Laid Off, Now What?

(bharathpbhat.github.io)

402 points | by bbhat 1285 days ago

33 comments

  • dccoolgai 1285 days ago
    These are all great tips. It is a really well-written article with great advice. I just come away from this with a crushing sense of depression driven by the following thoughts:

    I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here. 60 days or get out.

    This absolutely effects every engineer. Even the most racist ones: that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed to treat this way puts a hard ceiling on your own compensation.

    My grandparents were labor leaders and I'm pretty certain they'd be ashamed I can't or haven't done more to rectify this.

    I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose.

    • ctvo 1284 days ago
      > I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field. Everyone in every other respectable field (and ones that pay as well or better, and have worse consequences for hiring a "bad fit") seems entitled to some baseline level of respect and recognition for their experience and work. Having some smarmy piece of shit ask questions from Jr.-year computer science should be justifiable grounds for a broken nose.

      This is a little myopic.

      Those other fields you don't mention? They use things like education (did you graduate from an Ivy?), connections (do you know these people in your niche field?), certification (do you have the blessing of a known body / board?) or even insurance (you're covered for malpractice if anything goes wrong) as alternatives.

      I value software development not requiring those things, and I understand the trade-offs. Yes, I'll have to do a 5-8 hour single day interview that I may need to prep for once every 3-5 years. For 300k+ a year? I'll find a way to deal with it.

      • ChuckNorris89 1284 days ago
        >For 300k+ a year? I'll find a way to deal with it.

        I would too even for half that but unfortunately, in Europe, lots of the fancy tech corps. are adopting the SV style mult-day take home project/on-site interview grind but only paying $65-85k/year.

        I'm still thinking whether I can make it in this field till retirement(FIRE is out of the question at this pay) or if I should just change to something else while I still can.

        Edit: correct statement

        • greyhair 1284 days ago
          Multi-day take home projects? Seriously? Just say no that unless they are going to compensate you at contractor rate of at least $120/hour. That is a ridiculous ask, and if all engineers just said no and walked away, they would get what they deserved, only the grovelers willing to say yes.

          The all day interview thing is not new. When I finally landed an onsite interview with Bell Labs in 1984, it ran from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM with a break for lunch (that they provided). Every position I have interviewed with since then has been an all day affair.

          Remember, interviewing is partly for skills, but mostly for attitude and personality. Are you going to fit with the team?

          I pulled in a candidate back in 2000 that was clearly qualified for the job as far as skills, but in the interview, his demeanor was abrasive. He was so clearly superior to anyone else on the team, how could we have the temerity to question his abilities? It spiraled out of control and I had to escort him out of the interview after only two hours. It was awful.

        • mgraczyk 1284 days ago
          None of the FAANG companies I've worked at have take home projects or multi-day interviews.
          • auspex 1284 days ago
            I have had multi-day and a take home project for FAANG interviews. Two actually.
        • 908B64B197 1283 days ago
          These only make sense when the signal to noise ratio gets bad, ie you get too many spammy applications.
      • titanomachy 1284 days ago
        I agree. Watching a friend struggle to land a corporate law job has been eye-opening. Maybe some consider it disrespectful of Google to ask computer science questions to an experienced engineer, but at least Google will interview you whether or not you have an ivy-league degree. Law firms are incredibly elitist and not the least bit meritocratic.
      • epmaybe 1284 days ago
        Is that really what the field is paying right now? Is that after 5-10yrs or right out of school?
        • balabaster 1284 days ago
          That's for a 10 year veteran in the UK. Programmers are treated like commodity. So much so that I left the UK 20 years ago and haven't managed to find anything comparable to contract rates in North America - certainly nothing comparable to SV or Toronto.
        • ctvo 1284 days ago
          I gave the total compensation ~average for FANGs / large US tech companies as a mid-senior role, which I assumed is what the OP was going for from the tone of their comment.

          If you're in a position in life where you need a stable salary (family, children, etc.), you'll do the same amount of prep for a FANG as for a start-up emulating a FANG. Why in the world would I put in effort prepping and take 1/3rd the total compensation is my perspective (yes, I understand the start-up lottery, and disregard it here).

        • greyhair 1284 days ago
          $300K would be a contract rate for someone with 10 years of experience, with your own LLC and insurance.

          It is pretty easy to find contract positions for $120 per hour, and higher responsibility/skill positions for $150 per hour. And the LLC and related insurance costs per year are trivial.

          On the east coast, skilled software engineers (not programmers, necessarily) with 10+ years can expect at least $140K plus benefits as a full time employee, and it is pretty typical to see $160K.

        • titanomachy 1284 days ago
          In SV, SF, NYC, or Seattle, at a top-tier company, after 5 years or so of experience: $300k including equity and bonus is pretty normal. In the rest of the world, not so much.
        • thatfunkymunki 1284 days ago
          Visit levels.fyi to get a picture of silicon valley comp levels. With 8 years of exp I was able to secure about 350k/yr this most recent job cycle
    • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
      > "My grandparents were labor leaders and I'm pretty certain they'd be ashamed I can't or haven't done more to rectify this.

      Unfortunately tech unions are typically the ones railing against H1Bs entirely. The mere presence of H1B workers fundamentally increases worker supply (by definition). In fact it was the "US Tech Workers Union" that championed recent actions against H1B workers. And let's be honest they were not fighting to make our lives easier (by making H1B less draconion), only theirs, by reducing the supply of workers.

      And while some of them will sugar coat this by pretending to care about H1B worker's conditions and all that, the truth is that as long as the US continues to be a more desirable place to live compared to many other countries, and as long as you need a job to live here, foreign workers will always tilt the equilibrium a bit towards lower wages compared to a domestic worker supply. The true solution would be if you made the path to permanent residence easy for skilled individuals so that they don't need to take these employment decision under duress.

      • nbm 1285 days ago
        The “US Tech Workers Union” doesn’t appear to be a union at all. It appears to be a subsidiary of the “Progressives For Immigration Reform” non-profit aimed fairly exclusively at the H-1b issue, and the only spokesperson I can see for it is the executive director of PFIR.

        So, I wouldn’t take the “US Tech Workers” as being representative of tech workers or tech workers unions without further research.

        • tdeck 1285 days ago
          Funny to see this pop up because I happen to know who is behind this cluster of sites (i.e. https://ustechworkers.com/ https://www.cfpup.org/) and it's basically one super right-wing guy and some wealthy donors. None of these is a real union or even a real community group. It's wealthy lobbyists who want to oppose immigration. I always thought it was really shady.
          • notxnphbk 1284 days ago
            > It's wealthy lobbyists who want to oppose immigration

            That is funny, I would have never thought that wealthy lobbyists would ever be against easy and mass immigration policies to dilute the labor supply. Much better for corporations to hire people who are willing to work either more cheaply or out of a sense of desperation because job demand is lower than the available/willing worker pool.

            Do you have a sound logical reason for why wealthy lobbyists would go out of their way to spend money on opposing immigration?

            • tdeck 1284 days ago
              To be clear the person I'm thinking of is not a professional lobbyist, he's a PE investor. I don't know/understand his motivation and have never met him personally, this is a "friend of a friend" scenario.
            • taneq 1284 days ago
              Follow the money, as always. It's a bit hard to find any solid policy suggestions in the links above amongst all the fearmongering, but I'd wager that whatever their stated aims, they're not really pushing for reduced immigration, but rather for reduced protections for skilled migrants.

              The more power employers hold over their skilled migrant workers, the more money they can make (from not only their skilled migrant workers but also from the rest of their workforce, who are now competing with the latter.)

            • danans 1284 days ago
              > Do you have a sound logical reason for why wealthy lobbyists would go out of their way to spend money on opposing immigration?

              Xenophobia.

        • nrmitchi 1284 days ago
          This type of misleading behaviour and false-representation is called astroturfing.
      • damnyou 1285 days ago
        The "US Tech Workers" "union" is actually a front for the John Tanton white nationalist network. It is not an actual union.

        It is true that some other unions like the AFL-CIO have historically opposed immigration on these grounds, though.

      • Lammy 1285 days ago
        It isn't about worker supply or wages. It's about workers' relative abilities to stand up for something (anything) versus having to keep one's head down and build whatever evil thing management wants built.

        As long as the "risk of having to leave the country" for speaking up about anything is greater than 0% the obviously-wisest thing to do is keep your mouth shut.

        • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
          It's no single thing because people's decisions are affected by the sum total of their life's balance sheet.

          The labor market is something that emerges from the equilibrium of several opposing forces. We as a society decide which causal factors are 'reasonable' and which are 'unfair'.

          As a simple example, you could argue that 'the wages for married individuals with kids are depressed due to the massive labor pool of single people in their 20s who can be employed for far less as long as you offer them free food and some cutesy perks like happy hours and pool tables'. Ceteris paribus, and as a pure fact of economics, this is true. Of course if you have a bigger supply of labor and hold other things constant, wages will depress, but as a matter of practical policy, we don't consider it 'unfair' that there exist single people who are competing for jobs that married people are also competing for.

          But many people do consider it unfair that there exist Indians who are competing for jobs that Americans are also competing for.

          This is a matter of policy and your personal sense of what is fair and what is not, not economics.

          • monksy 1284 days ago
            Should you have to compete for your wage in comparison to individuals from a foreign country with a much lower cost of living? For the most part you can't change your cost of living. (Yes, you can move else where but the delta between how you you keep/earn is pretty much relative around the country)

            Single people tend to be younger and less experienced. They tend to be represented in entry level positions, and get paid as such.

            • mikem170 1284 days ago
              >Should you have to compete for your wage in comparison to individuals from a foreign country with a much lower cost of living?

              That appears to be the reality we've been living in for a couple/few decades. Airplanes, container ships, and the internet have made the world a much smaller place.

              • monksy 1284 days ago
                Not really. The borders still exist and the export controls still exist as well. It's just been tolerated in the last few decades.
        • notxnphbk 1284 days ago
          > As long as the "risk of having to leave the country"

          So, immigration is generally speaking something that corporations are incentivized to want because they get more manipulatible and desperate employees?

          Can we just demand that companies that hire immigrants cannot fire or lay off those immigrant employees for some minimum number of years unless they declare bankruptcy? It might decrease the number of immigrant employees corporations would hire but it would simultaneoulsy ensure a huge amount of safety for the immigrants that do get hired (and for their families).

      • dccoolgai 1285 days ago
        Politically, it seems to be a big crappy case of playing the ends against the middle... The ends being: 1. All the shitty racists lobbying _against H1bs_ because "took er jerbs" on one side. 2. All the shitty FAANG capitalists lobbying _for_ it on the other because they want to keep engineering salaries controlled.

        My quick bandaid bill would: 1) Any H1b holder can switch to any job as long as it comes with at least ten percent pay increase. 2) Any H1b holder gets an automatic green card after x years or paid y in federal+state taxes, whichever comes first. 3) Hiring company pays 80pct salary for the extent of the Visa, come hell or high water. You _really_ need that visa? Fine, prove it by taking on more of the risk instead of foisting it on the poor visa holder who came to help you.

