[HN Gopher] Laid Off, Now What?
___________________________________________________________________
Laid Off, Now What?
Author : bbhat
Score : 250 points
Date : 2020-09-20 15:54 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bharathpbhat.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (bharathpbhat.github.io)
| botwriter wrote:
| I'm sure I'll get downvoted to oblivion but what the hell! A bit
| of common sense but...
|
| In times of economic turmoil when unemployment is high countries
| should incentivise hiring their own citizens rather than foreign
| talent.
| itsmefaz wrote:
| are you still on H1B?
| contingencies wrote:
| I had a commercial investment related visa in the US. Our mobile
| digital video company, in which I was basically #2 right under
| the CTO, was very successful and was acquired by HTC.
| Unfortunately, my position disappeared in the restructuring. I
| phoned up the immigration department and they said I had _10
| days_ to get out of the country. This was 2011.
| saltybytes wrote:
| This. Happened to me as the agency I worked for got bought and
| pretty much everyone lost their job due to redundancy. I was
| CTO back then and I it hurt to see my team of engineers,
| creatives dissolve within a few days.
|
| Since I was unable to find another position in an instant (was
| on H1B) I took the offer of the purchasing agency to work as a
| database admin just to stay in the country. I took a huge pay
| cut and a significant change in my career. Never was I able to
| return to a managerial position after.
|
| It seems racist to bully the crem de la crem of tech workers to
| find a job in such a short period or to get the hell out of the
| country. I have not experienced such a hostile work environment
| in any other country.
|
| Now that I have a family I'm thinking to move to Europe where
| there's health insurance even if I lost my job. You receive
| financial aid for children (if you happen to have some), most
| countries in Europe offer free nursery schools, just to name a
| few pros.
|
| "Thanks US for taking advantage of all H1B workers. But I'm
| outta here."
| contingencies wrote:
| Oh, on my visa category, which was employer-linked, finding
| another job wasn't allowed. To remain in the US I would have
| had to first leave, then find a new employer, then get a new
| visa, then fly back to start again. I decided to leave.
| achalshah wrote:
| Hey bbhat - glad to see you landed on your feet. :)
| oDot wrote:
| The current state of job interviews is terrible. Just the fact
| that studying for a few weeks affects their outcome should raise
| eyebrows everywhere.
|
| And don't get me started on lack of job-related questions, false
| negatives and having to guess what interviewers want to hear
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| [Edit: Parent commenter has now reworded their comment to
| remove confusion]
|
| Huh? OP wasn't a rando who just 'studied' for a few weeks and
| passed. He has been working in Tech for 7+ years [1].
|
| If anything the moral of this story is it doesn't matter that
| you have a 7 year experience, you still have to do fucking
| Leetcode for 2 months if you want to get a new job.
|
| [1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/bharathpbhat/
| oDot wrote:
| > ... it doesn't matter that you have a 7 year experience,
| you still have to do fucking Leetcode for 2 months if you
| want to get a new job
|
| Exactly my point -- two weeks of leetcode do not
| significantly affect the candidate's ability to perform the
| job, but it has immense influence on how well s/he'll do in
| the interview
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| If that was your point I think you didn't state it
| correctly. Your original comment makes it sound like you
| think OP undeservedly got a job merely be hacking through a
| couple weeks of interview prep.
| oDot wrote:
| Edited for what I hope is clarity ;p
| ramraj07 wrote:
| I see _some_ potential acceptability to this idea though.
| There are a few hypotheses for this to be true:
|
| 1. If you're not a good programmer even with leetcode
| practice you can't get good 2. If you're a good programmer
| with leetcode practice you eliminate anxiety and are able to
| perform optimally according to your programming skills
|
| Thus, it is definitely semi annoying that you need to "prep"
| for interviews with leetcode, its not the absolute worst
| thing in the world. Software engineers in the US tend to
| routinely forget how good they have basically everything
| compared to every other profession / nation out there.
|
| This is also coming from and Indian dude currently back in
| India after a decade of being in the States. I think a 60 day
| window is perfectly acceptable (not great but not terrible
| either) for immigrant workers. I'm still glad for the
| opportunity this gives people. You're supposed to be a smart
| cookie anyways right? Didn't you know these terms when you
| started? Perhaps you should have made sure you had an exit
| plan. It's definitely on you if you come on a h1b and
| instantly proceed to buy a mansion that you can't sell off
| and leave nation if needed. Also, people blame their kids for
| not wanting to move them back to their original countries - I
| feel like the kids will be alright. It's probably the adults
| who will despise going back to a "lesser" lifestyle or
| something.
| bradlys wrote:
| Being a good programmer doesn't necessarily mean you're
| good at leetcode and just need to brush up. I don't meet
| almost anyone who uses DP in their daily life but you can
| bet your ass you'll run into a problem that requires DP in
| a FAANG interview. And you better put it on the board in
| under 20 minutes or you're getting passed for the next guy
| who did 1000+ problems as their prep. It wouldn't be so bad
| if being a good programmer was sufficient and you just
| needed a little bit of brushing up - but the arms race
| started years ago... So, now the bar is very high.
|
| Leetcode is solving small problems, often with tricks, in a
| very short period of time. Being a software engineer is
| solving large problems over large periods of time.
| stack_underflow wrote:
| It's interesting, when I tell people they need to be
| prepared for this bar I get a surprising number of people
| who just don't seem to want to accept that it's true or
| flat out claim that it's not true when I know they
| haven't interviewed in years.
|
| In the past 2 years I've done about 40ish+ interviews at
| all the big tech co's + smaller-midsize startups and
| aside from 3 or 4 take home assignments I was given,
| _every_ interview was leetcode style, to the point where
| I would just start noting which exact leetcode questions
| I was asked when friends asked about my experience. The
| only exception would be 1 or 2 "system design" rounds out
| of the 5/6 on-site interviews if the company was
| calibrating me for senior level.
| lordnacho wrote:
| It's bad, but compared to other industries there are some real
| pluses.
|
| At least you can actually hunker down and do these silly tests.
| There's a huge amount of advice on the technical stuff.
|
| And yes it means people who have a job already are
| disadvantaged, but that also means people who have no income
| have a way in.
|
| In a lot of other industries, there's no real way to boost your
| game. Often it's purely reputation of your school and previous
| employers, and your feedback on a failed application is just
| platitudes. People circle around for ages and never find
| anything but crappy advice that doesn't work.
|
| It's also a process that makes bias a little bit harder to
| introduce. If your pal from the country club can't fizzbuzz, it
| will be hard to convince people to accept him. Not saying this
| is bullet proof, but in most jobs it's a lot more vague whether
| someone is terrible.
| gcheong wrote:
| If only it had stopped at fizzbuzz as a quick check for
| whether you can meet the lowest bar for coding I think it
| would still have some merit but it just seems to have gotten
| out of hand to the point that ability to get a job now is
| completely decoupled from your prior experience.
| bradlys wrote:
| It's an arms race. Big name employers only wanted the top
| 1% of candidates. A bunch of people wanted to get into the
| top 1% and figured out a way (leetcode, ctci, etc.). And
| then employers kept only wanting the top 1% - so they just
| raised the bar higher and higher.
|
| Now we're at the scale where if you haven't done a minimum
| of 200 problems before any interview round - you're not
| likely getting an offer from FAANG/etc.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| It seems to be a mostly US-centric thing.
|
| I live in Scandinavia, and I have yet to encounter the levels
| of rigor I see in the US (tech) interviewing process - which is
| kind of weird, as we have much, _much_ more stringent workers
| rights /laws, making it more difficult to get rid of a bad
| hire.
|
| Sure, US companies, especially in tech hubs, operate on a
| completely different scale than companies over here - at least
| in terms of funding/capital, size, and impact; So one might
| suspect your companies and startups to be more selective. But
| yet, it seems like a completely different world.
|
| Over here, there seems to be much more emphasis (and trust) on
| your resume, and the hiring process is more focused on fit. If
| you have the basics down, most can be thought - but it's pretty
| difficult to teach culture.
| marcinzm wrote:
| The US pays a lot and there's a lot of competition for
| positions. The H1B system doesn't help that competition. When
| you have 50 well qualified applicants (ie: could pass most
| interviews) per position then you need some way to weed out
| 49 of them. Resumes can be exaggerated and downright lied on
| so once there's enough competition using them just means
| you're selecting the best liars/sociopaths.
| rhexs wrote:
| I think there's certainly some truth to coding interviews
| being an effective mechanism in shifting hiring towards
| H1Bs. It's much easier to say that Americans can't do the
| job when you create a test around studying for 500 hours to
| memorize hundreds upon hundreds of coding puzzles in order
| to build up a mental encyclopedia of how to quickly apply
| your algorithmic "training" to the puzzle of the day.
|
| I'd bet H1Bs are going to be much more motivated to jump
| through that hoop. Benefits them and the company doing the
| hiring that conveniently just can't find enough qualified
| American engineers to do the job.
| creato wrote:
| This is an absurd characterization of coding interviews.
| I've been on both sides of big tech interviews, and I've
| been at a few companies. I've seen two extremes. At one
| end, the company had pretty lax interviews, and I rarely
| interviewed anyone while I was there. The quality of
| people at this company was relatively low, from my small
| sample size of coworkers. At the other end, a company
| well known for challenging coding interviews, and I
| regularly interview people. The quality of people at this
| company was relatively high, again from my small sample
| size of coworkers.
|
| I think coding interviews are actually working fairly
| well. They divide people into at least two groups: a
| first group is people that can pass them without too much
| trouble, and they mostly seem to get hired, but of course
| there are mistakes. A second group is people that need to
| spend 500 hours cramming to _appear_ qualified, and
| basically are trying to game the system. These people
| mostly don 't get hired, and I suspect also are
| completely driving the conversation on HN and elsewhere
| about how coding interviews are a terrible failure.
| marcinzm wrote:
| FAANG nowadays wants you to be able to solve 2 leetcode
| mediums (or an easy+hard) without errors and with optimal
| computational complexity in 35 minutes. This is done up
| to three times so that's six problems and if you miss
| even one you likely fail the whole thing. To me that's
| really really hard unless you study to the point of
| having the solutions memorized. It's not the problems
| that are difficult per say but the time constraint which
| means going down the wrong path leaves you with no time
| to fix things.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| As a counterpoint, I had to intervene when I discovered one
| of our European offices was interviewing mobile developers
| with a 40-80 hour take home project. They were not happy when
| we made them reduce it to a 4-5 hour take home problem.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| > Over here, there seems to be much more emphasis (and trust)
| on your resume, and the hiring process is more focused on
| fit. If you have the basics down, most can be thought - but
| it's pretty difficult to teach culture.
|
| That's probably because OP makes triple to quadruple your
| total compensation _at minimum_ as an L5 ML Engineer at
| Google.
|
| https://www.levels.fyi/
|
| Total: $356,119
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Obviously the salaries are quite different, but at the same
| time - you're pretty much walking around in golden
| shackles, no? I can't imagine those salaries being
| relevant, other than a handful of places in the US.
|
| And for the price of a small 2-bedroom apartment in the SF-
| area, you can pretty much buy a mansion where I live.
|
| Then you have things like healthcare, school costs, daycare
| / cost of raising a child, etc. etc.
| marcinzm wrote:
| The US is a large place, you can save money for a decade
| in one location and then use that $1-2 million you built
| up to move somewhere cheap, buy a mansion and not give
| much a shit for the next 40 years. Taxes are also
| generally lower so you keep more. Healthcare costs don't
| matter since your employer pays for that and gives you
| good health insurance. School/child only matters later,
| and you can either move away by then or get promoted to
| making $600k+.
|
| edit: Two engineers together can make $700k+ which is
| $450+k after taxes per year. After one year and
| reasonable spending that's enough for a down payment on a
| house in the Bay Area. Every single year you get enough
| to pay for 1.5 kid's worth of college education at a top
| private school. Very few costs actually matter in
| comparison at that point.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Sure, two engineers together technically _can_ make
| $700k+, just like runners technically _can_ run a 4
| minute mile. You 're not talking about average engineers
| at average companies here, so it's not really
| generalizable advice.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| I grew up with a dad working for 70-120k and a mom at
| home. I can't even imagine how nice the lifestyles of Bay
| Area kids are.
