Software engineering has the lowest unemployment of any major job category in the world. Beyond it being the right thing to do, making it easier for people abroad to work in the US with the same level of freedoms granted to citizens (including the “right” to get poached at a higher salary) would only help the industry and those within it
Another thing: if software engineers weren’t afraid of unionizing, then companies would have a hell of a lot harder time slowly replacing you with cheaper counterparts. Demanding equal pay for equal work, no matter where your coworkers came from, attacks the core of the problem
I'm happy to work with people all over the world, I don't need to see you face-to-face every day. I really enjoy seeing people a few times a year, but that's only because I genuinely like them and I enjoy spending time in meatspace with them. But I never felt like my job was impaired by having people at different time zones. If anything, it was awesome! I'd put up a PR before going to sleep and by the time I went in to work the next day it would be ready to merge. If any serious discussion had to happen, we'd just use video chat to resolve big issues.
What benefits would unionizing provide? I'm not actively against it, but I don't see any clear reasons to be in favor of it either.
Given that companies are consistently and fiercely fighting off unionization should be a tip off. In any case, some examples:
* Better pay and benefits. The US is miles away from Europe in this issue because of this very reason.
* Not having to talk to HR when you're experiencing various problems on the job.
* Having influence backed up by actual power.
* Solidarity.
I don't mind talking to HR. You should always hire a lawyer if you're having any serious discussions anyway, so I don't see in what way a union would help me. If your HR department won't let you discuss something without a lawyer present, that's a clear sign you need to leave immediately.
Your power is that you have an influential position within the company, and if you leave it will cause them to have to hire someone and teach them all the intricacies of your industry. This takes a lot of time and it's incredibly expensive.
If an engineer is fired for a bullshit reason (i.e. I don't like em), other engineers will speak up if they think it's unjustified. I'll also make sure to publicly express my criticisms of the company so nobody within my social circle will seriously consider joining.
Maybe a union makes more sense for a larger company, but so far I'm unconvinced by your points. Like I said, I'm not against unions, but I'm unclear as to what benefits I'd get for joining one.
> I don't want
> I don't mind
> I'll also make sure [..] within my social circle
> what benefits I'd get
A business usually consists of a group of employees, some may benefit more than others, clearly you may be in the others category. But maybe some of your colleagues aren't as vocal or brave as you, or maybe they can't afford to risk losing their job etc. That's solidarity, not tweeting about something after-the-fact for the benefit of your own social circle.
That said, the highly skilled, strictly individual-minded person clearly have benefits to reap too. Comparing with most West-European countries, like:
* 5-6 weeks of paid vacation annually.
* Paid sick leave.
* Months of paid parental leave.
>* Paid sick leave.
>* Months of paid parental leave.
I believe these issues should be legislated rather than negotiated. I believe that is how it's done in the majority of Western Europe as well.
After being in Germany and also working with them I am really impressed by the union and the strong labour laws that they have. Really helps in the work life balance for them and how I really wish my country had it.
As for remote work: I’m 100% good with that, but I also believe people shouldn’t be constrained from living in the general area they would like to if they have the means. Also , a lot of people simply don’t like remote work in the first place, and there can also be similar wage depression effects (and other political issues) that can make it a less-than-ideal situation
One of the things that makes this difficult for software is that there's not a clear way of defining "equal work". Every company has its own leveling system that may or may not reflect the actual value of the work being performed, and sometimes employees justifiably exceed their designated level's salary.
The immigration debate suffers from overgeneralisation. Illegal immigration is a different problem from legal immigration. And short-term skilled migrants are unlike long-term skilled immigrants. Short-term migrants, i.e. those with no intention of staying in the U.S. long-term, probably depress American wages. Skilled immigrants aiming for residency, and certain classes of unskilled illegal immigrants, appear to add net value.
(Exhibit A of our system's self-destructiveness are international students at American universities being refused residency on graduation.)
However over the last 20 years, most immigration, of both kinds, have been about one thing: reduced labor costs.
