> Top tier software companies might claim the H-1B program allows them to hire the best and brightest from around the world, but that's not how everyone else uses the program.
I am fine with immigration as it is a feature of a good system which people want to join, the US should attract the best and people looking to contribute, but it is obvious the H-1B system is rigged and bad for pretty much all but large companies in many cases. I have known many H-1Bs and I feel bad for their situation when they want to leave a company or feel locked in. The moment H-1Bs can work at other companies other than the sponsor, all that becomes more market priced via competition and will improve pay and discourage the H-1B abusers just looking for low wage ownership of workers.
If companies REALLY wanted to hire the best and brightest from around the US and the world, remote development would be bigger and more widespread to the US and around the world. But as with most things, companies use it to own people rather than compete fairly or pay market rates. Remote development can be a cost savings and make companies more robust to employee/worker life changes over time rather than need employees to live near the company. Companies that abuse H-1Bs would rather have employees on site that they can lock into lower wages and control more.
There is also the O visa that would really mean they want to hire the best from around the world [1][2]. But ultimately companies that abuse H-1B just want to lower wages and lock in their workers. Cringely in 2012 wrote this:
> H-1B isn’t the only way for foreigners to work in America. They can work to some extent on student visas and, in fact, many student visas are eventually converted to H-1B for those who have a job and want to stay but maybe not immigrate.
> There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas. So when Bill Gates complained about not being able to import enough top technical people for Microsoft, he wasn’t talking about geniuses, just normal coders.
> I don’t want to pick on just Microsoft here, but I happen to know the company well and have written over the years about its technical recruiting procedures. Microsoft has a rigorous recruitment and vetting process. So does Google, Apple — you name the company. All of these companies will take as many of O visa candidates as they can get, but there just aren’t that many who qualify, which is why quotas aren’t required.
> So when Microsoft — or Boeing, for that matter — says a limitation on H-1B visas is keeping them from getting top talent, they don’t mean it in the way that they imply. If a prospective employee is really top talent — the kind of engineer who can truly do things others simply can’t — there isn’t much keeping the company from hiring that person under the O visa program.
> H-1B visas are about journeyman techies and nothing else.
Oracle though, will literally do anything to save a penny and the last thing on Oracle's list is developer pay and developer usability/user experience. Oracle tools and systems are a nightmare and Oracle is only sold in on the golf courses from top down. Oracle is still in legacy licensing land. Oracle sees developers as nothing but resources to extract value from then discard. Oracle == IBM == SAP and all those are not developer or employee/contractor/worker friendly systems and all of them do the same gaming of H-1B systems just like the TCS, Infosys and Cognizant type companies of the world.
I am fine with immigration as it is a feature of a good system which people want to join, the US should attract the best and people looking to contribute, but it is obvious the H-1B system is rigged and bad for pretty much all but large companies in many cases. I have known many H-1Bs and I feel bad for their situation when they want to leave a company or feel locked in. The moment H-1Bs can work at other companies other than the sponsor, all that becomes more market priced via competition and will improve pay and discourage the H-1B abusers just looking for low wage ownership of workers.
If companies REALLY wanted to hire the best and brightest from around the US and the world, remote development would be bigger and more widespread to the US and around the world. But as with most things, companies use it to own people rather than compete fairly or pay market rates. Remote development can be a cost savings and make companies more robust to employee/worker life changes over time rather than need employees to live near the company. Companies that abuse H-1Bs would rather have employees on site that they can lock into lower wages and control more.
There is also the O visa that would really mean they want to hire the best from around the world [1][2]. But ultimately companies that abuse H-1B just want to lower wages and lock in their workers. Cringely in 2012 wrote this:
> H-1B isn’t the only way for foreigners to work in America. They can work to some extent on student visas and, in fact, many student visas are eventually converted to H-1B for those who have a job and want to stay but maybe not immigrate.
> There is a misconception about the H-1B program that it was designed to allow companies to import workers with unique talents. There has long been a visa program for exactly that purpose. The O (for outstanding) visa program is for importing geniuses and nothing else. Interestingly enough, the O visa program has no quotas. So when Bill Gates complained about not being able to import enough top technical people for Microsoft, he wasn’t talking about geniuses, just normal coders.
> I don’t want to pick on just Microsoft here, but I happen to know the company well and have written over the years about its technical recruiting procedures. Microsoft has a rigorous recruitment and vetting process. So does Google, Apple — you name the company. All of these companies will take as many of O visa candidates as they can get, but there just aren’t that many who qualify, which is why quotas aren’t required.
> So when Microsoft — or Boeing, for that matter — says a limitation on H-1B visas is keeping them from getting top talent, they don’t mean it in the way that they imply. If a prospective employee is really top talent — the kind of engineer who can truly do things others simply can’t — there isn’t much keeping the company from hiring that person under the O visa program.
> H-1B visas are about journeyman techies and nothing else.
Oracle though, will literally do anything to save a penny and the last thing on Oracle's list is developer pay and developer usability/user experience. Oracle tools and systems are a nightmare and Oracle is only sold in on the golf courses from top down. Oracle is still in legacy licensing land. Oracle sees developers as nothing but resources to extract value from then discard. Oracle == IBM == SAP and all those are not developer or employee/contractor/worker friendly systems and all of them do the same gaming of H-1B systems just like the TCS, Infosys and Cognizant type companies of the world.
[1] https://www.uscis.gov/working-united-states/temporary-worker...
[2] https://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know...