| ip26 wrote:
| The kids you are thinking of certainly enjoy nice cars,
| good food, and so on.
|
| However, the housing stock is mostly old & run down even
| at two million dollar prices. Not to mention, a kid with
| two full time Googler parents? They are attending an
| academically rigorous private school with 3-4 hours of
| cram classes after, not sipping virgin daiquiris by the
| pool.
| gcheong wrote:
| Housing prices and the cost of any good school beyond a
| select few good public ones pretty much brings the
| lifestyle down to the same level. My friends with kids
| and solid incomes live comfortably but not extravagantly
| considering one lay-off can take your income from
| comfortable to 0 at a moment's notice.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| 350K is about enough to start considering buying a house
| in the bay area. Less than that and you have to make big
| compromises.
|
| The life you can't imagine are all the lucky Engineers to
| be paid bay area salaries at reasonable cost of living
| locations like Seattle. You may laugh at me calling
| Seattle "reasonable" but compared to the bay it is.
| bradlys wrote:
| Judging by the Palo Alto train tracks - it might not be
| as bright as you might be imagining.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| the parenting attitude isnt "we got it made, lets enjoy
| the good life", it is "i expect you to do even better".
| also, most kids are not the product of 750k hh income
| families. the median hh income is about a hundred k.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| I'm really referring to the children of Googler parents.
| marcinzm wrote:
| As I see it, beyond a certain level money and things
| don't make you much happier. They just give you a
| different set of things to feel the same level of
| happiness about.
|
| edit: This is as someone who has experienced household
| lifestyles going from <$40k/year to >$250k/year.
| juniper_strong wrote:
| I don't agree with you.
|
| I've gone from 0K to 200K in my life and more money is
| always better, it's more freedom and it's more happiness
| and there has never been any downside.
|
| Making more money has always made me happier and it's
| given me the ability to take care of the people I care
| about.
|
| I want more and if a job comes up tomorrow that will pay
| me more, I'm there.
| gcheong wrote:
| Sure but do people want to actually want to live in those
| places? My wife and I both live in SF and we were able to
| buy a house which would be impossible now, but I don't
| think we've ever cleared more then 250K max combined in
| actual salary. Now with only one of us working which
| could drop to zero at any moment it seems a move to cash
| out our equity in the house and move to Europe is a more
| feasible option than staying in the US
| marcinzm wrote:
| >Sure but do people want to actually want to live in
| those places?
|
| I don't see why not. It's not like the Bay Area is
| particularly great culturally, culinarily or in most
| other ways. It's a giant suburb sandwiched between a
| medium sized city and a place that is only technically
| dense enough to be a city. There's plenty of mid-sized
| cities and suburbs in the US with reasonable costs of
| living.
| gcheong wrote:
| Yeah I don't know. I think there is a difference between
| places with reasonable costs of living but I don't know
| if those are places where 1-2M is going to last 40yrs. I
| grew up in Astoria, OR with population of 10k and can say
| that at least compared to that place SF Bay Area is miles
| beyond culturally and culinarily. Even Portland seems
| rather lacking just in the sense that there really isn't
| the amount of cultural diversity there as you can find
| here. I feel like if there is anything I am interested in
| getting into here there is almost always a club or group
| of people you can find here that are doing it which
| wasn't always the case in other places I've lived. On the
| other hand, if you're into things like hunting and
| similar recreational pursuits, the Bay Area doesn't seem
| as good as other places where there aren't as many
| hurdles to overcome and a lot of people are doing it as
| well.
| marcinzm wrote:
| I didn't mean you could retire with 1-2 million but
| simply you could take whatever job you wanted and not
| worry about major expenses. The person I was talking to
| mentioned kids a few times so I was talking more from
| that point. With kids, your free time shrinks
| dramatically as do your priorities. So hobbies and so on
| matter a lot less than good schools, stable environment,
| etc, etc.
|
| In terms of diverse activities I've personally found east
| coast cities better and most have broader suburbs than
| the bay area (due to not being restricted by mountains)
| so it's easier to trade commute against price.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| Cost of healthcare is minimal at Google. And yeah, you
| can easily afford a mansion if you want to commute long
| enough. 300k to 500k is enough for nice housing -
| unfortunately, as someone making $150k at 24 I'll never
| have this American dream.
| abnercoimbre wrote:
| This is a rather damning statement and it saddens me that
| wealth keeps concentrating in such small pockets of
| America.
|
| I'm in Seattle but I have engineer friends in Florida
| making your salary and they definitely have nice houses.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| I live in the northeast - even if I get promoted it's
| unlikely I'll break 200k. Down payment for a house around
| here is like 150k or more :/
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Not really. Many people earn those salaries for 5-10
| years and then move literally wherever they want to raise
| families.
|
| It's not hard to save a million or more on those salaries
| before you turn 30. That's a lot of freedom.
| bosie wrote:
| Mind expanding on how a regular senior SWE or analyst
| interview works? How many stages, what are the questions etc?
| philjohn wrote:
| It's always good to have your ear to the ground about potential
| troubles in a company - this can be anything from an "all but
| essential travel freeze", to downgrading of snacks and other
| perks, or decisions that don't quite ring true/don't make sense.
|
| Forewarned is forearmed.
| aaomidi wrote:
| I wish for a day my amazing coworkers aren't used as pawns in a
| political game and are given the stability they have earned and
| they deserve.
| simonkafan wrote:
| This sounds horrible to me. I mean, do you really want to spend
| your life having to deal with leetcode for several months every
| 2-3 years? Maybe some people find coding interviews and leetcode
| problems exciting, I find them tedious and want to avoid them.
| Not talking about the pressure to find a new job in 60 days.
|
| So no FAANG? Indeed. You only live once and can spend your time
| better.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| If someone offered you a $100-200K bonus to complete LeetCode
| problems for a month, would you turn it down?
|
| There's a lot of anger about the process, but it's really
| impossible to beat the effort vs. reward balance.
| speedgoose wrote:
| The nice salaries are also there to attract talented people
| despite all this bullshit.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| It's funny that our industry lets anyone, from any
| background have a fair shot at top paying jobs with only a
| few weeks or months of practice against freely-available
| practice problems that can be done from the comfort of your
| home. If you struggle, there is an endless supply of
| tutorials and YouTube videos to help you out. Did I mention
| it's all free and you can do it on your own time?
|
| When I tell my doctor, lawyer, and finance friends about
| this they literally can't believe it's that easy. It's
| bizarre that so many people would rather replace this with
| selecting people by pedigree or credentials.
| ip26 wrote:
| The fatigue is over having to run the same gauntlet
| again, and again, and again. Proving yourself over and
| over gets really old.
| stack_underflow wrote:
| This has been my take on it as well. Sure it sucks having
| to jump through these hoops and sometimes even being
| evaluated by people you know don't understand the topic
| as well as you and are looking for specific
| answers/solutions, but this same process also helped me,
| a "C/D student" from a no-name school and a poor family
| with 0 connections in the tech industry end up with job
| offers in the $300k+ range.
|
| The only thing I'm salty about is that I can only get
| these offers in the US and not in Canada and that my
| options for permanent residence in the US seem to be
| gated behind an 80+ year wait...
| https://medium.com/@happy_sushi_roll/the-endless-wait-
| for-a-...
| ram_rar wrote:
| My undergrad college final year students were one of the last
| ones where many of us inclined towards coming to US for grad
| school. This was back in 2013, when INR was also doing very
| poorly and I remember, my semester fees was as volatile as
| crypto.
|
| Nowadays, I always tell my junior folks to calibrate all the pros
| and cons on being in H1b visa very seriously. The level of
| uncertainty can drive you nuts. Its not just 60 days grace
| period, but also future visa extensions post 6 yr mark is insane.
| I know senior folks in my previous companies getting RFE (Request
| for Evidence) on pretty much every extension. Its a gut wrenching
| experience, especially if you have kids and house.
|
| If folks who care to know more, John Oliver has made an entire
| episode on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs
| tomp wrote:
| I'm not from India but from an almost-first world EU country,
| and I've been working in London for a while. My advice for
| someone else in my position (starting out) would _definitely_
| be to try to go to the US. Salaries are just _so much_ better,
| it's incomparable. You could _save_ in the US in a year as much
| as you would _make_ (post tax) in Europe in 5 years. Even in
| London and Switzerland, pribably the best-paid countries in
| Europe, you're probably at least 2x worse off. (This is of
| course for top talent working in tech /finance/both.)
| thewarrior wrote:
| As someone who chose to stay in London for me the increased
| certainty is worth the hit to my salary. Salary matters but
| it isn't everything. Obviously it's not the same for
| Europeans who can get a green card in a few years.
|
| But a lot of people are waking up to this and offices in
| places like London and Canada are expanding. I personally
| know people who make very good money in both places. In fact
| anecdotally there's increasing presence of big tech in London
| as a backup for H1B rejects by all majors. In the long term
| this will contribute to the decentralization of tech
| companies outside the US. These policies are short sighted
| and foolish.
| triceratops wrote:
| Combining your advice and that of GP, it sounds like the
| optimal course of action is "Work in the US for 6 years, save
| as much as you would in 30 years in Europe, then move
| somewhere else"
| humanlion87 wrote:
| That is a pretty optimal plan and that is what quite a few
| colleagues I know are doing. Not moving to Europe, but
| planning to move to Canada. Save up some money in the US,
| move North and settle down.
| pm90 wrote:
| This happened to me as I was laid off from my first job in the US
| after a year.
|
| It was perhaps the most insanely stressful period in my life. You
| cannot begin to fathom the desperation that comes with it. There
| is literally a ticking time bomb until the country is like
| "whoops, looks didn't work out for you buddy. Just pack your bags
| and leave your life and go home. Bye!". I think of myself
| generally as a rather carefree person but I couldn't sleep at
| night because there was the very real chance that I would just
| not get a job in time. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
|
| I basically did what the author describes... cast a pretty wide
| net in my job search. Couldn't make it into the FAANGS but got
| another job just in time. The timing was pretty insane though.
| And as a person still on an H1B that worry is always on top of my
| mind, although as a fairly experienced engineer now, it is
| somewhat less intimidating.
|
| The other thing that Citizens May not realize is that CBP can
| stop you from entering for any fucking reason whatsoever. Which
| is what prevented me from buying a house and making other long
| term investments.
| JonLim wrote:
| Does the 60 day timeline include the amount of time you need to
| be approved for the visa, as well?
|
| I wasn't laid off, but am in the process of changing employers
| with my TN visa. This is probably the least smooth part of the
| entire interviewing/job changing process, at least from my
| perspective, as a software dev who doesn't have a degree in
| computer science or computer engineering.
|
| Wish it were all a little more transparent, and that it wasn't
| just a big waiting game with lawyers and USCIS!
