I practice immigration law and work with startups. I think that this is an excellent idea/model. My only concern is that the startup/employer not seek reimbursement from the employee for any of the costs associated with the H-1B process (filing fees and legal fees), including the fee (equal to 25% of the employee’s first year salary) paid to TripleByte by the startup/employer. This is prohibited. The main point of the thread, however, from my standpoint is that startups should not shy away from hiring employees who are in H-1B status simply because they are startups. While USCIS might question the operations and finances of the startup, almost always these concerns/questions can be overcome.
> my standpoint is that startups should not shy away from hiring employees who are in H-1B status simply because they are startups.
This does solve the hiring manager's problem, but will raise red flags with the outsourced employee's personal risk profile.
There is another rush for a lawyer if the startup you were hired into gets restructured (acquired/merged).
Honestly TripleByte can offer a small "outplacement" insurance package to the employee being hired (as a revenue stream) - which works out nearly the same as having a "talent agent" retainer in the business, except one who knows how to navigate the legal wrangles when you need a new gig.
I was working on H1-B for 6 years in the USA. The long wait time, and utter unpredictability of the Green Card system was insane. Being Indian didn't help either, as we are subjected to 12+ years of wait (EB3 quota). The stupid H4 laws made my highly qualified wife unable to work. Finally I kicked the plush job and American dreams and moved to Europe. My employer called me ungrateful and selfish for leaving after he spent $7k on my visa. I loved the USA but honestly life has never been better.
I'm sure there are few people on HN who want to keep immigrants out of the USA, but that's bad policy in the long run. I hope this debate around H1B will facilitate a better visa regime.
A lot of people here a critical of the visa system because it drives wages down. This is an effect of employers having way too much leverage in the current system, the H1B being attached to your current employement. If you provide for equal rights between americans, permanent residents and non-immigrant workers, you cut that leverage out of employers' hands and empoyer non-immigrant workers to negociate market rate compensation. Work visas shouldn't be attached to current employement.
Switzerland, a country with 28% of foreign population, has a system where you can quit your job and claim unemployement benefits for at least 6 months before your work permit actually expires.
Having lived in both Switzerland and US I have to say that US is much more friendly towards the immigrants from non-EU countries. Swiss make it nearly impossible for people outside EU to get a permanent redidence permit (have to wait for 10 years for a C permit) whereas in US there are multiple paths (EB1-3, NIV) and a plethora of employers (tech companies in West and East coast at least) who would offer GC sponsorship as part of the deal.
Sure. But other EU countries are way more friendly. For example, Sweden I believe gives you a path to citizenship of close to 5 years. In the U.S., it would be > 5 years assuming non spousal green card.
Switzerland is tied by many bilateral agreements with the EU. It's in their interest to adopt most of the EU legislation, so that they can do business smoothly with their neighbors, who are all EU members.
I am currently on a student visa in the U.S. and was considering trying the H-1B route. However, since it is so tiresome and it literally can make you waste years of your life, I was thinking to not even bother. When I was doing research, most people say that the US is the best place to be at as a SE. This makes it sound like if you are doomed everywhere else. I am happy to see that you seem to be a counterexample to this. If you don't mind me asking, how "bad" is it really to be in Europe instead of US as a SE? Which country do you live in? People say pay is so much lower in Europe, but does it really affect you that much?
Europe is not that bad. Yes it is nice to earn $120k in Silicon Valley, but life is extremely expensive with $3500/m rent for a 1br apt. Get a job in my home town Amsterdam, earn $80k and spend only $1000 on an apartment. Uber moved its mobile engineering team there for a reason.
In general, the entrepreneurial scene is much smaller, but if you want to concentrate on SE Europe is fine.
> nice to earn $120k in Silicon Valley
> $3500/m rent for a 1br apt
I think you are a bit off on both :)
Salary:
As a Software Engineer, chances are you can a bit more (especially including bonus + RSU). If you're "senior" you can earn quite a bit more.
Also: There are tons of other small perks that add up (phone/internet reimbursement, free food, public transport pass, free electric car charging, ...)
Rent:
You can currently get a 2 BR, 2 BR in Mountain View for about $3500 (managed newish building 2 minutes from Castro)
He talked about the median from Zillow. You are talking about the bottom decile 1-bed being hawked on Craigslist. Ask yourself, as a developer on six figures, would you want to live in the latter?
Is $80k on the upper level? I mean, not rich, but is it enough to live comfortably? I know in some countries you are making as an SE as much as the baker in the neighborhood bakery!
The people who say US is the best haven't seen the world. Europe and Canada has a fair share of brilliant SEs. The people I've worked with in Europe are not an ounce less talented than the US SEs and I feel much more productive here. Pay is lower, but honestly. I will take my social healthcare, 28 leave/year, unemployment insurance, kick-ass public transport, and well traveled multi-kulti friends over $200K in SFO living in a bubble.
If you're looking for options out of USA, I would seriously recommend Canada. It has a culture similar to the US, but better visa regime and healthcare.
Don't give up yet on the F1 - H1B route. The H1B issues can depend on when you graduate. 2 years before I graduated H1B visas were not in short supply. Students graduated and opted to go on OPT first before filing for H1B so they wouldn't have to pay social security tax. The year after that, H1B visa applications were so high they had to do a lottery. This lottery happened for the next 3 years. 2 years after I graduated, the no of H1B applicants dropped back to the normal level that no lottery was required (I read in the papers that lots of foreigners opted to go back home because of the H1B issues and the bad economy). H1B application pool remained at that level for a few years and then went up again last year or the year before that.
So in summary, H1B applicant pool can vary from year to year so don't cross it off your list yet
Given the recent economic boom/bubble we're experiencing, chances of NOT being required to participate in the lottery are pretty low. Not zero, but pretty low.
> it literally can make you waste years of your life
Not sure why you would consider those years "wasted".
You're working, gaining experience and making money. Since the job market is great, an H-1B isn't really something that would keep you back from negotiating your salary or anything else.
Getting the green card is a bit different, but there have been some reforms over the last few years.
I'd personally recommend it (having been on L-1B and H-1B).
Yes, you are right. Thanks! I was kind of depressed because of my slim chances, but with all these responses I certainly am looking differently at this situation.
The H1B chances are kinda slim. I'd personally recommend finding more than 1 employer willing to sponsor. Alternatively there is always the non-profit ones that are cap exempt.
It's actually pretty easy. Just find a job and apply for Blue Card and you're all set. Lots of startups are sponsoring visa and desperate for talent. The visa regime is pretty humane compared to USA, and please learn the local language (A2 minimum) before moving :-)
To those people who want to keep immigrants out of the USA-- unless you're pure blood native american you're an immigrant.
Plus, what gives any people- including the government- the right to interfere with Freedom of Association.
Like Gay Marriage, the right to hire whome you want is an exercise of this basic right.
Alas, there wasn't an amendment to the Bill of Rights (though there doesn't need to be, read the preamble) to support freedom of association, and so this right has been eroded over time.
