think it needs to be carefully balanced As it stands, I don't think that people creating these policies are aware of the potential risks and damage they may be doing to the domestic pipeline, nor do they seem to understand the long term implications of narrowing the domestic pipeline.

by pbiggar 14y ago

jmduke 14y ago

because software is booming Do you have statistics for this? While the need for STEM is obviously rising, I feel like a lot of this conversation devolves into an echo chamber: I'd love to see hard statistics about STEM career demand.

pbiggar 14y ago
I know that when I sent an email to the YC founders list cause I needed a job (2 years ago, but that's recent), I got 100 replies. I also know I find it hard to find really good devs for CircleCI. But those are just anecdotes...
- bicknergseng 14y ago
  Anecdotal evidence in the opposite direction: only half of my computer engineering peers in my graduating class of 2011 had jobs in the industry within 3 months of graduating. While I think some devs are in high demand, I think many have little horizontal or upward mobility if they can get a job at all. I don't have a lot of evidence to back this up, and that WP study seems to talk a lot more about IT than software development, but I think it's probably something to think about. I think there's a crisis in training and mentorship in our industry, rather than one of willing bodies.
  - pbiggar 14y ago
    I totally agree, and I don't think that's actually an argument in the opposite direction, but rather an affirmation: good people have great opportunity, bad people do not. Half of my classmates in college were poor programmers, so I don't doubt that yours were too. Which is my point above: we're starved of great devs because of stats about shit devs.
    - yen223 14y ago
      How would you differentiate a "great" dev, a "good" dev, and a shit one? Not being snarky, genuinely curious.
      - pbiggar 14y ago
        A shit dev can't reverse a list. A good dev can code arbitrary problems you give him, and can actually ship working code. A great dev can discuss ins-and-outs of an arbitrary system you give him to design, moving up and down the stack with ease. That's a rough guide, with many edge cases, but that's how we go about it.
    - bicknergseng 14y ago
      But I think that misses my point... I don't think we get to complain about a lack of good developers without trying to do something to make the bottom 50% of developers better. Taken in the context of the general population, that bottom 50% is still highly intelligent and generally very capable group of individuals. IMO we're starved of great devs because we don't make bad devs better.
      - ktsmith 14y ago
        It used to be that employers trained less skilled individuals and there was more incentive to stay with employers for a long time. Now there is very little loyalty between employees or employers. I think this is a significant part of the problem.
        14y ago
microarchitect 14y ago
One statistic I remember is from Brad Smith's talk at Brookings (http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/09/27-stem-education#ref-id=20120927_GS_fullevent2 http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/09/27-stem-education#re...). He says (around the 6:30 mark) that Microsoft has over 3400 open jobs for engineers and software developers in this US and this number is a 34% increase from last year.
- tomkarlo 14y ago
  Is that because the job market is so tight, or because they're not paying enough for the level of talent they want, relative to alternatives like Wall Street and other major tech companies? Microsoft used to be able to pay market (for tech) but get all-stars because of their name and the perceived quality of their stock. Now that they don't have that kind of brand, those same people are going to places like Google, Apple, Facebook or [insert hot startup] instead.
  - wyclif 14y ago
    "There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel
    - tomkarlo 14y ago
      Exactly. Reminds me of a startup that complained to me they couldn't find any good engineers in Silicon Valley - when they were offering 25% below market comp.

jfoutz 14y ago

Natural gas is booming too. I think that employs a fair number of geologists and various types of engineers.

geebee 14y ago

"Google and Facebook (etc) are paying them great salaries, equal to what they pay US employees (even though the expenses are higher with visa and relocation costs)." Is there a possibility, though, that what they pay US employees is influenced by the ability to grant visas to non-citizen workers? In that sense, the program could still suppress wages.

pbiggar 14y ago
Undoubtably. If you run out of good talent, then the price of talent goes up. If you increase the pool of good talent, then it stabilizes. However, I believe (and the point of the H1B program is) that being able to hire great people is a competitive advantage of US companies, and is more important than increasing salaries of existing employees (to the economy).
- geebee 14y ago
  This raises another question, though - why is it more important to do this in high tech than other fields? Nobel economist Milton Friedman scoffs at the idea of the government stocking a farm system for the likes of Microsoft and Intel. "There is no doubt," he says, "that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy." http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/72848/H_1B_Is_Just_Another_Gov_t._Subsidy http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/72848/H_1B_Is_Just_An... So why subsidize Microsoft and Intel rather than other sectors of the economy? Why specifically attach green cards to graduate STEM degrees? Much of the objection here isn't to liberalized immigration or bringing great people in general, it's about tailoring our immigration system to increase the size of the STEM workforce, when the evidence does not support the notion that there is any shortage. Also, keep in mind, there are long term dangers to restricting the domestic pipeline of talent into these fields. A sudden and massive increase in the size of a specific sector of the workforce through immigration will increase the pool of good talent in the short term, as the existing domestic workforce will not have had time to adjust to the new and reduced cost/benefit of a graduate degree in engineering. But in the long run, it may simply deter young people from entering the field and displace the existing workforce - not because it's a bad deal, but because talent can find a better deal in an area that is not targeted for increase through visa allocation. This could leave the US heavily dependent on foreign students. Some people will say "so what? we'll have good engineers, for cheap, and if later we can't recruit as easily, domestic interest will increase." I'm not nearly so optimistic. I think that a healthy pipeline isn't something you can kill off and revive on a dime. When you lose it, it is very difficult to revive. I want to be clear - I think it would be terribly foolish for the US to close the door to top talent from overseas. A healthy domestic pipeline requires a healthy infusion of talent from overseas as well. However, I think it needs to be carefully balanced As it stands, I don't think that people creating these policies are aware of the potential risks and damage they may be doing to the domestic pipeline, nor do they seem to understand the long term implications of narrowing the domestic pipeline.