At the risk of downvotes, I’m going to include something Steve Bannon said on MSNBC last night about legal immigration. He made this point that it makes no sense for America to keep letting the best and brightest of the world in / draining them from everywhere else. Why aren’t we refusing the really good immigrants if anything? Those are the people we want in their home countries setting up fair and stable systems. Having them here is, after a certain point, kind of greedy.
Also free trade was supposed to fix this by also requiring companies to adhere to strict safety and labor laws, which would make labor prices more even. It never happened.
Steve Jobs' father was a Syrian immigrant [1]. It is doutbtful that Steve Jobs--or Elon Musk or Satya Nadella--would have been as successful in their original countries as they've been here. As a species, we all win from giving our best and brightest access to America's stable institutions and rich economy.
More to the point, I find it difficult to believe Steve Bannon suddenly cares about other countries. His line about the overabundance of brown-skinned executives in Silicon Valley is telling enough.
You mean to increase them. Thats the only point of restricting immigration, to increase the salaries of a few, at the cost of the many.
You cannot categorically say that all international students are "highly skilled" or even "skilled". Some are, some aren't; and I'm saying this as an Indian citizen on H1B in the United States. There has to be some kind of vetting period instead of handing off a green card right after graduation. I bet if the tables were turned you won't see anywhere close to this kind of generosity.
Regarding Cisco (downvote me if you want) not a lot of people do "skilled" work; Cisco is a sales machine and does not care about engineering. Fixing bugs (and passing them off as features) from companies which were acquired, doing busy work, attending 2-3 hour meetings, middle management malaise with paper pushers, maintaning status quo (it's 2018 and they still use gcc 3.3) etc. is not what I would define as "skilled" engineering work. It's mediocrity and that's what they want to maintain.
Just to be clear: people on H-1B are not immigrants as it is a non-immigrant visa. They only become immigrants if and when they adjust status and get a green card at which point none of the limitations you listed will apply anymore.
But that process takes years--during that time all of those limitations do apply. And once they do apply, changing employers can reset the application process, adding yet another disincentive to changing jobs.
Also since tech salaries are so much higher in the US than nearly anywhere else, most H-1B workers want to stay in the US for a significant length of time (even if they don't plan to stay forever)--during that time it is harder for them to switch jobs than it is for permanent residents.
Also, New Zealander working on getting his Greencard: it's a real bummer seeing what some of the bigger tech companies have done with the H1B visa in the past 10 years. They've really abused it and ruined it for everyone.
Also, you cant get an H1B for sales. Ask the U.S. Government about that, they put that restriction.
The fact is if we want to truly attract the best and brightest we need to give them citizenship and pay them for their superior skills.
As it is now we aren't attracting the best and brightest but the slightly skilled and willing to take a gamble and endure the cruelty of our immigration system. These are typically young people which exacerbates the agism problem in tech.
That good for the employer, not good for workers.
(I think most people on this forum would agree H1B needs reform ?)
For example, opportunities like say going to Recurse Center, or having the freedom to have a decently long sabbatical etc. even with a 6 month emergency fund are not available. The other thing is no freedom to pursue any other job, i.e working on a startup idea during the evenings or weekend, or writing a technical book etc. for money is not allowed.
There are certainly issues with the H1b system, i.e. the lottery, low salary cap, multiple applications per person to game the system etc, but employer stickiness is not one of them, at least for people who are qualified.
The major problem is due to long wait for green card for people from China, and almost impossible wait for people from India. My friends who were not born in these two countries have been able to get a green card within about a year, after getting an H1B, while I am looking at a more than 20-30 year wait.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/07/22/the-talent-myt...
It’s a form of indentured labor that should be forbidden.
My grandparents were all skilled blue collar workers who needed a sponsor and a medical exam to enter and eventually get citizenship in the 1940s. There’s no reason that skilled labor from anywhere should not be able to immigrate here on the same terms.
