4 ms·

Be aware this shows the salary as it was when the visa was applied for; which is often many months before the visa (end supposedly, the job) begins. I found my

Be aware this shows the salary as it was when the visa was applied for; which is often many months before the visa (end supposedly, the job) begins. I found myself on here (the only H-1B at my company), and the salary is almost $20k less than what I was being paid by the time the visa stamp actually arrived, and $80k less than today (3 years in). As frustrating as actually going through the US immigration system is, I do appreciate that they put out some good data on it. I'm currently going through PERM (and again, frustrations, audits, and personal nightmares aside), it's great to see that I can look at all the processed applications from just 1-2 days ago - and see details on company/role. There are plenty of sites that the ugly/difficult data that govt puts out itself, and makes it a bit easier to navigate; one example I've used is dolstats.com

brentoids 11y ago
Is it a good indicator of what the company pays entry level positions if the company mostly hires for one specific job. So would you use the Google, Microsoft, etc data as a good indicator of the average start salary of an entry level dev today?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- lobster_johnson 11y ago
  H-1B salaries are actually "pegged" according to the title of each position; they call this the minimum or prevailing wage, and it's specific to an area. For example, if a company is hiring a "senior software developer" in NYC, and the US government considers $120k to be the prevailing salary of a senior software developer in NYC, then the company must pay that person at least that much; Google can't pay any less, even if it wanted to. The wage database is public [1]. So that gives you the minimum, at least. [1] http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesWizardStart.aspx http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesWizardStart.aspx
  - gcb0 11y ago
    the last level for sofware engineer in california Level 4 Wage:$52.80 hour - $109,824 year
  - justabystander 11y ago
    Technically correct, but as we all know, the title of a job doesn't necessarily correspond to the job responsibilities. Scope creep is just as real for employee positions as it is for company projects/products.
    - lobster_johnson 11y ago
      True. I don't know how much the US government scrutinizes applications (which have to include a description of the position, responsibilities, etc.) and applicants. Perhaps not at all.
      - ma2rten 11y ago
        Yes, my job title on my US Visa was first Computer Systems Analyst, now it's Software Engineer. My college's who is also on H1B is Data Scientist, despite doing exactly the same work as me. Our immigration lawyer decided on this job title, I didn't even know I was going to be Software Engineer before I got my visa. It's just that my college has a PhD and I don't. So, his profile fits that of a Data Scientist.
        sjg007 11y ago
        Data scientist has a lower prevailing wage.
nigelk 11y ago
It's not just that, looking through my current and past entries some of these records just aren't correct, and don't even match the data provided on LCAs etc.
bduerst 11y ago
Income can be skewed, but also note that employers will often under-report the level of the position that the applicant is working. This is part of the strategy to get through application approval, since one of the criteria for approval is whether or not the person is making more than the average salary for citizens working the same SOC job in the region. You can read more about SOC and see the raw data (disclosure data) that was used in this tool here: http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm
- gcb0 11y ago
  interesting. is that why google only has the main description? almost everyone else list some level along with "software engineer". google doesn't even risk saying "sr."

brentoids 11y ago

Is it a good indicator of what the company pays entry level positions if the company mostly hires for one specific job. So would you use the Google, Microsoft, etc data as a good indicator of the average start salary of an entry level dev today?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
lobster_johnson 11y ago
H-1B salaries are actually "pegged" according to the title of each position; they call this the minimum or prevailing wage, and it's specific to an area. For example, if a company is hiring a "senior software developer" in NYC, and the US government considers $120k to be the prevailing salary of a senior software developer in NYC, then the company must pay that person at least that much; Google can't pay any less, even if it wanted to. The wage database is public [1]. So that gives you the minimum, at least. [1] http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesWizardStart.aspx http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesWizardStart.aspx
- gcb0 11y ago
  the last level for sofware engineer in california Level 4 Wage:$52.80 hour - $109,824 year
- justabystander 11y ago
  Technically correct, but as we all know, the title of a job doesn't necessarily correspond to the job responsibilities. Scope creep is just as real for employee positions as it is for company projects/products.
  - lobster_johnson 11y ago
    True. I don't know how much the US government scrutinizes applications (which have to include a description of the position, responsibilities, etc.) and applicants. Perhaps not at all.
    - ma2rten 11y ago
      Yes, my job title on my US Visa was first Computer Systems Analyst, now it's Software Engineer. My college's who is also on H1B is Data Scientist, despite doing exactly the same work as me. Our immigration lawyer decided on this job title, I didn't even know I was going to be Software Engineer before I got my visa. It's just that my college has a PhD and I don't. So, his profile fits that of a Data Scientist.
      - sjg007 11y ago
        Data scientist has a lower prevailing wage.

nigelk 11y ago

It's not just that, looking through my current and past entries some of these records just aren't correct, and don't even match the data provided on LCAs etc.

bduerst 11y ago

Income can be skewed, but also note that employers will often under-report the level of the position that the applicant is working. This is part of the strategy to get through application approval, since one of the criteria for approval is whether or not the person is making more than the average salary for citizens working the same SOC job in the region. You can read more about SOC and see the raw data (disclosure data) that was used in this tool here: http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm

gcb0 11y ago
interesting. is that why google only has the main description? almost everyone else list some level along with "software engineer". google doesn't even risk saying "sr."