    • vmception 1284 days ago
      > I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field.

      These pressures are why I can barely bother landing a software role anymore.

      I'm competing with people that have real pressure to study these algorithm brainteasers, switch into system architecture mode, and then switch into behavioral mode.

      "Oh thats cute you spent 45 minutes a few times a week doing a brainteaser? I just did 600 of those in a month, and rehearsed what my quirky but culturally similar hobby is."

      the what now?

      This is out of control. Yes, I am competing with H1B's that have 60 days to figure it out, no, that doesn't make "immigrants" the problem, this is a symptom of a system broken in several ways, from public policy to tech private sector norms.

      • mostlyghostly 1284 days ago
        And most of these tests are basically bullshit, in terms of real world impact.

        What's the contest here? Who's most desperate, most willing to sacrifice their life and health for pennies on the dollar?

        Seriously. I'm a middle aged guy with kids and parents to take care of. I'm not in a position to spend 30 hours / week doing bullshit puzzles & memorizing an algo book for crap that is basically irrelevant to my job.

        You know what I'm good at?

        - Spotting the bug before it happens, by watching how the team interacts and who is checking their work...

        - Parsing client requirements and finding what matters

        - Duct tape engineering so we can hit a go-live date when everything else is a smoking pile of delayed dog-shit...

        - Talking the client into dropping a feature that we can't deliver and pivoting into something we already have...

        Generally of far higher value than some brain teasers...

        • jjav 1284 days ago
          > And most of these tests are basically bullshit, in terms of real world impact.

          Yes, that is what's so wrong about it. If the whiteboard leetcode monkeydance was somehow relevant to job performance, it'd be annoying but ok. Given the complete irrelevance, it is just a sign of a profoundly broken industry that doesn't understand what job performance is about.

          It bugs me when people say "the bar is high". No, the bar isn't high, the bar is sideways and outside in the parking lot of the stadium.

          Personally I have never and will never give a whiteboard algorithm trivial pursuit interview. Doing my small part to bring some sanity here (Silicon Valley). I read the resume and talk about the actual past job experience with the candidate. It works wonderfully well. Never made a bad hire.

        • vmception 1284 days ago
          I'm good at that too, have none of the obligations you do and am just as put off by it.

          The market values my skills, but I have to do this stuff on my own now. You can make more than big tech will pay you by building in the crypto assets sector by yourself. In the recent past it was just side-gig consulting at an hourly rate or trying to do bug bounties.

          Now you can just hang out on Telegram or Wechat and learn what people need, get paid completely in Tether from people all around the world. Invest in that ecosystem, or get dollars, whatever you want. No, wait times for anything.

          • programmarchy 1284 days ago
            Any tips on where to get started developing crypto assets? Learn how to build Ethereum smart contracts?
            • jklepatch 1284 days ago
              The big thing now in Blockchain is DeFi (decentralized finance). People re-invent finance on the Blockchain.

              In order you need to learn: 1. Basics of web dev (mostly front, not much backend for Blockchain) 2. Ethereum & Solidity 3. DeFi programming

              I run a youtube channel on DeFi and Blockchain development:

              https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCZM8XQjNOyG2ElPpEUtNasA

              I also have courses on how to become a blockchain developer and how to build arbitrage flashloans. I recommend first following my free trainings:

              http://eattheblocks.com/bootcamp

              http://eattheblocks.com/flash

            • vmception 1284 days ago
              Developing crypto assets is ONE thing and not necessarily the most lucrative - this part is actually very crowded because it is too easy

              EVM is good to know for an ongoing career, but more practically building wallets, exchanges, algorithms, trade routing systems, data visualizations, ad space on a website that provides utility, ad space on a bot that shows pricing data to a chat room, a better gui that happens to take a cut of transactions when people use it —- these are all options

              so many things, so much, so easy

              harder to focus as the space moves at light speed

    • titanomachy 1285 days ago
      It wouldn't be so bad if Indians and Chinese could actually immigrate. They have to stay in this precarious H1B state indefinitely, since getting a green card is effectively impossible for people from those countries.
      • stack_underflow 1285 days ago
        Hell, I'm Canadian and I also bucket into the India group since I was born there. Doesn't seem to matter that I was less than a year old when my parents immigrated to Canada either.

        I don't have high hopes for ever receiving a green card: https://medium.com/@happy_sushi_roll/the-endless-wait-for-a-...

        • distant_hat 1284 days ago
          yea, its more of a quirk of where you were born rather than nationality though both are almost often the same. I have an Indian friend who was born in Iran because his dad was working there when he was born. He lived in Iran less than a year but got his green card in less than 3 months.
        • 908B64B197 1283 days ago
          Also because you are a citizen of India no?

          I mean, it wouldn't be fair if folks could simply skip the line by going to a third country.

    • notxnphbk 1284 days ago
      > I can't believe this is how the country I live in treats people who bring their high-demand skills here.

      Well, I highly doubt American companies are pushing for this treatment. They benefit the most from getting whoever they want to hire however they want to hire them.

      So, you must be implying that this "treatment" is coming from a non-corporate entity?

      > that there is a bedrock of people they are allowed to treat this way puts a hard ceiling on your own compensation.

      This argument is strange, because you are implying that it is the corporations that are kicking people out. But, I am not sure that aligns with their incentives.

      So, if the corporations are not the ones kicking the desirable people out then why would losing that person force them to put a hard ceiling on others potential compensation?

      I am not sure I follow the logic.

      > I can't believe this is how interviewing works in this field.

      I 100% agre. It is broken. But, I also think we are not being honest as to why. If we think logically (and game-theoretically) then it is easy to assume that these corporations have a huge incentive to engage in this behavior. Could it be that they have a sea of choice beyond anything the tech industry has ever had before?

      • singron 1284 days ago
        The H1B makes it more difficult to change jobs or negotiate salary. Any interruption to employment is a huge risk to staying in the country. Thus those employees are more likely to accept lower offers and stay in those jobs longer.

        E.g. a citizen can decline an offer in order to negotiate it up, but if the clock is ticking on your h1b, then you wouldn't want to get called on that bluff.

        The limitations don't seem to dissuade H1b applicants, so companies like that they have more control over those employees without decreasing total supply.

    • toadi 1284 days ago
      On that last part a Jr. CS question that you maybe not even use in real life for some CS jobs. People forget that not everyone is writing awesome ML things or other awesome things you read about in newspapers. Most of the people are writing CRUD code, do some data transformation , automate so simple office process, etc. Never had much use there of Big-O knowledge....

      Does not mean I never used much of this knowledge I have needed at some points. But by that tine I had to refresh the knowledge again...

  • ab_testing 1285 days ago
    The problem is that, as an Indian, you will be doing this dance routine for the rest of your life. Sure it is easy to do it when you are in your late twenties, early thirties but once you reach late thirties and early forties, you will not even get any interest from the recruiters.

    Ageism is very real in the tech industry and your only options are to either get a green card or move to another country. Recessions and layoffs are a way of life in this country. Sure you survived this one - but may be not the next one or the one after that. Also with each passing decade, it will be harder for you to immigrate somewhere else - partially due to countries like Canada, Australia reducing points past a certain age and partly due to having kids who are used to a specific way of life in the US.

    So while your status is safe for you, it is a good time to define the course of your career, because no matter how good of an engineer you are, at the end of the day, you are just a number on a spreadsheet who will be laid off at another recession.

    • humanlion87 1284 days ago
      I think the green card option was valid for Indians who came to the country at least a decade ago. It's no longer viable for Indians who are coming to the country now (or came in the past few years). Tying your immigration status to the ups and downs of politics for decades together is a sure-fire way to damage your mental peace.
  • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
    H1B rules are quite ridiculous (or more accurately, cruel). Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration?

    Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you were laid off. Never mind that you might have a house a family and might have been living here for more than a decade. You would officially be staying illegally if you didn't leave right away and it would jeopardize your chances of getting a visa in the future.

    It's only through an historic odd mix of good pay and relatively laxer immigration rules that the US managed to attract a large pool of talent in the 80s, 90s and 00s. Students from my college who are about 5-10 years junior to me no longer consider it a viable place to plan a long-term career in due to the extreme precariousness of visa holders' life situations in the US.

    Politically speaking we have little to no power in numbers so neither politically party really cares. Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration, but in reality they don't care much about H1B style immigration and are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions hating H1Bs, while we have unlikely allies in some Republicans because our presence benefits big companies. Common sense solutions standard across the world (such as skill-based / point-based systems) are looked down upon, while we keep getting kicked around on the political playground.

    • nrmitchi 1285 days ago
      > Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration?

      My worst situation dealing with this was a TN status rather than an H1B, where I was told at a border that I could be ineligible for admission to the US because I had no left the day that I was laid off from a previous position.

      I had to tell the CBP officer that there was a 60 day grace period, be told that the internet isn't a reliable source of information, and wait while he discovered this information on their own. Sitting and waiting I literally overheard this person, after learning of this grace period, ask a colleague if they had ever heard of it before. This was at a major Canada/US border crossing.

      It is apparently not just people on HN who are unaware of this, but also individuals charged with making US admission decisions.

      • jameshush 1284 days ago
        I feel your pain. I've had the _worst_ luck crossing the US border with a TN. And I'm a white male Canadian, you'd think the racial stereotypes would be in my favour.

        Many CBP works simply do not know the rules as you said. I've been pulled aside for 3+ hours. I've almost missed flights even though it's 110% legal for me to be here and work. I was pulled aside for not having an I-94 paper in my passport even though they had switched to a digital system for Canada and Mexico 5+ years ago (aka NO ONE has the paper). I've had border officers give me off hand remarks like "It's a shame an American wasn't given this job" looking at my TN application. All you can say is yes/no sir/ma'am and hope they're not having a bad day and send you back.

        Then other days I'm waiting in the line at LAX getting back into the country, they ask where I had been, give me a stamp in two seconds and wave me through. I never know exactly how they're going to react.

        It's gotten to the point where I'm treating getting a green card at this point the same way someone treats buying a lottery ticket. If it happens that's great. But if it doesn't I already have a backup plan of banking up all my USD and moving to Europe (my immediate family all live there and I have a British passport from my parents).

        The immigration game is all fine and good for me now (29 years old, single, no mortgage and no kids). But even if I make half the amount of money in Europe at 33-35 when I want to start a family would be worth it to know that I don't have to worry about being kicked out the country. I especially feel for my close Chinese friend who can't even re-enter the USA right now if he goes back to China.

        • corpMaverick 1284 days ago
          > I feel your pain. I've had the _worst_ luck crossing the US border with a TN. And I'm a white male Canadian, you'd think the racial stereotypes would be in my favour

          Yes, Non-white people are more likely to suffer from abuse from authority. But if the law doesn't offer strong protections for a non-white person, then no one is safe. And you can be abused by authority no matter how white you are. All it takes is a bad officer having a bad day. I have also spent a few hours in CBP because the officer didn't understand how I changed my visa status. You become an criminal until things are cleared out if you are lucky.

