Hacker News Reader

Comment by mlboss | Hacker News Reader

I will disagree with the pay less part. I know people who get > $500K as a software engineer on H1b. Getting worker on H1b requires 1-2 month legal process, lot of paperwork and extra money. I think it is more expensive for companies to hire foreign workers. Some startups straight out reject visa holders since they don't have resources to hire them.

View on HN

They're hiring the kind of person that would command $750,000 a year or more as a native American, then.

I have a good friend who was network ops for Riot Games some years back. He is a German who is in America on an H1-B visa. He and I spoke openly about his salary once, which was $97,500. I know Felix is great at his job... but given the experience and knowledge he had, along with the insane responsibilities he was tasked with, I wouldn't have done it for less than $125,000.

> They're hiring the kind of person that would command $750,000 a year or more as a native American, then.

No, they're not. Facebook employees have very thoroughly reverse-engineered the compensation bands in internal groups. We know for a fact that it makes no difference whether one is on a visa.

base salary is similar everywhere. equity comp is highly dependent on how much leverage you have and what other offers you have.

Equity is part of what was reverse-engineered and is also in clear bands. There was no obvious difference between visa holders and others.

Indeed, H1B holders might have less negotiation leverage. That’s a real problem but not really what we’re discussing.

So you’re arguing compensation has zero to do with preference for H1-Bs over American workers?

I'm arguing that there is in fact no preference for H1-Bs over American workers, at least for software engineers. Facebook wants to hire anyone who passes its interview process.

Facebook doesn't prefer H1-B's over American workers. This suit isn't about Facebook hiring H1-B's over American workers. It is about Facebook not properly advertising the jobs of H1-B's they have already hired to American workers. It is pretty obvious that you'd rather keep a worker that has already worked for you for many years over hiring a new guy who would need to get up to speed etc, even if they cost the same.

umanwizard is correct, in that salary + bonus + equity has been thoroughly reverse-engineered by FANG employees, and that H1Bs get equal pay for equal work, as their non-immigrant co-workers.

FANG hires anyone who can pass their hiring bar, regardless of their background, and there is always a shortage of applicants passing that hiring bar.

It’s bi-modal. Big companies playing nice and using the law as intended pay well. Smaller companies and body shops abuse the process: I’ve seen H1B jobs advertised via legally required notices that were tens of thousands less than what I was being paid for the same position/experience.

The big companies I have seen did indeed pay well. But I would not quite say that they used the law as intended. The hiring process for highly qualified contributors I've sometimes seen was more along the lines of:

1. Evaluate resumes and interview candidates, both US and foreign, practically without taking into account national origin and visa status (With the possible exception of national bans / not eligible for visa due to past deportation, etc).

2. Once decision is made, let the immigration department figure out a legal way to get the person hired a visa (through H1B, internal transfer, whatever).

3. If the H1B process prescribes advertising the position to US applicants, that will be done, but the decision for that particular job has really already been made (then again, big companies are constantly hiring, so maybe US applicants get considered for other suitable jobs).

So while I don't think these companies, in general, are trying to get cheap labor, or discriminating against US applicants, some of the provisions of the law (giving strict priority to US applicants) are only being followed in a ceremonial way, and, giving the fluid nature of job characterizations in the industry, are probably near-impossible to follow in a realistic way.

It’s less than what an American worker of the same skill level would get because their ability to negotiate is way reduced.

Some companies do care about costs. FB cares more about the second part.

And knowing that someone is getting $500k is an outlier given that more senior engineers would likely not be on H1-B at that point in their career because they’d have a green card by then. So your anecdote doesn’t apply to the majority of cases I’m talking about which is at entry or mid level.

What company? It’s public information and the salaries can be looked up.

Here is Facebook:

https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Facebook+Inc&job=&city=&ye...

You are only required to report base salary in H1B petition, so that's what you see there. It doesn't account for total compensation, most of which is equity.

They hire H1Bs because it's much harder to change jobs with the visa. In an industry that otherwise has high turnover, even for people in the > $500k range, this gives the companies leverage over workers that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com