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Comment by kcorbitt | Hacker News Reader

I'm in favor of vastly raising the H1-B cap, or eliminating it altogether. But. If we are going to have an H1-B cap, I think awarding the visas to the highest-paid applicants is probably the most fair way to administer it. I know of no better way to objectively measure "in high demand" than "well-paid."

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>I know of no better way to objectively measure "in high demand" than "well-paid."

Sure, if the entire US had uniform costs of living. However, it's only the Bay Area that has costs (and local competition and investors) that keep those salaries at their current heights.

Every other company not based in Southern California who can't find workers will suffer, whereas before they'd at least have a chance, albeit a slim one.

So with this requirement in place, sure, it'll be hard for Disney to sell out American jobs... but it'll also make sure that only Bay Area companies will be able to justify importing workers.

Depends on the skill level and experience. 130,000 could be a senior developer / architect salary in parts of the Midwest. My company has paid contractors 5,000/week before.

Depending on what you consider senior (I've seen job listings that seem to use it to mean "anything that's not new grad"), that could be a salary in the valley.

> Every other company not based in Southern California who can't find workers will suffer

Well they'll lose the advantage of being located somewhere with a low cost of living but I don't think I'd call it "suffering". Engineers in other areas should be able to produce as much value to the company as those in California and the company should be just as willing to pay for that value as a company in California.

I think a big problem with H1-B is that it's hard to switch jobs. While an American engineer can easily quit and go somewhere else, a non-resident is pretty much forced to leave the country. This makes the worker's bargaining position very weak, and overall lowers the market rate for immigrants.

It used to be hard to switch jobs under H1B, but that got fixed ~15 years ago. The visas are now pretty much transferrable to another employer.

What's still a problem is that Green Card applications are tied to a specific employer, so that clock will be reset any time you switch jobs.

Not really. AFAIK, after you obtained a priority date with an approved I-140, you can still switch job while keeping your priority date. But you need the new company to transfer H1-B and re-sponsor the GC application again given the job skills are matching.

OK. I'm out of the game since over 10 years, so my info is old.

H1Bs today have it so easy... Back in my day, we had to file all paperwork uphill in the snow!

Does this mean that any applicant can set their salary requirements at $300,000 and nobody else can be hired until they are?

I was wondering about this same thing. Highest paid doesn't equate to highest skilled at all.

The scheme seems more designed to punish companies from hiring immigrants than actually ensuring only high quality employees make their way to Silicon Valley.

Admittedly, I think increasing the $60,000 figure seems reasonable. It should be set at a figure (and updated regularly enough) such that it's slightly above the average wage in the industry. That way it's really targeting skilled workers, as opposed to cheap workers.

>The scheme seems more designed to punish companies from hiring immigrants than actually ensuring only high quality employees make their way to Silicon Valley.

I'd say you're exactly right (perhaps replace "punish" with "disincentivize" for more broad agreement), as concerns about the place of domestic labor in the face of foreign labor was the major campaign issue, rather than a desire on the part of the US electorate to refine/optimize the talent pool of Bay area international workers.

My understanding is that the $300,000 person already has a job locked down. An employer has already agreed to hire him for $300,000 as long as his H1B visa is approved. And since $300,000 is super high, it would get approved before any lower paid people.

So the process:

1) You have a job locked down with a company for a specific position at a specific salary. You + Company apply for an H1B.

2) All of those H1Bs are sorted by salary and the top N are selected. No random lottery anymore.

I think by highest paid applicant they meant have an auction system instead of a lottery system. The highest paid job offers up to the quota will get accepted instead of picking them randomly. But there is still issues like valuation of stock options in such offers. Also cash strapped startups may have a hard time against big companies like Google. Maybe it needs to be a combination of pay and some random factor?

I think it's totally fine if only base salary, guaranteed minimum bonus and maybe liquid stock options are used in the calculations. Most people here who had experience with startups wrote that non-founding employee options should be valued at 0 anyways. Also Google doesn't abuse workers like some startups do, so it adds extra safety to immigrants.

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