        • greyhair 1284 days ago
          Back in 2006 I was returning to the US, as a US citizen, from a job interview in Kanata(ON), and I was held by immigration for so long I almost missed my flight.

          Not sure at all why I was flagged. White, middle aged male, returning to the US after arriving in Canada that morning.

          It was a very uncomfortable situation.

      • bonchicbongenre 1285 days ago
        Here's a fun one — my (foreign) girlfriend graduated from a US undergrad, and stayed in the country over the summer to begin her US PhD. She was legally covered as being able to stay in the country in both directions by the grace period after/before her undergrad/grad school respectively. When going to the embassy to renew her Visa, she was told she was staying in the country illegally, and the idiots there wouldn't renew the Visa on those grounds. They are literally legally incorrect, but there's nothing you can do with these absolute buffoons, these insipid recipients of a national work plan who are too unpleasant and immovably stupid to contribute to a real workforce.
        • moises_silva 1285 days ago
          As an immigrant in another country (thankfully more immigration-friendly), I completely understand the frustration. I think however we must see beyond the incompetence of some front-line workers and turn the frustration and complaints towards who's running the country and its policies, not providing training and overall setting a bad example on how to treat immigrants (legal or illegal). I've declined good offers to move to the US because of concerns with the immigration policies, which quite honestly are exacerbated by the current administration.
          • sushshshsh 1284 days ago
            Just marry an american lol
            • munk-a 1284 days ago
              As someone who married someone abroad - moving to them is a far simpler and cheaper process than having them move to you. You may be thinking of the loophole of getting married overseas (which does exist) but the government is pretty strict with the requirements around that.

              If you want to do thing legally and immigrate to the US then you'd better have a decade of your life and tens of thousands of dollars to throw at lawyers to guide you through the process.

              I'm now a Canadian and I think the process in total (including the marriage certificate since I came over on a Fiancee visa) might have put me back about 1.5k. The process was reasonable, there were certainly requirements but people were available to guide you through it in English & French and, wonderfully, Canadians are quite nice to new Canadians so I didn't get much flack from my new coworkers.

              America just doesn't want people to immigrate.

              • sushshshsh 1284 days ago
                No I'm literally saying marry an american. My wife is from China and I'm from USA. Marrying her ended all of the H1B games overnight.
                • TeaDrunk 1284 days ago
                  From what I can see this takes at least four forms, multiple years, and possibly a significant chunk of change to a lawyer. Could you explain the process more since google is telling me it looks like a pain in the ass?
                  • sushshshsh 1284 days ago
                    Pretty much any international person can emigrate to the USA by marrying an American. If they're already here on some type of visa like H1B or student visa, just simply upload your passport to NYC's marriage website (or go to Vegas I guess) and get a marriage license. Then have someone officiate your wedding and for a few hundred bucks and maybe 48 hours of planning total you are now legally married.

                    You can take this marriage to the US government to make an application for a green card for the international spouse, which will be received in less than 18 months typically.

                    Short answer, find an American (or even just an existing green card holder) that you love, marry them, and now you are able to stay in the country permanently and work in pretty much any tech job you like :)

                    • TeaDrunk 1284 days ago
                      Oh okay, I was actually looking at citizenship. If you don’t care about being a citizen and just want to work, I can understand that’s an easier process.
                      • kaitai 1284 days ago
                        I gotta disagree with the "just marry an American" advice; sure, it makes some things easier, but due to a paperwork mistake in 1979 or so my mother-in-law was almost deported two years ago after being married to an American and living in the US for almost forty years (the mistake was a date on a form that no one had looked at for those forty years...). Green card was still quite slow for my dad even though he married a citizen....
                      • sushshshsh 1284 days ago
                        Sorry for the lack of clarification. Citizenship would actually come relatively quickly after holding the green card as per normal. I suppose around 5 years is the normal waiting period? You just have to pass a simple test where you memorize key value pairs like "Who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?" "Francis Scott Key"

                        However American citizenship is of extremely dubious worth, even if you really like to travel like my wife and are limited by travel visa paperwork like with a Chinese passport for example.

                        Voting is not a particularly useful feature of American citizenship unless you live in a swing state and believe your vote to be important in deciding the fate of our country.

                        And most jobs that require citizenship like in government pay extremely poorly and have ridiculous arbitrary barriers to entry, namely a security clearance.

                        • TeaDrunk 1284 days ago
                          5 years is imo really long to get citizenship if you’re working full time, paying taxes, etc.
            • HarryHirsch 1284 days ago
              This suggestion always comes up during presentations from immigration attorneys. They know how fucked up the system is.
      • walamaking 1285 days ago
        It is scary to think about 1) how much control CBP officers have over the fates of people entering the country especially on non-citizen statuses, and 2) how little they know about the rules affecting the latter.

        E.g. I've heard of CBP officers not knowing that Canadians don't need to get a visa to enter the US. Also heard of CBP officers not knowing what "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" was on a student's F-1, and had to ask around to confirm that it was a legitimate school. And many more.

        • fakedang 1284 days ago
          This America seems woefully similar to Iran, ngl
      • vecinu 1285 days ago
        I went through something similar but remember the name of the game is to not volunteer unnecessary information.

        Did you tell the agent you didn't leave after you were laid off? Or did you just ask for a new TN once you had a new offer?

        It seemed to me like being too truthful could hurt your chances more than to just ask for a new visa and let them process the TN as needed.

        Some employers wouldn't even report your termination date until some time in the future to give you time to find a new job.

        • nrmitchi 1285 days ago
          Your point about not offering unnecessary information is, unfortunately, good advice.

          In my situation it felt as if the officer was going to every possible length to find a reason to reject my application.

          I was explicitly asked why I was no longer with my former employer, what my last day of work was, and what date I had previously left the US to return to Canada. Being untruthful about any of these easily-verifiable points would have been much worse in the long run (since this officer definitely seemed intent on running down every possibility). Honestly I am lucky that I had a proof of my severance agreement, which showed it was not a voluntary departure.

          • vecinu 1281 days ago
            Wow, I must have gotten really lucky I had no such questions and had no way to prove any of them!
      • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
        You at least were 'lucky' enough to reach the border. I know several people who weren't even allowed to board flights because the airlines run their own small 'judge jury and executioner' system whereby they will refuse to let you board if they feel you won't be allowed at the border. Sure this works for trivial cases like checking Visa stamp etc. but immigration rules are way more complex than that but try explaining that to the underpaid worker at the airline counter while 50 people are lined up behind you and making noises for you 'holding the line up'.

        And these actions are taken outside the US (at the home country airport) so realistically speaking you can't even sue them or anything.

        • itronitron 1284 days ago
          I recommend buying a round trip ticket with a return date of two weeks later. That way airlines won't block you out of concern that they will be forced to fly you back at their expense.

          You can later cancel the return ticket and apply the credit (minus a fee) to a later trip.

          • kinkrtyavimoodh 1284 days ago
            I didn't really get your suggestion. There won't be any 'flying back' coz if the airlines are blocking me, I won't be allowed to board the onwards leg of the journey.
            • itronitron 1284 days ago
              In a lot of cases airlines will block people from flying to a foreign country if they have a one-way ticket because the airline expects the destination country will block the person from entering the country because the one way ticket implies they are not visiting as a tourist.

              In that case the airline is required to fly the person back.

              This is more common now with various Covid-19 travel restrictions so airlines are also asking for all testing paperwork that is required for the destination countries.

      • CountSessine 1285 days ago
        Yeah this is pretty close to my experience. I had a job offer from a US company. I would have been setting down roots in the US - my kids would have been in a US school, my wife would have been giving up her job. We would have been buying a house. But all of that could have been swept away in the course of a periodic half hour meeting with a border patrol agent to renew my TN status. My whole life would be pulled up and me and my family would have had to leave everything behind and return to Canada within days.

        It’s just didn’t make sense so we stayed here.

        • moises_silva 1285 days ago
          I agree. I think you made the right call. We live in Canada (Ontario). We wanted to move to SF to be closer to family (Mexico) but in the end, even with a FAANG job offer, it was too risky and the current political climate doesn't seem friendly to immigration (even legally). Quite more so for someone from Mexico.
      • stepbeek 1285 days ago
        Man, I brought a few Cuban cigars into the US in 2018 and the border agent tore me a new one. Even my confused “But this is legal now...” went unheard until I got through the line to the real customs agent who wondered why I was wasting his time.
      • xxpor 1285 days ago
        Granted, someone working at the US/CA border should know the TN rules, but in general there's so many visa classes and different rules that it's a UX failure if they have to go ask someone about these things. If they put in your passport and type in TN, it should display the relevant rules right on their screen.
    • mancerayder 1285 days ago
      > Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration, but in reality they don't care much about H1B style immigration and are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions hating H1Bs,

      Wait, what? Tech unions? I've never seen a single union in my entire 20 year career. I was sympathetic up until you complained about that. What unions?

      The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask me, if the economy is poor then there's no excuse for encouraging immigration, especially of high paid labor. If unemployment is high, that is (and that's the part that fluctuates). Not to mention H1B is used to reduce wages and dump tech workers when they get old or expensive. However, the uncertainty you describe is intolerable, it should be a clear path and if someone is laying down roots and family, they shouldn't be living in fear. It's obviously a very mixed bag.

      • addicted 1285 days ago
        The whole argument that Democrats, who have voted for bills that help resolve H1B issues by vast majorities and Obama passed executive actions that among other things allowed H1B spouses to work, provided a grace period, and until Republicans sued and had it rolled back in court allowed for H1 B green cards to be filled from infilled green cards in other categories, don’t really care is a remarkably wrong statement, and explains why politics in this country are terrible.

        You literally have 1 side that demonizes a situation, and the other side doing pretty much all the can within the legal powers they have to improve the situation, but “both sides don’t really care”.

        • vsskanth 1285 days ago
          It's not that simple. All those democratic actions for H1B you've described are merely tokens when you consider how much attention they paid to undocumented immigrants (DACA). They've completely neglected the kids of H1B workers who have been here decades but have to leave the country when they turn 21. None of what they've done provides an attainable pathway for permanent residency for legal, tax paying high skilled workers from India.

          Democratic immigration policies always prioritize family based and undocumented immigration. They have clear electoral benefits from this (see AZ and TX). Reforming H1B and the high skilled immigration system is only an afterthought.

          Republican policies have at least put forward some kind of points-based system. They however want to reduce family based immigration which is an absolute no-go for Democrats.

          • newhotelowner 1284 days ago
            The majority of the illegals pay taxes too.

            DACA kids go to school. They graduate from schools here. They serve in military. They pay taxes when they join the workforce.

            The majority of Indians/Asians also vote for Democratic candidates. 80+% of Asians voted for Clinton in 2016.

        • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
          > and the other side doing pretty much all the can within the legal powers they have to improve the situation

          Except they aren't. There is a clear 'caste' system when it comes to the immigration Democrats care about. Their primary focus is on immigration across the Mexican border (a lot of which is often technically or borderline 'illegal') which they want to make as legitimized as possible as the Hispanic community is a massive votebank for them. So we have all this noise about DACA and the like.

