If there was genuinely a shortage of tech workers there would be no ageism (or any other sort of -ism) nor would there be these elaborate multi-day hoop-jumping interviews.

Yes, they do. It's called the H-1B visa. Lawyers, accountants, financial analysts, physicians, surgeons, management consultants, architects, journalists, school teachers, nurses and many other occupations qualify for H-1B visas.

One ref: https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/05/09/the-lawyer-bu...

The “bar” is not representative at all of the nature of the work is why. It’s artificially high in order to eliminate a glut of candidates early in the process.

I remember when there was a genuine shortage of tech workers - the dotcom boom. Hiring and compensation reflected that there was high demand and competition to hire. Outside of a very few niches now, the economics (law of supply and demand) simply don’t show it.

Undergrads (not me though) can make $225k out of school now easily, is that not showing it?

Even the decent developers had no special skills that would qualify them for an H1b visa, however.

With a 0% rate of qualified H1b recipients in my own experience, I can imagine that the “conference room” statement would be true.

That being my experience, I don't think the claim made by OP is true. Evidently, we have different understanding of what constitutes specialized skills. Why is a good developer not considered to posses "specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor"?

And too many H1-Bs are just awful. I don't necessarily blame them individually, but it's a perverse suboptimal system.

If I ever run my own business, I'm going to put a 300-800% price hike on any work where I have to interface with Tata or Cognizant, or ATT Global Services, or the other kinds of consulting bodyshops that currently employ the vast majority of H1-Bs. At least for non-repeat business. Find a decent team and giving them normal rates or better would make sense, but there are others you wouldn't touch with a thirty foot pole made of rolled hundred dollar bills.

It is just not worth the headache dealing with that caliber of people, and the cultural impedance. Unless they are willing to pay through the nose.

By your definition, most of the 736 players who played in FIFA 2018 world cup few weeks ago do not posses any special athletic skills - they merely posses skills that are table-stakes for their profession. Yet, most reasonable people would not hesitate to call those players elite athletes.

What I am trying to point out is that H-1B is not about finding that outstanding developer. These are people who have a high level of skill in a specialized occupation.

Edit: you expanded on you original one-liner with anecdote. I am quoting the one-liner I was reponding to here.

You deal with too many sub-par people that tick a certain box, and your estimation of people that tick that box naturally goes down. There are very good people that are chained at companies with H1-B visas, but it is hard to battle what Bayes' Theorem tells you.

In the former case, H1-B visa holders are basically 100% dependent on their employers for continued employment - if they lose it for whatever reason, they get deported. This leads to flagrant abuses on behalf of the employers - demanding overtime & lower wages that they couldn't demand from those employees' domestic counterparts.

In the latter case, I work at one of the various companies that prides themselves on having an extremely high hiring bar. Of course, this doesn't really mean we hire the absolute best, it just means that we toss a lot of applicants in the bin because they weren't able to put on as good of a dog and pony show as expected - our interview process does not even kind of resemble what people at my company do on a day to day basis, or even measure the skills it takes to really succeed. So, of course, when we exhaust the local talent pool through arbitrary pickiness, we just add in the labor pool from abroad, rather than just... you know, reconsider our hiring standards and maybe give people who are already here, qualified, and looking for a good job one of those good jobs. This in turn dilutes the labor market - people who would have gotten that cushy job through merit are pushed down into positions that don't require as much luck to get, and the people who would have gotten those jobs are pushed into the jobs where you pretty much just have to chat up the interviewer, and so on.

This whole inane process is pretty much the cause of the absurdity of the American tech industry, where you either get super lucky and wind up in a lower-mid 6 figure job with crazy benefits, or you wind up in a mid- to low- 5 figure job where your boss both shits on you constantly and simultaneously doesn't really understand what you're doing day to day anyway. There's a middle ground, but like barely if my last job search is anything to go off of.

I don't disagree with you on these points.

My disagreement was to the unsubstantiated assertion by User23 that the number of engineers who qualify for H-1B in spirit and letter would be a handful.

*https://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/bcoffsurv/emaga_9...

Are you sure? 5% of the world population plays soccer professionally?

It's coming from the parts about: 1) the employer must try to hire Americans first for the job and needs to be able to show that they haven't been able to hire Americans for the job 2) if the employer laid off people in essentially similar jobs recently before or after the H1-b application, the application is not supposed to go through 3) they need to pay the H1-bs the same wage as similar non-H1-b people at the company, or the prevailing wage of the area (whichever is greater)

I have personally seen all of these violated, would not be surprised if the vast majority of H1-bs are violating at least one of them. It's violated intentionally and everyone is doing it, because they can hire H1-bs cheaper and they have better retention (or less job mobility). Frankly it's a disgrace.

I personally am not anti-immigrant and would prefer the immigration laws to be more efficient, and spread the immigration over a wider range of jobs, instead of disproportionately affecting my profession (software engineering).

#1 - the employer must try to hire Americans first for the job - is not true. The employer need to only attest that the employment of H-1B non-immigrants does not adversely affect working conditions of workers similarly employed.

#2 - if the employer laid off people in essentially similar jobs recently before or after the H1-b application, the application is not supposed to go through - is also not true. Although, it is true that H-1Bs cannot be used to break a strike, lockout etc.

#3 - they need to pay the H1-Bs the same wage as similar non-H1-b people at the company, or the prevailing wage of the area (whichever is greater) - is true

I think you are confusing the employment-based green card with an H-1B visa (the employer must attest to #1 and #2 to apply for EB green cards).

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Employer_attestation...

    The Labor Condition Application (LCA) contains basic wage 
    and location information about the proposed H1B employment. 
    The LCA contains the rate of pay, period of employment, and 
    work location.

    It also contains four standard attestations that the employer 
    must make.

Again, are you confusing LCA [2] with labor certification [3]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Employer_attestation...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Condition_Application

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_certification

Slightly over half my team have full working status, and about 1/5th of the team is over about 40 years.

Your experience doesn't mean that good engineers on H1B don't exist in large numbers. You just haven't encountered any.