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Comment by reloop | Hacker News Reader

I dislike poor working and visa condition as much as, if not more than, anyone else. But other than that I don't really see the problem. You're saying that the people you're hiring aren't particularly talented and get payed less. Not everyone can go to the right school, learn the right languages and get accepted to companies that pay $100k with perks.

It sound like, other than fixing some of the things with H-1B, what really should happen is some sort of easier O (-1A) visa with mainly a salary requirement.

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> You're saying that the people you're hiring aren't particularly talented and get payed less.

No I'm saying a citizen fresh grad dev starts at 60-80k at my company, but a H1-B via a contracting company with "5 years experience" (which is a crapshoot but they usually have some experience) gets paid 40-50k. They do the same work.

Considering other factors that is still a fairly small adjustment. I meant what I said that the conditions should be fixed. It should, for instance, be easier for people to change jobs and find jobs on the open market. That would make salaries somewhat more competitive.

But that doesn't mean everyone are going to make the same salaries. Foreigners are always going to be more willing to pay their dues, be less knowledgeable of the local market and have more variable skillets.

People are talking about fixing H-1B by things like salary requirements. That isn't so much fixing it as excluding one set of people and giving preference to another set of people.

"Not everyone can go to the right school, learn the right languages and get accepted to companies that pay $100k with perks."

Getting employed at these companies has nothing to do with "going to the right school and learning the right language".

Of course it does? It's getting better, but companies like Google have been very honest with that they (at least in the past) preferred hiring from top schools. The "right language" is of course a bit simplified, but some experiences are definitely seen as more favorable although it's not clear they are. Often more academic or community knowledge over practical or enterprise. As far as I know it's much easier to get hired by such a company early with based on your academic record and "culture fit" than it is later in life trough experience, as the median age also indicates. What are you basing your opinion on?

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