          On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of legal H1B pool is largely an afterthought for them because the Indian and Chinese community in America is not that politically assertive, plus the H1B types can't vote anyway, and are mostly concentrated in places like California / Washington so their friends etc would anyway vote Democrat so who cares.

          • kaitai 1284 days ago
            This is straight BS from my experience. My local Dems are spending time on the Temporary Protected Status groups, especially Liberians who've been here since the 1990s, Haitians who don't have a home to go back to, Nepalese. They've spent a lot of time on immigration from Asia and since we have a large Indian- and Pakistani-American community where I'm from that's been an issue my representatives have worked on. I feel like you have a pretty narrow view -- maybe you're from a place where that's true, but it's not true out here in the rest of America.
          • jdashg 1285 days ago
            Democrats do not desire Hispanic immigration because they're likely to vote democrat. It's convenient but not all convenient things are causal.

            By and large Democrats prioritize the most disadvantaged first, and that's poor immigrants, many of whom happen to be coming across from Mexico.

            • m0zg 1284 days ago
              > the most disadvantaged first

              How about prioritizing the most disadvantaged _US citizens_ first instead of kicking the stool from underneath them by importing cheap labor?

              • Gibbon1 1284 days ago
                My dad talks about helping Mexicans pick cotton on his grandfathers farm in Central California. One reason my dad tried to do well as he could in school.

                I'm less worried about Mexicans spilling over into California than I am about jobs being off shored to the far east. Clinton lost in 2016 because she and Bill Clinton are poster childs for NAFTA and letting China into the world trade organization.

                • m0zg 1284 days ago
                  You should be worried about Mexicans. Even today a lot of CA schools are majority-Hispanic. If migration continues at the present rate, the United States will lose sovereignty by the end of the century at the latest. Read "Flashpoints" by George Friedman, he explains really well what's going to happen. 50-75 million foreign nationals in the country who can also vote in Mexican elections is not a good scenario to pursue in the long term, even if you want some tactical electoral gains. Globalists don't really give a shit, but you, with your very much localized wealth, should.

                  Then there are also the working poor (and _especially_ black working poor) facing stiff wage competition from Mexicans willing to work without worker protections and for a lower wage than would be sustainable for an American. What are those people supposed to do? Live off welfare? Who will pay for the welfare? Me? Why?

          • notxnphbk 1284 days ago
            > the Indian and Chinese community in America is not that politically assertive

            No, but the mega-corps that hire a lot of them are. Very much. And usually lean more towards supporting Democratic politicians to ensure their labor pipeline is kept in place.

          • TeaDrunk 1284 days ago
            I actually don’t know if this is true. Everything you listed about chinese/Indians not voting or being engaged civically applies very broadly to the Hispanic vote also. Hispanic engagement is quite low, because of many immigrants cannot vote (same as Chinese/Indian), Because civic engagement isn’t common (again same) and language barriers. Additionally the idea that Hispanics are a democrat leaning population isn’t true. Many sub populations are staunchly religious (catholic) and would vote to overturn roe v wade same as evangelicals.

            Additionally, the focus on DACA and Hispanic immigration may be because of size: Indian and Chinese immigrants aren’t even 5% of the USA out together, while immigrants just from Mexico are a whopping 11% of the USA.

        • mavelikara 1285 days ago
          Democrats have worked for _increasing_ the number of _new_ H-1B that are allowed per year, and Republicans have opposed it. Republicans have supported rules which make it more attractive to those H-1Bs who do arrive each year, and Democrats have opposed it. That is my summary of the situation.
      • paxys 1285 days ago
        Every one of the numerous studies done in this area over the years has come to the clear conclusion that high-skilled immigration produces a net economic benefit to the country and its workers (here's a recent one - https://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/The-Impact-of-H-...).

        Silicon Valley itself wouldn't exist had it not been openly attracting talent from all over the world, and the difficulty in getting visas and residency over the last few years is already showing its effects as more and more major software companies are popping up outside the US.

        • confidantlake 1285 days ago
          The study is unconvincing. They mention that fields with more h1bs have lower unemployment. Well no kidding, in demand fields attract more h1bs, it isn't the h1bs making it more attractive.

          Another problem with the study. "...the program enables employers to hire foreign workers when they cannot hire U.S. workers"

          This is such a lie. My brother has looking for around a year and cannot get his first position. Past few months, looked like I might lose my job do to Covid. I spent a few months looking for a job, but couldn't find one. At the same time 70% of my coworkers are on h1b, often in their early/mid 20s. Absolutely no reason they couldn't hire a domestic worker to do the job. H1B is a scam.

          • tiziniano 1285 days ago
            I mean it is economics 101 that H1B's depress wages. I'd say especially since the demand for technology is relatively more inelastic that the increases on labor supply. There is a lot of money involved in masking this fact, but let's agree on something. There is always a tension between what part of economic surplus workers get and what part capital (shareholders) get. The sky high returns on capital in tech are possible in no big part due to the relative ease of bringing in new people. Successful companies will still make money but the actual return on the invesment will depend more on how high of a salary they have to pay. Take for instance FB, they make about 18Bn in net income, have 52K employees. About 350K per employee, imagine suddenly they were facing hiring engineers, they could easily spend a lot more on keeping them, but there's no need. Thanks to their lobbying through FWD.us among others, they can always import more people.

            I mean they have desperately tried to get more people into CS, but even that has had little results. Biggest bang for the buck is lobbying and marketing for more H1Bs. What's a couple hundred million here and there

            • barrkel 1285 days ago
              It's not actually obvious in "Economics 101" that wages are depressed by the best and the brightest coming to the US.

              What you're not taking into account is the relative efficiencies of scale. When there's more talent in a particular geography than somewhere else, high value global companies can grow in a way they can't elsewhere. A precondition of that is lots of raw material - people - who can be repurposed by the highest bidder. Limit the raw material, and the industry might not even be located on the West Coast.

              If supply was enough to depress wages, the US would have the world's lowest cost developers. In fact, it has the most expensive, because of the valuable companies that are able to grow in SV, which each bid up wages.

              Economics teaches us about winner effects. The best attract outsize rewards, far larger than their proportional increment in ability or effort. SV attracts the best of the best because it's the best place for such people to be rewarded. It's a virtuous circle in multiple, compounding dimensions.

              People are a fixed cost in the economics of software development. That means scale is king; it's the divisor on those costs. Scale isn't just on the sales side, though; it's on the talent side too.

              Reducing skilled immigration is the kind of shortsighted approach that kills the golden goose in the long term.

              • HarryHirsch 1284 days ago
                It's not actually obvious in "Economics 101" that wages are depressed by the best and the brightest coming to the US.

                These "best and brightest" are unencumbered by student loans and voluntarily put themselves in a very bad position at the negotiating table for the salary. If that doesn't depress wages it's hard to say what would.

                I can introduce you to someone who sells Eiffel towers and used bridges. You can trust him. He is my cousin.

              • tiziniano 1285 days ago
                Exactly, even though the economies of scale were making the economic value of the company much higher, this extra will just keep disproportionately going to the shareholders. In fact, the bigger the companies, the more power they hold in wage negotiations. Think about an efficient market with many, many buyers and sellers. What kind of equilibrium does it reach? Now think of a few big companies, hiring from an ever increasing supply. The companies grow bigger, but the wage that laborers receive, will decrease. At some point it becomes this question, why should American workers give up an ever bigger part of their wage to shareholders and other immigrants?

                In spite of their best efforts, most of the software development still occurs in the US. Think Microsoft hasn't tried to offshore as much as possible to India and China, building dev centers there? Or Google and FB?

                Even then, just look at what kind of workers end up being imported through this programs. Not always the best and brightest. Many do entry level jobs not even in software development, for outsourcing companies.

                I'm not saying outright ban immigration but better control is needed. (And saying this as a non-American living in the US). Something that struck me as particularly interesting and President Trump recently commented, is how about making companies bid for a fixed number of visa slots. Whoever pays the highest salary, gets the visa. This would certainly make companies be able to bring the brightest, while raising wages in general.

          • triceratops 1285 days ago
            > This is such a lie. My brother has looking for around a year and cannot get his first position.

            Anecdotes are not evidence. Maybe your brother is bad at interviewing. Getting the first position is always the hardest.

          • stainforth 1285 days ago
            That's a great angle for looking at - do we have data on the average age of h1bs? How can a young person already have the specialized skill they're supposedly brought in for?
          • paxys 1285 days ago
            You've highlighted the problem with public discourse in the country. "I'm going to choose to ignore all scientific evidence because my brother can't get a job and it feels like H-1B is the cause" - sadly applicable to any policy topic where politicians & media are taking advantage of people's emotions.
            • confidantlake 1285 days ago
              I am not ignoring scientific evidence. I read the paper, it is not convincing. This is not a double blind experiment, it simply looks at data and asserts causes. Take this paragraph:

              "An increase in the share of workers with an H-1B visa within an occupation, on average, reduces the unemployment rate in that occupation. The results indicate that a 1 percentage point increase in the share of workers with an H-1B visa in an occupation reduces the unemployment rate by about 0.2 percentage points. The findings suggest the presence of H-1B visa holders boosts employment among other workers in an occupation. The results provide no evidence that the H-1B program has an adverse impact on labor market opportunities for U.S. workers"

              There is nothing scientific about this. No experiment was performed. They simply looked at the data, saw there was lower unemployment in occupations with higher percentage of h1b, and then asserted that means there is no evidence that the program has an adverse impact on us workers. They are reversing cause and effect.

              • karpierz 1285 days ago
                You didn't read the methodology. They segmented the data by occupation, and then examined the data per occupation by year.

                Do you have a study that shows the adverse impact of H1-B visas on American workers?

              • robocat 1285 days ago
                > There is nothing scientific about this

                Soft sciences are harder than hard sciences to do.

                > No experiment was performed. > This is not a double blind experiment

                Do you really think experiments are a reasonable approach to political questions?

                I too dislike wish-washy science, but there really isn’t much other choice for many real world situations.

                • mancerayder 1285 days ago
                  Someone above accused him/her being unscientific and they responded accordingly.
            • creato 1285 days ago
              I think an equally big problem is that a lot of "scientific evidence" like this doesn't pass sanity checks, and definitions of "net economic benefit" can vary and might not preclude strongly negative impacts to the average US citizen.
        • ralph84 1285 days ago
          It has to be more than just a “net economic benefit” in a country with such large wealth inequality. Something that makes Jeff Bezos $1 billion and costs everyone else $900 million is a “net economic benefit”, but that doesn’t make it desirable for anyone except Bezos.
        • mancerayder 1285 days ago
          I've personally been asked to look at H1s instead of local staff to save wages (they cost 1/3). I'm in management now, but when I wasn't, you really would have expected a study to negate my own self-interest as an employee threatened with unemployment, and ultimately negate myself so that tech companies can rake in more profit and ultimately bring the aggregate numbers up (which is the net effect you highlight)?
        • bgorman 1285 days ago
          The main problem with this idea is that high skilled labor is conflated with h1B labor. The H1B system is completely abused by big outsourcing companies like Infosys, HCL,TCS and Wipro. The proof of this abuse is that the average salary from these workers is much lower from non-outsourced H1Bs e.g. microsoft workers on H1Bs.

