H-1B Reform

You've been arguing for the elimination of the H1B. What other conclusion could one come to?

Of course it does. H1Bs are a "necessary evil" for the business to exist here.

You work from home. That's not going to be done with low-level programming or verification jobs.

No, it can't. These are low-level coding and test jobs. You know, that sort of cruft you won't do?

We have a DSP engineer who lives in Montana, too. Completely different issue. You can't do that with a team of hundres of short-time transients.

Good grief. The job has to be done. We can't just waive a stick and make a low-level coding job a high-level architect's job (though the US education system is trying).

Or I? I do the same thing.

I sometimes do expert witness work through agencies, but never engineering.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Many people do. It just works, especially in America.

I once had a potential client but then they wanted to go through a large agency. The people there were very nice but didn't really have a clue what they were looking for. Then they wanted me to work under a W2 relationship so we parted ways. That was after they wanted and called references, something nobody else ever requested. What a waste of time.

Where did I ever say that? Please quote.

That maybe you were wrong and I never said that. Because I didn't.

If the only way to get their designs done he is the inclusion of H1B specialists they should not have a problem paying the required wages, should they?

Well, we got that done successfully, several times. Over one ocean plus some land.

Sometimes it is necessary to come out there and do it locally. Nothing wrong with that, I've done that as well. Get a room at a hotel or some extended-stay accommodation. You can still have a home to come home to. You do not have to live your lief out of a suitcase.

I don't know your product but we have done exactly that with complicated medical equipment design. In one rather extreme case there were half a dozen local engineers and a dozen external ones. It ended up completely blowing a competitor out of the water.

Then just "rent" the coders. There are plenty of US-based ones and if needed they come out there. If it has to be H1B pay them accordingly and all is good. What I am squarely against is abusing H1B to obtain cheap indentured labor.

Except that is not what it is being used for. The proposed changes will eliminate abuse, but it does nothing to *encourage* proper use.

My cousin was very happy.

It is still bringing in workers where there is no shortage.

No, marketing is *not* "under" sales in any company I've worked for. Regardless, ultimate control over commissions and everything else in a company is by management. They can create good, or create bad. Obviously not every company has the issues you mention, so there must be ways to solve the problem.

It's simple: A company needs a certain talent, tries their best domestically, can't find anyone. Then they go international, find someone, file for the visa and pay accordingly. This is proper use.

Improper use is what happens nowadays. Companies hire scores of coders and others on the cheap, the whole program runs into the cap in a jiffy and when another company desperately needs someone in August they are screwed. Because the cap had been reached long ago.

Therefore, the proposed changes setting a high minimum pay encourage proper use by curbing improper use. Most of all it will prevent companies from illegally displacing American workers.

He was lucky that he got back in. Most are not so lucky and have to join the ranks of the un- or underemployed.

Not when the min wage is $130k/year. Because that is way more than the company has to pay for an American worker. An employer would be quite stupid paying unnecessarily high wages.

Most large companies I know are like that. They are marketing-driven which in essence results in a sales-driven company. The VP of Sales usually has the largest pull when it comes to deciding the direction of R&D. It is one of the reasons why I would not have remained an employee for very long. Because this can snuff out truly visionary developments. Those take a little longer and carry a higher risk. Most importantly for the sales force they do not generate instant commission income. Instant to a sales person usually means this year or even this coming quarter.

You want double the "minimum wage". That's the same damned thing.

You did.

Apples and orangutangs.

For six months? That means low-rent housing, something you were railing against, IIRC.

I'm calling bullshit on that one.

We *are* renting the coders. They happen to be H1Bs.

Might as well chase more jobs overseas.

See, right there... that's the fallacy. Do you really think there is any skill that can't be supplied in the US? What it means is they can't find the talent at a given wage.

So it comes down to price... Company A was hiring H-1B workers on the cheap. So there is no reason why there wouldn't be talent for company B... unless they expect to pay that same substandard wage.

The high minimum wage means the program won't be used because at that $120,000 an engineer will be found in the US... unless it's in one of the very few, very high priced regions like silicon valley. I wouldn't move there no matter how much they pay.

In this country, at this time, if you can't find a skill, then you simply aren't offering the right incentives.