Immigration restrictions are government interfering with the economy, and in a bad way.
All immigrants benefit a country (unless you have a rickety socialist country in which case some of them may tax the welfare system-- but if its not rickety the ones who come to work will pay for the ones who don't.)
Can you spare us the pontification? My issue with H1s is when employees that are clearly qualified are fired and forced to train cheaper replacement. H1 is about filing shortages not about helping Disney save money.
The same crowd that supports unlimited immigration, ironically oppose free trade. If it's ok to let in $60,000 engineers because there is a shortage of professionals willing to work for $60,000, why is it not ok to let in tarrif-free cars because people don't want to spend $20k on a Chevy?
There is no shortage of software devs. There is a shortage of software devs willing to work for $60k. The H1 system ought to be for exceptional cases such as a data scientist proficient in R, Haskel and Ruby which experience on mobile API design. It shouldn't be for effectively entry or mid level work. Many of the Infosys and Tata engineers with whom I have worked have been reasonably competent, but far from spectacular and some have been downright dangerously incompetent. Not a single one has been a field-leading expert.
Someone mentioned about what if plumbers were the primary recipient of H1s.. That would be interesting because it would expose the scam that is the enterprise-level H1 system.
It's about cheap labor (generally) and not about some imagined shortage of people. Honestly, outsourcing firms ought to be excluded from H1 eligibility; only primary employers should be allowed to apply. The program should also have more oversight. For example, you claim you can't find an engineer that can work in C and interact with SOAP APIs. Before your H1 request is allowed to proceed, the government (or quasi-government) should then be allowed to send you US resident prospects that meet your requirements. If there are none, then you get the H1 application processed. Essentially affirmative action for US citizens and resident. If you are unwilling to hire the employee, you would need to justify why. Salary discussions would be forbidden until after you make a hiring decision. If you say yes but the salary is too high, then there would be kind of an arbitration system.
My point is that H1 is about lower cost most of the time and has little to do with an actual shortage.
I was on H1B with a true blue American startup. They developed cold feet when it came closer to sponsoring Green Cards. To start with GC wage levels are much higher than H1B levels. Also close to 15K+ needs to be spent for processing+ years of patient follow up to USCIS queries/denials and surprise site inspections. The new fangled startups won't have the long term strategy/planning to get me a green card. I had much better luck with a staffing vendor running an office off his basement. People misunderstand the H1B outsourcer lock-in. They hold people in through green card processes/delays. Not through H1B itself. Google for Employment based GC delays for Indians and Chinese.
No country is allowed to get more than 7% of the green cards each year (roughly speaking). This GC-H1B lock-in problem is very unique to Indians (~10 year wait), and to a lesser extent, Chinese (~4 year wait). The 7% quota would be illegal were it applied to US citizenship, according to civil rights legislations of the 1960s (prior to which non-whites were discriminated against in naturalized-citizenships via quotas).
However, unlike pre-civil rights citizenship quotas, the green card quota seems ok to everyone. This a moral discrepancy, IMO. Unfortunately, it won't be addressed in the near future, because though the population affected may be in the hundreds of thousands, they are not important to any political players. Even on a generally enlightened forum like HN, you routinely encounter hateful comments about H1B workers. I think H1Bs deserve some level of representation in such matters simply because these workers pay the exact same taxes as all Americans. The situation for many people is utterly hopeless and it should be of humanitarian concern, here is a moving account from Seattle: http://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/while-their-...
I think the notion that after working (and paying taxes) in the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible.
> I think the notion that after working (and paying taxes) in the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible.
I came here on a student visa at 17, went on get a CS Masters and now live in SF on a H1B almost 10 years later. America is pretty much the only country I know how to navigate as an adult. The fact that it is mathematically impossible for me to get a GC before 2025 as an Indian used to upset me quite a bit. H1B simply doesn't allow one to live with dignity or take chances. But over this year, I've made my peace with this. I'll continue to work here while I still love my job but eventually go back. Theres no way in hell I'll keep working the same job years on in hopes of a gc.
If you can get a well-paying job you could move to Singapore, where English is an official language, India is much nearer, and the process from initial entry to permanent residency can be completed within three years (n.b. it is not guaranteed but you can reapply). And if you can navigate in America you'll not have a problem in Singapore.
The problem is that your kids (male) might have to undergo conscription. I know the situation is changing now, but that was a large deterrant behind a lot of my friends leaving Singapore.
Well I'm aware there are many other countries I could move to and to be honest India isn't such a bad place either. But its about more than opportunities, most of the people I care about, all my friends happen to live here in America.
Well you can change jobs if you have an I140 approved. I've been in the US for 10 years and I honestly don't care about getting a gc. The I140 from my previous employer allows me to get 3 year extensions on my H1B. The downside is that your new employer has to restart the gc process again, which is fine since I get to work on things that I'm interested in rather than getting stuck in the same job for years on end.
But what if you want to take a year off? Or just some time off inbetween jobs to travel? AFAIK you need to stay employed with a sponsoring employer all the while. Plus it definitely makes you risk averse as far as doing your thing is concerned.
If you have an approved H1B, you can take a year off by resigning. I don't know of any employer who would you give you a sabbatical; citizen or not. You can use your remaining H1B time with the same or any other employer. As I see it, this is the law of the land, take it or leave it; complaining is not an option IMO.
Also, I don't see how you can start something on your own (excluding freelancing) if you're taking considerable time off; maybe I'm wrong. You cannot just take time off when you feel like it, a competitor is most certainly going to eat your lunch.
To me, this is a lame argument that "if I get my gc I can start something on my own". Really? Totally anecdotal and bay area specific, but the ratio of recent gc holders starting a new venture (note: new venture, not an existing venture) to number of people getting their gc is tending to 0 (I'm exaggerating but it's a pretty low number). Chances are, this person has spent a lot of time in an established company waiting for his/her gc, bought a house (therefore enslaved by a mortgage), possibly have had kids, and lost most of the technical and any entrepreneurial skills required to compete in a cut throat environment. I do not see such a person taking a risk, even after getting a gc. Will expediting handing gc to applicants change this ratio? Who knows? It's a moot point.
Again, this is totally anecdotal, but I see a considerable difference between me (I work in a startup) vs a lot of my friends who don't. I'm not saying I'm superior than them; but I see that they just don't realize what's required to start/run a company. It's no piece of cake.
> You can use your remaining H1B time with the same or any other employer. As I see it, this is the law of the land, take it or leave it; complaining is not an option IMO.
Given that I pay taxes and am subject to immigration laws a lot longer than a person born anywhere else, I don't see why I can't complain about a law that reflects nativist compromises of the Civil Rights act.
And well by time off, I didn't mean a sabbatical, just the ability to quit my job and not have to leave the country as a result.
> Given that I pay taxes and am subject to immigration laws a lot longer than a person born anywhere else
So? The United States or [Insert country] is under no obligation whatsoever to afford special treatment since a foreigner pays the same taxes like the rest. I'm an Indian citizen and I did a quick search for work visas in India. A foreigner pays the same taxes as an Indian citizen in India[0] and isn't given special privileges when it comes to immigration laws.