          For example, a few years Disney theme parks laid off all of their IT staff and immediately replaced them with HCL H1B workers for lower cost. Clearly in this case H1Bs were abused to lower salaries of American workers by bringing in low skill (defined by salary) labor.

          Immigration isn't inherently bad but the H1B program is deeply flawed (allocations by country, dominance by outsourcing companies, workers being tied to employers)

          • 908B64B197 1283 days ago
            If I want to hire: A smart graduate from EPFL, Polytechnique or ETH Zurich who interned at CERN and has contributed to the Linux kernel for a software engineering job at a unicorn startup

            or

            A grad from a second tier "technical college" in India with a visa refusal rate of ~90% for a job doing manual UI testing and QA for a body shop

            my only path forward is H1. They'll both be listed as "computer related occupations" and apply for the same visa in the same quota. Does that makes any sense to anyone?

      • minot 1285 days ago
        > The H1B stuff goes back and forth politically. If you ask me, if the economy is poor then there's no excuse for encouraging immigration, especially of high paid labor. If unemployment is high, that is (and that's the part that fluctuates).

        Exactly why it should be easy, frictionless, and risk-free to tell on your employer for any labor violation as an H1-B. Make it abundantly clear to the visa holder that if their employer wrongs them in any way, they will pay big time and the visa holder will a. not face any punishment b. will be handsomely rewarded for coming forward.

        This is what the unions should advocate for...

        • kazagistar 1284 days ago
          I wish there were worker unions in tech.
      • the_arun 1285 days ago
        If economy is down or unemployment is high, is it proprtional to number of umemployment rate in highly skilled workers or other categories? Cause I always understood unemployment numbers include all categories with a majority in low skilled workers. Which means that, it may not be related to H1 visas.
      • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
        https://ustechworkers.com/ for example.

        I don't know what makes something 'officially' a labor union but at least they call themselves that. There was also Washington state Tech Workers Union.

        • kaitai 1284 days ago
          Uh, when I go to that page I don't see the word "union" anywhere on it. I tried searching for "union" on it and didn't get anything either. Where's the union part?

          I am truly confused. How did you get the impression they have anything to do with being a union? I don't see the union part, or the members part, or the collective bargaining part; seems to me a union ought to have those components.

        • damnyou 1285 days ago
          That's a front for a network of white nationalist organizations, not an actual union.
        • jdxcode 1285 days ago
          do they hold any significant influence? I've never heard of either one. I lived in WA state too.
    • WilTimSon 1285 days ago
      > Do people here know that even this 60-day grace window was only put into place relatively recently by the Obama administration?

      This is what happens when the people making the laws for unique experiences have never been even in the proximity of those experiences. (Well, in this case it's more likely just cruelty.) You get lawmakers who lived a standard life of an upper-class person and don't realize that finding a job isn't as easy as it may seem or as easy as it was 60 years ago. All that talk about "just go in, do a firm handshake and talk to the owner" might seem funny when it's loons on Facebook saying it but when it's what people base their perception of the world and their lawmaking on... that gets disturbing.

      • jdsully 1285 days ago
        Its not an act of omission, this is a result of compromise with factions that don’t want immigration at all. The fact it discourages people is a feature not a bug.
        • firebaze 1285 days ago
          If you immigrate, you emigrate. If you successfully immigrate (let's say in the U.S.), you have skills sought there. Those skills are probably also in demand in your origin country. You'd stand even more of a chance to be one of a few in your home country, gaining status, gaining visibility, turning the tide.

          I know I'll probably be flagged for this question, but still: why do this? Why not help your origin country with your knowledge?

          Genuine question, since I had the same decision to make and chose to return, in order to help locally.

          • maest 1285 days ago
            > Those skills are probably also in demand in your origin country.

            That's not guaranteed to be true. Take finance - if you want a career in this field there's only a handful of cities where it makes sense to live and work: London, Singapore, New York, maybe Tokyo.

            An exotic derivatives quant won't find much demand for their skills in, say, Almaty.

            Similarly, tech workers benefit from being in tech hubs (SV being one example). Oil engineers need to be around oil rigs and so on.

            Moreover, standards of living are different in different parts of the world. Levels of corruption, infrastructure development, civic engagement etc are much worse in some places than others. You may have had the foresight of choosing to be born in a well developed country, but many have not.

            • cvhashim 1284 days ago
              I think the future of tech work will be distributed and remote.
          • david-gpu 1285 days ago
            My priority is providing for myself and my family, not some abstract entity to which I'm linked only through an accident of birth.

            If a country offers better work conditions, a better salary, less risk of economic turmoil, better health care, etc. then I'll take the opportunity if it presents itself. I've done it twice and would do it again.

            It's not any different to taking a better job offer, whatever that means to you.

          • pbourke 1285 days ago
            > Why not help your origin country with your knowledge?

            I moved from Canada to the US in 2007. Things were different then, and the opportunities in the US were unique (I joined Amazon). The longer you stay, the harder it is to return: your network changes, you get used to life in the new place, etc.

            I will say that I’ve pondered the question of moving home nearly continuously since moving here and there always seems to be a compromise that we’re not ready to make yet. In the case of Canada, it was often the housing prices in the places where we’d like to live.

          • fat-chunk 1284 days ago
            You can't think of a single reason why somebody might choose to leave the country they live in, aside from the most obvious one which would be because they could be earning more and be able to obtain a much higher quality of life?

            Here are a few others:

            - being in a persecuted group that is at-risk or discriminated against in their country of origin (due to religion, race, sexuality, gender, etc.)

            - being from a country with a high homicide rate, or some other high risk of violence or danger

            - wanting to provide a better education and quality of life for their family

            - escaping abusive family or relationships

            - Wanting to access companies or institutions where the skilled worker feels they can have a much larger impact through their work

            This list is just scratching the surface...

          • imtringued 1285 days ago
            What knowledge? The knowledge people gain by working at a foreign software company? Let Albert Einstein work as a delivery driver in Mumbai and he's going to accomplish nothing. Everything is relative and depends on the given situation.
          • vsskanth 1285 days ago
            You can get better value for your skills and objectively achieve more results by moving to a place with a more developed ecosystem for your industry.
          • damnyou 1285 days ago
            Because most of the world does not have the infrastructure that the US has, and so they wouldn't be able to benefit society (as a whole) nearly as much.

            Because some people are queer or from other minority communities within their home country (e.g. Dalit in India), and would be subject to discrimination, including and up to murder, in their home countries. Asylum only covers the most extreme cases and not the day-to-day discrimination that minorities face worldwide.

            Because freedom of movement is an inalienable right that comes with being a human, and borders are inherently oppressive.

            Because most of the world is a harsh, dangerous place, and supporting the decisions individuals have made to stay or get out, given the circumstances they're in, is inherently a moral good.

      • Igelau 1285 days ago
        The distance between the political class and everyone else is shocking. This brings to mind the time that Obama was trying to cut 529 tax breaks and even Democrats were like "Dude, wtf!"

        For many of them it's been too long since they've had normal people problems. For immigrant experiences the gulf is even wider.

    • nickysielicki 1285 days ago
      I fully support immigration reform and expedited citizenship for skilled workers. I empathize with you. I have a lot of friends from school who have to deal with this, and it sucks.

      On the other hand, the H1B system isn’t supposed to import fungible labor. These visa are supposed to be for highly specialized labor — highly specialized to the point that the openings are rare. It’s hard to fault an abused program for being inconsiderate of a problem it wasn’t supposed to solve.

      • hn_throwaway_99 1285 days ago
        The nature of the H1B being tied to a single place of employment is ludicrous though. It enables a power dynamic where these workers are basically indentured servants. This dynamic is a detriment to both these workers and their native counterparts.

        Once an H1B is offered it should remain in place for some set time period, with procedures in place to address fraud either in the case of the company or employee.

        • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
          This is the singular easiest change that would make lives for H1B employees easier. Even immigration-averse countries like European ones work this way.

          Give us a general work visa that let's us work for N years instead of making us puppets of the company we are currently working for.

          • calvinmorrison 1285 days ago
            Isn't a H1B visa literally for a single job that's not able to be filled? It's not a work permit for working any specialist job, companies need to justify the need specifically
            • hn_throwaway_99 1285 days ago
              Can we stop pretending that's true? Like there are really jobs that are sooooo unique that NO Americans have the skills and only some foreign worker unicorns can fulfill them?

              H1Bs are just skilled worker visas, let's stop with the charade that they're anything else.

              • bgorman 1285 days ago
                If you want to stop that charade, you need to admit that H1Bs are frequently abused and are used to depress the salaries of American workers.
                • hn_throwaway_99 1284 days ago
                  > If you want to stop that charade, you need to admit that H1Bs are frequently abused and are used to depress the salaries of American workers.

                  100% agree, which is why I'm saying they shouldn't be tied to a single employer, which just helps employers in general acquire a more compliant, docile work force.

                • foobiekr 1284 days ago
                  I agree with this, but the best way to fix that is to remove some of the restrictions on the H1b workers so that they are not as easy to exploit.

                  I also favor dutch auction allocation.

                  That, and ban all of the body shops using them.

                  BTW, I have worked somewhere where H1b was knowingly abused and used to reduce the average wage.

                • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
                  There is a wide gap between the two extremes of "H1B is merely abuse" and "H1B is only for Nobel prize type savants".

                  Do you know there is no general work visa at all in America, whereby a skilled person can come based on their merit and work in the US?

                  • dragonwriter 1284 days ago
                    > Do you know there is no general work visa at all in America, whereby a skilled person can come based on their merit and work in the US?

                    There are a whole lot of (both immigrant and non-immigrant) work-related skill-based visas in the US immigration system. It's true there is no one generic such visa, but that's because the US immigration systems doesn't use a small number of broad visa types but a large number of hyperspecific ones.

                  • pandaman 1284 days ago
                    You are correct that there is no geneneral non-immigrant work visa but there are general skilled immigrant visas (EB1A and EB2-NIW).
            • wombatmobile 1285 days ago
              The point is that if that particular job disappears, the visa holder, a human being, often with family, is put in a difficult circumstance which requires adjustment.
        • icedchai 1284 days ago
          Yes, it disgusts me how some of our fellow engineers are controlled and manipulated due to their visa status. Meanwhile, non-H1B engineers can speak out about anything, and become uncooperative when asked do something perceived as idiotic, immoral, or even possibly illegal. I've seen other folks go ballistic on conference calls and emails due to one ridiculous thing or another. When you basically have a knife hanging over your head... potential deportation, disruption of your life and your family's... it is very different. You can't take those risks.
        • maest 1285 days ago
          > This dynamic is a detriment to both these workers and their native counterparts.

          Yeah, but it's great for the large companies hiring them.

