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H-1B Visas Proving Lucrative For Engineers, Dev Leads
Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes Ever wanted to know how much H-1B holders make per year? Developer Swizec Teller, who is about to apply for an H-1B visa, took data from the U.S. Department of Labor and visualized it in a series of graphs that break down H-1B salaries on a state-by-state basis. Teller found that the average engineer with an H-1B makes $87,000 a year, a good deal higher than developers ($74,000) and programmers ($61,000) with the same visa. ("Don't call yourself a programmer," he half-joked on Twitter.) Architects, consultants, managers, administrators, and leads with H-1Bs can likewise expect six-figure annual salaries, depending on the state and company. Teller's site is well worth checking out for the interactive graphs, which he built with React and D3.js. The debate over H-1Bs is an emotional one for many tech pros, and research into the visa's true impact on the U.S. labor market wasn't helped by the U.S. Department of Labor's recent decision to destroy H-1B records after five years. "These are the only publicly available records for researchers to analyze on the demand by employers for H-1B visas with detail information on work locations," Neil Ruiz, who researches visa issues for The Brookings Institution, told Computerworld after the new policy was announced in late 2014.
Yeah, hey may have similar salaries to their American counterparts, but they are still indebtures servants. You can get a lot more hours out of them making their real pay (per hour) significantly lower. And of course they'll do it, or they get shipped home.
My CS professor said you can only get a CS job these days with one of them, but I can't find any information on what I have to do to get certified.
About $26k a year?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
He started on a TN visa, recruited from an engineering school in Mexico. After a year he was transitioned to an H1-B visa, where he still is.
You know, there may be unemployed citizens or green card holders with engineering degrees, but anyone as good as this employee would already be employed. He's imaginative, driven, and skilled. I wish the process to get him (and his wife, who was allowed to move here but isn't allowed to work) a green card wasn't so arduous.
The H1-B debate seems to be about "hiring Americans who need jobs over foreigners". I don't want to work with someone hired to fill a quota, whether that quota is "unemployable American who managed to get an engineering degree" or otherwise. There are plenty of engineering jobs out there for the competent, with room to spare for those who need visas.
I wonder if our American programming grads could get visas to go work in India and China. It must work both ways, right?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
And the difference between engineer and developer is.. what?
Engineers are often held personally liable for their mistakes. Tim S.
No, The real issue (I believe) is that they can't find engineers willing to work for less than other engineers (2/3rd the pay and no benefits).
I've seen when they do a postings for H1B jobs, Its tailored specifically to that person for THAT job, then its posted for just long enough to meet the legal requirement to "prove" they tried to find a qualified US engineer but nope, They didn't find any so the H1B person is kept
UPS Sucks
Everyone seems to imagine those holding H1-B visas to be from poor countries who are ready to work 12 hours a day as a slave to avoid being shipped "back to the slums."
As a Canadian, I've been offered over the years 2 separate jobs in the US with the offer to do it through a H1-B visa. Many of my ex-co-workers took up this offer at one point and have since moved to the US. I have no idea if they'll ever move back.
The salary offered through both of my offers were very competitive, and I only turned them down because I disagree with a lot of the way the US is run and prefer Canada, and the extra amount offered wasn't enough to make me want to leave.
In some fields if you want to call yourself an engineer you need a PE license, and you are incredibly liable for your work -- I've heard of people getting called in for a next day meeting after an incident with work they did 20 years before.
You do know that for a H1-B there is no posting requirement right? That's for PERM position. A person who has usually been working in the country for a few years usually with the same company. But the DOL requires that the position be advertised as a position with zero experience gained on that JOB, i.e. an entry level job.
So, let's say a company has a H1b employee whom they like. Has been working with them for 2 years. They want to retain him. DOL requires that the position be advertised with the minimum experience required. Once advertised, do you think the company wants to hire someone without the 2 years of experience and without the proven utility?
I understand it's great to go after the H1-B scape goat but, do check why the law is so screwed up for immigrants, before you are vitriolic about the H1b's and the PERMS. You are targeting the wrong category of immigrants with all the vitriol.
It's easy to curb the H1B 'problem' it was part of the immigration reform. Companies which are h1-b dependent were supposed to pay Huge costs. Never went through congress. It was very sensible reform! It would have taken out the sweat shops from India and elsewhere and preserved the intent of the H1-B visas.
Rents in Mountain View for a nice apartment run around $2500/mo. The cost of not having to commute can be high. But there are plenty of other places with relatively good BART access that will run significantly lower. They certainty don't run $7K/month unless you are renting a large house.