Consider these 2016 numbers from USCIS [1] (Can't find 2017 data. Wonder why). All of the Indian body shops pay sub-$90K as their average salary whereas all of the top domestic sponsors are paying significantly more. I'm sure the medians are even worse. So all a US company has to do is play the contractor shuffle and get cheaper labor. Also note that there are no listings for people with master's or doctorate degrees. H1B is clearly not being used for its intended effect.
[1] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re...
We will build the most fantastic firewall ever made, and we will make the foreign engineers pay for it!
Sales maybe not as the skill required for sales is very hard to measure (maybe thats why).
Marketing: High level marketing executives are transfered to US regularly. Also I maybe wrong but they can come under the artist visa if they are related to anything artistic and don't need H1B.
Teaching: High school salaries are pathetic and high schools wont even apply for an H1B. A lot of professors in good universities are immigrants. A lot researchers in Top universities are also immigrants.
Law : The problem is that you have to do your law degree here to get entry into law, but I have seen a lot of immigrants doing that.
Not in your list but Medicine: A lot of people are in medicine as well even though they have to take an exam (? or something) to see if they are trained according to US standards.
Tech has most number of immigrants because large tech companies are headquartered in US, thats it.
For example, a lot of doctors go to UK, because demand and NIH.
I know a lot of mechanical and chemical engineers being hired by Schlum (even though its technically not a US company).
Go to any US university and you will see a lot of immigrants in any technical fields training and have pretty good jobs lined up for them after graduation.
Cry me a river. Do you also complain about internal migration towards cities like San Francisco and Boston. It's the same principal at play. Tech workers from all over the US flock to cities where the wealth is. Tech workers from around the world flock to the US because that's where the wealth is. It's not because we like stealing your job.
Developing software is an investment and the people that fund the investment seem to prefer (at least the core of the team) to live nearby. But if you put a hard-stop on immigration. Or if it gets too expensive for people to live nearby, they might just start looking for the talent wherever it is like @dhh.
Bring it on.
The Visa lottery system keeps workers locked into lower paying wages that what they could get as full citizens under the same exact circumstances.
Big tech can leverage deportation against you because you can't "walk away" from a job offer with as low risk as an American could.
"No immigration restrictions" and 100% immigration restritions are both better solutions than the status quo.
I personally believe more lenient immigration laws will help everyone.
FYI - you can switch jobs in H1B. I don't live in the USA, but everyone I know who is from my home country (India) and is on a H1B and in tech, have switched jobs atleast once (mostly between FB, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Microsoft and Amazon).
OTOH, if you're talking about L1 Visa (which is NOT a lottery system), then everyone I know who is on L1 (interestingly they are all at Amazon and Microsoft), then I agree - none of them have switched jobs so far.
The H1B cap is ridicolously low. 65.000 a year for a country that has 350 million people, in a 7 billion world.
No H1? No problem, move the function offshore.
If this was the only thing it would have gone offshore more than a decade ago. The reason is hasn't gone offshore is because the results are terrible for a number of reasons, with precious few success stories. It is a tried and failed technique to cut software costs.
Also, even now India exports $100B+ worth of software services to US. It is not as if every project offshored is producing "terrible results".
Paying maximum viable cost for minimum viable output is the type of outsourcing that you're thinking of. India, Eastern Europe, etc is full of smart people capable of doing pretty much anything. Being located in California doesn't give you super-powers.
People are selfish, so I don't blame them for want to close the door and keep the outsiders outside so they can have a bigger share of the pie.
But don't expect to see that happen either, companies nowadays are much more powerful than individuals and they are very nimble, they will go to places where cost is lower, this won't change a bit, it is in their blood.
So to immigrants coming to US, don't really put much hope in spending decades waiting to get permit to not in living in fear of throwing out. Doesn't worth it. And the resentment towards immigrants is worsening everyday, unless you happen to have certain skin tone. So earn your bucks, and save more, when the time comes take your life and skill elsewhere, life is too short to just wait in vain and hope for the best, act swiftly and you will be happier ;)
You think salary negotiations are somehow immune to those same price pressures when we are dealing with the ppl who mow lawns, pick produce, and clean bathrooms?
