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This article makes the fundamental mistake almost all other articles of its topic do: it assumes that software development is a monolithic entity, when it is in

This article makes the fundamental mistake almost all other articles of its topic do: it assumes that software development is a monolithic entity, when it is instead a collection of extremely dissimilar camps. Part of this is the fault of government - in almost all statistics the $200K systems architect at Google is rolled into the same column as the $45K coder pounding out VB6 apps for the company intranet. This article is even worse than most, since it lacks any real data on programmers, and instead uses data for all STEM fields. This is a little like measuring the average height of people in Texas using data from all over the world. It's just lazy. The more accurate title is: "top level developers in extreme shortage, mid level developers less so, USA swimming with underemployed low level developers" And this reflects the reality on the ground. You have companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, et al, who are desperately trying to bring in foreign labor at the $150-200K levels (and beyond, I'm starting to see comp packages towards $300K), showering them with lavish perks that the rest of the tech industry hasn't even heard of, much less the rest of America. Then you have the flip side, with companies like Infosys and WiPro bringing in cheapo labor at $50K a pop and renting them out at exorbitant rates, using the terms of the H-1B to hamper and exploit their employees knowing they have little recourse. You also have domestic low-skill IT workers who, despite exploding demand, have not seen their wages rise significantly. Anyone who talks about tech immigration in the US who doesn't acknowledge these two sides is either woefully uninformed or has a vested agenda. The reality is that we need to expand immigration in the former category and hit the brakes on the latter, but this also doesn't fit nicely into the "immigration is purely a means for exploitation" narrative that some people are trying to spin. Schools are very good at producing crappy programmers, and not very good at producing top-notch programmers. This is not a surprise, nor is it unique to America. The "look at all of these unemployed STEM graduates" argument is useless without also looking at whether or not said STEM graduates actually qualify for the jobs they seek. Simply shoving a shiny, rolled-up piece of paper at someone doesn't automatically make them competent.

VLM 14y ago
"The more accurate title is: "top level developers in extreme shortage," Vs the article "134,780 H1-B visas that were approved in 2012." A good analogy to the debate is we're talking about a shortage of, and reasonable desire to import any legendary epic level multi-platinum award winning rock star, but in actual practice we're importing anyone who's ever touched a guitar in order to keep domestic wages low by pushing unemployment higher than it should be. They are two separate issues.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  No, in actual practice we're doing both. Like I said before, anyone who portrays the current H-1B issue as purely one-sided is either underinformed or is pushing an agenda. 134,780 H-1B visas were approved in 2012, what is the distribution of salaries? The fact that the US let 134,780 people into the country last year says absolutely nothing about how many of these people are cheap, barely-qualified foreign labor, and how many are the multi-platinum award winning rock stars. It's quite obvious to even a lay observer that both categories of hiring are occurring in large amounts in this pool, but almost no one is willing to address the balance. Painting the entire H-1B pool with a single brush is, to be blunt, extremely ignorant of how it actually is in reality. And seeing the state of the industry, a simple mean would be an inaccurate picture also, given the extremely lopsided distribution (i.e., lots of people making $200K, lots of people making $60K). What would be far more useful is an actual, comprehensive look at the distribution of H-1B visas. The total count is meaningless except in the populist "raaaah our jerbs!" way.
  - VLM 14y ago
    "almost no one is willing to address the balance." Ah I think I see our minor disagreement. My belief is the vast majority of the eighth of a million per year are NOT elite rock star caliber based on some crude estimates about graduation rates and so forth. I don't believe we have the educational capacity, world wide, to graduate 250 million computer science grads every 20 years outside the USA such that the elite top 1% from each graduating class year eventually H1Bs over into the USA. Even if we really did have 250 million outside the USA CS grads every 20 years, why would a perfect 100% of the 1% come here? The percentage of elite hires almost by definition must be so low in that eighth of a million, so as to be a rounding error approx zero. That doesn't mean Mr Anecdote doesn't exist or they're evil or imply any political ridiculousness, it just means that elite level coders are such a tiny fraction of the population that shoving them into the debate sideways is intentionally derailing the real debate about the vast majority of people involved. Beyond discussing the present and past, if we imploded the H1B system from an eighth of a million to perhaps two thousand, almost certainly the two thousand who actually survive the process would almost certainly be the elite 1% supercoders, so even pretty far out "solutions" would have no effect on supercoders, making it even less relevant to debate supercoders. Another interesting way to put it, is most countries allow anyone in if they post enough money. I don't know what the USA charges, but $1M would be more than any other country I've ever heard of. So for a mere $2B, if H1B were utterly eliminated, you could still let all the supercoders in under the wealthy people rule at minimal cost. After all, if you're willing to pay $350K/yr for a supercoder, posting $1M for a wealthy person immigration is only about three years total cost. Talking about the tiny population of supercoders is simply a distraction.
freyr 14y ago
"The reality is that we need to expand immigration in the former category and hit the brakes on the latter, but this also doesn't fit nicely into the "immigration is purely a means for exploitation" narrative that some people are trying to spin." The reality that we need to attract more top talent, and the reality that companies are lobbying for more cheap labor are not mutually exclusive. That said, the shortage of top developers could be attributed to any number of things, including: * There is a limited number of top performers in all fields. This is natural, and cranking out more college grads won't change anything. * Top performing students are choosing other fields, perhaps ones that pay better (finance, medical, consulting, basically any field with a higher glass ceiling) * Or they choose jobs with better perceived job security. You don't constantly hear about outsourcing, indentured employment, and 10-years-to-irrelevance in most fields. * The students lack the pre-requisite education to excel in CS (this probably isn't a huge problem among the top performers, but you can't avoid the fact that the elementary education system generally sucks and many prospects probably fall in the cracks). * Companies (and by extension, our law makers) are taking a short-term outlook by prioritizing the immigration of lower-tier and middle-tier coders?