-Matt
Just because a law can be exploited, doesn't mean it's always exploited.
Engineers are more than just computer or electrical - they span the range from mechanical, civil, chemical, etc., Even electrical engineering has a bunch of specialities.
In fact, if you can avoid computers, there are real shortages in engineering (because everyone sees the glitz of the internet, video games, computers and goes for that.). I mean, if you want to stay close to the field, there's analog IC designers where the pay is practically 6 digits as a new grad, power engineering is similar (power utilities all over the globe can't find enough people to just replace retirements, nevermind trying to expand their systems).
Oh yeah, the math is a lot harder and you better have a good grasp of your EM equations and calculus, but the work is out there.
Just because the tech industry is known for abusing its employees (unpaid interns? that's practically a tech invention since interns in other fields, including medical, are paid. Poorly paid, perhaps, but still paid), doesn't necessarily apply to other occupations.
I suppose the biggest question is why tech employees let themselves be as mistreated as they are. (My gut says it's because most tech workers feel "superior" over the everyday Joe so they overestimate their knowledge of the world - why bother with unions and labor laws - they're for people who aren't as "smart" and employers know that.).
Hell, a workweek isn't necessarily 40 hours - it can easily be 35 (7 hrs/day) or 37.5 (7.5hrs/day) and overtime is compensated for. And this is in North America, not Europe.
Of course, there are terrible employers everywhere who do take advantage of their employees, but there are also plenty of companies where the need for H1-Bs is valid and they often will pay a premium just to get someone to fill the position (and often do anything they can to convert the to full citizen as a two way perk - to both attract someone willing to immigrate, and as a way to hang onto the employee).
Yes Martha, there ARE people who do use laws the way they were intended to be used.
No kidding, Atlanta up there does protest too much it seems.
Mostly random stuff.
Obviously you can keep increasing the salary until you'll find an American able or willing to do the job. But then that means your risk capital expenditure increases. Just about everything you put money into comes with a risk. If you own a business, there is only so much money you are able to gamble. The more risky something is, the reward potential must go up exponentially for someone to invest in it. What am I getting at, if the cost of entry to making a startup or company is high, less such companies will exist -- why would VC's dump money into it. Overall result ---> less products and innovation in the market, higher prices to consumer. So if the prices of everything goes up, how does it help the engineers with their higher salaries?
Fact is that the more engineers in the world we have, the cheaper goods we will get. I mean, what if Apple was the only company able to afford engineers? What if Samsung and non-American companies were barred from selling cell phones? Smartphones would cost an insane amount -- few people would be able to afford it.
If less people have smartphones other areas of the economy would be affected too.
And btw, why aren't there americans willing to work for $60K? I mean really, if you have an CS degree + student loan why would you choose to work at McDonald's for $20K? Now I agree that $20K is not a living wage, but $60K .. come on .. even with student loan burden of $800 a month, it's still better than $20K at McDonalds or living on welfare. The monthly payment on a $30,000 student loan (which is slightly above the average 2014 graduate's debt) is approximately $300 (assuming 6.8% interest and a 10-year repayment plan).
So basically I am supposed to believe that computer science graduates rather sit at home or work an unlivable wage at McDonalds than take a job for $60K, which more than easily covers their student debt cost?
Now for engineers, $80K is an unlivable wage? What's the livable wage for a particular degree, that you would agree there is a shortage at?
I guarantee that whatever you force wages to rise to, it will not be enough --- because the price of everything will rise correspondingly plus extra.
Education. Engineers get the engineering core education. Which is basically calculus, physics, diffEq and the first semester of all the engineering disciplines (more or less the first two years of a four year program). Only then do you start your specialized education.
Competence not guaranteed in ether case. Engineer job title means nothing.
Degree from certified engineering school is the requirement for an 'engineering' degree. 'Engineering technologist' is the weasel word version from shitty schools.
Some nations require that you pass the P.E. test (or it's local equivalent) to call yourself an engineer, some that you are qualified to take the E.I.T.
In America anybody can call themselves an Engineer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In some places it is illegal to call yourself an engineer if you isn't really one (unlike software "engineers").
There is nothing quite as useless as a dev shop with a bunch of Architects.
Frankly one is too many. Systems should be architected by very experienced (business side) analysts and senior programmers. Self important architects, especially those who haven't been through the complete life cycle a few times, are worse then useless. Never let anyone under 25 architect anything (with a possible exception for a kid that's been coding sense he was 8).
