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In my experience of hiring engineers across several companies over the past decade, the pool of senior SDEs who are both not already in the US and willing to move to the US is so small that I'd be surprised if it even registered in the overall H1B flow. Virtually all the non-resident senior SDEs I saw getting hired in my orgs ended up being H1B transfers who got hired straight out of college into the US and grew into seniority while here.

The economics aren't so black & white. The incentives to hire an H1B change when companies are paying senior engineer wages for the position.

I doubt it. The number H1Bs for people with the equivalent of a Masters degree or Phd is something like one percent of all H1B visas.

I seriously doubt that a shortage of H1B visas would be an issue for a company that decides to hire someone into a senior position. Senior positions are handled with more care then junior positions.