On the topic of the essay, I worry that Paul is also being disingenuous. The US might only have 5% of the world's population, but we have a much larger percentage of the world's population where children have been exposed to computers from an early age. He's right that exceptional programmers can't really be trained, but that doesn't mean that they aren't made. They're made by being put in an environment where they can explore computing and let a natural creativity/curiosity that they have flourish. I've yet to meet an exceptional programmer that begrudgingly chose to write code for a living.

And that's my problem with the H1-B situation and why I think they've got an overall lower percentage of exceptional programmers. In the US, those who are driven by extrinsic motivators like money don't become programmers. They become salesmen, stockbrokers, lawyers or any of a host of other professions that sacrifice doing something interesting for high compensation. But most of those career paths aren't available to people in poorer countries whereas software engineering is. What I've seen among H1-Bs is a far higher percentage of people who basically hate their job, but do it because it allowed them to come to the US and afford a comfortable lifestyle for their families. I don't blame them for that, but I also don't think that it makes them particularly good developers. Don't get me wrong...I have met quite a few H1-Bs who were drawn to software development from an early age and love doing it in the way that usually results in being an nx developer (anywhere from 1x to 10x), but I just don't see them in the same proportions that I do among American developers.

If Paul can figure out a way to filter in the great developers while filtering out those that are only coming to make money, then I'd be completely behind his plan to let them all in. Somewhat ironically, his plan to let everyone in would somewhat accomplish that at the cost of decimating developer salaries (i.e. if the labor pool is increased and salaries dip accordingly, we'll find out pretty quickly who's only here for the money and which of us would be doing this no matter whether we were paid significantly less.)

Perhaps the ones that just want to work hard and make other people money, rather than aspire to money of their own could get a great big "I'M A SUCKER" stamp on their foreheads?

Here's patio11 on salary negotiation: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ - should that desire to earn a bit more only apply to people who were born in the right place?

Most people from China, India, etc who immigrate to the U.S., Canada, and Australia/NZ are, in my observational experience, primarily focused on whatever aids the immigration process from an early age, often prompted by their parents. Their secondary focus is the backup plan of rising in the ranks of business, government, or academia in their home country. There is a significant minority of people whose primary focus is on the hierarchy at home, and choosing immigration as a secondary concern happens later on in life, often after marriage, perhaps to someone of the first group. For both groups of people, though, an interest in something geeky like technology, programming, gaming, or whatever comes a distant third. People in China who develop such consuming interests outside of work or forgo higher status jobs to do more interesting work will almost certainly miss out on some crucial step in the arduous immigration process. And of course you won't see many Chinese who totally forgo saving for a car, apartment, spouse, and child to spend all of their time on a geeky interest because their parents simply wouldn't allow it in the one-child culture here.

Maybe he did. They become founders. They start companies worth 100x - 1000x their annual salary. As you go up the continuum of exceptional performance a great programmer becomes a startup founder.

You are implying that all (most) of the American programmers are exceptional. That is not the case. If you have a good team, you had to do it yourself, weed out fakes from real ones, didn't you? The onus is on the company/manager who is hiring to pick the right ones whether they are already on H1 or before company files H1 for them.

I find it hard to believe. In large companies HR establishes salary levels (usually bands) which are tied to titles or levels within the career ladder. Does your company negotiate each compensation package on a one-off basis?

And some of the salaries listed on that site are below band. We also get salaries below band through acquisitions. In those cases, managers aren't really given leeway to get their salaries up to market. We've go a mostly-fixed pool of raises to apportion across our teams. Every year, that's set by executives depending on the company's performance...this past year it was ~4%. Low-level managers can recommend higher for their team, but they need good justification and, at the level of the business unit, raises cannot exceed that value.

Based on what I've seen when extending offers, whereas US citizens sometimes push back on salary or equity, H1-Bs only push back on the INS stuff (they all want EB2s). My guess is a lot of managers will low-ball their offers when they know they can give the candidate an EB2. The more you do this, the more you can increase your headcount or hire more senior developers.

That is technically true, but effectively impossible. The DoL simply does not pursue H1B abuses. They do not have the political will nor the budget to even look for them.

There is literally zero budget allocated to "prevailing wage" enforcement. That is a deliberate oversight by congress and has been that way for the 20+ years I've been observing the H1B process. To the best of my knowledge the DoL has only twice ever initiated action for H1B prevailing wage violations and in both cases it was the result of a disgruntled employee tipping them off to a series of violations that were so egregious that the political fallout of ignoring them would have gotten senior bureaucrats fired.

You might also want to read up on how classifications are gamed in order to work around even the very minor risk of prevailing wage violations.

http://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know-...

So, tossing H1B would be a great start at immigration reform. Instead, we should prefer immigrants with educational backgrounds in skills we need, and who have the best chance at assimilation.

In 2012, all 10 of the top 10 H1B employers were offshore outsourcing companies. http://www.epi.org/blog/top-10-h1b-guestworker-offshore-outs...

In 2013, 50% of all H1B visas went to offshore outsourcers. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2489146/technology-law-...

It is difficult for me to not say anything disparaging about Graham's analsysis of the problem being just "a handful of consulting firms" when it is actually the primary use of H1B visas.

Wipro & co are general outsourcing firms themselves that american companies hire. I don't know why they use the h1b vs the L1 visa although.

Minor detail, but if it's the same employer in both countries, they don't need to apply for H1, L1 would do the trick. It's also not subject to a cap and is much cheaper administratively.

So if companies are using H1 program for foreign employee training, that's a very inefficient practice.

http://www.technologyexecutivesclub.com/Articles/outsourcing...

Isn't that basically how Canada and Australia's visa programs work?

So are you claiming that companies are paying an extra 30K for all their H1B employees on top of giving them a salary that exactly matches that of their non H1B peers?