Also check the definition of engineer. 'Engineer' job title is meaningless.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Wait a second; You think Atlanta is cheap?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Don't blame the industry for a broken school system.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
He's paid the same as an American would be, so cost had nothing to do with it. Neither does his age, which doesn't matter for anyone I've hired.
He's also a pleasure to work with. As opposed to someone with your attitude, who would be fired in six months.
IT has historically had boom and bust cycles. I have no real problem with visa workers during a boom, but after the dot-com bust in the early 2000's enough didn't go home, and development jobs were hard to find on the west coast. I had to take scrappy contracts from shady agencies to survive. I think I spent more time in court trying to get my paychecks than doing actual IT work.
Table-ized A.I.
Way to spread false information. I suppose it's good in a way. Last thing we need is people who can't be bothered to verify stuff somebody tells them moving to the bay area.
Fact is, $60K is the $30K equivalent in the bay area with 45 minute rush hour commute (Caltrain or drive) to Mountain View (without roommates to share rent). Allocate $1.2K for rent in San Jose and 30% extra for all other expenses. Yeah its tough to live on that but I really want to see what you can do with $30K in Atlanta. With 120K you can be comfortable in the bay area.
It's been 17 years and nobody has managed to revive Aerith, and I'd bet a limb or 2 that there are people still attempting it today.
Who let the Reddit people in?
Take your dumb ass back to one of those jurisdictions.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Here, let me back up your point with last week's news from the LA Times:
The question then becomes, is that the type of engineer the graph is displaying? If it is pulling from job descriptions or titles then 'engineer' is pretty meaningless other than being a fancy job description that nets you more cash. If instead it is pulling from, say, certified electrical engineers, then the higher wages make sense.
The legal protection is not based off job title. As a title "engineer" has no concrete meaning, esp when it comes to software. While electrical engineers (who might be involved in tech projects) do indeed have legally special certification, 'software engineers' do not.
You are an idiot. Seriously citing wiki?
Regulations are different in Canada and the USA.
Regulated does not imply that you cannot use the title without a degree/license. That's true in Canada but not in America.
In America you cannot call a degree an engineering degree unless you are qualified to take the EIT. But any garbage man is free to call himself a garbage engineer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Relative to other major metropolitan areas it is; especially if you're married and want to live in the suburbs. There ar plenty of homes in the 2-3K range within reasonable commuting distance.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I saw an episode of house hunters.
You can buy for $100k so yes it is cheap.
http://saveie6.com/
That text was handy, because Monday morning I submitted it to Slashdot as an article, but it didn't get past the firehose to the front page.
And the difference between engineer and developer is.. what?
Engineers are often held personally liable for their mistakes. Tim S.
Only one state (Texas) regulates "Software Engineers". Software Engineering is perhaps the only Engineering field that that statement doesn't apply to except, perhaps, in Texas (but even then I doubt it). Typically "Software Engineer" is synonymous with "Software Developer".
On the other hand, a "Computer Engineer" is regulated in all states since it is a sub-field of Eletrical Engineering.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Education. Engineers get the engineering core education. Which is basically calculus, physics, diffEq and the first semester of all the engineering disciplines (more or less the first two years of a four year program). Only then do you start your specialized education.
Competence not guaranteed in ether case. Engineer job title means nothing.
Degree from certified engineering school is the requirement for an 'engineering' degree. 'Engineering technologist' is the weasel word version from shitty schools.
Some nations require that you pass the P.E. test (or it's local equivalent) to call yourself an engineer, some that you are qualified to take the E.I.T.
In America anybody can call themselves an Engineer.
Wrong. That is only the case with Software Engineeres, and even then if you are in Texas you have to pass a certification to do so.
In pretty much every other Engineering field you cannot call yourself an Engineer without first having passed the exams. Just like you can't call yourself a Lawyer (Esquire), CFA, CPA, or a number of other titles without passing the relevant exams either.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
You can work in India if you can find an employer willing to pay you the minimum wage requirements (25000 USD/yr pre-tax, perquisites not included).
Keep in mind that this sum is about right for someone with 5 to 10 years of experience, depending on domain and employer.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
One of the reasons for the high salaries is the multiple reasons H-1B workers are used. The first is what most American IT and development workers are familiar with -- lowest bidder body shops that rotate in cheap labor for large companies who just want the cheapest possible price. In my experience, these are the guys brought in to do DBA work, SW development, etc. at barely market rate or below. In my experience this is where all the stories of crap code, incorrect system design, etc. come from.
