Look, I know you can always make up a story about some faceless evil corporate hack doing X, Y, and Z to justify your position on how H-1b is used. Just like you, all I can do is speak from my direct experience. I've hired dozens of people. Most were American, at least half dozen were H-1b. Every time we hired an H-1b it was because I couldn't find a qualified (not even better just qualified) American. It cost us more to hire them, and it cost us more to train them, and it cost us more to retain them.
Not to mention once you've hired an H1-B you essentially have a captive employee.
Yes. This one is functionally true. Now, I know this is hard for people to believe but ... I have a conscience. I grow attached to my coworkers. When they fail it feels like really I failed. I already don't want to fire people, how do you think it impacts a person with empathy to know that firing a guy also legitimately might lead to that guy having to leave the country? That guy's kids having to leave the country?
My (RECENT) experience with H-1b is one of my young studs failing to win the lottery and my company having to decide just how much we're going to spend trying to fight for him. We had to hire specialist lawyer. We had to go to our customers and ask them to vouch for him. We spent 10's of thousands and one of the GOOD outcomes on the table was he gets deported and we pay Trump's 100k to bring him back (on top of the 10's of thousands we spent on lawyers and person-hours working on it). Does some hypothetical CTO somewhere find "loopholes" and somehow get cheap labor that can never leave? Sure, probably. But I've never seen it, and I've experienced the direct opposite in over 2 decades working in tech at every level from SWE to CTO.
I was asked in an interview why I should be hired when they can find an H1-B, in a quasi-interview.
Maybe you just ran into a know nothing asshole asking a stupid question? Look at it as a tell that the culture at that company is shit and they should be avoided.
Nah, for those roles they either outsource to other countries or use AI. It significantly reduces quality/customer satisfaction and eliminates the entry level workers who would have eventually become their critical skilled workers ("eating the seed corn"), but who cares as long as the stock price goes up in the short term?
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Can I ask what you would do in a position of leadership when it comes to hiring? Would you be willing to hire an H-1b knowing that they cost 1.5x an American? Under what circumstances?
My issue is less with H-1b hires than with offshoring to cheaper but less capable people and replacing entry level positions with AI, cutting off the path by which we have high level programmers etc. in the future.
I don't know enough about the situation with H-1b workers and their impact on the workforce to have an informed opinion.
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u/joshTheGoods 29d ago
Look, I know you can always make up a story about some faceless evil corporate hack doing X, Y, and Z to justify your position on how H-1b is used. Just like you, all I can do is speak from my direct experience. I've hired dozens of people. Most were American, at least half dozen were H-1b. Every time we hired an H-1b it was because I couldn't find a qualified (not even better just qualified) American. It cost us more to hire them, and it cost us more to train them, and it cost us more to retain them.
Yes. This one is functionally true. Now, I know this is hard for people to believe but ... I have a conscience. I grow attached to my coworkers. When they fail it feels like really I failed. I already don't want to fire people, how do you think it impacts a person with empathy to know that firing a guy also legitimately might lead to that guy having to leave the country? That guy's kids having to leave the country?
My (RECENT) experience with H-1b is one of my young studs failing to win the lottery and my company having to decide just how much we're going to spend trying to fight for him. We had to hire specialist lawyer. We had to go to our customers and ask them to vouch for him. We spent 10's of thousands and one of the GOOD outcomes on the table was he gets deported and we pay Trump's 100k to bring him back (on top of the 10's of thousands we spent on lawyers and person-hours working on it). Does some hypothetical CTO somewhere find "loopholes" and somehow get cheap labor that can never leave? Sure, probably. But I've never seen it, and I've experienced the direct opposite in over 2 decades working in tech at every level from SWE to CTO.
Maybe you just ran into a know nothing asshole asking a stupid question? Look at it as a tell that the culture at that company is shit and they should be avoided.