> I don't see why I can't complain about a law that reflects nativist compromises of the Civil Rights act.
Source? How does the gc allocation compromise the Civil rights act?
The gc allocation is 7% per country[1]. If you fall in a country (like me India) where the number of applicants outstrip the 7% quota per year, you're out of luck. How is that compromising the Civil rights act?
Here's my take: I can keep complaining and waste my time and brain cycles over this. I don't have any voting power on this issue; all I have is a modest amount of talent and more importantly the drive and the persistence which I would like to use to further my career and make smart decisions. Personally for me, the immigration laws aren't as debilitating as people make them out to be.
Complaining (including to those responsible for the policy) is obviously an option, one protected by the First Amendment. (Which applies to "the people", not merely citizens.)
Whether it is a productive course of action is, of course, potentially a very different story.
Time off is not the only consideration. In a good economy, companies might be queueing up to transfer your H1 visa. In a bad economy (post 2001/2008 recession), if you are looking for a new job, the pickings would be very slim indeed.
Doesn't have to work that way. I am Indian myself but my wife is from a different country (which does not wait times). So the green card was mutually beneficial. Was employment based through my work but was able to use her country of origin.
Just food for thought though not suggesting any course of action. We married for love and found out about about this little pleasant twist later.
> One is denying the right of people born in the U.S. with parents that are citizens.
Umm, no. You are mistaken. Racial criteria also applied to naturalized citizenship aspirants. Today, once you have a green card, irrespective of where you were born, it takes you 5 or so years to get your citizenship. So, person of white ethnicity born in Switzerland and a non-white person born in India would have the same wait and the same criteria for citizenship. This was not possible before the INA act of 1965 (and other civil rights acts).
Although the per country limits hit India and Chinese born beneficiaries in employment based preference categories the worst, there is also a waiting list for Filipinos in employment based third and other workers. In the family based categories, Mexicans and Filipinos generally have the longest waits, with Mexican family first preference (i.e. unmarried children of US citizens) in December 1994 and Filipino fourth preference (i.e. siblings of US citizens) in June 1992 vs. 2008 and 2003 for those categories generally.
Right! There is one across-the-board solution that occurs to me, let's say, the US has an overall cap of 40,000 for employment based preference category, 2800 each are max caps for Indians and Chinese. Because of the 7% quota, I would expect at least some, let's say, M of the 40,000 are left unclaimed. So why can't they take M unfulfilled slots and redistribute that to clear the China/India backlog?
You can think of the same for EB3, and family petitions too. This would be more equitable than 7% quotas.
Edit: I did back of the envelope calculations based on this data: http://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms... For the last year, there are about 120k applications approved, while 140k is the limit. At the end of the year, the remaining 20k can be split up among people in the queue. This can be made even fairer if you aggregate it over two years, and then tie the number of immigrants to the inflation rate. I estimate it would shave off at least 3-5 years from the current wait times for EB petitions. It can even be tied to the percentage of the country's population that got an H1B. There are some more trends here: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R42048.pdf
On the current visa bulletin it lists a backlog for EB-3 all other chargeability. Because unused numbers flow from fourth and fifth to first to second to third (but not other workers which are capped), if there is a waiting list for EB-3 that means there likely won't be any extra numbers in the whole employment based category this year. Not a bad idea if there were though.
If it were up to me I would eliminate the DV lottery (50k visas) and reassign those numbers to EB as well as eliminating the per country caps. F-2B (26k) and F-4 (65k) are also ripe for elimination IMO. I'd probably also move parents of USC to F-1 from IR.
> the US for 6 years, a person has to wait another 10 years to reap the benefits of permanent residency simply because they were born in a particular country is morally indefensible
When phrased that way, sure it feels that way.
But it's not because you are born in a specific country, it's because your country of origin has a lot of people who are attempting to immigrate to the US, and each country is capped.
Imagine if they lifted that policy, then countries like Mexico, India, China would lock out pretty much any other country from immigrating to the US. Add in the Amnesty program for undocumented workers, and you could imagine that nearest neighbors to the US would lock everyone else out.
So instead of penalizing Indians (in this case), you've now penalized everyone else.
What system, given a fixed number of applicants, would not apply some sort of penalty by proxy?
Contrast that to pre-1960's where laws SPECIFICALLY targeted blacks american citizens.
The US has no moral requirement to treat non-us citizens 100% the same as it does it's citizens. Yes they have perhaps lived in the US for 6 years, and paid US Taxes. They have also enjoyed a certain level of comfort afforded them, that they presumably would not have had in their native country.
Both India and China have a lot of diversity and are home to 40% of humanity. A fairer immigration system WOULD see a lot more Indians and Chinese.
If this is defensible, then racial quotas in schools (e.g., capping proportion of Jews) are also defensible by using the same logic as "you're now penalizing everyone else."
I'd rather have US as the home of the best and the brightest, not based on whether your parents were born in Mongolia or 100 miles away in Inner Mongolia that happens to be in China.
Sorry, can't really see how the moral argument works.
> Both India and China have a lot of diversity and are home to 40% of humanity. A fairer immigration system WOULD see a lot more Indians and Chinese.
However, you've then penalized someone born in in Mongolia, simply because they come from a less populous country, vs the opposite that is happening now.
I'm not claiming there is a moral argument to be made: the way the US residency program is implemented is neither moral or immoral.
> I'd rather have US as the home of the best and the brightest, not based on whether your parents were born in Mongolia or 100 miles away in Inner Mongolia that happens to be in China.
How do you qualify "best" & "brightest?" I'm a 1st generation US Citizen (of Indian decent). Both my parents immigrated here. My dad was drafted for Vietnam and then continued to serve in the US Army for 20 years, and my mom was a lunch lady. My parents don't have CS degrees, and instead worked blue collar jobs to make sure we could have a better life than they did.
> Imagine if they lifted that policy, then countries like Mexico, India, China would lock out pretty much any other country from immigrating to the US. Add in the Amnesty program for undocumented workers, and you could imagine that nearest neighbors to the US would lock everyone else out.
You are assuming that they will lock-out without supporting with real data. Already 30% of H1Bs are taken by Indians, and a good percentage of family based immigration is from Mexico.
India and China make up around 35% of the world's population. A uniformly drawn sample of immigrants from across the world would consist of 35% Indians and Chinese. Further, Mexico is America's neighbor, and the two countries share a lot of history.
The number of Indians has grown from 1.7 million in 2000 to 2.8 million in 2010 in spite of the caps. The numbers are not magically going to explode, most of the people who're in the green card queue will likely duke it out and become citizens in due time. Their children will likely stay in the US too. So, I don't see how the caps are limiting or democratizing the process. You don't have caps at H1B, you don't have caps for citizenship. Only the in-between stage of permanent residency, caps exist. That already makes it an ineffective tool in un-biasing the skew.