The second is those workers/companies who are using the visa more or less as it was intended...short term importing of very talented people with actual non-commodity skills a company needs. These are people brought in to work on new product design, etc. that is more highly paid. So, you have two peaks in the salary curve, one for the low end chair-filler type of worker and one for the specialized worker.
Everyone's situation is different. I work for a medium size multinational company, and it's almost normal for (good, talented) people to rotate around countries using whatever visa status is appropriate to work on projects. Since the cost of relocating someone and applying for their visas is so high, this is mainly for people who actually have something to contribute beyond commodity stuff. By the same token, they do a lot of offshore stuff too, but they prefer to keep it at arms length (i.e. use a body shop like Infosys or Tata.)
I think the intended use of the H-1B is fine, but the race to the bottom use isn't. Companies should have a higher bar to prove they actually need to import a worker beyond complaining "we can't find any domestic talent." They're out there, you just have to pay for them.
Then there is a whole different set of H1Bs, fresh from India, no American degree or qualifications. The claimed Indian degree and qualifications are often unverifiable. Their quality of work is poor, their educating is poor, their English is poor. For them even a 45K a year is paying them too much.
Most slashdotters think the corporations lobby for H1B to depress wages for Americans. No, people. They don't care whatever pay you get. They are not paying for it out of their pocket. The real reason is corporate corruption. Many top executives of these American companies own shell companies through intermediaries. These shell companies get the contract to supply warm bodies to the corporations they manage. They sign both sides of the contract, one as the CIO of XYZ corporation and the other side as the owner of some shell company contracting with XYZ corporation. Indian companies like TCS, Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro get contracts from these shell companies. They knowingly supply substandard workers with fake resumes and fake work experience. They know it will not be scrutinized well. They know the H1-Bs will play along with the fake resume. Every step of the way the billing rate is padded up. It is them who actually spend tons of money to lobby the congress.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
"As an American who works with a ton of H1B's my code is at least 10x better than 98% of them"
From my experience, I tend to agree with you. But, the most crappy, inefficient code in the world can be covered up by hardware, and the fact that no one outside of IT/dev understands what's going on. Virtually any outsourced line of business application is guaranteed to be buggy and require monster hardware to run on, simply because it doesn't matter, and requirements aren't communicated correctly.
Unfortunately, companies are very bad at recognizing that they wasted $X to outsource development, then $X + $Y to have someone go in and clean it up.
2500? That's still over twice the national average.
So are salaries. And while rent costs more, everything you can order off Amazon costs exactly the same. That big TV doesn't care whether you're in SJC or ATL.
I SAW the rents at 7000/month.
I've seen cars that cost $2 million, but no one I know is paying that.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
The site says the data comes from the US Dept of Labor. However, H1B fraud often follows a pattern of submitting multiple Labor Condtion Applications (LCAs) with different salaries for the same job and then when the H1B is approved for one particular LCA the employer uses the LCA with the lowest salary.
I do not have the expertise to say if the DoL stats reflect salary info from the actual LCA the employer ends up using or just the salary info from the LCA that the H1B was issued for. My innate cyncism says it is the later rather than the former, but I honestly don't know. Perhaps there is someone here with the expertise to say (and show) the definitive answer?
You are an idiot. Seriously citing wiki?
Regulations are different in Canada and the USA.
Regulated does not imply that you cannot use the title without a degree/license. That's true in Canada but not in America.
In America you cannot call a degree an engineering degree unless you are qualified to take the EIT. But any garbage man is free to call himself a garbage engineer.
At least get it right.... It's .... Sanitation Engineer
One can throw all the money in the world towards an H1-b, but citizens have something more valuable - freedom to move between employers. Guest worker programs only serve to square the circle of having a legal, captive, non-citizen labor supply in a First World country.
Kill off the guest worker programs and then see how much businesses have to cater to citizens - as they cannot offshore everything.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
It'll take a complete reversion of immigration laws and regulations.
First of all, rip out the 1965 Immigration Act, which enabled these abuses.
Second, remove regulations like 20 CFR 655/20 CFR 656, which have no ability to enforce as intended (to prioritize citizens).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Programming jobs and IT jobs aren't the same thing. There is a shortage of really good programmers out there where by really good I don't mean knowing everything about C/C++ syntax but rather being able to understand the business needs and respond. The value of IT skills is, for better or worse, going down because the systems that we use are getting better. Companies used to have whole departments dedicated to making re-imagine Windows machines less painful. Now the installations seem to last as long as the hardware. And the hardware is much cheaper. There is implicit devaluation in technology in that, even if "real wages" stay the same, the problems that we are expected to solve keep getting harder. Other problems have been at least partially solved and there isn't as much value in 'operationalizing' things. Whether this is good or bad socially or economically is a nuanced discussion. But until we can talk about what is actually happening, it's hard to really have any opinions.