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| I _think_ if you have applied for Premium Processing and get
| the receipt, you can start working with the new employer. But
| please check with your employer's lawyers, as these things can
| keep changing and the rules are too complex for me to keep
| track of.
| JonLim wrote:
| The lawyers have not mentioned anything near that, otherwise
| I'd be working right now!
|
| My application used Premium Processing, and I got an RFE, so
| I'm still sitting here on my hands. It's frustrating, but is
| it worth asking the lawyers about being able to start since
| I'm in the process of the application?
| returningfory2 wrote:
| Nearly every lawyer will encourage you to wait for the
| receipt notice, although interestingly you only need proof
| that you've submitted a petition to starting working; i.e., a
| Fedex proof-of-sending receipt.
| returningfory2 wrote:
| > Does the 60 day timeline include the amount of time you need
| to be approved for the visa, as well?
|
| No. You must start a new job within 60 days. Due to H-1B
| portability rules, you can start a new job as soon as your
| employer has filed paperwork with USCIS. The H-1B processing
| time doesn't count.
|
| I recently started a new FAANG job on H-1B, and because I
| received an RFE it actually took nearly 3 months after starting
| to get the approved petition.
| JonLim wrote:
| Oof, that's a long wait. If you don't mind me asking, is it
| because of the whole H1B status with the current
| administration, or of additional hoops you had to jump
| through for the RFE, or something else?
| yibg wrote:
| What happens if it's not approved?
| imhoguy wrote:
| Just wondering. Can't this time-out be life-hacked somehow with
| getting e.g. no pay and no show up job just to stop the timer,
| or just creating LLC and employing oneself?
| spicyramen wrote:
| It depends, I was TN for 3 years and Cisco working as a FT
| registered me as computer technician and low balled me that they
| needed to increase my salary 20k when Department of Labor found
| that I was a SWE with technician salary in San Jose. Allowing
| immigration or not depends on your country and economy I'm
| grateful with US but wouldn't mind if they encourage more
| restrict rules to employ their own citizens, I blame it on my
| country who doesn't give me the same technical opportunities to
| grow. Not happy in a foreign country you are welcome to leave
| scarface74 wrote:
| I read through most of the comments before posting and I am still
| ambivalent about whether we should allow more or less people
| immigrate to the US.
|
| But, the more I read about the H1B system, I am sure that if we
| as a country think people are deserving to come over here and we
| think they add to our economy, we should treat them like humans
| and not have them in constant fear of being deported at the whim
| of their employer.
|
| Decent people can disagree about immigration, but I don't see how
| decent people can disagree about how you treat people who took
| all of the necessary, legal steps to be here. It's just human
| decency.
| nph5667 wrote:
| I find it quite amusing the efforts programmers have to put into
| a job interview. Especially comparing to what they will be doing
| every day at job if they are accepted. It's two separate worlds -
| job interview and job itself.
| tomp wrote:
| Better than doctors who have to put 10+ years into a job
| interview...
| nph5667 wrote:
| Do you think so? I am not familiar with doctor's state of
| things, but do they have to prepare for 10 years for each
| interview during their career, or just once in a lifetime to
| get into a profession? Are they tested on irrelevant stuff to
| their job's duties every time they change the job? I am
| genuinely interested. I see that the current state of job
| search/acquiring in software industry is inadequate both for
| employers and candidates. Both sides can tell you horror
| stories in that regard. And I cannot say nobody tried to
| innovate here. They definitely did - certification efforts,
| recruiter's tests, not to mention each company has it's own
| "system". Nevertheless, what I see here is that you are
| almost always tested for irrelevant stuff, stuff you can
| completely get out of your head the moment you are hired.
| Until the moment you have to find a new job. Something's
| wrong here.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Trying to compare a few weeks of LeetCode to years of
| graduate school followed by years of underpaid 80-hour
| residency workweeks is out of touch.
|
| Also, any programmer with a few years of experience
| shouldn't have to completely relearn how to do LeetCode
| style problems every few years. The LeetCode easy and
| medium problems aren't that difficult for anyone with a few
| years of experience.
|
| Finally, I don't understand how so many people are
| convinced that LeetCode problems are an entirely different
| domain than typical programming work. Sure, they're toy
| problems, but the concepts are relevant to anyone doing
| things at scale that involves more than just connecting
| some APIs together.
| bradlys wrote:
| > Finally, I don't understand how so many people are
| convinced that LeetCode problems are an entirely
| different domain than typical programming work. Sure,
| they're toy problems, but the concepts are relevant to
| anyone doing things at scale that involves more than just
| connecting some APIs together.
|
| But the overwhelming majority of us are just connecting
| APIs or what not.
|
| Most people (even in FAANG) are not using DP in their
| day-to-day...
| goodrubyist wrote:
| Yeah, I found to read that part dispiriting too. The fact that
| practicing on leetcode has such a substantial effect on one's
| chances, to me, shows that it's very likely that either
| employers don't know how to select candidates, or maybe,
| they're just trying to track the best proxy they know for job
| performance.
|
| I, personally, think that the ability to write "clean code", to
| think and care deeply about decisions related to code when it
| spans multiple fiels, is way more valuable in many jobs (not
| all!). Yet, unsurprisingly, I see that very few give any
| serious thought to it, given what companies care about is
| leetcode.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| H1B rules are quite ridiculous (or more accurately, cruel). Do
| people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put
| into place relatively recently by the Obama administration?
|
| Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you
| were laid off. Never mind that you might have a house a family
| and might have been living here for more than a decade. You would
| officially be staying illegally if you didn't leave right away
| and it would jeopardize your chances of getting a visa in the
| future.
|
| It's only through an historic odd mix of good pay and relatively
| laxer immigration rules that the US managed to attract a large
| pool of talent in the 80s, 90s and 00s. Students from my college
| who are about 5-10 years junior to me no longer consider it a
| viable place to plan a long-term career in due to the extreme
| precariousness of visa holders' life situations in the US.
|
| Politically speaking we have little to no power in numbers so
| neither politically party really cares. Typically it's the
| Democrats who are pro-immigration, but in reality they don't care
| much about H1B style immigration and are in fact likely against
| it due to American tech unions hating H1Bs, while we have
| unlikely allies in some Republicans because our presence benefits
| big companies. Common sense solutions standard across the world
| (such as skill-based / point-based systems) are looked down upon,
| while we keep getting kicked around on the political playground.
| rahulpadalkar wrote:
| nice username.
| ozim wrote:
| What one can expect from going to foreign country? People in
| mine (or yours) country will try to get as much as possible for
| free from others.
|
| If someone thinks that some country is composed only from good
| will and good people, it will be disappointing. There is price
| to pay for moving, it is not always obvious. I moved to another
| country and I earn more money than if I would not move, but
| opportunities that I left back in my country are somewhat
| biting me back after all those years.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| If the Democrats are "pro-immigration", they haven't actually
| succesfully done much to show it. Generally, not limited to
| H1B. this country has become very anti-immigration generally,
| and I hate it.
|
| There isn't really such a thing as a "tech union" in the USA. I
| don't think very many tech H1B holders are working in areas
| with any unions. (And if they were wouldn't many union members
| be H1B holders themselves?)
|
| Actually, I suspect Democrats get more money from tech
| _companies_ that benefit from H1B hires than Republicans do.
| Tech companies in the past tend to donate to Dem more than
| Republican. Of course, the biggest companies, in nearly every
| industry, donate to both parties hoping to influence whoever is
| in office.
|
| Perhaps that's what led to the bare improvement to a 60 day
| period under Obama, who was of course the last Democratic
| president. The Dems definitely haven't done any more for lower
| wage or less skilled immigrants, if you think they are somehow
| helping them but not H1B-type immigration, you are
| unfortunately mistaken.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| DACA was an executive order by a Democratic president.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| I fully support immigration reform and expedited citizenship
| for skilled workers. I empathize with you. I have a lot of
| friends from school who have to deal with this, and it sucks.
|
| On the other hand, the H1B system isn't supposed to import
| fungible labor. These visa are supposed to be for highly
| specialized labor -- highly specialized to the point that the
| openings are rare. It's hard to fault an abused program for
| being inconsiderate of a problem it wasn't supposed to solve.
| damnyou wrote:
| This is simply _not true_. What you 're talking about is the
| intent of the O-1 and EB-1 programs, _not_ H-1B.
| whack wrote:
| > _These visa are supposed to be for highly specialized labor
| -- highly specialized to the point that the openings are
| rare_
|
| This is not true. The H1B program is intended to _" allow
| U.S. employers to employ foreign workers in specialty
| occupations. A specialty occupation requires the application
| of specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the
| equivalent of work experience"_. Ie, it is intended to boost
| the economy by allowing in skilled college-educated
| immigrants. There's no requirement that they have to possess
| unique/extraordinary talent, or work in jobs where "openings
| are rare".
|
| You're probably mixing up the H1B program with the EB1
| program, which is indeed intended for immigrants possessing
| "extraordinary ability". The intent and requirements for H1B
| are far simpler
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The nature of the H1B being tied to a single place of
| employment is ludicrous though. It enables a power dynamic
| where these workers are basically indentured servants. This
| dynamic is a detriment to both these workers and their native
| counterparts.
|
| Once an H1B is offered it should remain in place for some set
| time period, with procedures in place to address fraud either
| in the case of the company or employee.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| This is the singular easiest change that would make lives
| for H1B employees easier. Even immigration-averse countries
| like European ones work this way.
|
| Give us a general work visa that let's us work for N years
| instead of making us puppets of the company we are
| currently working for.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Isn't a H1B visa literally for a single job that's not
| able to be filled? It's not a work permit for working any
| specialist job, companies need to justify the need
| specifically
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Can we stop pretending that's true? Like there are really
| jobs that are _sooooo_ unique that NO Americans have the
| skills and only some foreign worker unicorns can fulfill
| them?
|
| H1Bs are just skilled worker visas, let's stop with the
| charade that they're anything else.
| bgorman wrote:
| If you want to stop that charade, you need to admit that
| H1Bs are frequently abused and are used to depress the
| salaries of American workers.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| There is a wide gap between the two extremes of "H1B is
| merely abuse" and "H1B is only for Nobel prize type
| savants".
|
| Do you know there is no general work visa at all in
| America, whereby a skilled person can come based on their
| merit and work in the US?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > If you want to stop that charade, you need to admit
| that H1Bs are frequently abused and are used to depress
| the salaries of American workers.
|
| 100% agree, which is why I'm saying they shouldn't be
| tied to a single employer, which just helps employers in
| general acquire a more compliant, docile work force.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| The point is that if that particular job disappears, the
| visa holder, a human being, often with family, is put in
| a difficult circumstance which requires adjustment.
| maest wrote:
| > This dynamic is a detriment to both these workers and
| their native counterparts.
|
| Yeah, but it's great for the large companies hiring them.
| YZF wrote:
| I had a job offer and TN status with a US company and I decided
| (last minute practically) not to move to the US for precisely
| this reason. That I'd have to leave the country on the same day
| I lost my job. Doing this with a family seemed too risky for
| me. I'm not sure what my parallel universe life in Seattle
| would have looked like but I've no regrets staying in Canada.
| yibg wrote:
| FYI TN also has a 60 day grace period.
| YZF wrote:
| This was prior to the 60 day grace period. I know there's a
| 60 day grace period these days.
| mathattack wrote:
| I concur that the H1B rules are awful. We should make it as
| easy as possible for the best in the world to come here. The
| laws as they stand directly abuse non-citizens for the benefit
| of companies, some of which are US based. The H1B holders don't
| vote. The beneficiaries of a better system are more indirect,
| and less likely to make a case. (Most of us benefit when the
| best talent in the world is free to come here and
| build/create/pay taxes)
|
| However... The system is arbitrary and can punish people short
| term. It seems strange to buy a house in a country that can
| kick you out on no notice through no fault of your own.
| maxerickson wrote:
| We should just have really loose immigration laws that let
| lots of people in. Never mind the best in the world stuff.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| > It seems strange to buy a house in a country that can kick
| you out on no notice through no fault of your own.
|
| OK, it's strange to buy a house. What about marrying and
| having a kid? Many H1B workers here have lived there for
| decades (with no realistic hope of a green card in sight).
| Must we stay childless because we can be kicked out on no
| notice?
|
| I know your statement is well-intentioned but it comes off as
| one of those things that's easy to say in 'abstract' but it
| demonstrates a lack of understanding of actual life
| situations of people.
| dragandj wrote:
| AFAIK, marying a citizen gives you a straight path to
| resident papers and, later, citizenship, in the western
| world, including USA.
| chucky_z wrote:
| A close friend of mine got married 3 years ago. He is a
| dual citizen of China and the USA. His spouse is a
| Chinese citizen.
|
| This straight path you speak of they have been filing
| paperwork for and fighting for, for 3 years now. I
| believe he is just in the path to permanently moving to
| China and revoking his US citizenship status.
|
| Everything about this process sucks. :(
| ivalm wrote:
| Strange, my Chinese citizen wife got her conditional
| green card within ~6 months of application (about a year
| ago, we've been married less than 2 years and she took a
| few months to apply since her status wasn't pressing).
| One thing they ask is if you are a member of the
| communist party (my wife never was), and I guess if the
| answer is yes things may be more complicated. I, myself,
| am a naturalized us citizen (from Eastern Europe, my dad
| got an E1 in 2001).