If I understood your original point correctly, it was that having country-limits for US residency was morally questionable, and tantamount to jim-crow era laws against Blacks in America.
Presumably because if you are an guest worker in the US, and of Indian citizenship, you would have a longer wait time, than if you were say from Bhutan. I classify this as a penalization by proxy.
I pointed out that if you lifted the per-country cap, you haven't solved this penalization by proxy. Even with caps based on world population, you still have a penalty applied.
I'm curious, how long is the lock-in for people from "rest of the world" category for H1B to green card process? It looks like there's almost no backlog these days.
From December visa bulletin.
For India
EB3- The priority date for applying for the final phase of Green card is 22APR04. So only people with a date prior to this would be eligible to apply.
For EB2 India - 01JUN07
For China,
EB3 - 15APR12
EB2 - 01FEB12.
Interestingly enough EB1 is current for all countries and is the most abused Employment based visa category. HR /Manager types with an MBA and experience from India eligible to apply for EB1(C) and they get visas in 3 months.
Currently, there is almost no delay for the rest of the world outside India, Mainland China and The Philippines – by the time the PERM request is approved (which in itself takes at least six months,) there should be a green card visa number ready.
Assuming no complications, the full process from LCA to a status change could take as little as a year (but 18-24 months would be a more realistic estimate).
Which chart? And the person above was talking about how few employers will go through the green card process, that page appears to be about H1B approvals, which is outside the scope of what they said.
It doesn't distribute them to different employers, it distributes them to different countries. Not the same thing at all.
There's no reason at all to think that anything would change in terms of the H1B Vs. employer relationship if that legislation would pass. We'd just have different nationalities in the same situation we do now.
Concentrating the delays and therefore the abuse to two countries created the IT outsourcing monsters you have now(search for TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant...) . Distributing the delays would therefore create smaller companies with a more diverse workforce and therefore would level out the H1B wage gap. Think of disrupting the status quo..
That bill does not increase the number of employment-based immigrant visas/greencards -- it just eliminates the 7% per-country limit. In my opinion, it's a poor piece of legislation. The I-Square Act does a much better job at improving the terrible skilled immigration system: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s153
The best bill so far that Congress has introduced in the last ten years was S. 744 (113th Congress), which passed the Senate, but was blocked by then House Speaker Boehner (despite majority support in the House) under pressure from some racist and xenophobic far-right republicans: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s744
> To start with GC wage levels are much higher than H1B levels.
And that exactly defines the problem and why US citizens, in general, hate the H1-B program.
The solution to the H1-B program is to transition H1-B's to green cards in 12 months. The company sponsoring the H1-B is responsible executing the paperwork, background checks, and posting a bond to fund the spot checks, investigations, etc.
H1-B sponsors will drop through the floor. However, companies that genuinely want the specific person will continue to be just fine.
This will cause "labor abandonment" and put more pressure on the economy. Here is an example --- a company uses a worked for just 1-2 years, sponsors his green card and then fires him. Now if he cannot find a job then if he were on the previous H1B, then he will have to leave the US. However, now, he can stay without a job with no risk of removal, which means he is a liability to the country.
I'm sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, the Green Card sponsorship process is way more involved (AFAICT) and with much longer time-to-completion. I'd personally find it hard to believe that a startup would be able to take you through the whole process, given the probability they're out of business within a year or so.
Similarly, once you start the Green Card process with an employer, you aren't likely to go through with an H1-B transfer. It's a broken system...
That's totally how they do it. The whole thing is abusive as heck, but for a lot of H1Bs it is still their best chance at a better life.
Fortunately a lot of H1Bs wind up getting change of status another way (e.g. getting married). But for those that don't, it must feel like they're in bonded labor to that employer.
I read through the article and I wouldn't refer to their approach as 'gaming' the H-1B system. People who are on H1-B tend not to leave their companies for 2 main reasons
1) They've entered into some agreements where they agree to pay the company some big penalty if they leave. This is clearly illegal but still happens. So, the employee knows he/she can do a job transfer but the penalty holds them back. Some of them might be advised to seek a lawyer but they worry about the expense involved. Bottom line is they are scared to move because of this.
2) The person has started the Green Card Process and does not wish to 'go back to the end of the line' which happens if they switch jobs unless they have gotten to the final stage of the Green Card Process and have waited for 180 days with no decision taken on their application.
Whole H1B system is essentially modern form of slavery. I've seen people becoming multi-millionaires exploiting this slavery system. Companies in India have amassed massive revenues exploiting the same. The way it works is you put advertise in newspaper for minimum expected wage for tech worker. Then you buy a genius 3rd world tech worker and sell him/her to clients for approximately twice that rate. Then you put significant chunk of income which was supposed to be all theirs in to your pocket. Even if you managed to sell only 10 tech workers you will be minting close to million dollars a year for absolutely doing nothing but the initial paper work. Companies like TCS, Wipro etc typically have 100s thousands of such workers for sell. The reason this is slavery is because your ability to negotiate your wages is extremely limited. Sure, you can transfer your H1B but companies which accommodates such transfer is few and far between because of cost and legal people they have to keep on their staff. Most startups are immediately out of question for employment, for example. Further, if your H1B is coupled with green card application then it puts further friction in changing jobs.
So in effect, H1B is just glorified tech slavery. The way to fix this system would be to allow H1B workers to apply anywhere they want without effecting other processes such as green cards. This would immediately not only stop slave labor but also bring wage parity to market.
Using the term slavery for describing a highly paid white collar job is doing disservice to the descendants of slaves. Let's not get too far with the terminology.
Easily switch jobs in the US? No.
Move back to their "home" countries? Yes.
H1B is/can be used as a form of leverage to limit the mobility of workers, and potential other forms of employer abuse. That is unfortunate, and it's clear the H1B system is broken.
All people living in the same region should obviously have the same rights. They pay taxes like everybody else so of course they should get equal representation as well.
Yes of course. You can't become President unless the masses vote for you. That's democracy. As for classified info, there are background checks for that. No reason to presuppose people who grew up in a different country automatically have ulterior motives.
Sure, may be it's not as bad as slave trade of 17th century. But imagine this for a bit: You need employment to pay your bill. What if the law allows you to work for only one certain company and you have no ability to negotiate your salary or get another job or ask for promotion for most of your productive years of your life. What would you call that?
So, if I understand this correctly, they're essentially casting the H1Bs as commodities? "Purchasing" them for X salary, and then "selling" them for x + y salary?
If this characterization is correct, isn't this essentially what a typical staffing company does? That is, put a worker in a position at a third party company as a temp paying them x salary, then collecting from the client third party company x + y salary. With the only difference being in this case that the person placed comes from another country on an H1B.
(1) The laws are designed to eliminate choice and freedom to pursue other jobs for the people being placed.
(2) "Staffer" company is able to take their 50% or more cut from their salary for entire decade or more every single month.