You may be mistaking illegal immigration with legal.
I grew up next to an orchard that almost exclusively used Jamaican guest workers to pick apples and other fruit. Same thing with horse tracks, etc. There is no farm operating at any significant scale that isn’t using migrant labor, mostly legal.
That's because unlike software engineering, all of those other jobs rely heavily on [natural] language and cultural fluency.
If they're that critical companies should pay a premium. If not, I guess it's not that big a deal.
Citizens have absolutely no interest in enabling and empowering corporations unless they serve the community in some way.
Ergo, if corps serve only the benefit of shareholders and not really consumers or anyone else ... and the population derives no benefit ... then those people would vote to disable the very concept of incorporation, after all, why do they want these things around?
Clearly a case can be made for hiring some foreigners.
And more apt - if Cisco can benefit a lot from hiring people from India, it may be better for everyone if they are actually hired and working in India proper.
It's very reasonable for companies to consider locals for jobs 'all things being equal' ... even though they never are :)
Citizens have absolutely no interest in enabling and empowering corporations unless they provide them with a beneficial service/product(s). I seriously doubt most citizens/consumers understand (or care about) the philanthropy implied by your statement. Do you really think people around the world would stop using google because they prefered to hire non-local folks? Some super small minority of folks (the 'locals') might care, but the vast majority of their customer base would be none the wiser.
> and not really consumers or anyone else ... and the population derives no benefit ... then those people would vote to disable the very concept of incorporation
No, they'd go bankrupt because their business model didn't include a viable way for them to survive.
Remember that hiring foreigners doesn't just mean 'work' - it means bringing them into the country and all that entails.
Companies should obey the law, or leave and be prohibited from operating in the jurisdiction (China does this successfully).
Edit: My apologies for reiterating this here (I mention it in a child comment), I don’t want to be verbose but I also don’t want to comment all over the place and risk a throttling flag: If you are a company and relocate, a country has many tools at it’s disposal to retaliate, and they should be used when necessary (see how the US almost drove ZTE to insolvency).
But why, or perhaps more importantly, why should this be the case? Why should citizenship (which is itself an arbitrary legal distinction made by the government) mean a person is more deserving of anything than non-citizen residents? It's not like naturalized citizens did anything to earn their citizenship.
[1] https://www.usa.gov/become-us-citizen#item-36212
> The decision to apply is a significant one. Citizenship offers many benefits and equally important responsibilities. By applying, you are demonstrating your commitment to this country and our form of government.
> Support and defend the Constitution. Stay informed of the issues affecting your community. Participate in the democratic process. Respect and obey federal, state, and local laws. Respect the rights, beliefs, and opinions of others. Participate in your local community. Pay income and other taxes honestly, and on time, to federal, state, and local authorities. Serve on a jury when called upon. Defend the country if the need should arise.
https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/learners/citizenship-right...
This is just like the NIMBYs. Work to deny people the opportunity to become "stakeholders," then use your success in doing so to claim their needs don't matter.
The birth lottery is a poor indicator of deservingness. This behavior, on the other hand, is bright-as-day proof of its absence.
People ought to have a vested interest in the place they work, and live. I know of no better way to do that than citizenship.
Concern about the "challenges" of too many brown people in your country is usually just called "racism."
If you have nothing to offer a country, why would that country accept you except under extenuating circumstances (ie political asylum)? You must be able to contribute in a meaningful way.
EDIT: Shifting from a biological to a cultural explanation for why certain racial groups have inferior/unacceptable behaviors doesn't diminish the level of racism. Country of origin dominates any measure of individual assimilation w.r.t your chances in the immigration system, so it's not clear that shifting the rhetorical justification changes anything either.