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| How can your friend be a dual citizen of China and the
| US, when PRC does not recognize dual nationality?
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| Marrying a citizen, yes. But the chances of H1B visa
| holders marrying other H1B visa holders (or people from
| back home) are pretty high given that the elephant in the
| room is that all of this discussion disproportionally
| affects Indians and Chinese.
| mathattack wrote:
| I don't intend to seem callous, so please help educate me.
|
| If you marry a citizen, that accelerated the Green Card. If
| you marry a non-citizen, your situation is precarious, so
| why not rent rather than buy?
|
| I'm not arguing that the rules are right. (They are clearly
| wrong) Just that if you're ina precarious situation, avoid
| doing things that make it worse. When I lived abroad, the
| expats were all aware of being on borrowed time.
|
| I think the world would be a better place in terms of peace
| and prosperity if people could circulate as easily as
| money. Unfortunately that's not our world.
|
| If my posts are wrong or offend I'm happy to delete them.
| jen20 wrote:
| > why not rent rather than buy?
|
| Have you ever tried to break a lease on accommodation in
| the US?
| mathattack wrote:
| It's cheaper than unwinding a house, no? Especially if
| you're leaving the country.
| jen20 wrote:
| Not necessarily.
|
| A house is an asset you can continue to own if you leave
| the country, by renting it. There is no requirement to be
| US resident or even eligible to visit the US to own
| property in the US.
|
| Breaking a lease can cost tens of thousands of dollars
| which is just waste - and if you ever intend on coming
| back to the country at some point, simply abandoning the
| lease is not advisable since the impact on credit
| reporting can be substantial.
|
| So I'd suggest that it's actually cheaper to own a house,
| and simply _not_ unwind it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Have you ever tried being a landlord if you are in
| another part of the same metro area that is only an hour
| away? I can't imagine being a landlord dealing with
| rentals in another country.
| jen20 wrote:
| This is what management companies are for.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And they take 10%-20% of your monthly rent and at least
| half of the first months rent of a new lease.
|
| When I was in real estate, the banks would only credit
| your income at a 75% occupancy rate. It's hard to break
| even on an income basis with rental real estate.
|
| When your property is vacant, you're still on the hook
| for the mortgage. More than likely, your income is going
| to be lower when you're forced to leave the country.
| michaelt wrote:
| Because they do not foresee their situation becoming
| _less_ precarious in the future.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| I am not offended and you have been polite, so please
| don't remove your posts.
|
| Renting vs buying is fine. We can choose to rent all our
| lives and frankly in the Bay Area buying isn't even that
| slam dunk of a decision anyway.
|
| My point was a bit more general. It's very common for
| people to argue 'technically' about how others should
| live their lives while missing their ground reality. For
| instance, it's easy to say "Well technically H1B is not
| an immigration visa, it's a temporary workers visa so why
| are you making long-term life decisions while on it". But
| the ground reality for most Indians and Chinese on H1Bs
| in the US is that they will never get a green card
| (permanent residence), and they will spend their whole
| lives here under H1B, so while the question is well-
| meaning and genuine, it translates to "don't buy a house,
| don't get too many possessions, don't marry[1], don't
| have kids".
|
| [1] Unless you marry a citizen, in which case you are
| sometimes accused of entering into a 'green-card
| marriage' and seen with suspicion.
| mathattack wrote:
| On marriage - it's very broken, and abuses foreign
| workers. And I do get where you're coming from. My
| wedding got accelerated by a year or two when my
| girlfriend has visa issues. (It was still worth it!)
| User23 wrote:
| As a guest worker you are not supposed to put down deep
| roots here. If you want to immigrate you should follow
| the law and get an immigrant visa. This isn't hard at
| all. It's just like being a guest anywhere else, you have
| to follow the host's rules even if you don't like them.
| jen20 wrote:
| One need not have visited the US, or even _be eligible_
| to visit the US to own property in the US.
| ylem wrote:
| Immigrant visa? What is that? I think the conversation is
| focused on the US. I'm a native-born US citizen, but my
| impression is that for those who get an H1B, they can
| apply for a green card and eventually citizenship.
| However, the path for many is fairly long. Perhaps you
| are confusing the H1-b and the J-1?
| User23 wrote:
| You can read about the difference here[1]. H-1B is a
| temporary visa and does not entitle a holder to permanent
| residency. In some cases it's possible for a H-1B holder
| to be granted permanent residency because it's a dual
| intent visa, but that merely permits the holder to desire
| to immigrate. By contrast a tourist visa would be denied
| to a visitor who expressed the desire to stay
| permanently.
|
| [1] https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-
| visitors/visa-waive...
| mavelikara wrote:
| Many people who are in the guest visa apply for and are
| approved for permanent residency (which is what, I think,
| you meant by "immigrant visa"). They are simply waiting
| for years - decades even - for their turn. Life happens
| while they wait - marriage, kids, house etc - as
| mentioned by GP.
| User23 wrote:
| The term immigrant visa is well defined[1]. If you want
| to bring your wife and have kids and buy a house you
| should get an E series visa[2], not an H one. If you
| choose to go with the H-1B anyhow you are taking your
| chances and like any chance sometime it doesn't go your
| way and you have to deal with the consequences.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_Unit
| ed_Stat...
|
| [2] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-
| visas/immigrat...
| fishywang wrote:
| What immigrant visa, exactly? H1b is the pathway to
| immigrant visa for tech workers in the US. For H1b
| holders born in certain countries, they have to be on H1b
| visa to be on the 5-10 year long queue to get the green
| card.
| User23 wrote:
| The appropriate E visa[1].
|
| [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-
| visas/immigrat...
| fishywang wrote:
| That's the exactly same thing I said: you need to be on
| H1b (or other non-immigrant visa but allows dual-
| intention, for example L1) and wait for maybe years or
| decades (based on your birth country) to get that.
|
| Here's the current queue size:
| https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-
| law0/v.... For immigrants born in mainland China, E2's
| current queue is 4.5 years, for immigrants born in India
| E2's current queue is 11 years.
| User23 wrote:
| There is no mention of H-1B at all on the State
| Department page I linked you. Where are you getting this
| from? Sure some H-1B holders manage to later acquire an E
| visa, but nowhere is it stated to be a prerequisite.
| Exceptional individuals don't even need a US sponsor to
| apply.
| fishywang wrote:
| Sure H1b is not a prerequisite technically. But say you
| are the employer, you want to sponsor this Indian
| person's E2 visa, but you need to wait for 11 years
| before they actually get the visa you sponsored and start
| to work for you. Now tell me how is H1b not a
| prerequisite in reality?
| User23 wrote:
| If it takes that long it's because the category you're in
| is heavily over-subscribed and at a relatively low skill
| level. Using H-1B to do an end run around that is common,
| but to call it a prerequisite is dishonest. Our
| immigration system has limits because we believe it is in
| our citizen's interest. This means not every foreign
| worker that wants to immigrate is going to get to. US law
| gives preference to exceptional individuals, because our
| law is for the benefit of our citizens and corporations,
| not foreign nationals.
| fishywang wrote:
| For E1 the queues for China and India born immigrants are
| still 2+ years long.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Yeah, my boss is here on an H1B, and has been with the
| same company for I think 12 years now, even though the
| company has had many rough years and I'm sure he would
| have switched jobs already if not for his H1B status.
|
| He's since married and has a kid, used to live in an
| apartment but now has a house, although he might be
| renting, I'm not sure.
|
| I started dating and eventually married my wife, got two
| dogs, and bought a house in just the five years I've been
| working at the company myself, so a lot of life events
| can happen in that time.
| rjkennedy98 wrote:
| What do Americans owe you? If its such a bad arrangement,
| why did you come to the US?
|
| > it translates to "don't buy a house, don't get too many
| possessions, don't marry[1], don't have kids".
|
| What percentages of Americans own a house. What
| percentage of Americans have kids? What percentage of
| Americans get married?
|
| You have some seriously entitlement derangement syndrome.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| If you insist on inserting trollbait in a polite and calm
| discussion, well might I suggest that Americans, at the
| very least, owe us Thanks for the billions of dollars in
| taxes Indian Americans pay as the wealthiest ethnic group
| in the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eth
| nic_groups_in_the_U...
| [deleted]
| Lammy wrote:
| > The laws as they stand directly abuse non-citizens for the
| benefit of companies, some of which are US based.
|
| So let's rein in those companies by giving them a talent pool
| of people who can't rock the boat too hard without fear of
| having to leave the country?
| akiselev wrote:
| Even when you have a supportive (non-exploitative) employer
| it's an unbelievably precarious position (personal story
| time!).
|
| In order to renew an H1b visa [1], immigrants have to go to a
| US consulate, which do not exist within the borders of the
| United States so leaving the country is required. For the vast
| majority, this is a day trip to Canada or Mexico or a small
| vacation to visit family in their home country so it's not
| really an issue. However, sometimes, the consulate will pull
| shit like a "State Department Security Check" because the
| subjects worked in an institute that happens to have a research
| nuclear reactor - nevermind that it's one of the largest
| scientific institutes in the world or that their fields of
| expertise have nothing to do with nuclear.
|
| The immigrants, if they chose to go to Canada or Mexico (as
| most do due to cost), are likely at this point stuck for months
| _as undocumented immigrants in their new host country_ - unable
| to work with existing mortgages /apartments/cars/obligations to
| pay for in their old life, hotels and living expenses to pay
| for in their new life, and barely a month worth of sick time
| and vacation. Bonus: most of the things they could do to
| mitigate the disaster could jeopardize their permanent
| residency application. As far as I know, these standoffs
| usually end when the employers sue over the renewal or dump the
| employee completely in which case their entire lives have to be
| packed up and moved _but they can 't enter the United States to
| do so._ Bonus #2: if both parents are working, they likely have
| separate H1b visas that won't clear together - family
| separation time!
|
| As you can imagine, going through this series of events is
| devastating, especially for children who have zero insight or
| control into the process. Cruel is an understatement.
|
| Edit: [1] See comment below, this applies to applications going
| through consular processing, which is a crucial detail
| kshacker wrote:
| _In order to renew an H1b visa, immigrants have to go to a US
| consulate_
|
| I think you may be confusing 2 things. H1 Validity and H1
| Visa. You can extend your H1 from within US and most people
| do. No one is forced to go out and come back.
|
| However, to extend H1 Visa, what you say is true. The
| difference is that visa allows you to go out of US, and then
| come back in, and for you to come back in, you need a visa
| that is valid at the time of entry.
|
| However, if you wanted to stay in US without going out and
| keep on extending H1 (to the extent allowed by law), you can.
| akiselev wrote:
| I'm not confusing them, I just oversimplified the
| interaction between the petition expiration date and the
| I-94 expiration date. I forgot to add that my comment above
| applies to applications that go through consular processing
| though, which is a very important detail.
|
| H1b applications processed by consulates don't receive an
| I-94 which means that the application is "approved pending
| a visa stamping". The new work authorization isn't active
| regardless of whether they are already in the United States
| legally or not, until the person leaves the US and goes to
| a visa stamping at a consulate.
|
| You are describing the happy path for tech workers, but in
| my experience (90s Soviet block exodus) most families had
| to go through consular processing because it places a
| smaller burden of proof on the applicant vis a vis things
| like legal status in the United States and their home
| country. Lots of families from the Soviet block had a hard
| time assembling the required documentation in the chaos of
| the 90s and anyone who overstayed a H1b or student visa
| even a day because they wouldn't or couldn't uproot their
| families has to go through this process.
| kshacker wrote:
| I am not trying to describe the happy path in any way. I
| have gone through a 4 year L1A green card which my
| colleagues got it in 10 months and I have been without
| advanced parole for 13 months which implied if I left the
| country due to any reason, I could not come back. And my
| experience too was in a different decade, no need for me
| to cover up the warts. It is quite an experience each
| interaction with the then INS taking over 3 months when
| the entire last stage should have completed in 3-4
| months.