VLM 14y ago

"The more accurate title is: "top level developers in extreme shortage," Vs the article "134,780 H1-B visas that were approved in 2012." A good analogy to the debate is we're talking about a shortage of, and reasonable desire to import any legendary epic level multi-platinum award winning rock star, but in actual practice we're importing anyone who's ever touched a guitar in order to keep domestic wages low by pushing unemployment higher than it should be. They are two separate issues.

potatolicious 14y ago
No, in actual practice we're doing both. Like I said before, anyone who portrays the current H-1B issue as purely one-sided is either underinformed or is pushing an agenda. 134,780 H-1B visas were approved in 2012, what is the distribution of salaries? The fact that the US let 134,780 people into the country last year says absolutely nothing about how many of these people are cheap, barely-qualified foreign labor, and how many are the multi-platinum award winning rock stars. It's quite obvious to even a lay observer that both categories of hiring are occurring in large amounts in this pool, but almost no one is willing to address the balance. Painting the entire H-1B pool with a single brush is, to be blunt, extremely ignorant of how it actually is in reality. And seeing the state of the industry, a simple mean would be an inaccurate picture also, given the extremely lopsided distribution (i.e., lots of people making $200K, lots of people making $60K). What would be far more useful is an actual, comprehensive look at the distribution of H-1B visas. The total count is meaningless except in the populist "raaaah our jerbs!" way.
- VLM 14y ago
  "almost no one is willing to address the balance." Ah I think I see our minor disagreement. My belief is the vast majority of the eighth of a million per year are NOT elite rock star caliber based on some crude estimates about graduation rates and so forth. I don't believe we have the educational capacity, world wide, to graduate 250 million computer science grads every 20 years outside the USA such that the elite top 1% from each graduating class year eventually H1Bs over into the USA. Even if we really did have 250 million outside the USA CS grads every 20 years, why would a perfect 100% of the 1% come here? The percentage of elite hires almost by definition must be so low in that eighth of a million, so as to be a rounding error approx zero. That doesn't mean Mr Anecdote doesn't exist or they're evil or imply any political ridiculousness, it just means that elite level coders are such a tiny fraction of the population that shoving them into the debate sideways is intentionally derailing the real debate about the vast majority of people involved. Beyond discussing the present and past, if we imploded the H1B system from an eighth of a million to perhaps two thousand, almost certainly the two thousand who actually survive the process would almost certainly be the elite 1% supercoders, so even pretty far out "solutions" would have no effect on supercoders, making it even less relevant to debate supercoders. Another interesting way to put it, is most countries allow anyone in if they post enough money. I don't know what the USA charges, but $1M would be more than any other country I've ever heard of. So for a mere $2B, if H1B were utterly eliminated, you could still let all the supercoders in under the wealthy people rule at minimal cost. After all, if you're willing to pay $350K/yr for a supercoder, posting $1M for a wealthy person immigration is only about three years total cost. Talking about the tiny population of supercoders is simply a distraction.

freyr 14y ago

"The reality is that we need to expand immigration in the former category and hit the brakes on the latter, but this also doesn't fit nicely into the "immigration is purely a means for exploitation" narrative that some people are trying to spin." The reality that we need to attract more top talent, and the reality that companies are lobbying for more cheap labor are not mutually exclusive. That said, the shortage of top developers could be attributed to any number of things, including: * There is a limited number of top performers in all fields. This is natural, and cranking out more college grads won't change anything. * Top performing students are choosing other fields, perhaps ones that pay better (finance, medical, consulting, basically any field with a higher glass ceiling) * Or they choose jobs with better perceived job security. You don't constantly hear about outsourcing, indentured employment, and 10-years-to-irrelevance in most fields. * The students lack the pre-requisite education to excel in CS (this probably isn't a huge problem among the top performers, but you can't avoid the fact that the elementary education system generally sucks and many prospects probably fall in the cracks). * Companies (and by extension, our law makers) are taking a short-term outlook by prioritizing the immigration of lower-tier and middle-tier coders?