As far as I know, the only way to self petition for an extraordinary ability (EB1) based immigration, but that probably applies only to a small percentage of H1B workers. The rest are bound to their employer applying to grant the employees immigration benefits, which the employer may or may not do.

Within the EB's, most companies will sponsor H-1B holders for green cards in the EB-2 or EB-3 categories in a 3-step process: PERM, I-140, I-485.

If an H-1B holder wants to get a green card based on work/accomplishments as a self-petitioner, the two main pathways are:

Eb-1A for extraordinary ability, helpful for people subject to long India/China backlogs

Eb-2 NIW, easier than O-1A, takes 2-3 years if you're not subject to India/China backlogs.

But unlike what the top level commenter wrote, the option for an H1B holder to become a permanent resident by their own action, rather then by their employer benevolence, is limited to very few (the green card lottery and the above mentioned narrow self-petition categories), and isn't a thing you can just do after a certain length of stay in the US.

I had got married by and had a green card through that before the backlog and what not would have got through on the h1b path, but if I hadn’t met my person I would have still ended up a permanent resident.

Pragmatically you can already see the effects of anti foreign ethnicity backlash in national politics, so it does seem like something that needs some level of management.

As far as I know, the only way to self petition for an extraordinary ability (EB1) based immigration, but that probably applies only to a small percentage of H1B workers. The rest are bound to their employer applying to grant the employees immigration benefits, which the employer may or may not do.

In theory, yes. But there's a massive backlog, depending on your country of origin. I know somebody who graduated in the US and after 10+ years they gave up trying to obtain a green card in the US and instead applied for permanent residence in Canada -- within a year they had moved with their family. This is far from unique.

- The cost of sponsoring someone for a green card ($50k?) is low compared to engineering salaries.

- Many companies like Google have great retention and the probability that an employee leaves after getting green card is low.

- Companies that are worried about retention often have employees sign a reimbursement agreement when starting the GC process. Something like, if you leave within 2 years of getting the GC you pay a prorated portion of the legal fees.

- In a tight labor market, GC sponsorship is another benefit like compensation, and companies offer it to hire good people. Over the last few years companies like Amazon have changed their GC policy to sponsor folks from day 1 of employment in order to hire people for whom a GC is that important.

The problem is that the various rules around being on an H1-B make it super easy to exploit workers - which has a side effect of reducing permanent resident and citizen wages.

Compare with other countries, where the eligibility for residency is automatic for all foreign workers for have worked in that country for a given amount of time.