|
| What I am describing about H1 is standard (majority)
| operating procedure. Yes extending H1 visa outside of the
| country is a pain, but extending H1 while being in US is
| not such a big pain, and most of my colleagues do that.
| Of course there does come a need for people to visit to
| their origin country once in a while, and yes that's when
| it becomes a lottery.
| [deleted]
| bzb5 wrote:
| Staying in a foreign country is a privilege, not a right.
| brutal_boi wrote:
| You are baiting too hard
| devmunchies wrote:
| > Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration
|
| Actually its business tycoons who want cheap, abundant labor.
| Getting the media to frame it as a social issue was genius.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions
| hating H1Bs
|
| That's a new one. What are these American tech unions you are
| speaking of? Googling only brings up a few obscure
| organizations that I'm sure don't have much influence with the
| Democrats.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > American tech unions hating H1Bs
|
| What the heck is a "tech union"? Who are in one?
| war1025 wrote:
| Work / study visas are (in my opinion anyway) a significant
| reason why the majority of post-graduate students are foreign.
|
| Working as a grad student is really a quite poor economic trade
| off unless you have the unspoken side benefit of qualifying for
| a visa.
|
| It's basically a form of academic wage suppression.
| la6471 wrote:
| Yes and you cannot expect the Native American workers to
| sympathize with your plight. The focus is on productivity and
| the cost of labor and not on humans behind it. The Native
| American workers had faced it for decades via outsourcing and
| offshoring and now the pendulum is swinging back to the right
| again. The rules will be changed ,if needed , for US and it's
| citizens to win the game.
| jdxcode wrote:
| I feel it's odd that you capitalized the "N" in "native". I
| assume you're not talking about these people[0].
|
| 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Am
| er...
| WilTimSon wrote:
| > Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was
| only put into place relatively recently by the Obama
| administration?
|
| This is what happens when the people making the laws for unique
| experiences have never been even in the proximity of those
| experiences. (Well, in this case it's more likely just
| cruelty.) You get lawmakers who lived a standard life of an
| upper-class person and don't realize that finding a job isn't
| as easy as it may seem or as easy as it was 60 years ago. All
| that talk about "just go in, do a firm handshake and talk to
| the owner" might seem funny when it's loons on Facebook saying
| it but when it's what people base their perception of the world
| and their lawmaking on... that gets disturbing.
| Igelau wrote:
| The distance between the political class and everyone else is
| shocking. This brings to mind the time that Obama was trying
| to cut 529 tax breaks and even Democrats were like "Dude,
| wtf!"
|
| For many of them it's been too long since they've had normal
| people problems. For immigrant experiences the gulf is even
| wider.
| jdsully wrote:
| Its not an act of omission, this is a result of compromise
| with factions that don't want immigration at all. The fact it
| discourages people is a feature not a bug.
| firebaze wrote:
| If you immigrate, you emigrate. If you successfully
| immigrate (let's say in the U.S.), you have skills sought
| there. Those skills are probably also in demand in your
| origin country. You'd stand even more of a chance to be one
| of a few in your home country, gaining status, gaining
| visibility, turning the tide.
|
| I know I'll probably be flagged for this question, but
| still: why do this? Why not help your origin country with
| your knowledge?
|
| Genuine question, since I had the same decision to make and
| chose to return, in order to help locally.
| maest wrote:
| > Those skills are probably also in demand in your origin
| country.
|
| That's not guaranteed to be true. Take finance - if you
| want a career in this field there's only a handful of
| cities where it makes sense to live and work: London,
| Singapore, New York, maybe Tokyo.
|
| An exotic derivatives quant won't find much demand for
| their skills in, say, Almaty.
|
| Similarly, tech workers benefit from being in tech hubs
| (SV being one example). Oil engineers need to be around
| oil rigs and so on.
|
| Moreover, standards of living are different in different
| parts of the world. Levels of corruption, infrastructure
| development, civic engagement etc are much worse in some
| places than others. You may have had the foresight of
| choosing to be born in a well developed country, but many
| have not.
| pbourke wrote:
| > Why not help your origin country with your knowledge?
|
| I moved from Canada to the US in 2007. Things were
| different then, and the opportunities in the US were
| unique (I joined Amazon). The longer you stay, the harder
| it is to return: your network changes, you get used to
| life in the new place, etc.
|
| I will say that I've pondered the question of moving home
| nearly continuously since moving here and there always
| seems to be a compromise that we're not ready to make
| yet. In the case of Canada, it was often the housing
| prices in the places where we'd like to live.
| david-gpu wrote:
| My priority is providing for myself and my family, not
| some abstract entity to which I'm linked only through an
| accident of birth.
|
| If a country offers better work conditions, a better
| salary, less risk of economic turmoil, better health
| care, etc. then I'll take the opportunity if it presents
| itself. I've done it twice and would do it again.
|
| It's not any different to taking a better job offer,
| whatever that means to you.
| [deleted]
| damnyou wrote:
| Because most of the world does not have the
| infrastructure that the US has, and so they wouldn't be
| able to benefit society (as a whole) nearly as much.
|
| Because some people are queer or from other minority
| communities within their home country (e.g. Dalit in
| India), and would be subject to discrimination, including
| and up to murder, in their home countries. Asylum only
| covers the most extreme cases and not the day-to-day
| discrimination that minorities face worldwide.
|
| Because freedom of movement is an inalienable right that
| comes with being a _human_ , and borders are inherently
| oppressive.
|
| Because most of the world is a harsh, dangerous place,
| and supporting the decisions individuals have made to
| stay or get out, given the circumstances they're in, is
| inherently a moral good.
| imtringued wrote:
| What knowledge? The knowledge people gain by working at a
| foreign software company? Let Albert Einstein work as a
| delivery driver in Mumbai and he's going to accomplish
| nothing. Everything is relative and depends on the given
| situation.
| vsskanth wrote:
| You can get better value for your skills and objectively
| achieve more results by moving to a place with a more
| developed ecosystem for your industry.
| nbaksalyar wrote:
| > Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day
| you were laid off
|
| Interestingly enough, there's a very similar system in place in
| the United Kingdom (Tier 2 General). Not only you have to leave
| within 60 days after being laid off, but there's also a
| "cooling-off period" of 1 year, which means that you can't get
| a new visa during this period and effectively it resets your
| time until permanent residence, so you have no option but to
| start over.
| vsskanth wrote:
| UK doesn't have "at-will" employment like the USA.
|
| Their PR system is also time based, which means you don't
| have to live in uncertainty forever, unlike the H1B which is
| lifelong temporary immigrant for certain nationalities.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| > Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was
| only put into place relatively recently by the Obama
| administration?
|
| My worst situation dealing with this was a TN status rather
| than an H1B, where I was told at a border that I could be
| ineligible for admission to the US because I had no left the
| day that I was laid off from a previous position.
|
| I had to tell the CBP officer that there was a 60 day grace
| period, be told that the internet isn't a reliable source of
| information, and wait while he discovered this information on
| their own. Sitting and waiting I literally overheard this
| person, after learning of this grace period, ask a colleague if
| they had ever heard of it before. This was at a major Canada/US
| border crossing.
|
| It is apparently not just people on HN who are unaware of this,
| but also individuals charged with making US admission
| decisions.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| You at least were 'lucky' enough to reach the border. I know
| several people who weren't even allowed to board flights
| because the airlines run their own small 'judge jury and
| executioner' system whereby they will refuse to let you board
| if they feel you won't be allowed at the border. Sure this
| works for trivial cases like checking Visa stamp etc. but
| immigration rules are way more complex than that but try
| explaining that to the underpaid worker at the airline
| counter while 50 people are lined up behind you and making
| noises for you 'holding the line up'.
|
| And these actions are taken outside the US (at the home
| country airport) so realistically speaking you can't even sue
| them or anything.
| itronitron wrote:
| I recommend buying a round trip ticket with a return date
| of two weeks later. That way airlines won't block you out
| of concern that they will be forced to fly you back at
| their expense.
|
| You can later cancel the return ticket and apply the credit
| (minus a fee) to a later trip.
| stepbeek wrote:
| Man, I brought a few Cuban cigars into the US in 2018 and the
| border agent tore me a new one. Even my confused "But this is
| legal now..." went unheard until I got through the line to
| the real customs agent who wondered why I was wasting his
| time.
| vecinu wrote:
| I went through something similar but remember the name of the
| game is to not volunteer unnecessary information.
|
| Did you tell the agent you didn't leave after you were laid
| off? Or did you just ask for a new TN once you had a new
| offer?
|
| It seemed to me like being too truthful could hurt your
| chances more than to just ask for a new visa and let them
| process the TN as needed.
|
| Some employers wouldn't even report your termination date
| until some time in the future to give you time to find a new
| job.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| Your point about not offering unnecessary information is,
| unfortunately, good advice.
|
| In my situation it felt as if the officer was going to
| every possible length to find a reason to reject my
| application.
|
| I was explicitly asked why I was no longer with my former
| employer, what my last day of work was, and what date I had
| previously left the US to return to Canada. Being
| untruthful about any of these easily-verifiable points
| would have been much worse in the long run (since this
| officer definitely seemed intent on running down every
| possibility). Honestly I am lucky that I had a proof of my
| severance agreement, which showed it was not a voluntary
| departure.
| walamaking wrote:
| It is scary to think about 1) how much control CBP officers
| have over the fates of people entering the country especially
| on non-citizen statuses, and 2) how little they know about
| the rules affecting the latter.
|
| E.g. I've heard of CBP officers not knowing that Canadians
| don't need to get a visa to enter the US. Also heard of CBP
| officers not knowing what "Massachusetts Institute of
| Technology" was on a student's F-1, and had to ask around to
| confirm that it was a legitimate school. And many more.
| jameshush wrote:
| I feel your pain. I've had the _worst_ luck crossing the US
| border with a TN. And I'm a white male Canadian, you'd think
| the racial stereotypes would be in my favour.
|
| Many CBP works simply do not know the rules as you said. I've
| been pulled aside for 3+ hours. I've almost missed flights
| even though it's 110% legal for me to be here and work. I was
| pulled aside for not having an I-94 paper in my passport even
| though they had switched to a digital system for Canada and
| Mexico 5+ years ago (aka NO ONE has the paper). I've had
| border officers give me off hand remarks like "It's a shame
| an American wasn't given this job" looking at my TN
| application. All you can say is yes/no sir/ma'am and hope
| they're not having a bad day and send you back.
|
| Then other days I'm waiting in the line at LAX getting back
| into the country, they ask where I had been, give me a stamp
| in two seconds and wave me through. I never know exactly how
| they're going to react.
|
| It's gotten to the point where I'm treating getting a green
| card at this point the same way someone treats buying a
| lottery ticket. If it happens that's great. But if it doesn't
| I already have a backup plan of banking up all my USD and
| moving to Europe (my immediate family all live there and I
| have a British passport from my parents).
|
| The immigration game is all fine and good for me now (29
| years old, single, no mortgage and no kids). But even if I
| make half the amount of money in Europe at 33-35 when I want
| to start a family would be worth it to know that I don't have
| to worry about being kicked out the country. I especially
| feel for my close Chinese friend who can't even re-enter the
| USA right now if he goes back to China.
| bonchicbongenre wrote:
| Here's a fun one -- my (foreign) girlfriend graduated from a
| US undergrad, and stayed in the country over the summer to
| begin her US PhD. She was legally covered as being able to
| stay in the country in both directions by the grace period
| after/before her undergrad/grad school respectively. When
| going to the embassy to renew her Visa, she was told she was
| staying in the country illegally, and the idiots there
| wouldn't renew the Visa on those grounds. They are literally
| legally incorrect, but there's nothing you can do with these
| absolute buffoons, these insipid recipients of a national
| work plan who are too unpleasant and immovably stupid to
| contribute to a real workforce.