      • whack 1285 days ago
        > These visa are supposed to be for highly specialized labor — highly specialized to the point that the openings are rare

        This is not true. The H1B program is intended to "allow U.S. employers to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. A specialty occupation requires the application of specialized knowledge and a bachelor's degree or the equivalent of work experience". Ie, it is intended to boost the economy by allowing in skilled college-educated immigrants. There's no requirement that they have to possess unique/extraordinary talent, or work in jobs where "openings are rare".

        You're probably mixing up the H1B program with the EB1 program, which is indeed intended for immigrants possessing "extraordinary ability". The intent and requirements for H1B are far simpler

      • damnyou 1285 days ago
        This is simply not true. What you're talking about is the intent of the O-1 and EB-1 programs, not H-1B.
    • akiselev 1285 days ago
      Even when you have a supportive (non-exploitative) employer it's an unbelievably precarious position (personal story time!).

      In order to renew an H1b visa [1], immigrants have to go to a US consulate, which do not exist within the borders of the United States so leaving the country is required. For the vast majority, this is a day trip to Canada or Mexico or a small vacation to visit family in their home country so it's not really an issue. However, sometimes, the consulate will pull shit like a "State Department Security Check" because the subjects worked in an institute that happens to have a research nuclear reactor - nevermind that it's one of the largest scientific institutes in the world or that their fields of expertise have nothing to do with nuclear.

      The immigrants, if they chose to go to Canada or Mexico (as most do due to cost), are likely at this point stuck for months as undocumented immigrants in their new host country - unable to work with existing mortgages/apartments/cars/obligations to pay for in their old life, hotels and living expenses to pay for in their new life, and barely a month worth of sick time and vacation. Bonus: most of the things they could do to mitigate the disaster could jeopardize their permanent residency application. As far as I know, these standoffs usually end when the employers sue over the renewal or dump the employee completely in which case their entire lives have to be packed up and moved but they can't enter the United States to do so. Bonus #2: if both parents are working, they likely have separate H1b visas that won't clear together - family separation time!

      As you can imagine, going through this series of events is devastating, especially for children who have zero insight or control into the process. Cruel is an understatement.

      Edit: [1] See comment below, this applies to applications going through consular processing, which is a crucial detail

      • kshacker 1285 days ago
        In order to renew an H1b visa, immigrants have to go to a US consulate

        I think you may be confusing 2 things. H1 Validity and H1 Visa. You can extend your H1 from within US and most people do. No one is forced to go out and come back.

        However, to extend H1 Visa, what you say is true. The difference is that visa allows you to go out of US, and then come back in, and for you to come back in, you need a visa that is valid at the time of entry.

        However, if you wanted to stay in US without going out and keep on extending H1 (to the extent allowed by law), you can.

        • akiselev 1285 days ago
          I'm not confusing them, I just oversimplified the interaction between the petition expiration date and the I-94 expiration date. I forgot to add that my comment above applies to applications that go through consular processing though, which is a very important detail.

          H1b applications processed by consulates don't receive an I-94 which means that the application is "approved pending a visa stamping". The new work authorization isn't active regardless of whether they are already in the United States legally or not, until the person leaves the US and goes to a visa stamping at a consulate.

          You are describing the happy path for tech workers, but in my experience (90s Soviet block exodus) most families had to go through consular processing because it places a smaller burden of proof on the applicant vis a vis things like legal status in the United States and their home country. Lots of families from the Soviet block had a hard time assembling the required documentation in the chaos of the 90s and anyone who overstayed a H1b or student visa even a day because they wouldn't or couldn't uproot their families has to go through this process.

          • kshacker 1284 days ago
            I am not trying to describe the happy path in any way. I have gone through a 4 year L1A green card which my colleagues got it in 10 months and I have been without advanced parole for 13 months which implied if I left the country due to any reason, I could not come back. And my experience too was in a different decade, no need for me to cover up the warts. It is quite an experience each interaction with the then INS taking over 3 months when the entire last stage should have completed in 3-4 months.

            What I am describing about H1 is standard (majority) operating procedure. Yes extending H1 visa outside of the country is a pain, but extending H1 while being in US is not such a big pain, and most of my colleagues do that. Of course there does come a need for people to visit to their origin country once in a while, and yes that's when it becomes a lottery.

    • war1025 1285 days ago
      Work / study visas are (in my opinion anyway) a significant reason why the majority of post-graduate students are foreign.

      Working as a grad student is really a quite poor economic trade off unless you have the unspoken side benefit of qualifying for a visa.

      It's basically a form of academic wage suppression.

    • mathattack 1285 days ago
      I concur that the H1B rules are awful. We should make it as easy as possible for the best in the world to come here. The laws as they stand directly abuse non-citizens for the benefit of companies, some of which are US based. The H1B holders don’t vote. The beneficiaries of a better system are more indirect, and less likely to make a case. (Most of us benefit when the best talent in the world is free to come here and build/create/pay taxes)

      However... The system is arbitrary and can punish people short term. It seems strange to buy a house in a country that can kick you out on no notice through no fault of your own.

      • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
        > It seems strange to buy a house in a country that can kick you out on no notice through no fault of your own.

        OK, it's strange to buy a house. What about marrying and having a kid? Many H1B workers here have lived there for decades (with no realistic hope of a green card in sight). Must we stay childless because we can be kicked out on no notice?

        I know your statement is well-intentioned but it comes off as one of those things that's easy to say in 'abstract' but it demonstrates a lack of understanding of actual life situations of people.

        • mathattack 1285 days ago
          I don’t intend to seem callous, so please help educate me.

          If you marry a citizen, that accelerated the Green Card. If you marry a non-citizen, your situation is precarious, so why not rent rather than buy?

          I’m not arguing that the rules are right. (They are clearly wrong) Just that if you’re ina precarious situation, avoid doing things that make it worse. When I lived abroad, the expats were all aware of being on borrowed time.

          I think the world would be a better place in terms of peace and prosperity if people could circulate as easily as money. Unfortunately that’s not our world.

          If my posts are wrong or offend I’m happy to delete them.

          • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
            I am not offended and you have been polite, so please don't remove your posts.

            Renting vs buying is fine. We can choose to rent all our lives and frankly in the Bay Area buying isn't even that slam dunk of a decision anyway.

            My point was a bit more general. It's very common for people to argue 'technically' about how others should live their lives while missing their ground reality. For instance, it's easy to say "Well technically H1B is not an immigration visa, it's a temporary workers visa so why are you making long-term life decisions while on it". But the ground reality for most Indians and Chinese on H1Bs in the US is that they will never get a green card (permanent residence), and they will spend their whole lives here under H1B, so while the question is well-meaning and genuine, it translates to "don't buy a house, don't get too many possessions, don't marry[1], don't have kids".

            [1] Unless you marry a citizen, in which case you are sometimes accused of entering into a 'green-card marriage' and seen with suspicion.

            • cableshaft 1285 days ago
              Yeah, my boss is here on an H1B, and has been with the same company for I think 12 years now, even though the company has had many rough years and I'm sure he would have switched jobs already if not for his H1B status.

              He's since married and has a kid, used to live in an apartment but now has a house, although he might be renting, I'm not sure.

              I started dating and eventually married my wife, got two dogs, and bought a house in just the five years I've been working at the company myself, so a lot of life events can happen in that time.

            • mathattack 1285 days ago
              On marriage - it’s very broken, and abuses foreign workers. And I do get where you’re coming from. My wedding got accelerated by a year or two when my girlfriend has visa issues. (It was still worth it!)
            • mathattack 1284 days ago
              Thanks for engaging politely and directly in a tough conversation.
            • rjkennedy98 1285 days ago
              What do Americans owe you? If its such a bad arrangement, why did you come to the US?

              > it translates to "don't buy a house, don't get too many possessions, don't marry[1], don't have kids".

              What percentages of Americans own a house. What percentage of Americans have kids? What percentage of Americans get married?

              You have some seriously entitlement derangement syndrome.

            • User23 1285 days ago
              As a guest worker you are not supposed to put down deep roots here. If you want to immigrate you should follow the law and get an immigrant visa. This isn't hard at all. It's just like being a guest anywhere else, you have to follow the host's rules even if you don't like them.
              • mavelikara 1285 days ago
                Many people who are in the guest visa apply for and are approved for permanent residency (which is what, I think, you meant by “immigrant visa”). They are simply waiting for years - decades even - for their turn. Life happens while they wait - marriage, kids, house etc - as mentioned by GP.
              • jen20 1285 days ago
                One need not have visited the US, or even _be eligible_ to visit the US to own property in the US.
              • fishywang 1285 days ago
                What immigrant visa, exactly? H1b is the pathway to immigrant visa for tech workers in the US. For H1b holders born in certain countries, they have to be on H1b visa to be on the 5-10 year long queue to get the green card.
                • User23 1285 days ago
                  • fishywang 1285 days ago
                    That's the exactly same thing I said: you need to be on H1b (or other non-immigrant visa but allows dual-intention, for example L1) and wait for maybe years or decades (based on your birth country) to get that.

                    Here's the current queue size: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/v.... For immigrants born in mainland China, E2's current queue is 4.5 years, for immigrants born in India E2's current queue is 11 years.

                    • User23 1285 days ago
                      There is no mention of H-1B at all on the State Department page I linked you. Where are you getting this from? Sure some H-1B holders manage to later acquire an E visa, but nowhere is it stated to be a prerequisite. Exceptional individuals don't even need a US sponsor to apply.
                      • fishywang 1285 days ago
                        Sure H1b is not a prerequisite technically. But say you are the employer, you want to sponsor this Indian person's E2 visa, but you need to wait for 11 years before they actually get the visa you sponsored and start to work for you. Now tell me how is H1b not a prerequisite in reality?
                        • User23 1285 days ago
                          If it takes that long it's because the category you're in is heavily over-subscribed and at a relatively low skill level. Using H-1B to do an end run around that is common, but to call it a prerequisite is dishonest. Our immigration system has limits because we believe it is in our citizen's interest. This means not every foreign worker that wants to immigrate is going to get to. US law gives preference to exceptional individuals, because our law is for the benefit of our citizens and corporations, not foreign nationals.
                          • fishywang 1285 days ago
                            For E1 the queues for China and India born immigrants are still 2+ years long.
              • ylem 1285 days ago
                Immigrant visa? What is that? I think the conversation is focused on the US. I'm a native-born US citizen, but my impression is that for those who get an H1B, they can apply for a green card and eventually citizenship. However, the path for many is fairly long. Perhaps you are confusing the H1-b and the J-1?
                • User23 1285 days ago
                  You can read about the difference here[1]. H-1B is a temporary visa and does not entitle a holder to permanent residency. In some cases it's possible for a H-1B holder to be granted permanent residency because it's a dual intent visa, but that merely permits the holder to desire to immigrate. By contrast a tourist visa would be denied to a visitor who expressed the desire to stay permanently.

                  [1] https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/visa-waive...

          • jen20 1285 days ago
            > why not rent rather than buy?

            Have you ever tried to break a lease on accommodation in the US?

            • mathattack 1285 days ago
              It’s cheaper than unwinding a house, no? Especially if you’re leaving the country.
              • jen20 1285 days ago
                Not necessarily.

