I can't read the article due to the paywall.
In short, no $208k is not the minimum for junior positions, it just needs to be at or above the median wage for those positions.
Experienced talent in software engineering should clear 200k no problem.
H1-B portability would be great to see. It would encourage companies to treat people as humans, not endentured servants.
"H1B applicants will need to be earning a salary equivalent to the 45th percentile of their profession's salary if they're an entry-level worker, rising to 95th percentile for higher-skilled workers. In the past, the boundaries were set at the 17th and 67th percentiles respectively."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-startups-say-new-pay-rules...
I've only seen the H1-B process vicariously though a colleague (my lab instructor) who finished her MSc in Microbiology. She and I (a Bsc grad) were both job hunting in the horrible job market in 2009 and helped each other with leads. After several interviews, mostly dead ends, she ended up accepting the first job that would allow her (Indian Citizen) to get sponsored as she only had 2 weeks left on her student Visa before she would have to go back to India.
If I recall correctly she ended up lasting a year before going back to get her PhD in Microbiology as she had no desire to have that carrot dangled in front of her for the rest of her life.
Oddly enough, I being a US citizen, had to re-interview for my job every year after the diagnostics firm I worked for was bought-out by a Mega Pharma Corp who was closing every 'non-essential' department that didn't help it extend its patents on drugs it had exclusive rights to.
What I'm trying to say is that while the H1-B system is horrible, the US citizen path during financial crises even in STEM fields isn't great either. especially if you incurred 10-100ks in debt and have the constant pressure of having to pay that down. It's why I hope we move away from the notion of a tuition-free university model to a more practical and applicable apprenticeship model that Germany and Switzerland have. That would lessen the burden on so many that the prices for University would have to come down.
Everything I was taught in University was obsolete, or entirely inapplicable to my field of study (diagnostics) and I saw 1 single slide of the apparatus I would use in my career, nothing more in nearly 5 years of undergrad.
Had I not gone to the Scrips Research Institute for my training (initially free but also paid out of pocket for $50/hr training hours plus re-agents), and downloaded hacked versions of FloJo on Newsgroups I would never been able to stand out from the 50-1 applicants for every job back then. After 3.5 years of the pressure to pay back the debt, I swore I'd never go back to a Lab for the rest of my Life.
What really should be the conversation here is employer wage reform for all; I personally don't think Unions are a good model, but something needs to occur. Everyone with a vested interest in this model touts that there is some horrible shortage of STEM degree holders, when in reality so many people with STEM degrees work(ed) at bars, restaurants, cafes, and other retail chains because they knew they could get cheap foreign labor through this Visa model.