| moises_silva wrote:
| As an immigrant in another country (thankfully more
| immigration-friendly), I completely understand the
| frustration. I think however we must see beyond the
| incompetence of some front-line workers and turn the
| frustration and complaints towards who's running the
| country and its policies, not providing training and
| overall setting a bad example on how to treat immigrants
| (legal or illegal). I've declined good offers to move to
| the US because of concerns with the immigration policies,
| which quite honestly are exacerbated by the current
| administration.
| sushshshsh wrote:
| Just marry an american lol
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| This suggestion always comes up during presentations from
| immigration attorneys. They know how fucked up the system
| is.
| munk-a wrote:
| As someone who married someone abroad - moving to them is
| a far simpler and cheaper process than having them move
| to you. You may be thinking of the loophole of getting
| married overseas (which does exist) but the government is
| pretty strict with the requirements around that.
|
| If you want to do thing legally and immigrate to the US
| then you'd better have a decade of your life and tens of
| thousands of dollars to throw at lawyers to guide you
| through the process.
|
| I'm now a Canadian and I think the process in total
| (including the marriage certificate since I came over on
| a Fiancee visa) might have put me back about 1.5k. The
| process was reasonable, there were certainly requirements
| but people were available to guide you through it in
| English & French and, wonderfully, Canadians are quite
| nice to new Canadians so I didn't get much flack from my
| new coworkers.
|
| America just doesn't want people to immigrate.
| CountSessine wrote:
| Yeah this is pretty close to my experience. I had a job offer
| from a US company. I would have been setting down roots in
| the US - my kids would have been in a US school, my wife
| would have been giving up her job. We would have been buying
| a house. But all of that could have been swept away in the
| course of a periodic half hour meeting with a border patrol
| agent to renew my TN status. My whole life would be pulled up
| and me and my family would have had to leave everything
| behind and return to Canada within days.
|
| It's just didn't make sense so we stayed here.
| moises_silva wrote:
| I agree. I think you made the right call. We live in Canada
| (Ontario). We wanted to move to SF to be closer to family
| (Mexico) but in the end, even with a FAANG job offer, it
| was too risky and the current political climate doesn't
| seem friendly to immigration (even legally). Quite more so
| for someone from Mexico.
| xxpor wrote:
| Granted, someone working at the US/CA border should know the
| TN rules, but in general there's so many visa classes and
| different rules that it's a UX failure if they have to go ask
| someone about these things. If they put in your passport and
| type in TN, it should display the relevant rules right on
| their screen.
| dllthomas wrote:
| That sounds like a good UX if we need to keep things
| complicated. Maybe we don't need to, though?
| (https://www.smbc-comics.com/openborders/)
| addicted wrote:
| Other than the fact that Democrats have voted for bills solving
| this issue in both houses of Congress by vast majorities, and
| the last Democratic President took many executive actions
| (including the one you mention as well as others that were
| rolled back by Republicans) there is no evidence that Democrats
| really care.
| mancerayder wrote:
| > Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration, but in
| reality they don't care much about H1B style immigration and
| are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions
| hating H1Bs,
|
| Wait, what? Tech unions? I've never seen a single union in my
| entire 20 year career. I was sympathetic up until you
| complained about that. What unions?
|
| The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask me,
| if the economy is poor then there's no excuse for encouraging
| immigration, especially of high paid labor. If unemployment is
| high, that is (and that's the part that fluctuates). Not to
| mention H1B is used to reduce wages and dump tech workers when
| they get old or expensive. However, the uncertainty you
| describe is intolerable, it should be a clear path and if
| someone is laying down roots and family, they shouldn't be
| living in fear. It's obviously a very mixed bag.
| addicted wrote:
| The whole argument that Democrats, who have voted for bills
| that help resolve H1B issues by vast majorities and Obama
| passed executive actions that among other things allowed H1B
| spouses to work, provided a grace period, and until
| Republicans sued and had it rolled back in court allowed for
| H1 B green cards to be filled from infilled green cards in
| other categories, don't really care is a remarkably wrong
| statement, and explains why politics in this country are
| terrible.
|
| You literally have 1 side that demonizes a situation, and the
| other side doing pretty much all the can within the legal
| powers they have to improve the situation, but "both sides
| don't really care".
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| > and the other side doing pretty much all the can within
| the legal powers they have to improve the situation
|
| Except they aren't. There is a clear 'caste' system when it
| comes to the immigration Democrats care about. Their
| primary focus is on immigration across the Mexican border
| (a lot of which is often technically or borderline
| 'illegal') which they want to make as legitimized as
| possible as the Hispanic community is a massive votebank
| for them. So we have all this noise about DACA and the
| like.
|
| On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of legal H1B
| pool is largely an afterthought for them because the Indian
| and Chinese community in America is not that politically
| assertive, plus the H1B types can't vote anyway, and are
| mostly concentrated in places like California / Washington
| so their friends etc would anyway vote Democrat so who
| cares.
| jdashg wrote:
| Democrats do not desire Hispanic immigration because
| they're likely to vote democrat. It's convenient but not
| all convenient things are causal.
|
| By and large Democrats prioritize the most disadvantaged
| first, and that's poor immigrants, many of whom happen to
| be coming across from Mexico.
| m0zg wrote:
| > the most disadvantaged first
|
| How about prioritizing the most disadvantaged _US
| citizens_ first instead of kicking the stool from
| underneath them by importing cheap labor?
| mavelikara wrote:
| Democrats have worked for _increasing_ the number of _new_
| H-1B that are allowed per year, and Republicans have
| opposed it. Republicans have supported rules which make it
| more attractive to those H-1Bs who do arrive each year, and
| Democrats have opposed it. That is my summary of the
| situation.
| vsskanth wrote:
| It's not that simple. All those democratic actions for H1B
| you've described are merely tokens when you consider how
| much attention they paid to undocumented immigrants (DACA).
| They've completely neglected the kids of H1B workers who
| have been here decades but have to leave the country when
| they turn 21. None of what they've done provides an
| attainable pathway for permanent residency for legal, tax
| paying high skilled workers from India.
|
| Democratic immigration policies always prioritize family
| based and undocumented immigration. They have clear
| electoral benefits from this (see AZ and TX). Reforming H1B
| and the high skilled immigration system is only an
| afterthought.
|
| Republican policies have at least put forward some kind of
| points-based system. They however want to reduce family
| based immigration which is an absolute no-go for Democrats.
| newhotelowner wrote:
| The majority of the illegals pay taxes too.
|
| DACA kids go to school. They graduate from schools here.
| They serve in military. They pay taxes when they join the
| workforce.
|
| The majority of Indians/Asians also vote for Democratic
| candidates. 80+% of Asians voted for Clinton in 2016.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| https://ustechworkers.com/ for example.
|
| I don't know what makes something 'officially' a labor union
| but at least they call themselves that. There was also
| Washington state Tech Workers Union.
| jdxcode wrote:
| do they hold any significant influence? I've never heard of
| either one. I lived in WA state too.
| damnyou wrote:
| That's a front for a network of white nationalist
| organizations, not an actual union.
| minot wrote:
| > The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask
| me, if the economy is poor then there's no excuse for
| encouraging immigration, especially of high paid labor. If
| unemployment is high, that is (and that's the part that
| fluctuates).
|
| Exactly why it should be easy, frictionless, and risk-free to
| tell on your employer for any labor violation as an H1-B.
| Make it abundantly clear to the visa holder that if their
| employer wrongs them in any way, they will pay big time and
| the visa holder will a. not face any punishment b. will be
| handsomely rewarded for coming forward.
|
| This is what the unions should advocate for...
| the_arun wrote:
| If economy is down or unemployment is high, is it proprtional
| to number of umemployment rate in highly skilled workers or
| other categories? Cause I always understood unemployment
| numbers include all categories with a majority in low skilled
| workers. Which means that, it may not be related to H1 visas.
| paxys wrote:
| Every one of the numerous studies done in this area over the
| years has come to the clear conclusion that high-skilled
| immigration produces a net economic benefit to the country
| and its workers (here's a recent one - https://nfap.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/05/The-Impact-of-H-...).
|
| Silicon Valley itself wouldn't exist had it not been openly
| attracting talent from all over the world, and the difficulty
| in getting visas and residency over the last few years is
| already showing its effects as more and more major software
| companies are popping up outside the US.
| bgorman wrote:
| The main problem with this idea is that high skilled labor
| is conflated with h1B labor. The H1B system is completely
| abused by big outsourcing companies like Infosys, HCL,TCS
| and Wipro. The proof of this abuse is that the average
| salary from these workers is much lower from non-outsourced
| H1Bs e.g. microsoft workers on H1Bs.
|
| For example, a few years Disney theme parks laid off all of
| their IT staff and immediately replaced them with HCL H1B
| workers for lower cost. Clearly in this case H1Bs were
| abused to lower salaries of American workers by bringing in
| low skill (defined by salary) labor.
|
| Immigration isn't inherently bad but the H1B program is
| deeply flawed (allocations by country, dominance by
| outsourcing companies, workers being tied to employers)
| confidantlake wrote:
| The study is unconvincing. They mention that fields with
| more h1bs have lower unemployment. Well no kidding, in
| demand fields attract more h1bs, it isn't the h1bs making
| it more attractive.
|
| Another problem with the study. "...the program enables
| employers to hire foreign workers when they cannot hire
| U.S. workers"
|
| This is such a lie. My brother has looking for around a
| year and cannot get his first position. Past few months,
| looked like I might lose my job do to Covid. I spent a few
| months looking for a job, but couldn't find one. At the
| same time 70% of my coworkers are on h1b, often in their
| early/mid 20s. Absolutely no reason they couldn't hire a
| domestic worker to do the job. H1B is a scam.
| tiziniano wrote:
| I mean it is economics 101 that H1B's depress wages. I'd
| say especially since the demand for technology is
| relatively more inelastic that the increases on labor
| supply. There is a lot of money involved in masking this
| fact, but let's agree on something. There is always a
| tension between what part of economic surplus workers get
| and what part capital (shareholders) get. The sky high
| returns on capital in tech are possible in no big part
| due to the relative ease of bringing in new people.
| Successful companies will still make money but the actual
| return on the invesment will depend more on how high of a
| salary they have to pay. Take for instance FB, they make
| about 18Bn in net income, have 52K employees. About 350K
| per employee, imagine suddenly they were facing hiring
| engineers, they could easily spend a lot more on keeping
| them, but there's no need. Thanks to their lobbying
| through FWD.us among others, they can always import more
| people.
|
| I mean they have desperately tried to get more people
| into CS, but even that has had little results. Biggest
| bang for the buck is lobbying and marketing for more
| H1Bs. What's a couple hundred million here and there
| barrkel wrote:
| It's not actually obvious in "Economics 101" that wages
| are depressed by the best and the brightest coming to the
| US.
|
| What you're not taking into account is the relative
| efficiencies of scale. When there's more talent in a
| particular geography than somewhere else, high value
| global companies can grow in a way they can't elsewhere.
| A precondition of that is lots of raw material - people -
| who can be repurposed by the highest bidder. Limit the
| raw material, and the industry might not even be located
| on the West Coast.
|
| If supply was enough to depress wages, the US would have
| the world's lowest cost developers. In fact, it has the
| most expensive, because of the valuable companies that
| are able to grow in SV, which each bid up wages.
|
| Economics teaches us about winner effects. The best
| attract outsize rewards, far larger than their
| proportional increment in ability or effort. SV attracts
| the best of the best because it's the best place for such
| people to be rewarded. It's a virtuous circle in
| multiple, compounding dimensions.
|
| People are a fixed cost in the economics of software
| development. That means scale is king; it's the divisor
| on those costs. Scale isn't just on the sales side,
| though; it's on the talent side too.
|
| Reducing skilled immigration is the kind of shortsighted
| approach that kills the golden goose in the long term.
| tiziniano wrote:
| Exactly, even though the economies of scale were making
| the economic value of the company much higher, this extra
| will just keep disproportionately going to the
| shareholders. In fact, the bigger the companies, the more
| power they hold in wage negotiations. Think about an
| efficient market with many, many buyers and sellers. What
| kind of equilibrium does it reach? Now think of a few big
| companies, hiring from an ever increasing supply. The
| companies grow bigger, but the wage that laborers
| receive, will decrease. At some point it becomes this
| question, why should American workers give up an ever
| bigger part of their wage to shareholders and other
| immigrants?
