Game Developer Salaries From H1-B Data | Hacker News Reader

Game Developer Salaries From H1-B Data

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21 pointsJabavuAdams21 comments

Wouldn't H1-B salaries be lower than non-H1-B salaries? I thought companies liked H1-Bs since the employees don't ask for as much money. (Plus, they have the "if you dont like this job, you go back to your home country" leverage, which probably makes the H1-Bs not ask for more money.)

I would think companies like H1-Bs because it allows a bigger talent pool to choose from, not because they can exploit foreign workers more easily.

Talent and leverage goes side by side in H1-Bs. The same applies sometimes to the foreign students pursuing PhD in US. If the advisor does not like something he does not mind to use the leverage"if you do not like it - go back to your country".

Well, this is actually an indication that the law is working as intended for this industry - the employer can't find a permanent resident for this technical position at market rates, so is sponsoring someone from overseas to meet that need.

I've read the H1-B discount is 20% off the regular salary.

linkage?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=143052

3 points by aristus:

"My wife's took 5 months, but then she married a local. :) But before that was a three-year tragicomedy with all the problems you bring up, plus another nasty one: the 'visa discount'. Large employers love to cut your salary by 15-20% if they can get away with it. What are you going to do? Quit?"

H1Bs can switch jobs any time.

"H-1B work-authorization is strictly limited to employment by the sponsoring employer."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1B_visa

In fact, your H-1B expires ten days after your employment does. Workers on H-1Bs can switch jobs to another sponsor, but it can get tricky. I've told friends with H-1Bs about other sponsoring studios that I could recommend them at... just in case.

"sponsoring employer" can be changed any time by the visa holder applying for 'H1 transfer' with USCIS. Your wikipedia quote is correct but the impact is just that you can't have multiple jobs without multiple H1Bs (one person can have up to 4). Since you can change the sponsoring employer any time, you can change jobs any time.

Since my parent post got voted down, I should probably note that I am on H1B and I've done this myself.

Thanks for the clarification. When you say "you can change the sponsoring employer any time", how complicated is that process? How long does it take?

I am also on H1B. After we get the job offer from the new employer, it takes 2-3 weeks to switch. The employer takes care of the formalities. It also gives us time for the usual 2-week notice to the older employer.

I agree with gopalakrishnans about the time taken. However, it is safer to give notice after the H1B transfer gets approved.

The law actually requires that H-1B salaries be above a certain level. Many companies (mostly, shady "consultants") routinely violate the law causing the impression that H-1Bs are cheap.

No, these figures are figures supplied to the government on the H1-B visa supposedly saying "we're paying more then market rate and can't find anyone able to the job in this country".

In practice some companies do pay below the market rate by comparing the rate to that offered to a lower skill level - for example for a "senior" job hire a foreign senior developer as a "junior" thus be able to compare their salary to the average salary for a junior and underpay them.

Also the majority of market rate comparisions are done using the Bureau of Labor Statistics "Occupational Employment Survey" which people have argued undervalues certain jobs due to jobs with different requirements being lumped into a single category.

It's quite surprising that they are making that salary table public. I can name 2 people that I know on HB-1 from that table just by looking up the company name and job title.

No doubt, I can as well; quite unexpected that this is public in such a format.

Presumably there is also a country of origin in this data -- that would also be interesting to tabulate averages from.

These look high, from my perspective in Toronto, Canada. That said, I've only worked at smaller studios. The two large studios near Toronto, Rockstar, and Koei are famously secretive.

My experience in Toronto has been that at most companies you take a salary hit versus non-game-programming, because of the sexiness of the field, and the small industry here.

From my experience, these salaries are also 15-25% higher than what you get in most Montreal game studios for entry level engineer positions.

All of the games would go away if the govt auctioned H1-B visas. Then the only question is whether they'd be owned/rented by companies or by individuals.

As to choosing the number to be auctioned, we could either pick a number or stop issuing visas as soon as "enough" money has been raised. (Yes, you'd set things up so the first visa didn't cost a lot more than the last one.)

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