                A house is an asset you can continue to own if you leave the country, by renting it. There is no requirement to be US resident or even eligible to visit the US to own property in the US.

                Breaking a lease can cost tens of thousands of dollars which is just waste - and if you ever intend on coming back to the country at some point, simply abandoning the lease is not advisable since the impact on credit reporting can be substantial.

                So I'd suggest that it's actually cheaper to own a house, and simply _not_ unwind it.

                • scarface74 1285 days ago
                  Have you ever tried being a landlord if you are in another part of the same metro area that is only an hour away? I can’t imagine being a landlord dealing with rentals in another country.
                  • jen20 1285 days ago
                    This is what management companies are for.
                    • scarface74 1285 days ago
                      And they take 10%-20% of your monthly rent and at least half of the first months rent of a new lease.

                      When I was in real estate, the banks would only credit your income at a 75% occupancy rate. It’s hard to break even on an income basis with rental real estate.

                      When your property is vacant, you’re still on the hook for the mortgage. More than likely, your income is going to be lower when you’re forced to leave the country.

                      • jen20 1284 days ago
                        I'm aware - the answer to "Have you ever tried being a landlord if you are in another part of the same metro area that is only an hour away?" is no, but I do from another country, right now, using a management company.
          • michaelt 1285 days ago
            Because they do not foresee their situation becoming less precarious in the future.
        • dragandj 1285 days ago
          AFAIK, marying a citizen gives you a straight path to resident papers and, later, citizenship, in the western world, including USA.
          • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
            Marrying a citizen, yes. But the chances of H1B visa holders marrying other H1B visa holders (or people from back home) are pretty high given that the elephant in the room is that all of this discussion disproportionally affects Indians and Chinese.
          • chucky_z 1285 days ago
            A close friend of mine got married 3 years ago. He is a dual citizen of China and the USA. His spouse is a Chinese citizen.

            This straight path you speak of they have been filing paperwork for and fighting for, for 3 years now. I believe he is just in the path to permanently moving to China and revoking his US citizenship status.

            Everything about this process sucks. :(

            • throwaway744678 1285 days ago
              How can your friend be a dual citizen of China and the US, when PRC does not recognize dual nationality?
            • ivalm 1285 days ago
              Strange, my Chinese citizen wife got her conditional green card within ~6 months of application (about a year ago, we’ve been married less than 2 years and she took a few months to apply since her status wasn’t pressing). One thing they ask is if you are a member of the communist party (my wife never was), and I guess if the answer is yes things may be more complicated. I, myself, am a naturalized us citizen (from Eastern Europe, my dad got an E1 in 2001).
      • Lammy 1285 days ago
        > The laws as they stand directly abuse non-citizens for the benefit of companies, some of which are US based.

        So let's rein in those companies by giving them a talent pool of people who can't rock the boat too hard without fear of having to leave the country?

      • maxerickson 1285 days ago
        We should just have really loose immigration laws that let lots of people in. Never mind the best in the world stuff.
    • seanmcdirmid 1285 days ago
      > are in fact likely against it due to American tech unions hating H1Bs

      That’s a new one. What are these American tech unions you are speaking of? Googling only brings up a few obscure organizations that I’m sure don’t have much influence with the Democrats.

    • YZF 1285 days ago
      I had a job offer and TN status with a US company and I decided (last minute practically) not to move to the US for precisely this reason. That I'd have to leave the country on the same day I lost my job. Doing this with a family seemed too risky for me. I'm not sure what my parallel universe life in Seattle would have looked like but I've no regrets staying in Canada.
      • yibg 1285 days ago
        FYI TN also has a 60 day grace period.
        • YZF 1284 days ago
          This was prior to the 60 day grace period. I know there's a 60 day grace period these days.
    • addicted 1285 days ago
      Other than the fact that Democrats have voted for bills solving this issue in both houses of Congress by vast majorities, and the last Democratic President took many executive actions (including the one you mention as well as others that were rolled back by Republicans) there is no evidence that Democrats really care.
    • ozim 1285 days ago
      What one can expect from going to foreign country? People in mine (or yours) country will try to get as much as possible for free from others.

      If someone thinks that some country is composed only from good will and good people, it will be disappointing. There is price to pay for moving, it is not always obvious. I moved to another country and I earn more money than if I would not move, but opportunities that I left back in my country are somewhat biting me back after all those years.

    • devmunchies 1285 days ago
      > Typically it's the Democrats who are pro-immigration

      Actually its business tycoons who want cheap, abundant labor. Getting the media to frame it as a social issue was genius.

    • la6471 1285 days ago
      Yes and you cannot expect the Native American workers to sympathize with your plight. The focus is on productivity and the cost of labor and not on humans behind it. The Native American workers had faced it for decades via outsourcing and offshoring and now the pendulum is swinging back to the right again. The rules will be changed ,if needed , for US and it’s citizens to win the game.
    • nbaksalyar 1285 days ago
      > Before that, you technically had to leave the country the day you were laid off

      Interestingly enough, there's a very similar system in place in the United Kingdom (Tier 2 General). Not only you have to leave within 60 days after being laid off, but there's also a "cooling-off period" of 1 year, which means that you can't get a new visa during this period and effectively it resets your time until permanent residence, so you have no option but to start over.

      • vsskanth 1285 days ago
        UK doesn't have "at-will" employment like the USA.

        Their PR system is also time based, which means you don't have to live in uncertainty forever, unlike the H1B which is lifelong temporary immigrant for certain nationalities.

    • dudul 1284 days ago
      A decade? Have the rules changed over the past 10 years? When I was on an H1B the rule was that the visa was valid 3 years and could be renewed only once for another 3.

      How would you buy a house on a H1B? No banks would issue a mortgage to a non-immigrant visa holder.

      Two things can be true at the same time. Starting a "resident life" while on a temporary, non-immigrant visa doesn't sound like a great plan; and yes, this visa is horrendous and should be deeply reformed.

      • pandaman 1284 days ago
        There is a loophole in AC21: if you have an approved I-140 then you can extend H-1B indefinitely in 3 year increments. The trick is that I-140, once approved for 6 months, cannot become unapproved via a USCIS memo. So there are now hundreds of thousdand H-1Bs with permanent I-140s getting infintie H-1B terms.
    • ecdavis 1284 days ago
      > Never mind that you might have a house a family and might have been living here for more than a decade.

      I lived in the US on a temporary, non-immigrant visa similar to the H-1B for six years.

      Buying a house and starting a family while on such a visa always struck me as deeply irresponsible. I was reticent to even get a pet. The US immigration process sucks, but it's sucked for a long time, and the extent to which it's going to suck for you in particular is knowable ahead of time. Simply reading the language on the forms you fill out while applying for such a visa makes it clear how the US government regards you[0]. To ignore that and live your life as though you have permanent residency already is to carelessly put yourself (and your family, if you have one) in a risky situation.

      I have sympathy for people who find themselves in this position. Leaving the US as a single person with no significant assets was tough enough for me, I can't imagine what it's like for someone who's really put down roots there. That said, if you were living like a "temporary worker in a speciality occupation" you wouldn't have put down roots.

      [0] I know a lot of people listen to their employers pie-in-the-sky promises of Green Cards and how layoffs "never happen" and so forth. You're an adult, though. Understand your legal situation for yourself.

    • scarface74 1285 days ago
      > American tech unions hating H1Bs

      What the heck is a “tech union”? Who are in one?

    • rahulpadalkar 1285 days ago
      nice username.
    • bzb5 1285 days ago
      Staying in a foreign country is a privilege, not a right.
    • jrochkind1 1285 days ago
      If the Democrats are "pro-immigration", they haven't actually succesfully done much to show it. Generally, not limited to H1B. this country has become very anti-immigration generally, and I hate it.

      There isn't really such a thing as a "tech union" in the USA. I don't think very many tech H1B holders are working in areas with any unions. (And if they were wouldn't many union members be H1B holders themselves?)

      Actually, I suspect Democrats get more money from tech companies that benefit from H1B hires than Republicans do. Tech companies in the past tend to donate to Dem more than Republican. Of course, the biggest companies, in nearly every industry, donate to both parties hoping to influence whoever is in office.

      Perhaps that's what led to the bare improvement to a 60 day period under Obama, who was of course the last Democratic president. The Dems definitely haven't done any more for lower wage or less skilled immigrants, if you think they are somehow helping them but not H1B-type immigration, you are unfortunately mistaken.

      • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
        DACA was an executive order by a Democratic president.
        • mavelikara 1284 days ago
          How is DACA helping people on H-1B? It explicitly _excludes_ legal immigrant children who are waiting in greencard backlogs.
  • oDot 1285 days ago
    The current state of job interviews is terrible. Just the fact that studying for a few weeks affects their outcome should raise eyebrows everywhere.

    And don't get me started on lack of job-related questions, false negatives and having to guess what interviewers want to hear

    • TrackerFF 1285 days ago
      It seems to be a mostly US-centric thing.

      I live in Scandinavia, and I have yet to encounter the levels of rigor I see in the US (tech) interviewing process - which is kind of weird, as we have much, much more stringent workers rights/laws, making it more difficult to get rid of a bad hire.

      Sure, US companies, especially in tech hubs, operate on a completely different scale than companies over here - at least in terms of funding/capital, size, and impact; So one might suspect your companies and startups to be more selective. But yet, it seems like a completely different world.

      Over here, there seems to be much more emphasis (and trust) on your resume, and the hiring process is more focused on fit. If you have the basics down, most can be thought - but it's pretty difficult to teach culture.

      • PragmaticPulp 1285 days ago
        As a counterpoint, I had to intervene when I discovered one of our European offices was interviewing mobile developers with a 40-80 hour take home project. They were not happy when we made them reduce it to a 4-5 hour take home problem.
      • denvrede 1284 days ago
        Same thing in Germany. I've had just a few interviews for the last three jobs. None of them was a multi day (or even one whole day) interview. The max. that was asked was a (really short) coding challenge with a salary at 80k - to put in perspective I pay 600€ / 105m² for rent and live near some big cities in western Germany.
      • dudul 1284 days ago
        I definitely went through a stupid interview process when I lived and worked in Sweden. "Name and define 5 design patterns", "sort this array", followed by the "personality test". Everyone was nice and all, and I got the job, but it was definitely on par with what I see now in the US.
        • xtracto 1284 days ago
          this_array.sort()

          I hate stupid leetcode based interviews. It's like "gotcha journalism " just to have a justification for a subjective rejection

          It's like when as couple of weeks ago some random recruiter was interviewing me and asked "what's your weak point as a manager" ... I was sincere and if course the reason I was rejected is because they are looking for someone who doesn't have THAT exact weakness. GOTCHA!!

          • toomanybeersies 1284 days ago
            I feel that asking candidates negative questions gives you a better idea of a programmers aptitude than asking positive questions. Asking a candidate to give an example of a problem they couldn't solve, what they attempted when trying to solve it, and why they couldn't solve it, gives you an idea of their problem solving process and a real sense their upper limit of ability. Any candidate can gas themselves up and cherrypick some impressive achievements, or provide a laundry list of tools they have "experience" with.