Imagine if you were running staffer company with this business model where law says that workers can't leave the job you placed them and you get to pocket major part of their income for decade or more.
Technically sure they can leave your employment but practically they can't because they still get paid bit better than their home country although much less than prevalent wages in US even after staffer takes his 50% cut.
Yes, this is indeed what a typical staffing company does -- except citizens at staffing companies can jump ship anytime when a better opportunity comes their way. H1Bs, while not shackled, have a lot of tethers to their current employer which makes switching very difficult. Their lightly-tied handcuffs also make it very difficult to find better jobs/salaries/negotiate and result in holding wages down.
I love your conclusion (Make it for H1B workers to shop for or switch jobs), but I can't agree with calling this slavery or even indentured servitude because it frankly isn't. That sort of talk makes you come off as hyperbolic and people will use it to discredit your otherwise valid conclusion.
I think it's important to emphasize that rigged immigration systems like this hurt Americans and immigrants alike. There's no reason blue blooded Americans and immigrants shouldn't be united on this. Immigrants don't want to come here to be treated like a second class and we don't want to have to compete with exploited workers.
I've applied for H1B in the past, knowing everything one should know about it beforehand. Either my choice was idiotic, or being a slave in the US is better than being free in my home country (Poland). </irony>
While I agree that H1B is a stupid system, for everybody, I also think you should be more careful with your choice of words. Saying H1B is slavery is like comparing US police brutality cases to Nazism.
This assumes that the H1B's filed by the outsourcing companies are engineers your startup would want to hire. Unfortunately thats not true, most good quality engineers are almost never employed by these outsourcing firms. The general nature of their work also is mostly maintenance based , and it tends to attract bottom of the barrel 'engineers' who often couldn't find any other job. I am skeptical whether any of these 'engineers' would pass the interview gauntlet at many startups.
This is why we think there's an opportunity for us (Triplebyte). Smaller companies have to focus their recruiting on pools with a high expected ROI (top technology companies/schools/etc). We're specializing in identifying talent without using any of the the usual signals (we do our technical interviews without looking at resumes). We can focus on pools of talent that other companies might not consider because they expect the majority of candidates wouldn't be a good fit.
Also in this particular case, I fundamentally believe there are a number of talented engineers working at these outsourcing companies because it was their only option and they're too afraid to move.
IANAL, but you can apply for a transfer without the original employer knowledge, and once that transfer is approved, then the previous employer can do nothing about that.
This is why they should keep resumes on file for H1Bs. The major reason they are poorly qualified is because they lie on their resumes.
My friends brother is 24 and has listed 5 years of experience on his resume even though he has none. Now he is working for a major bank in critical financial infrastructure.
I believe there're still some talented engineer in outsourcing company. There outsourcing team doing our code testing has couple pretty good people and we actually considered to hire them to work for us directly. But yes I agree most engineers in those company are not capable to do the work a hot startup is dealing with. In the end, the majority of talented and highly educated foreign engineers who probably has a top US college degree are still betting their career on a stupid lottery.
I doubt it. You'll wind up with people who studied engineering because their parents made them do it and because it pays well, not because they enjoy it or they're particularly good at it.
I transferred H1-B multiple times and here is my take on this:
This can solve some problems but not all. Some things to think about:
- For example, if you go work for outsourcing company that pays only when there is work to be done (this is illegal by the way) then as soon as you try to transfer visa, you will be kicked out of US and company will be in trouble. The reason for this is that when you transfer visa they require you to provide pay stubs for at least trailing 3 months. If these pay stubs don't add up to what you were suppose to get paid, you and the company will be in trouble.
- Early stage StartUps will generally pass costs and co-ordination of getting green card on you.
- More problems will come when you try to apply for green card. Transparency in salary is not something startups like so management will be reluctant to advertise your salary publicly which is mandatory during the process (postings around the office, outside the building, newspapers, company website, etc).
It is not legal for the employee to bear the costs of the green card. Yes, there will be some coordination work with collecting documentation, medicals, etc.
Triplebyte also seems mistaken about how the H1B transfer works:
"If you're working on a H-1B at one of these outsourcing companies, apply to Triplebyte and we'll cover all the costs of transferring your H-1B."
>It is not legal for the employee to bear the costs of the green card.
Can you help clarify this? The three stages I'm aware of to obtain permanent residence in the United States are:
1) PERM (Department of Labour certification)
2) I-140
3) I-485
The PERM is (always?) undertaken and paid for by the employer. The I-140 is also sponsored by the employer, so should be paid by the employer. But the I-485 (the actual green card application) does not have to be paid by the employer. If you submit I-485 forms for your family members, those also do not need to be paid by the employer.
This is separate from attorney fees (if any) to obtain the I-485 for you or your family.
Disclaimer: IANAL, but I basically went through this process (minus the PERM).
> Also companies have to advertise your salary publicly (at least around the office) for H1B.
What, really? Sorry I don't really know anything about H1B but when you say advertise does this mean it needs to be on like a bulletin board or something? Or does this mean it simply needs to be available for anyone who asks? Also, why does it need to be public?
There's probably a hidden benefit to this - it forces some tough questions to be asked if you find out your boss is hiring people from other countries and paying them substantially more than everyone else.
It has to be posted in 2 visible places in the place of work (typically a bulletin board). I believe the rationale behind this is to allow other employees to ask about applying for the job.
As people below mentioned, it is anonymized and typically shows the salary range and the job classification.
This is correct, it needs to be posted publicly around the office (both salary and job description). It's anonymized in that it does not have the name of the employee, but if you're one of the few around the office on an H1B ...
This is true but, fwiw, they do not necessarily keep up-to-date. I'm 4 years into a H-1B, and the amount showing on the database-scraping sites (see sibling comment), is the amount I was offered on day 1.
If you as an employee take action for not being paid while on H1B status, you are more or less OK. This step includes filing for a DOL complaint and adding copy of that complaint as the H1B transfer.
This is an interesting idea. H1B visas are entirely transferrable, but some employees never find that out (the shady outsourcing companies aren't exactly incentivised to point it out). That said, whenever I've transferred my H1B my future employer has been paying for it - if they didn't, I'd be suspicious about how committed they really are. So, if Triplebyte (a hiring agency) pays it instead of the employer then, sure, go crazy. But it doesn't make a huge difference to me.
That said, I can see opportunity for a hiring agency that is knowledgable about the H1B process and could even refer lawyers to companies. Many new startups have no idea what they're doing, and are turned off from employing people on H1Bs because of it.
We do indeed refer lawyers to companies, in particular ones who have filed a number of these petitions for YC startups in the past so we know they're good.
I sort of like this except startups typically pay below market salaries which is sort of against the spirit of the H1-B visa right? And if the startups aren't paying below market salaries then why do they need H1-Bs?
Suppose I am an SF based startup and I get a candidate from triplebyte that is on H1-B and is paid 66k by a body shop as a Level 1 Computer Programmer [0] but she is obviously talented and got taken advantage of by the body shop. Is it legal/ethical for me to still pay her ~66k if it seems like she really should be a Level 4 Systems Software Developer[1] at 138k?
