> In my experience, the special skills that many foreigners tend to have that many Americans do not is the ability to tolerate absolute and utter bullshit. I'm not kidding.

This actually made me giggle a little bit and while I have seen this, what I've seen more of is that a company hiring internally has offshore employees who have a vast amount of company specific info and experience that the company simply can't hire for. That only applies to internal transfers of course but it's what I see the most of.

Internal transfers that have such knowledge don't go on H-1B though, but L-1B

Ah okay, I haven't done the process myself so mixed it up! Good to know though !

It's how big tech with multinational offices manages to handle lack of enough H-1B, among other things.

You hire someone in local office for a year, then arrange L-1B visa which has no numerical issuance limits - but requires at least one year of previous employment with the company sponsoring the visa.

There's also L-1A which IIRC doesn't require time in company but is limited only to upper management in practice.

L-1A also requires the employee to have worked at the foreign subsidiary of the US company for at least 12 consecutive months.

> Of the non-US native ones that I interact with, they all absolutely love our job and/or employer. I've asked them about it, and I generally get the sense that I could not survive in the conditions from which they originally came -- both at work and outside of work

My dad’s an H1. (Before they created H1B in 1990.) He grew up in a village in Bangladesh. One out of five kids died by the age of five. He came in as a skilled worker and was an elite within our country—but that meant his parents owned land in a third world village and he went to school (but it had no walls). Both my parents sound like Breitbart when Gen Z or work from home or work life balance comes up. (And they’re Democrats!) My dad’s bullish on China “because they know how to work hard like Americans used to.”

And so do I! I didn’t grow up in a village, but I grew up with my dad, who made clear that there’s 16 work-hours in a day. I’m an absolute company man. So is my brother, who was born here. So is his wife, who was born here but whose family fled communism in China. My kids are growing up hearing my dad talk about taking a boat to school during monsoon season.

At some point the memory will fade. Maybe my grandkids. But in the meantime, how many more H1Bs will they have brought over?

This comment made me realize sometimes I’m such an entitled shit. Lately I’d been feeling legitimately depressed that I seem to have hit a career plateau, despite that plateau occurring at a very generous salary.

You shouldn’t feel bad for having higher expectations.