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Comment by vostok | Hacker News Reader

> How high? Why is 100k a magic number? 100k isn't even a big deal in SF or NYC. While a high skilled scientist working in say, Corning, NY at Corning Corp or Niskayuna, NY at GE's research labs, 100k enables a king's life.

Highly skilled workers do not receive cost of living adjustments. I've been recruited for jobs in low cost of living and high cost of living areas. The pay is the same in both when there is a true shortage of labor.

This is why the auction system is great. If Company A wants to pay Engineer X $500k and Company B wants to pay Engineer Y $50k then clearly Company A has a greater need.

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Outside of a small handful of areas (SV, Seattle, NY, a few others), it's very difficult to find anything in the $300K+ "total package" range. In SV all you have to do is get yourself hired by one of the top firms and then stay in the saddle while your stock vests and not suck too bad. Voila, 400K a year (much of which you will pay in taxes, but nonetheless). I challenge anyone to find a non-manager software engineering job that pays mid six figures in the Midwest.

There are lots of companies in the Midwest that will pay mid six figures for a non-manager SWE. I will concede that there are fewer such jobs in the Midwest.

I'm not convinced that jobs in the Midwest generally pay less than in California because of cost of living. It may well be that SWE openings in the Midwest are generally for less-skilled SWEs precisely because it's not worth paying California salaries for those roles.

This rings true to me because, well, there are companies in the Midwest that will pay mid six figures.

Which companies pay ~500k for a non-manager SWE in the Midwest?

This is total liquid comp, not base salary. I hope I didn't mislead you.

If you're still interested, I suggest that you speak to a headhunter. It's their job to place people and I'm not interested in breaking anonymity.

The only example that I know of in support of vostok's statement are a couple of HFT trading firms in Chicago. If you have the right chops, your comp _starts_ at 500K there, and then quickly goes up to about $1M/yr. But you do need elite chops, and you do have to live in Chicago, and you do have to work in an HFT firm, which is, shall we say, not for everybody.

I am not aware of trading firms that start at $500k, but this is, broadly speaking, correct. The pay is similar to the high paying tech companies, but the mean is higher as the left tail is chopped off due to somewhat higher requirements for hiring.

Obviously a mom and pop flower shop will not hire a fulltime developer and pay them $500k. They just don't need to pay that much to meet their requirements.

Could be. I just couldn't find any such jobs, even after 8 years at Google, which tends to improve one's chances of finding a top paying job.

> Highly skilled workers do not receive cost of living adjustments. I've been recruited for jobs in low cost of living and high cost of living areas. The pay is the same in both when there is a true shortage of labor.

Policy cannot be determined by anecdotes.

> Company A wants to pay Engineer X $500k and Company B wants to pay Engineer Y $50k then clearly Company A has a greater need.

Hardly a forgone conclusion, there are numerous confounding factors. For example company B might not have the resources/revenue to outbid company A.

Another counterexample of many for why an auction system is terrible: employee y could be a research scientist in industry contributing to the foundation of a new industry. An auction system would give their visa to a fullstack developer hired by a startup flush with funding.

> For example company B might not have the resources/revenue to outbid company A.

If Company B doesn't have the resources to outbid Company A then we've decided, as a society, that whatever Company A is doing is more important that what Company B is doing.

> Another counterexample of many for why an auction system is terrible: employee y could be a research scientist in industry contributing to the foundation of a new industry. An auction system would give their visa to a fullstack developer hired by a startup flush with funding.

That sounds like a problem with the way that we fund science and not a problem with immigration.

Also, anecdotally, there is no shortage of scientists. I know plenty of people who had to go into tech or finance because they couldn't find science jobs.

> If Company B doesn't have the resources to outbid Company A then we've decided, as a society, that whatever Company A is doing is more important that what Company B is doing.

The question being - has that been decided in a fair manner?

Capitalism is not about fair, it's about diminishing returns.

VC's don't have access to a significant chunk of US GDP. Sure, some things are over allocated, but Wall Street is limited to the amount of money invested by other people.

Would it be fair for the candidate to not get the highest wage possible? I don't see how this problem is any different than trying to get non-immigrant labor. Company A is offering a significantly higher salary to a citizen than Company B, they'll probably get the candidate.

then we've decided, as a society, that whatever Company A is doing is more important that what Company B is doing.

Congratulations, you've invented oligarchy!

Many tech startups are able to bid up wages not because they're "creating value", but because they have access to the pockets of a small number of venture capitalists. Which means that if you make VC-backed high salaries a necessary part of doing business, you've handed those VCs the literal authority to regulate commerce and decide who does and doesn't get to be in the market.

And last I checked, "have a small group decide which businesses are allowed to exist" is not considered a free market.

>Many tech startups are able to bid up wages not because they're "creating value", but because they have access to the pockets of a small number of venture capitalists. Which means that if you make VC-backed high salaries a necessary part of doing business, you've handed those VCs the literal authority to regulate commerce and decide who does and doesn't get to be in the market.

Very true. That's why we need to tax the VCs very highly and break up monopolistic firms.

All of which has nothing to do with the immigration system for skilled workers on temporary visas.

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