Paying below-market salaries is illegal. The visa has a minimum wage that is defined by your position (developer, designer, etc.). Edit: Of course, one could argue that the wage tables used by the government aren't "market".
Even if that was fair for a level 1 computer programmer, (which it isn't) - part of your negotiation process is slotting you in to the title that pays what you want;
I currently have the label SysAdmin, but you could easily call me a programmer, a systems engineer or a devops engineer, because my job role includes all those things.
(As an aside, sysadmin is the lowest-paid of all of those titles, which suggests that I could get a raise by finding an employer willing to call my role something more expensive.)
To be honest I haven't heard of H1-B candidates negotiating what the prevailing wage will be on their LCA and I'd be surprised if even a handful of employers negotiated on that. But you made my point for me. Your employer could have put you at the higher pay scale but didn't and in fact put you on the lowest of several options. This is the way the system was designed to work.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I was pointing out that there is a lot of effort put into gaming what exactly "market rate" means for any job. A lot of effort put into preventing workers from knowing what other workers make even outside of any government program; It's an adversarial negotiation.
The rule that H1B workers get paid the prevailing wage is... quite difficult to verify or enforce.
My own (completely anecdotal and subjective) experience is that the H1B workers I've known well enough to exchange salary data were either way better than me technically, or they were getting paid way less than I was. My impression is that foreigners (esp. foreigners from lower cost-of-living countries) get paid less for the same skill.
Its a myth that H1b visa employees are not paid in par with local employees and are hired solely to save/cut costs, you cannot make that allegation without data that shows the wage gap between H1 vs non H1 workers, keeping all other factors same. Yes some outsourcing companies do pay less, but that's not the industry norm, most companies that hire H1b visa holders as direct employees (as opposed to contracting them from outsourced firms) pay them on par with existing employees if not better.I am a H1b employee from past 7 years and I have always been paid the same as rest of the employees doing that kind of work and was hired for being best amongst those who interviewed for the position and not because I was any cheaper than the next guy who interviewed.
PS: edited to correct a typo.
I didn't make that allegation, but studies have shown that H1-Bs are underpaid compared to their peers [0][1][2](however I'm positive employers are paying them legally based on the prevailing wage data they've chosen to use to describe the visa holders skills). Plus in simple supply demand economics it's obvious, at least to me.
A major reason my previous employer hired H1s was their inability to easily change jobs. This provided stability to the company. It also provided the H1 workers near-zero ability to quickly jump at opportunities, change jobs, negotiate salary, get raises or anything that typical free agents can do. You basically got to freeze someone's salary for 5 to 8 years.
Not sure if they are paying below market salaries. H-1B households are restricted to a single income. They could be paying below average market salaries, but 66k won't fly in the bay area. I haven't seen to many software engineers living under the bridges.
Disclaimer: the single income restriction is why I fought to get a L-1 visa instead.
Still true. H4 EAD falls into very specific categories, both are listed by the link. Either post I-140 which is 2/3 to a GC or beyond 6 years which is quite specific.
Yup, but with a big caveat. Not everybody on H4 qualifies for an EAD. The H1B holder should have gotten his or her i40 application approved. So OP's comment still is very much valid.
I sort of like this except startups typically pay below market salaries
Do they? Ones that rely heavily on equity might (and I don't think you can count equity in such situations) but the tech sector is so full of money these days that I don't think developers are paid below market at all.
It tries to hurt the big outsourcing companies, but unless it manages to transfer (tens of) thousands of engineers each year they just won't notice it...
Also, very often a company needs someone qualified and found a particular candidate they want and tries to apply for him.
I'm not sure how taking one of the many low qualified "engineer" coming with these outsourcing companies would fit the need here.
We do full technical interviews with applicants and at this point, we have a pretty solid dataset on how to calibrate them and would be confident any engineers we're working with have the skills startups are looking for.
Our goal isn't to directly hurt the outsourcing companies, it's to help talented engineers find work they enjoy and not be held back by visa fears. Even doing that for a few people would be worthwhile.
I would not call low qualified engineers, by there is a lot of mismatch. For eg. more and more H1Bs look like App based like SAP, Oracle, Business Intelligence etc. kind of skills set. There are some Application General purpose programmers and far few System level programmers. H1-B (in Outsourcing shops) talent pool is not such a Gold mine when you take into account the kind of skill-set needed for start-ups. Its a needle in the hay-stack situation. But some companies and some talent may very well benefit from this but not at a scale that would change the dynamics.
This is pretty interesting. One thing I've seen happen with H-1B employees is that they feel trapped as a consequence of being sponsored by their employer. If this enables those 'trapped' individuals to more easily switch jobs, then it won't matter as much that the big companies are gaming the lottery.
Is it the lottery in the literal sense? I.e. are applicants who match the requirements and wanted by employers are randomly selected just as the DV lottery winners are?
Yes. There are two lotteries: one exclusively for people with US Masters or PhD degrees (20000 winners) and one for the rest. If you do have a US advanced degree and don't win the first lottery, you have one more chance in the wider applicant pool.
Yes. And, as alluded to in the article, one of the things the body-shops do to game the system is flood as many applications as possible, knowing that they won't get all of them and not caring which ones they do or don't get.
Perhaps the petition fee should be non-refundable for H1B dependent employers.
No. If you are talking about the H1B lottery, the applications are of a candidate-company-position. When there are too many applications, there is a lottery to select applications that will be examined. After examination, your application can be selected or denied (or they ask for more information). If you are selected, then you are going to work for the company-position of your application. If you pay for the premium process service, the answer of the examination is faster.
I think it was mentioned before by someone else, but I'll just repeat it because it bears repeating: H-1B visas should not go by lottery, but by descending order of salary. At a high enough price, it's cheaper to hire an American... ;-)
First, there are other categories a brilliant scientist could use. The O visas are set up for this type of person. Second, if brilliant, non-tech scientists aren't getting as high a wage as a code monkey then can you really say there is a shortage of non-tech scientists? One of the main justifications of the H1B program is that it fills a shortage. If there is a real talent shortage then wages should increase as the supply of available workers dwindles. Allocating visas based on wage is a rough attempt to identify the biggest shortages and fill them. It also helps address the criticism that H1B visas are used to drive down wages.
Understanding the mindset of people who are working at these giant corporations mainly TCS, Infosys, Tech Mahindra and Wipro is important if this plan has to be successful. Many of my friends work at these companies and have been to US to work onsite with clients. When I asked them why they don’t look for another job in US, their take was that they don’t want to settle in US. They have their family, friends in India and they just want to make their “money” and return home. They don’t consider themselves “cheap labor” as the article states because they do save a lot of money as compared to what they were making in India. They also don’t want to take a risk of branching out and working at a startup unless its a big name. Which is understandable, very few of them have worked at startups and with most startups failing they don’t want to take the risk of finding another job or going back to India empty handed. Unless they have studied in US and did a couple of part time jobs or internships in US its tough to convince someone to be a part of your startup. That said, I will love for this idea to be successful. Good luck!
