Look at credit card or marginalized finance departments. They get around the "we must pay market rates for H1B" by depressing the wages for the rest of their employees, thereby justifying the "market rate." - AmEx - Mastercard - JPMorgan - Citi

H1B Labor might not be cheap if you're truly innovating, but let me tell you- there's a reason why credit card companies pay so little across the board, and it's no coincidence that they rely heavily on H1B labor.

Creating a throwaway because I don't want this to follow my profile (which identifies me).

I'm one of these high-skilled foreigners (phd, 5 years experience in applied ML). I make market rate salary in local currency (~35k USD/year) plus substantial bonuses (75~90k USD/year). I work for a major corp, and I think at least a couple dozen folks make similar money with similar experience.

I'm not posting to brag; just to contextualize (and agree with parent) that, yeah, maybe that money would hire a recent grad in California and gets my phd+exp here, but I wouldn't say we're "cheap"

I know you're discussing H1Bs and I'm talking remote work - just feel like it's worth poiting out that the same set of people fill both roles; so if remote salaries are X I can't see how you could pay less than X to a H1B. Why would I move to a much higher COL for same/less money?

I mean, maybe some folks for the express purpose of leaving their country, but still - remote work should push H1B salaries up for skilled foreigners, right?

But you get to retain them for longer since the switching cost is high.

But most are not theirs a difference between a transplant surgeon with a PHD and some one whos ground out a CS degree and memorized a lot of leet code.