|
| In spite of their best efforts, most of the software
| development still occurs in the US. Think Microsoft
| hasn't tried to offshore as much as possible to India and
| China, building dev centers there? Or Google and FB?
|
| Even then, just look at what kind of workers end up being
| imported through this programs. Not always the best and
| brightest. Many do entry level jobs not even in software
| development, for outsourcing companies.
|
| I'm not saying outright ban immigration but better
| control is needed. (And saying this as a non-American
| living in the US). Something that struck me as
| particularly interesting and President Trump recently
| commented, is how about making companies bid for a fixed
| number of visa slots. Whoever pays the highest salary,
| gets the visa. This would certainly make companies be
| able to bring the brightest, while raising wages in
| general.
| paxys wrote:
| You've highlighted the problem with public discourse in
| the country. "I'm going to choose to ignore all
| scientific evidence because my brother can't get a job
| and it feels like H-1B is the cause" - sadly applicable
| to any policy topic where politicians & media are taking
| advantage of people's emotions.
| creato wrote:
| I think an equally big problem is that a lot of
| "scientific evidence" like this doesn't pass sanity
| checks, and definitions of "net economic benefit" can
| vary and might not preclude strongly negative impacts to
| the average US citizen.
| confidantlake wrote:
| I am not ignoring scientific evidence. I read the paper,
| it is not convincing. This is not a double blind
| experiment, it simply looks at data and asserts causes.
| Take this paragraph:
|
| "An increase in the share of workers with an H-1B visa
| within an occupation, on average, reduces the
| unemployment rate in that occupation. The results
| indicate that a 1 percentage point increase in the share
| of workers with an H-1B visa in an occupation reduces the
| unemployment rate by about 0.2 percentage points. The
| findings suggest the presence of H-1B visa holders boosts
| employment among other workers in an occupation. The
| results provide no evidence that the H-1B program has an
| adverse impact on labor market opportunities for U.S.
| workers"
|
| There is nothing scientific about this. No experiment was
| performed. They simply looked at the data, saw there was
| lower unemployment in occupations with higher percentage
| of h1b, and then asserted that means there is no evidence
| that the program has an adverse impact on us workers.
| They are reversing cause and effect.
| robocat wrote:
| > There is nothing scientific about this
|
| Soft sciences are _harder_ than hard sciences to do.
|
| > No experiment was performed. > This is not a double
| blind experiment
|
| Do you really think experiments are a reasonable approach
| to political questions?
|
| I too dislike wish-washy science, but there really isn't
| much other choice for many real world situations.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Someone above accused him/her being unscientific and they
| responded accordingly.
| karpierz wrote:
| You didn't read the methodology. They segmented the data
| by occupation, and then examined the data per occupation
| by year.
|
| Do you have a study that shows the adverse impact of H1-B
| visas on American workers?
| triceratops wrote:
| > This is such a lie. My brother has looking for around a
| year and cannot get his first position.
|
| Anecdotes are not evidence. Maybe your brother is bad at
| interviewing. Getting the first position is always the
| hardest.
| stainforth wrote:
| That's a great angle for looking at - do we have data on
| the average age of h1bs? How can a young person already
| have the specialized skill they're supposedly brought in
| for?
| mancerayder wrote:
| I've personally been asked to look at H1s instead of local
| staff to save wages (they cost 1/3). I'm in management now,
| but when I wasn't, you really would have expected a study
| to negate my own self-interest as an employee threatened
| with unemployment, and ultimately negate myself so that
| tech companies can rake in more profit and ultimately bring
| the aggregate numbers up (which is the net effect you
| highlight)?
| ralph84 wrote:
| It has to be more than just a "net economic benefit" in a
| country with such large wealth inequality. Something that
| makes Jeff Bezos $1 billion and costs everyone else $900
| million is a "net economic benefit", but that doesn't make
| it desirable for anyone except Bezos.
| ab_testing wrote:
| The problem is that, as an Indian, you will be doing this dance
| routine for the rest of your life. Sure it is easy to do it when
| you are in your late twenties, early thirties but once you reach
| late thirties and early forties, you will not even get any
| interest from the recruiters.
|
| Ageism is very real in the tech industry and your only options
| are to either get a green card or move to another country.
| Recessions and layoffs are a way of life in this country. Sure
| you survived this one - but may be not the next one or the one
| after that. Also with each passing decade, it will be harder for
| you to immigrate somewhere else - partially due to countries like
| Canada, Australia reducing points past a certain age and partly
| due to having kids who are used to a specific way of life in the
| US.
|
| So while your status is safe for you, it is a good time to define
| the course of your career, because no matter how good of an
| engineer you are, at the end of the day, you are just a number on
| a spreadsheet who will be laid off at another recession.
| humanlion87 wrote:
| I think the green card option was valid for Indians who came to
| the country at least a decade ago. It's no longer viable for
| Indians who are coming to the country now (or came in the past
| few years). Tying your immigration status to the ups and downs
| of politics for decades together is a sure-fire way to damage
| your mental peace.
| tus88 wrote:
| Strange how HN is so keen on having millions of people come here
| to compete for your job and put downwards pressure on wages.
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| This has not happened, at least not in software engineering.
|
| Also, it is more desirable to attract talent to the US, where
| they will spend money and pay taxes, than just outsourcing.
| tus88 wrote:
| That's because it has been prevented by immigration rules.
| marcinzm wrote:
| Amazingly, most ethical people who are doing well aren't
| selfish enough to hoard all of it for marginal gain to
| themselves at massive cost to others.
| tus88 wrote:
| Secure employment is hardly a marginal gain. Then again, HN
| used to be filled with engineers, now it's filled with
| entrepreneurs hoping for cheap labor so it makes sense.
| dccoolgai wrote:
| These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article
| with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing
| sense of depression driven by the following thoughts:
|
| I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people
| who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out.
|
| This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist
| ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed to treat
| this way puts a hard ceiling on your own compensation.
|
| My grandparents were labor leaders and I'm pretty certain they'd
| be ashamed I can't or haven't done more to rectify this.
|
| I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field.
| Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as
| well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad
| fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and
| recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy
| piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should
| be justifiable grounds for a broken nose.
| [deleted]
| titanomachy wrote:
| It wouldn't be so bad if Indians and Chinese could actually
| immigrate. They have to stay in this precarious H1B state
| indefinitely, since getting a green card is effectively
| impossible for people from those countries.
| stack_underflow wrote:
| Hell, I'm Canadian and I also bucket into the India group
| since I was born there. Doesn't seem to matter that I was
| less than a year old when my parents immigrated to Canada
| either.
|
| I don't have high hopes for ever receiving a green card:
| https://medium.com/@happy_sushi_roll/the-endless-wait-
| for-a-...
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| > "My grandparents were labor leaders and I'm pretty certain
| they'd be ashamed I can't or haven't done more to rectify this.
|
| Unfortunately tech unions are typically the ones railing
| against H1Bs entirely. The mere presence of H1B workers
| fundamentally increases worker supply (by definition). In fact
| it was the "US Tech Workers Union" that championed recent
| actions against H1B workers. And let's be honest they were not
| fighting to make our lives easier (by making H1B less
| draconion), only theirs, by reducing the supply of workers.
|
| And while some of them will sugar coat this by pretending to
| care about H1B worker's conditions and all that, the truth is
| that as long as the US continues to be a more desirable place
| to live compared to many other countries, and as long as you
| need a job to live here, foreign workers will always tilt the
| equilibrium a bit towards lower wages compared to a domestic
| worker supply. The true solution would be if you made the path
| to permanent residence easy for skilled individuals so that
| they don't need to take these employment decision under duress.
| Lammy wrote:
| It isn't about worker supply or wages. It's about workers'
| relative abilities to stand up for something (anything)
| versus having to keep one's head down and build whatever evil
| thing management wants built.
|
| As long as the "risk of having to leave the country" for
| speaking up about anything is greater than 0% the obviously-
| wisest thing to do is keep your mouth shut.
| kinkrtyavimoodh wrote:
| It's no single thing because people's decisions are
| affected by the sum total of their life's balance sheet.
|
| The labor market is something that emerges from the
| equilibrium of several opposing forces. We as a society
| decide which causal factors are 'reasonable' and which are
| 'unfair'.
|
| As a simple example, you could argue that 'the wages for
| married individuals with kids are depressed due to the
| massive labor pool of single people in their 20s who can be
| employed for far less as long as you offer them free food
| and some cutesy perks like happy hours and pool tables'.
| Ceteris paribus, and as a pure fact of economics, this is
| true. Of course if you have a bigger supply of labor and
| hold other things constant, wages will depress, but as a
| matter of practical policy, we don't consider it 'unfair'
| that there exist single people who are competing for jobs
| that married people are also competing for.
|
| But many people do consider it unfair that there exist
| Indians who are competing for jobs that Americans are also
| competing for.
|
| This is a matter of policy and your personal sense of what
| is fair and what is not, not economics.
| dccoolgai wrote:
| Politically, it seems to be a big crappy case of playing the
| ends against the middle... The ends being: 1. All the shitty
| racists lobbying _against H1bs_ because "took er jerbs" on
| one side. 2. All the shitty FAANG capitalists lobbying _for_
| it on the other because they want to keep engineering
| salaries controlled.
|
| My quick bandaid bill would: 1) Any H1b holder can switch to
| any job as long as it comes with at least ten percent pay
| increase. 2) Any H1b holder gets an automatic green card
| after x years or paid y in federal+state taxes, whichever
| comes first. 3) Hiring company pays 80pct salary for the
| extent of the Visa, come hell or high water. You _really_
| need that visa? Fine, prove it by taking on more of the risk
| instead of foisting it on the poor visa holder who came to
| help you.
| damnyou wrote:
| The "US Tech Workers" "union" is actually a front for the
| John Tanton white nationalist network. It is not an actual
| union.
|
| It is true that some other unions like the AFL-CIO have
| historically opposed immigration on these grounds, though.
| nbm wrote:
| The "US Tech Workers Union" doesn't appear to be a union at
| all. It appears to be a subsidiary of the "Progressives For
| Immigration Reform" non-profit aimed fairly exclusively at
| the H-1b issue, and the only spokesperson I can see for it is
| the executive director of PFIR.
|
| So, I wouldn't take the "US Tech Workers" as being
| representative of tech workers or tech workers unions without
| further research.
| nrmitchi wrote:
| This type of misleading behaviour and false-representation
| is called astroturfing.
| tdeck wrote:
| Funny to see this pop up because I happen to know who is
| behind this cluster of sites (i.e.
| https://ustechworkers.com/ https://www.cfpup.org/) and it's
| basically one super right-wing guy and some wealthy donors.
| None of these is a real union or even a real community
| group. It's wealthy lobbyists who want to oppose
| immigration. I always thought it was really shady.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _Is the work that I am going to be doing in this team critical
| to the product /business? Note that in the case of larger
| companies, you should try to understand if the product or
| business that the team supports is large enough._
|
| Highly recommend reading this classic:
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...
| wiz21c wrote:
| Definitely a good read.
|
| But too few optimistic notes under too many cynical notes.
|
| But he's damn right on many accounts...
| newbie578 wrote:
| Wow, that was a great read! Thanks for the link man, the guy
| hit a lot of points.
| 49yearsold wrote:
| This is mind boggling to see so much effort need to put into
| getting into FAANG. I am 49 years old and working as an
| engineering manager in a public company. I have spent decades
| writing large distributed, Saas, on-premise, enterprise
| application - many of which I helped implementing, architecting
| and supporting. Then I just went to leetcode and saw one of the
| "EASY" question about how to prepare for FB interview. It is
| something about finding an island that's surrounded by water
| given a two-dimensional array. I simply stared at it and have no
| clue how to solve it. Am I the dumb one or does anyone have
| similar reactions when they see these leetcode problems? Also -
| if I plan to interview at FAANG - I plan to interview at least
| for engineering manager positions - but looks like even these
| positions are tied to these kind of coding questions? I am
| depressed.
