But who are Facebook, Google, Microsoft (not to mention, Infosys, Wipro, etc.) trying to hire through the H-1B program? Top talent? Average coders? Why doesn't Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc., first recruit from the masses of underpaid Infosys developers? This would force the "bad actors" to improve as well.
Inevitably the people who are looking to jump ship from Infosys or other low-end consultancy are woefully underqualified for even entry-level positions. I've actually interviewed people from these shops who cannot write Hello World in a language of their own choosing, I've also had people who didn't know what a tree data structure was. I'm unsure how Infosys et al can farm these guys out for such high hourly rates, it's surely criminal.
Sniping from Infosys and Wipro isn't worth it for top companies because there's hardly anyone there worth sniping. They do try sometimes though, since inevitably there is a diamond in there just waiting to get the hell out of dodge. There is effectively zero intersection between the types of developers Google wants, and the types of developers Infosys wants.
As for who Google/Microsoft/etc are trying to hire... I wouldn't call it "top talent" exactly. The H-1B pool in these companies isn't a parade of who's whos of the software industry, though some of them are certainly top-1% coders. It's more like "very good coders" - people who know the tech, learn fast, have solid fundamentals, and get shit done - which is more than can be said for the majority of the talent pool. Simply eyeballing it, I'd say that Facebook/Google/etc are targeting the top 5-10 percentile of coders.
I think the perception in US about the unqualified Indian engineers is because you might have seen engineers mostly in their budding years(1-3 years). As with everything else, those people do learn a thing or two as they gain more experience.
I came from India(never worked in Big Bodyshop like Infosys) and have been in US for 5 years now. I have seen really a lot of really dumb people and some really good people on both countries.
Check out the puzzles book that Infosys uses to hire people in India. http://books.google.com/books?id=F-idu9oxkdgC&printsec=f...
If we were serious about alleviating the shortage of top quality hires, we'd have a way to increase the quota of "the best" technical talent and not the current blanket approach, which really favors major employers trying to save costs. Maybe we let google design a technical test for anyone who wants to work here in a technical role. :)
I think Facebook is sincere in their desire for quality talent, but since their CEO happens to be one of the youngest billionaires in the world, who has only worked at one company which he founded as a pup, he is equally inexperienced in "the real world" (eg, how many other companies operate and what they use H1B for) and probably a very poor choice for a leader on immigration reform.
That's the reason they're generally not trying to recruit from the masses of underpaid infosys developers.
TCS does try to keep some of the better ones around, but from the outside I cannot know how succesful they are.
The offers being thrown around by Facebook, Google, et al, aren't anything to scoff at, and as another poster pointed out already, have gone up substantially in a just a few short years (that 50% number is accurate for new grads, it's higher for those with experience).
But the bulk of programmers in the country don't work at Facebook, or Google, or Microsoft. Nor are they forging the bleeding edge future of consumer/enterprise tech. They're doing the unglamorous, not often discussed IT grunt work in the back office of some corporate headquarters.
Their salaries are stagnant, and they are stagnant regardless of H-1B numbers specifically because the supply-demand curve in that leve of the industry sucks. And because our statistics put the $45K VB6 coder in the same category as the $200K+ Google engineer, the rise in one segment of the industry is largely hidden.
There is a danger to making decisions based on averages.
It's strange to me how every time the tech immigration debate comes up Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and co. are beaten to a pulp. They're the ones actually importing people at above market rates, they're the ones handing out $110K offers to new grads and $150-200K offers to even intermediate level coders. They're not the boogeyman under your bed.
Whereas actual exploitative employers like Infosys are barely mentioned. In fact, none of the infamous programming sweatshops are even named in this article. How is that the actual bad actors are facing none of the media scrutiny while the only good (or neutral) actors get all the blame?