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I'm a dev manager at a prominent employer of software engineers and I did a search for my company at your link. I can't speak for other employers, but it appear
by curun1r 12y ago
I'm a dev manager at a prominent employer of software engineers and I did a search for my company at your link. I can't speak for other employers, but it appears that salaries for H1-Bs are ~25% lower than what I know Americans to be making at those same job titles. Half is almost certainly an exaggeration, but to deny that there's an H1-B discount is equally disingenuous.
On the topic of the essay, I worry that Paul is also being disingenuous. The US might only have 5% of the world's population, but we have a much larger percentage of the world's population where children have been exposed to computers from an early age. He's right that exceptional programmers can't really be trained, but that doesn't mean that they aren't made. They're made by being put in an environment where they can explore computing and let a natural creativity/curiosity that they have flourish. I've yet to meet an exceptional programmer that begrudgingly chose to write code for a living.
And that's my problem with the H1-B situation and why I think they've got an overall lower percentage of exceptional programmers. In the US, those who are driven by extrinsic motivators like money don't become programmers. They become salesmen, stockbrokers, lawyers or any of a host of other professions that sacrifice doing something interesting for high compensation. But most of those career paths aren't available to people in poorer countries whereas software engineering is. What I've seen among H1-Bs is a far higher percentage of people who basically hate their job, but do it because it allowed them to come to the US and afford a comfortable lifestyle for their families. I don't blame them for that, but I also don't think that it makes them particularly good developers. Don't get me wrong...I have met quite a few H1-Bs who were drawn to software development from an early age and love doing it in the way that usually results in being an nx developer (anywhere from 1x to 10x), but I just don't see them in the same proportions that I do among American developers.
If Paul can figure out a way to filter in the great developers while filtering out those that are only coming to make money, then I'd be completely behind his plan to let them all in. Somewhat ironically, his plan to let everyone in would somewhat accomplish that at the cost of decimating developer salaries (i.e. if the labor pool is increased and salaries dip accordingly, we'll find out pretty quickly who's only here for the money and which of us would be doing this no matter whether we were paid significantly less.)
- davidw 12y ago> If Paul can figure out a way to filter in the great developers while filtering out those that are only coming to make money Perhaps the ones that just want to work hard and make other people money, rather than aspire to money of their own could get a great big "I'M A SUCKER" stamp on their foreheads? Here's patio11 on salary negotiation: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ - should that desire to earn a bit more only apply to people who were born in the right place?
- justizin 12y agoI WILL SELL THE STAMP!
- vorg 12y ago> What I've seen among H1-Bs is a far higher percentage of people who basically hate their job, but do it because it allowed them to come to the US and afford a comfortable lifestyle for their families. I don't blame them for that, but I also don't think that it makes them particularly good developers. Most people from China, India, etc who immigrate to the U.S., Canada, and Australia/NZ are, in my observational experience, primarily focused on whatever aids the immigration process from an early age, often prompted by their parents. Their secondary focus is the backup plan of rising in the ranks of business, government, or academia in their home country. There is a significant minority of people whose primary focus is on the hierarchy at home, and choosing immigration as a secondary concern happens later on in life, often after marriage, perhaps to someone of the first group. For both groups of people, though, an interest in something geeky like technology, programming, gaming, or whatever comes a distant third. People in China who develop such consuming interests outside of work or forgo higher status jobs to do more interesting work will almost certainly miss out on some crucial step in the arduous immigration process. And of course you won't see many Chinese who totally forgo saving for a car, apartment, spouse, and child to spend all of their time on a geeky interest because their parents simply wouldn't allow it in the one-child culture here.
- kar2014 12y ago>If Paul can figure out a way to filter in the great developers while filtering out those that are only coming to make money, then I'd be completely behind his plan to let them all in. You are implying that all (most) of the American programmers are exceptional. That is not the case. If you have a good team, you had to do it yourself, weed out fakes from real ones, didn't you? The onus is on the company/manager who is hiring to pick the right ones whether they are already on H1 or before company files H1 for them.