| marcinzm wrote:
| As I understand it, manager positions a tFAANG require some
| amount of leetcode as they want people who are technical (and
| they define technical as being able to do leetcode). Not sure
| how much they weigh that portion of the interview. That said,
| leetcode takes practice and is not an innate skill for the vast
| majority of people. I don't mean practice as in "an hour here
| and there" but more like "4 hours a day for two months."
| There's a reason people call it grinding leetcode.
| stack_underflow wrote:
| These types of questions basically boil down very cookie cutter
| patterns that generally bucket into graph traversal/search,
| being comfortable with coding/manipulating linked data
| structures, enumerating+pruning search spaces, and knowing
| little tricks to reduce an order of magnitude from the runtime
| or space complexity after having applied one of these patterns.
| These all generally require knowing all your basic data
| structures as a prereq (stack/queue/deque/vector/hash
| table/self-balancing search tree, then using those primitives
| to compose graphs etc).
|
| My advice for people who wanted to prep for these interviews
| originally used to be to read through some books that prep you
| for algorithm competitions (e.g. ICPC, IOI, GCJ), but I find
| that to be a bit overkill and not as efficient a use of time
| (although some of these books do a much better job of
| explaining things than any of these interview prep books I've
| gone through). Today the advice I'd give is get a book like
| 'Elements of Programming Interviews' in the language you plan
| on using and a leetcode subscription and just get down to
| learning about a data structure/algorithm/problem solving
| paradigm and then solving a bunch of questions that fit that
| technique.
|
| If you really want to go with the overkill approach, I'd
| recommend a book like Competitive Programming 3:
| https://cpbook.net/
| DethNinja wrote:
| Only thing those questions show is how irrational the software
| engineering companies have became in the USA. This does not
| bode well for their futures as well.
|
| As an engineer who implemented/architected SaaS applications, I
| cannot take these questions seriously at all and I genuinely
| refuse to work for companies that ask leetcode.
|
| Do these questions help me to find good/above average Junior
| Engineers? No. Do these questions help me to find good/above
| average Senior Engineers? No. Do these questions help me to
| find good/above average Managers? No. Do these questions help
| me filter people who cannot memorize algorithms/interview
| questions or spend enough time on them? Yes.
|
| So where is the logical connection between leetcode problems
| and finding good/above average employees? As far as I can see
| there is none.
|
| There is literally almost no connection between a candidate
| being capable of solving leetcode and being a good software
| engineer that is capable of controlling/reducing complexity of
| the engineered applications and working well with other team
| members.
|
| More rational approach would be asking people architectural
| questions, even at the Junior level. I expect a good junior
| engineer would have already implement a small scale system at
| least as an final year thesis project, so they should be
| capable of handling questions related to
| engineering/architectural design.
| H8crilA wrote:
| I mean, are you still writing any code? If not then those
| questions will look pretty damn difficult, as their objective
| is to filter for people that know how to write code (it's a
| high precision, lower recall filter, though). As an engineering
| manager you're probably not really writing any code on a
| regular basis. It's the same for expecienced managers in a
| BigCoolKnownCorp that I work for, I think they would have
| problems with an entry level whiteboarding code question.
| 49yearsold wrote:
| Correct - I don't write code 100% of my time but I do code
| reviews on daily basis, involved in architecture, design of
| new feature; implementing a side project using swift,
| xcode,java for personal finance app. But still I feel so
| clueless when I see these questions on leetcode or similar
| sites.
| bradlys wrote:
| It's a different skill set. Even as an IC, this requires
| hundreds of hours of practice to get to an adequate level.
| theodric wrote:
| Make preparations to return to your home country and try to find
| a new job where you are. Leave before your H1B expires so you can
| qualify for another, if you want that. If you don't want that,
| then you've just been given what you want.
| drinchev wrote:
| Probably my 1 year old daughter talks right now, but I really
| have no time to do stuff on the weekend. I'm happily not living
| with a visa though, but still I think if you don't have enough
| time, you can always "spend" some career achievements and go to a
| less paid gig. When the market recovers your career will recover
| too.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Interview prep sounds more onerous than it really is. Any
| experienced dev can churn through most interview practice
| questions quickly. It's easy to look at the total number of
| questions and feel overwhelmed, but really practicing in 30
| minute bursts here and there is sufficient for 95% of job
| interviews.
|
| I'm also a parent. I've found that lunch breaks are a great
| time to practice.
|
| But really there's no reason to practice unless you're job
| searching. If you're laid off like this blog post is talking
| about then you'll have plenty of time to practice.
|
| I agree that this idea of spending all of your free time and
| weekends on side projects and practice question is nonsense,
| though. I don't know anyone who does this.
| ram_rar wrote:
| I feel, its important to keep practicing every now and then.
| I usually swarm hard during job search and eventually lose
| touch. The again, have to go through the cycle. But every
| time, I go through, its lesser effort than before. But if you
| keep practicing all the time, then you'll always be prepared.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| Unfortunately interviews are easy for him as an IIT and Stanford
| elite, so this advice is mostly just obvious.
| titanomachy wrote:
| I don't believe that. Even within the elite, there are
| different grades of jobs and achievement. Preparation can be
| the difference.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| Perhaps, but no amount of preparation has been able to vault
| me to even close to the elite, mostly because I guess I don't
| have the genes for it.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| Most interview questions around data structures,
| algorithms, etc. follow the same patterns. In the end, it's
| just a pattern recognition problem (IMO).
|
| Once you recognize the different variations, you solve a
| bunch of those problems to become more efficient at 'em.
|
| Really, it's no different than solving certain calculus
| problems. If you've solved enough integrals that require
| certain substitutions and identities, you'll notice them
| right away - but of course, if you've never seen 'em
| before, the problems can become next to impossible - given
| a very limited time fame to solve them.
|
| Sure - some candidates will be highly intelligent, notice
| intricate patterns right away, and solve them on the spot
| (in the same way they'd perform on IQ tests), but for the
| majority it's just discipline and preparation.
|
| There's a reason people are following these ridiculous
| study guides, which involve hundreds to thousands of
| Leetcode/hackerrank/etc. questions. If you actually study
| the problems, and do them over and over again, you'll get
| there.
|
| And by "just" doing that, you can indeed outclass the so-
| called elite candidates.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| I've done nearly 300. I still can't crack Google or
| Facebook etc and I'm still extremely depressed that I"m
| just inherently unable to because my CS education wasn't
| good enough (because I wasn't good enough to get a better
| SAT score etc etc). I work at Amazon, so I know what the
| "elites" think of people like me.
|
| I've gone and reread Skiena, etc but the end result ends
| up just my eyes glazing over proof notation and crying.
| stack_underflow wrote:
| Sounds to me like you're focusing on the wrong things or
| don't have the right resources for the task at hand.
| (that is, I don't think I've ever had to brush up on a
| proof for any algorithm or data structure when prepping
| for interviews)
|
| Take it from someone who also had a shit
| background/education in math/CS and had to teach myself a
| lot of these things from scratch - it's doable, you just
| need time, and I guess the mindset that you can learn
| these things. See my comment history for some book
| recommendations. If you really feel like you need to
| learn things from scratch to give yourself the confidence
| of having a solid foundation, look at some of the intro
| computer science courses on Coursera. When I realized
| most of my uni's cs courses were... not great, I just
| ended up going through courses like Stanford's
| Introduction to Algorithms on Coursera and teaching
| myself.
|
| I can also tell you as someone who was in Seattle for a
| while and had a bunch of friends at Amazon, I don't think
| anyone is going to think less of you, if anything, being
| able to survive at a place like Amazon seemed to be
| recognized as its own accomplishment...
|
| edit: I'll also add (from personal experience), if it
| still feels like these things are difficult even once you
| feel like you have all the right resources, look into
| seeing medical professionals to make sure you're not
| being held back by anything, like sleep apnea, any
| cognitive disability (not sure if that's the right
| term...) etc
| carls wrote:
| While you are correct in that (1) the credentials/pedigree
| and (2) some measure of intelligence will strongly
| positively impact job searching, your original comment
| seems to imply that this is sufficient.
|
| Then, this comment that I'm currently replying to, pins
| most of the responsibility on not "having the genes for
| it."
|
| Your HN username also leads me to think you have a "fixed
| mindset" around your capabilities.
|
| Regardless of to what extent (1) and (2) impact general
| career success, I suspect your mindset is a self-limiting
| one. For example, even if 80% of a person's success was
| determined by their genes and pedigree, and only 20% by
| their personal effort or resourcefulness, I suspect the
| mindset you have is to focus on lamenting the fact that you
| don't have the 80% and neglect the 20% you do have control
| over, leaving it on the ground and thereby reducing your
| own chances of success. It'd be a little bit like someone
| who wasn't born particularly tall, saying "Well, what's the
| point of drilling dribbling, passing, defending or
| shooting? There's no way I'll ever be the world's best
| player with genes like mine?" resulting in a self-defeating
| and self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.[1]
|
| I don't want to come off as a preachy person on the
| internet to someone who I don't know, but if I could make a
| suggestion I would be curious for you to introspect as to
| why you may have this worldview. Folks I know in real life
| who have a mindset similar to those expressed in your
| comments often seem to feel insecure, unconfident or
| otherwise engage in self-shaming and constant comparisons
| with others.
|
| _[Edit] In the spirit of sharing, I will confess that that
| your mindset also reminded me of mine when I was in
| college. I had gotten rejected from a large number of
| universities I wanted to attend, and had only gotten into
| my state university. My peers and friends from high school
| largely went to prestigious brand-names._
|
| _The insecurity gnawed at me and made me engage in many
| foolish behaviors during college, and also caused me to
| constantly compare myself with others. I was ultimately
| very unhappy._
|
| _Through a series of experiences (i.e. therapy, honest
| introspection and self-reflection, conversations with
| trusted friends, being challenged on my mindset by others),
| I slowly came to understand how my mindset contributed to
| the same failures I was complaining about._
|
| _It 's been over a decade since then and I have long since
| shed the mindset that held me back then, and am much
| happier for it._
|
| -----
|
| [1] Even this example is probably inaccurate because it
| draws from a domain where genetics play a larger role than
| I think they do in professional success. I suspect many
| attributes of a successful professional come from behaviors
| and tactics that are learned through social mimicry and
| learning from others rather than some genetic
| predisposition towards e.g., being thoughtful, being
| articulate and concise, running effective meetings etc.
| lowiqengineer wrote:
| > The insecurity gnawed at me and made me engage in many
| foolish behaviors during college, and also caused me to
| constantly compare myself with others. I was ultimately
| very unhappy. Through a series of experiences (i.e.
| therapy, honest introspection and self-reflection,
| conversations with trusted friends, being challenged on
| my mindset by others), I slowly came to understand how my
| mindset contributed to the same failures I was
| complaining about
|
| I was the same way in college, but I also didn't go to
| Berkeley, rather a school 80 or so spots below. I wish I
| could fix myself, but the therapy I've done hasn't helped
| and my general lack of accomplishments in life
| contributes.
| an_human wrote:
| What is this mail to link at bottom? my-user-name-here@gmail pls
| change it
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Why do you want them to change how they write their email
| address? Are you a bit and unable to solve their captcha?
| Otherwise what's the problem?
| miked85 wrote:
| That format was intentional to stop scraping/bots; it
| apparently works on some humans as well.
| michaelt wrote:
| That's a traditional 1990s trick to stop bots scraping your
| e-mail address to send you spam.
| an_human wrote:
| I'm too from India! Can you share your experience on how you got
| your first job? From college to first job
| iandanforth wrote:
| This is a solid guide for studying for ML positions.
|
| There was a similar article a few years ago that I also use for
| reference that people looking for this kind of work might find
| useful:
|
| https://medium.com/@XiaohanZeng/i-interviewed-at-five-top-co...
| parserman wrote:
| I just want to say thanks
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