Engineering Science - Google on H-1Bs Comments

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by T.Keating

2007-06-26T22:33:27Z

I looked your links. The distribution of job offerings is fairly pitiful..

Outside half a dozen locations.. The offerings are mostly distrubted IT operations and/or Sales.. No real intelligence needed in those locations.

Telecomuting.. (mostly low level foreign language testers.)

I'm not impressed with google's efforts.

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by Geoff Davis

2007-06-26T18:19:36Z

Google has several major campuses in the US: Mountain View, New York City, Los Angeles, Kirkland, plus presence in about a dozen other locations. They also hire telecommuters. Take a look They offer pretty generous education benefits: $8,000 in tuition reimbursement per year. Their salaries are pretty generous, and they have interesting compensation mechanisms to address the fact that their stock price is quite high. The people I know who work there don't work crazy hours.

Microsoft also has very generous compensation and benefits packages, and the hours are reasonable, at least for MSR. I'm sure you'd find similar conditions at Intel, Apple, Sun, etc, etc.

As for S&E PhDs being capable of learning to program, sure I think that's true. But here's the thing: a lot of programming is relatively straightforward to learn on one's own, and there's pretty good infrastructure in place for self-learning (lots of books, online tutorials / coursework, etc, etc). I make my living as a developer, and I've taken a grand total of one CS class in my life (an algorithms course in grad school). The same is true for a substantial fraction of the developers I know professionally. Given a choice between hiring someone who has bothered to learn to program vs. hiring someone who hasn't, why wouldn't you choose the person who already has the skills? Certainly it suggests a difference in motivation levels between the two candidates.

I think reduced willingness to hire somebody unskilled but smart is less a function of H-1Bs than one of a more mature educational infrastructure.

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by T. Keating

2007-06-26T16:52:25Z

Google fits the typical profile for a corporate abuser.

In the past.. (pre H-1B fiasco)..

1.) Employers would seek out employees from different regions of the country. This search would extend to the point of opening up branch offices in other city and states in order to find and maintain talent in those remote locations.

Note: Not everyone can justify the expense of moving to a new city and job form a 80 to 150K/yr salary. This especially rings true for the more successful people, who would take huge tax/asset hits(>200K$) in such a dislocation. (I.E. Several years of after tax earnings just to break even from such a dislocation. )

2.) Hire specialized consultants for specific rare fields that require exceptional talent needed to deliver reliable products. (Device drivers, OS guru's, Contracting, etc.)

3.) Hire and educate lessor qualified employees and/or BS/MS/PHD's from non-computer fields. (This used to be the mainstay employment mechanism for science types in our tech based society.)

Note: Most scientifically trained people are more than capable of performing a computer related programming task , if given a chance. The H-1B program has eliminated much of this activity and greatly increased chances of negative ROI's from earning a college degree.

4.) Provide telecommuting opportunities. (related to item #1)

5.) Pay a competitive wage rates, especially after a companies stock has peaked or trades in limited range.

6.) Demands unreasonable extended work hours on a consistent basis.

From what I've been reading. Google fails on all counts listed above.

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by Geoff Davis

2007-06-26T02:26:56Z

Sure, if you're smart and also happen to be rich, you're all set!

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by Geoff Davis

2007-06-26T02:25:27Z

I hear that Lou Dobbs has lost his mind when it comes to immigration issues, but that video is pretty damning. I wonder if Chao will do anything?

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by Geoff Davis

2007-06-26T01:56:05Z

I'm sure someone has thought of it - creating markets is pretty much the standard econ approach to allocating scarce resources. But I haven't ever seen the idea in any serious policy discussions. I suspect the problem is that the devil is in the details. I'd guess the system would have to be pretty simple to have any hope of passing.

I wonder if I can get any response from the Google policy people if I post some comments on their site? I don't know any of the TechNet folks, but I have exchanged an email or two with Ron Hira. I bet he'd know if anybody has ever talked about doing such a thing.

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by Mohan

2007-06-26T00:06:18Z

The point you make is interesting.... kind of like the 'Green Card Lottery' ; and instead of a lottery, have an auction, right? In a sense, the US government does provide for this... folks who can invest over a Million $s are eligible for an 'investor category' visa. The question is : how many folks, even working for Google have this spare change? ;-)

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by Ginny

2007-06-25T19:11:46Z

Good corporate citizenship and the issuance of H1B's has gotten some attention from the Congress and Lou Dobbs lately, courtesy of the Programmers Guild publicizing an immigration law firm's questionable training session on how to advertise positions so as to only hire foreign workers in leu of U.S. workers. See this link for the Immigration Attorneys' and Lou Dobbs' videos and this link for the letters this whole kafuffle has elicited from Senator Charles Grassley and Congressman Lamar Alexander to the offending law firm and Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao.

Comment on 'Google on H-1Bs' by Peter Fiske

2007-06-25T18:23:20Z

Geoff,

An auction is a great idea. One of the biggest problems with the H1-B allocation process is that it does NOT differentiate on the basis of economic value. As you noted - the costs to an employer of getting a relatively low-wage/low value H1-B and a high-value H1-B are the same under the present system. But the economic impact to the US is very different. By creating a market for H1-Bs we could differentiate these two and slew the supply toward those who have the best opportunity to contribute.

I can speak with direct experience on this. In my first company we needed only a single H1-B, but we needed her desparately. We planned on paying her well. For us, the cost of managerial time and anxiety of dealing with the current H1-B process - formulating back-up plans, uncertainty/risk were easily worth $5K.

One might have to think about some of the specifics of the market mechanism: how often should one have an auction? Weekly? Is a secondary market necessary or desirable?

I also wonder if anyone has ever thought about this sort of approach. The immigration bill is bumping along in Congress like a pair of tennis shoes in the dryer. It's not clear yet what's going to come out or whether there's any time left for innovative alternatives. Fort starters, it would be interesting to see how TechNet (Silicon Vally's lobbying arm) would view the idea...

(Surely those folks at Ebay would love it...)

Peter