"Tech labor shortage" is not a clear-cut black-and-white issue. The market is not fully elastic to easily use terms such as 'shortage', etc.
Say, you need to build a team of 5 machine learning scientist with specific experience in image recognition, there may be 100 people in the country specializing in this field, and perhaps 10 of them are the job market, and 7 are international citizens. Then you have a serious case of shortage, and face the possibility of losing the project/business/market to a company in Israel, India, or China that has the requisite staff or to a company in Canada or Australia, where immigration laws are more sensible.
At the same time, there may be no shortage for generally skilled engineers fresh out of college.
Are you saying high tech is not really affected by supply and demand like other industries?
Many industries claim they need special laws.
How is Silicon Valley different than any other business?
Ha ha.
The Ycombo super moderator came by and "voted" down every anti special guest worker subsidy post on this page.
Two to three down hits every post.
Thanks for the thoughtful contribution to the debate !
I think it is reasonable to assume that only a percentage of the experts will be willing to quit their job and move to a new one. People have all sorts of reasons to stick to current jobs!
Everyone has a price... If there are experts out there that fit your need but you can't attract them because you aren't paying enough then you should increase your offer. Supply will meet demand.
Businesses don't have infinite resources to hire workers, and most workers old enough to truly be experts are not going to relocate easily. 1x, 2x, even 3x market wages won't be enough to move someone that's already earning a comfortable wage, likes their job, and has roots (a home, a spouse that likes their job, children in school, family nearby) in their current community. No single digit multiple of market wages would get me to move to Silicon Valley, let alone the middle of West Virginia.
Luckily, you are just one person. Here, we're speaking about an entire market. And yes, 2x and 3x market wages would absolutely cause major shifts in labor. Even < 2x market wages would accomplish this. It already happens the other way, 1.5x and 2x market wage multiples drive flow of skilled engineers from California to Wall Street.
For one thing...the pay is often too low. Qualified individuals may be on the market, but not on the tech market. Same reason why so many Physics PhDs who can program C++ in their sleep choose to go to Wall St instead of Silicon Valley. Labor sits on the periphery but wont dive in unless they get market pay.
That is the central debate isnt it? The market fix is to increase wages until "shortages" disappear. The disingenuous fix is to claim there is a "shortage" and import workers to broaden the supply. That is great for hard-working foreign workers, but sucks for the domestic graduate pool that has a higher standard of living -- most Americans simply will not raise a family in a shared 2br apartment -- while that is common for immigrants. So they will instead seek better pay in other industries.
This is all fine, but it is disingenuous to claim shortages when the real problem is a refusal to pay market wages.
As far as i know, most of the outsourcing companies have a contract with the employee that will make the employee pay a huge fine if he quits them after moving to the US. I'm not sure about the legality of this, but a lot of companies enforce this somehow.
(source: i'm indian and i have a lot of friends who moved here on a H1B through the 'outsourcing' companies).
This is not 'Gaming' for benefit of better talent over good or bad. This is simply 'Transfer' and everyone who has an approved H1B knows that transfer is an option. So this is an advertorial which simply says you transfer your H1B to us and we will get you a contract somewhere, regardless of your talent.
No, but it helps create a market for what is essentially a very valuable good that was being farmed by giant body shops. The underlying system is flawed but I doubt the us congress will ever pass a sensible immigration bill so workarounds like these are as good as it gets for now.
Actually the giant bodyshops don't prevent people from transferring. It is the tiny body shops that are operated illegally here in the US that try and do this.
I've worked at one big body shop and know for a fact that the H1B via is considered a gateway to come onsite. Many employees can and do choose to then transfer to other companies.
What triplebyte is doing is not helping the cause at all. Big companies don't care about people transferring. They'll just file for more visas. This is actually hurting than helping.
Moving to a startup when under H-1B could be a very risky and possibly disastrous choice.
If those are companies that are illiterate on the most basic things, such the difference between an H-1B application and a transfer then there's a good chance they will fuck it up on the important parts.
Important things like H-1B renewal schedule, green card sponsorship, visa renewal expenses and so on.
You change jobs and the next thing you know is that you're stuck in the USA for up to 6 months because one of the overworked founders didn't apply for the renewal early enough.
The above is an easily manageable one compared to all the horror scenarios that a mismanaged H-1B immigration can be.
So is this a program that makes it easier for people to change jobs after coming to the US on an H1B? Doesn't sounds like they're gaming anything, but it does sound like something that's sorely needed.
As and aside, with all the offtopic comments going one: while the H1B program is definitely flawed I think it's amazing that no one stops to consider the ethics of draining the 3rd world of its talent.
If there are all these amazing talented programmers in India or wherever, then maybe YC should open an office there
I think triplebyte act as a standard recruiter in this case. Eg Dave moves from UK to US on a H1b woring for some body shop. Dave then applies to triplebyte saying "yo, I hate this gig, get me out". Triplebyte then shops his CV around to startups looking for people like Dave and once a match is found they take their usual 10-30% first year salary as fee, which should more than cover any H1B admin. At no point is Dave employed by triplebyte.
They wouldn't be transferred to us or spend any time unemployed. Once someone goes through our process, we become their advocate and find them startups they'd be a good match for. They don't have to leave their employer until they've found one willing to hire them, at which point they can begin the transfer process.
I understand what they are attempting, but I guess I was more intrigued by the "gaming" part. Was hoping they found some loophole, but its not very interesting if they are acting as regular recruiters.
Does Triplebyte do TN visas? They're almost trivially simple to do, so the candidate could take care of it themselves without any help from the sponsoring company.
Careful about TN though. The T in TN is temporary, so it prevents you from applying for say a Greencard or an H1-B (which are attempts to be not temporary).
Disclaimer: IANAL but I recently looked into a lot of this.
TN allows for 3 years per visa and unlimited visa renewals, so as long as you demonstrate that you aren't trying to gain citizenship, the US embassy shouldn't mind.
As a Canadian, I have no interest in becoming a US citizen. On a TN visa you can open bank accounts (including investment), buy cars and real estate and do everything other than start a company. It's incredibly convenient and painless compared to an H1-B.
Most people gunning for H1-Bs want to become US Citizens. Canadians have no such need, we just want to work in the US legally and be able to buy stuff and make investments, all of which you can do easily on a TN.
That's BS. TN doesn't help Canadians with family. Also US CBP can always terminate your TN visa on the border if they "think" you are abusing. H-1B is safer for that reason.
Well, it's not really a law, but attorney has suggested that CBP normally don't terminate H-1B at border vs TN as H-1B does have a dual intent, so they can't just say you have an "immigration intention" to deny your visa at border.
Yup, after a few visits back home US immigration officers have asked me variations on if I was planning on returning to Canada. Regardless of my feelings or intent, the answer is "yes, I plan on returning", especially when a guard is explicitly trying to catch you with intent to immigrate.