There are! They just aren't willing to relocate to a fucking cardboard box in Silicon Valley.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I looked at my state and H1Bs have below-average salaries, somewhere around 10-25% below average, depending upon the exact position. Clearly, the purpose of H1Bs is to drive down the wages of people already here; otherwise, H1Bs would be getting paid about the same as everyone else, within let's say 5-10%.
I also looked at the numbers, and by far the H1Bs are going to California. Only 2,000 made their way to my state. Companies in California want you to live there, paying $3,000 or more per month in rent plus high taxes and everything else but aren't willing to pay you enough to be able to afford it. Since they've run out of people to con into moving to California, they've turned to H1Bs.
I have nothing against the best and brightest coming to the United States. We have tons and tons of international students studying engineering in our universities, and these people are more than welcome to stay here and become citizens, joining our labor pool.
Before I graduated and started working, my wife and I lived comfortably on her $30K artist's salary. We even bought a three-bedroom house in a decent neighborhood close to downtown. Of course, this was in 2009.... our house would cost about twice that much now.
(We still live comfortably spending less than $30K, although I now make a lot more.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, until it gets the answer wrong in a way that fucks up the business...
...But by then, the management fucks who made the bad decision have gotten their golden parachutes and shed their liability, so nobody gives a shit, apparently.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Why yes duh of course I am super interested in making my fellow Americans suffer economic hardship, what else could my intent be. WTF? Just because I have a better understanding of economics than you doesn't mean I somehow care less about people.
Second, you are saying society gets to pick who gets a job and who doesn't? When you force a minimum wage for jobs it means the jobs that are open for people willing to work for less are closed while the more experienced elites still get to work for their 200k salary. I understand the intent behind it, but wages shouldn't be decided based on what you think a person "deserves" as their salary. If that were the case we should be forcing our corporations into paying our veterans ten times what a top engineer makes.
The best thing for an economy is a reduced production cost. This means that low wages can buy more, and also that shares in a company would pay high dividends. I mean, if you owned a robot that works in a factory (equivalent of owning shares in that factory) wouldn't you be better off if that factory made more money? Notice how with automation the economy has not collapsed? We have more automation than ever before in history yet we also have a large amount of jobs and can afford a lot of things. Even the government gets its cut from it and distributes it as welfare. In the 1950s many people could not afford a tv and a fridge. Yet today nearly everyone can, plus a smartphone and a computer. Low production costs = increased supply and increased affordability.
At which point would you agree there is a shortage? When the salary is $200k but the price of housing has doubled because everyone is making 200k and wants to live in the same location?
Whose fault is that? Don't get mad that someone is wants the job.
Reimage monkeys were never valuable, they were a necessary evil that companies tolerated while they had to. If you didn't drive your skills up the value chain then you either lack the ability to or you lack ambition, neither of which generally leads to a lucrative career path. Heck, when VMWare and other vendors try to sell me expensive management tools to save me time I laugh because my team spends probably only 15-20% of our time doing management of the infrastructure, the rest is spent working on projects that bring value to the business.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Things get even murkier when talking about 'software engineers' since that can range anywhere from 'title I made up' through 'goes through 75+% of the same coursework as an EE but has no path to certification'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
Casteism
I may be a day late for this thread, but I have a current anecdote to illustrate this issue ...
We're looking for summer interns, but I have 182 applicants for one position. I can't possibly look at them all, so I filtered. Of the limited I found we can filter by, I went to those in there way to a Masters degree in a year (so internship is an extended evaluation for offering a real job). Masters because I could do that to get me down to a manageable list with still plenty of choices. Master Degree is not required and isn't always useful but all else being equal, more education is likely to be better than less. Then I filtered for people with any kind of relevant professional experience.
But what choices did that leave me? Almost all had the same profile: four year degree in India, professional experience at one of the big outsourced, getting s Mastrs in the US on a student visa. By filtering for positive characteristics in this huge list of applicants, I self-selected h1-b candidates. I've also inflated the requirements for a simple internship, while deflating salaries that someone with those requirements should get. And I've accidentally ruled out most American candidates.
This is the problem: acting on my company's self-interest propagates a larger systemic issue that is worse for us all.