That is simply not what I have read. As I have said, an analysis I read (which included names of companies in the H-1B program and their numbers) showed most H-1B workers aren't really doing engineering. They are doing much lower level jobs and being paid appropriately for them.

Yes, that is the point.

Reality says otherwise. If a company is so poorly run that the departments are working counter productively and yet they are highly profitable, then that contradicts what you are saying. If they aren't highly profitable and could be run better, competitors will do that and eat their lunch. Eventually the poorly performing companies either change or go away.

Companies do the things they do because it maximizes their profits. If the scenario you describe results in high profits, then you are complaining about nothing. You started by complaining about "instant gratification" and now you are talking about a year. In the real world it is not at all uncommon for development to take much more than a year.

Look around, there are lots of products that took much more than a year to develop. How long did the iPhone take to go from concept to product. How about the chip sized atomic clock? The list goes on.

It is not. As I said many times H1B is meant to get skilled labor on the world market. Skill that cannot be found here. If a company is unwilling to pay commensurate wage then they do not have a real shortage. It's that simple.

Baloney. I didn't and as expected you won't quote me because you can't. Don't start engaging in fake news :-)

Huh? At least the administration (finally!) understands this. It is sad that it took a landslide election to get there. Heck, the basic idea even came from the left and is essentially bipartisan.

No, it was mostly organization skills. These were embedded products inside an intricate system where most people think it can't be done remotely yet it was successfully done.

I was not. Obtaining temporary housing either in a hotel, an extended-stay place or a rented apartment is not a problem for a technical professional. Just like camping in the wilderness isn't for someone with a requirement to work even more remotely. I have done it dozens of time. Key is you _have_ to have a _real_ _home_ to come back to. And I always did.

Of course, the temporary accommodations have to be adequate so you can let your family follow at times and explore a new area together. My dad did that as well and thinking back to my times as a kid this was fun.

So if you can't do something or you can't imagine something it is BS to you? Now you are sounding a bit like the drive-by media Limbaugh was always talking about. The folks who stood there with dropped jaws last Nov-8.

Then rent local ones. There are plenty. Pretty soon you will have to or it'll get expensive. H1B was never meant to temp-hire people without niche skills, shouldn't be used for that and in the near future very likely won't be used for that anymore.

Yes. I don't only think so, I know so.

Not true. Sometimes you need someone who is intimately familiar with the regulatory system and habits in a foreign country for which a product is to be geared _and_ is fluent in that language. Then the number of available engineers for this job in the US can be zero. Other times you can find a local engineer but only by prying him or her out of another company. Then that company will have a serious problem at their hands. They can outbid themselves like sports teams sometimes do but in the end there will still not be enough talent available.

Think about it this way: How will you win a race in a sports car if only two of the four wheels are available and there is no time to build two more? By mounting the front wheels in the back. Or vice versa? Or maybe diagonally?

Which they will have to do in order to stay competitive. Else company B's products will have higher NRE and you know the consequences of that.

No. H1B is meant to get such an engineer if none or not enough can be found in the US. See above. And yes, then $130k or whatever the law says is not a problem. If it were then the need wouldn't truly be there.

I wouldn't either.

Now you are beginning to understand :-)

H1B was never meant to be a simple guest worker program. It should not be used as such and now that practice will likely stop. Which is a good thing.

So they will soon make a stronger effort to find American engineers or programmers for the jobs. That is the real point.

Reality is yet different. Many large companies have such a large sales footprint that it takes decades until your described scenario happens. Perfect example: The big three auto makers. Half a century ago they scoffed at Volkswagen, Toyota, and others. "Phhht, they don't even have a meaningful dealer network, forget it! And Americans don't want compact cars anyhow!". Yet foreign compnies made better compact cars. A few decades later they weren't laughing anymore, they were shaking in their boots and even had to be bailed out by our government.

The effect is commonly called "resting on the laurels".

That's what I am saying. And this is difficult to achieve in a marketing-driven organization. They do not want to wait that long.

iPhone is not a new product. It is an evolved product. So is the atomic clock chip which is simply a glorified 60kHz receiver canned into silicon. A truly new product is, for example, a medical device that has no equivalent and where people were so far dying because of that lack.