This is my life story in US till now. My H1B visa was applied thru one of the biggest Indian consulting companies and I started working in Kansas. The project was awesome and I loved the work and our team was programming for the connected cars. We were paid peanuts by our employer around 62K which was the bare minimum mandated by LCA in Kansas location. But I didn't care about the peanuts they were giving me , I loved the project and my client. We were doing something cool which wasn't CRUD ;)
During that time , I got promoted and my salary increased by 200$/month. At the same time , another vendor took over our project. So the resource management people from my employer called me and told "Since you are earning more salary ( 62K + 200$/month ) , you are not eligible for any other job location as per the company policy and you have to go back to India. So book your tickets & get ready to fly back !
The amount of depression I had to face was immense. It was December in Kansas and it was very cold. I remember smoking 2 packs of cigarettes inside my apartment every day. I had a used car which was under loan from DCU. My apartment lease had 5-6 months left. I was in total jeopardy thinking what to do. Thank god I was not married & had kids going to school, because pulling kids out of school and flying them back to India , making them adjust to the environment back in India would have been a nightmare. Kids will have had a huge culture shock.
Still, being a bachelor, I felt very bad. But I put myself together and started applying for companies thru linkedin and indeed. Two companies responded and I went thru many levels of interview ( I already had flight tickets booked, my bags almost packed and gave power of attorney to my friend to sell the car and settle the loan ). With all those things happening in the background , I cleared the interview for both of the companies for full time employment. I had to fly to company locations for face to face.
( Both companies arranged the travel & stay )
Both companies were ready to transfer my H1B visa. I chose the big financial services company thinking about my job security as an H1B worker. Here comes the catch ! They were not ready to negotiate the salary. They are no small company ( It is the top financial services company)
The HR knew very well knew that I was on H1B and the stupid me told them that I desperately need to transfer my visa , since my Indian employer told me to go back to India. So they took advantage of the situation and were not willing to negotiate. I had to settle with 80K/year with the big financial services company and they transferred my visa in premium & I resigned from the Indian employer. It was either take it or leave situation and I had no other choice but to accept the offer.
To summarise , I am no low skilled worker and I cleared the interviews very well. I am well qualified and good at my programming skills. The American counterparts in my office earn more than me ( ~120K ) for the same skillset and work that I do. So how did I ended up like this ? Just because of this broken immigration system. I had to transfer my visa without negotiating my salary because of my situation and the rule that I will be out of status from the very next day my employer stops my payroll.
" I was the victim of this broken immigration system of US ". My situation is one of the examples of how employers abuse H1B workers.
I am getting married in Jan 2016, so I will stay with my current employer which took advantage of my situation. And hey my future wife can't work on H4 !. She recently resigned her job at Oracle in India and is preparing for the wedding. I feel bad for her because now she has to sit in the apartment and watch TV wasting her productive years in US. She is a Masters degree holder in finance & has excellent communication skills in both English & French.
So what do I plan to do now ?. Since im getting married in Jan 2016, I will wait till then. Once I get married , I will switch employer and negotiate a good salary because right now I am not in that situation while I was in Kansas.
Will I wait for my greencard to be processed ( 6-7 years ) NO. Why ? I am 30 now , so it will be 38,39 when I get my freedom and that too with the ever changing rules of USCIS. I don't want to try my luck.
Will I wait for my I-140 to be approved so that my wife can work ? NO. Why ? Again I dont trust this broken immigration system.
So what am I going to do about this ? , Canadian Express Entry gives importance to skilled workers rather than the lottery system and I will get PR within 6 months. My fiance is a degree holder and will get extra points for French. So we will qualify for the PR system.
I don't want to wait in this uncertainty till I grow old to get my freedom. I rather trust Canadian Express Entry and move to Canada.
It actually is. I'm living in India at the moment, surrounded by many Koreans and Japanese people and a few people from Europe and America. Getting a permit to work was extremely straightforward for them.
I'm sure you didn't mean to sound extremely rude or ignorant, but that's what you ended up sounding like.
Its just a system, neither fair nor unfair. Designed with certain interests in my mind.
As a good software engineer you can live pretty much anywhere in world, either live with the consequences of accepting US system or move somewhere else. Over time it will get better but complaining that its not fair will not solve it.
For your mistakes, don't blame the employer. If you disclose them your needs they will take advantage. Also you were not a bonded labour while at your big financial firm you could have applied to other position and get better offers.
Startups have already been in a position of being able to do this. Basically another way to reduce the cost of engineers. After all, it's not a sustainable business unless your MBA's and management are making many multiples of the rank and file employees.....dripping sarcasm.
In general I think no visa is compatible with startups. Even a relative simple H1B transfer takes months. All work visas are linked to an employer, and this is at odds with the fluid nature of startups
There are good number of employers who have some other illegal holds on their employees. Such as bonds, compensation agreements or in some cases financial deposits
I don't know if it counts as a 'source' but tech companies in NYC/Seattle/SF pay $75,000/yr+ to 19-20 year old interns with almost no experience. And not as a rare occurrence, I had 10 offers at the same time any given term and so did most of my classmates.
Hardly sounds like they're being exploited and suffering due to a glut in supply. Either that or "exploitation" rates in the US are double the market rate in Canada/EU.
Except that you dont get to decide whether someone is being exploited at a certain salary or not. The Market Decides, that is how markets work. If you want to pay below market, usually the only way is to broaden the labor pool by importing workers. If that is your goal, then just be honest about it. Dont say "x wage is good enough."
Since you do bring up salaries though, after taxes, health premiums, co-pays, 75 will get you a shared 1br rent in SF. If that is good for you, great. Don't say it "should" be good for everyone, it isnt. We live in a market economy, so everyone needs to play by the rules, not try to justify market manipulations with "well, oh, that should be good for you."
You can't ask the government to protect your salary from foreign competition and idolize the free market in the same breath. The fair price of labor is at the intersection of supply and demand.
Absent government interference, that includes supply and competition from foreign workers who, surprise, by and large do not feel exploited making more in a year than their parents back home make in a decade.
I am absolutely fine in allowing foreign competition. But that is a decision the American people need to make, weighing the pros and cons. That cant happen when the primary banner is "Shortage." The conversation cannot be shortage, shortage, shortage. It should be honest: "we want to import more workers to reduce domestic salaries"
Of course foreign workers dont feel exploited -- if they did, they would not come here!
I started at $70k CAD in 2012 in Waterloo, ON right out of uni. Admittedly I had "2 years of experience" due to my co-op work terms while studying at UW. Counting for cost of living and exchange rate the US offer is probably still higher, but not 2x.
(That said, I've seen startups in Toronto offering $50k/year lol!)
Besides myself? No, but I work in IT at a large investment bank and about 75% of my coworkers are on these same visas and I know what most of them are making. I also know a handful of recruiters that are recruiting them, their offers are significantly lower than ours and their expectation for performance based raise is far lower than ours.