Of course that country still exists. We're all sitting here benefitting from it while we kick the ladder on everyone else.
Maybe not, if the selection process were primarily concerned with individual merit. But it isn't. We decide which races to allow as residents or citizens, then throw the individuals into a lottery, with good odds for white countries and bad odds for brown ones. Discriminating on ancestry or proxies for ancestry (like nationality) to keep underprivileged groups down and privileged groups comfortable is immoral. So is denying others the same opportunities benefitted from merely because they came later.
Would your own family tree's entrypoints to the US pass your test?
That is almost always threatened and almost always never happens.
As toomuchtodo suggests, this lassez-faire culture with business needs to stop. Every year it's a different scandal, we need to stop tip-toeing around business. They rely on a nation's education system, transport, internet infrastructure etc, they didn't come from nothing. China and India in these respects are doing very well, and I'm sure their citizens are thankful.
What? There has been a huge amount of offshoring in the past few decades. Not sure you can say it never happens.
A company only exists because a nation state allows it. That formation can be revoked at any time.
I think you're referring to a different program than the H1B system.
Why do you think there is so much 'business' going on between larger enterprises and government at many levels? It's all to keep them around, not because it's the best fit. Take Amazon, they want to build an office, so all states and counties and whatever else you have in local government bends over backwards to try and reel them in.
Here's what H1-B actually works if you hire "the best": you hire people who are way overqualified for the job, and pay them peanuts while they are on H1-B. "But H1-B requires that they are paid no less than US workers" you might reasonably object. There's a loophole for that: just hire them at a way lower job ladder level than an American would consider adequate, and don't promote them as much. It's not like they have much of a choice anyway: they can either work here or GTFO to their country of origin within 2 weeks.
I liked Trump's proposal that only the highest paid positions get H1-B visas. That way economic incentives essentially turn H1-B into an auction for the truly great people, and make life easier for fresh US grads. I'm not sure what happened to that proposal. It was probably smothered in the crib by FANG lobbyists.
Full disclosure: I'm a former H1-B, now a naturalized US citizen.
You have no idea what these people go through, my heart breaks every time I see one with a family and the thousand yard stare they have because they’re clearly being exploited.
Add a tax on any imports that do NOT put people first, but use the proceeds to fund efforts to improve the lives of all.
> everyones
Why aren't foreigners in the category of "everyone"?
You seem to forget that there is citizenship.
Ah, wonders of the free market. ;) Do you honestly think Google/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook/etc hire foreigners because they have to pay them less? The legal costs of hiring and maintaining them easily adds up to 20-30k $ per year.
Yes, without a doubt.
That kind of "loyalty" is easily worth 20k-30k for a lot of companies.
Clearly you can see there is a difference between what a company needs to do to keep an H-1B employee from leaving the country, and what they need to do to keep a permanent resident employee from switching jobs?
They spend far more money and time upfront getting the person the visa and in the end there is nothing preventing them from either going home or tranfering to a similar role at another company.
So if there was a law that said they can't go home or change jobs, then you would accept that it might be worth it?
But if that were the case there's still nothing preventing them from dying right?
Hopefully from this example you can see that an employee who is much more likely to stay for x years, is more valuable despite the fact that they aren't guaranteed to stay for x years.
If you could pay $30k extra for an employee that is 50% more likely to stick around for 5 years, most companies would jump at that chance.
Per year? No it doesn't. An H1B is valid for three years, renewable to six. Unless you're doing something strange there is no cost for the other years.
Further, the recent actions making harder for "body shops" like Infosys are actually helping big tech companies win more visa lotteries. This means the recent action that was supposed to help American workers, is actually causing the best jobs to shift more to immigrants and less to Americans.
The whole visa and immigration system needs huge reform. I am not anti immigrant but the immigration system disproportionately hurts American software engineers and American tech. You don't see many visa holders working in sales and marketing, or teaching, or law, mostly just software engineering (at the high end) and then migrant farming and illegal immigrant factory workers (at the low end).