            Rejecting candidates based on their response to those types of questions is completely counter-productive. You'll just end up with a bunch of employees who are either liars, or very good at delegating blame. You want employees who take ownership of their work and assigned tasks.

            As for programming tasks/questions in interviews. I think that it's important to test applicants' practical knowledge of sorting and other enumerable operations as it's a common task that's often done wrong, often with significant performance impacts. However, requiring a candidate to re-implement a common sorting algorithm for an array of numbers does nothing but stroke the interviewer's ego. The last time I actually had to write a sorting algorithm from scratch was in a 200-level computer science paper.

            An actually sane interview question/task would be to ask the candidate to sort an array by an unconventional comparison, using a language's standard sorting functionality.

            For example: sorting an array of coordinates by their absolute distance from (0, 0), or sorting an array of RGB colours by intensity. They're problems that a programmer would realistically encounter in a real-life application, and test that the candidate actually understands how to manipulate non-trivial enumerable/comparable data.

            Asking candidates to implement quicksort selects for applicants who have a case of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome. You don't want to hire programmers who implement their own sorting algorithms from scratch, there's a >90% chances they'll implement it worse than the language's standard implementation, while wasting a bunch of time that could be spent solving actual business problems, and creating technical debt to boot.

      • bosie 1284 days ago
        Mind expanding on how a regular senior SWE or analyst interview works? How many stages, what are the questions etc?
      • marcinzm 1285 days ago
        The US pays a lot and there's a lot of competition for positions. The H1B system doesn't help that competition. When you have 50 well qualified applicants (ie: could pass most interviews) per position then you need some way to weed out 49 of them. Resumes can be exaggerated and downright lied on so once there's enough competition using them just means you're selecting the best liars/sociopaths.
        • rhexs 1285 days ago
          I think there's certainly some truth to coding interviews being an effective mechanism in shifting hiring towards H1Bs. It's much easier to say that Americans can't do the job when you create a test around studying for 500 hours to memorize hundreds upon hundreds of coding puzzles in order to build up a mental encyclopedia of how to quickly apply your algorithmic "training" to the puzzle of the day.

          I'd bet H1Bs are going to be much more motivated to jump through that hoop. Benefits them and the company doing the hiring that conveniently just can't find enough qualified American engineers to do the job.

          • creato 1284 days ago
            This is an absurd characterization of coding interviews. I've been on both sides of big tech interviews, and I've been at a few companies. I've seen two extremes. At one end, the company had pretty lax interviews, and I rarely interviewed anyone while I was there. The quality of people at this company was relatively low, from my small sample size of coworkers. At the other end, a company well known for challenging coding interviews, and I regularly interview people. The quality of people at this company was relatively high, again from my small sample size of coworkers.

            I think coding interviews are actually working fairly well. They divide people into at least two groups: a first group is people that can pass them without too much trouble, and they mostly seem to get hired, but of course there are mistakes. A second group is people that need to spend 500 hours cramming to appear qualified, and basically are trying to game the system. These people mostly don't get hired, and I suspect also are completely driving the conversation on HN and elsewhere about how coding interviews are a terrible failure.

            • marcinzm 1284 days ago
              FAANG nowadays wants you to be able to solve 2 leetcode mediums (or an easy+hard) without errors and with optimal computational complexity in 35 minutes. This is done up to three times so that's six problems and if you miss even one you likely fail the whole thing. To me that's really really hard unless you study to the point of having the solutions memorized. It's not the problems that are difficult per say but the time constraint which means going down the wrong path leaves you with no time to fix things.
            • TheFiend7 1283 days ago
              I'm not necessarily anti coding interviews, but somehow convincing yourself there is any degree of innate talent is a myth. There is a linear relationship between practice and performance. It's as simple as that. Some people are privileged with better resources to practice more effectively, but at the end of the day, it comes down to who has done it more.
            • jgwil2 1284 days ago
              I've worked with people that I consider pretty smart, and they definitely study (and enjoy) the kinds of problems that are given in interviews. 500 hours may be an exaggeration, but I think the idea that this stuff comes naturally to successful people is a bit ridiculous.
            • JackMorgan 1284 days ago
              I would say I've never met anyone who can "invent Quicksort" without too much trouble. However I've met many people who've memorized it for interviews.
        • jjav 1284 days ago
          > When you have 50 well qualified applicants (ie: could pass most interviews) per position then you need some way to weed out 49 of them.

          No, you don't. Simply hire the first one that's a fit. If all 50 are well-qualified, that means hire the very first one you interview.

          • marcinzm 1284 days ago
            Why settle for merely well qualified when you can have the absolutely best?
            • jjav 1283 days ago
              Because there is no such thing, people don't rank on a linear scale.
        • mths 1284 days ago
          > When you have 50 well qualified applicants (ie: could pass most interviews) per position then you need some way to weed out 49 of them.

          Do you really? If they're all well qualified, wouldn't any of them do?

          • marcinzm 1284 days ago
            Why settle for merely well qualified when you can have the absolutely best?
      • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
        > Over here, there seems to be much more emphasis (and trust) on your resume, and the hiring process is more focused on fit. If you have the basics down, most can be thought - but it's pretty difficult to teach culture.

        That's probably because OP makes triple to quadruple your total compensation at minimum as an L5 ML Engineer at Google.

        https://www.levels.fyi/

        Total: $356,119

        • TrackerFF 1285 days ago
          Obviously the salaries are quite different, but at the same time - you're pretty much walking around in golden shackles, no? I can't imagine those salaries being relevant, other than a handful of places in the US.

          And for the price of a small 2-bedroom apartment in the SF-area, you can pretty much buy a mansion where I live.

          Then you have things like healthcare, school costs, daycare / cost of raising a child, etc. etc.

          • marcinzm 1285 days ago
            The US is a large place, you can save money for a decade in one location and then use that $1-2 million you built up to move somewhere cheap, buy a mansion and not give much a shit for the next 40 years. Taxes are also generally lower so you keep more. Healthcare costs don't matter since your employer pays for that and gives you good health insurance. School/child only matters later, and you can either move away by then or get promoted to making $600k+.

            edit: Two engineers together can make $700k+ which is $450+k after taxes per year. After one year and reasonable spending that's enough for a down payment on a house in the Bay Area. Every single year you get enough to pay for 1.5 kid's worth of college education at a top private school. Very few costs actually matter in comparison at that point.

            • gcheong 1285 days ago
              Sure but do people want to actually want to live in those places? My wife and I both live in SF and we were able to buy a house which would be impossible now, but I don’t think we’ve ever cleared more then 250K max combined in actual salary. Now with only one of us working which could drop to zero at any moment it seems a move to cash out our equity in the house and move to Europe is a more feasible option than staying in the US
              • marcinzm 1285 days ago
                >Sure but do people want to actually want to live in those places?

                I don't see why not. It's not like the Bay Area is particularly great culturally, culinarily or in most other ways. It's a giant suburb sandwiched between a medium sized city and a place that is only technically dense enough to be a city. There's plenty of mid-sized cities and suburbs in the US with reasonable costs of living.

                • gcheong 1284 days ago
                  Yeah I don’t know. I think there is a difference between places with reasonable costs of living but I don’t know if those are places where 1-2M is going to last 40yrs. I grew up in Astoria, OR with population of 10k and can say that at least compared to that place SF Bay Area is miles beyond culturally and culinarily. Even Portland seems rather lacking just in the sense that there really isn’t the amount of cultural diversity there as you can find here. I feel like if there is anything I am interested in getting into here there is almost always a club or group of people you can find here that are doing it which wasn’t always the case in other places I’ve lived. On the other hand, if you’re into things like hunting and similar recreational pursuits, the Bay Area doesn’t seem as good as other places where there aren’t as many hurdles to overcome and a lot of people are doing it as well.
                  • marcinzm 1284 days ago
                    I didn't mean you could retire with 1-2 million but simply you could take whatever job you wanted and not worry about major expenses. The person I was talking to mentioned kids a few times so I was talking more from that point. With kids, your free time shrinks dramatically as do your priorities. So hobbies and so on matter a lot less than good schools, stable environment, etc, etc.

                    In terms of diverse activities I've personally found east coast cities better and most have broader suburbs than the bay area (due to not being restricted by mountains) so it's easier to trade commute against price.

                • kleinsch 1284 days ago
                  Culinarily, the Bay Area is #2 in the US, behind NYC. In Michelin star rankings it’s top 10 in the world.

                  Cost of living sucks, it’s why I just moved to a better COL area but damn do I miss the restaurant scene.

                • Hydraulix989 1284 days ago
                  Most software engineers I know don't even leave the house much. What's the point of living here if you're just going to watch LoL streams all day in your bedroom?
              • nullsense 1284 days ago
                I live on the other side of the world and my wife and I barely clear $25k
            • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
              I grew up with a dad working for 70-120k and a mom at home. I can’t even imagine how nice the lifestyles of Bay Area kids are.
              • marcinzm 1285 days ago
                As I see it, beyond a certain level money and things don't make you much happier. They just give you a different set of things to feel the same level of happiness about.

                edit: This is as someone who has experienced household lifestyles going from <$40k/year to >$250k/year.

                • juniper_strong 1284 days ago
                  I don't agree with you.

                  I've gone from 0K to 200K in my life and more money is always better, it's more freedom and it's more happiness and there has never been any downside.

                  Making more money has always made me happier and it's given me the ability to take care of the people I care about.

                  I want more and if a job comes up tomorrow that will pay me more, I'm there.

                  • tchalla 1284 days ago
                    > I want more and if a job comes up tomorrow that will pay me more, I'm there.

                    Tere's diminishing returns on wealth accumulation. You need to give up something to make that extra more. Different people have different thresholds for "giving up" certain aspects of their life.

              • ip26 1284 days ago
                The kids you are thinking of certainly enjoy nice cars, good food, and so on.

                However, the housing stock is mostly old & run down even at two million dollar prices. Not to mention, a kid with two full time Googler parents? They are attending an academically rigorous private school with 3-4 hours of cram classes after, not sipping virgin daiquiris by the pool.

              • aaronblohowiak 1285 days ago
                the parenting attitude isnt "we got it made, lets enjoy the good life", it is "i expect you to do even better". also, most kids are not the product of 750k hh income families. the median hh income is about a hundred k.
                • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
                  I’m really referring to the children of Googler parents.
              • Der_Einzige 1284 days ago
                350K is about enough to start considering buying a house in the bay area. Less than that and you have to make big compromises.

                The life you can't imagine are all the lucky Engineers to be paid bay area salaries at reasonable cost of living locations like Seattle. You may laugh at me calling Seattle "reasonable" but compared to the bay it is.

              • gcheong 1285 days ago
                Housing prices and the cost of any good school beyond a select few good public ones pretty much brings the lifestyle down to the same level. My friends with kids and solid incomes live comfortably but not extravagantly considering one lay-off can take your income from comfortable to 0 at a moment’s notice.
              • bradlys 1285 days ago
                Judging by the Palo Alto train tracks - it might not be as bright as you might be imagining.
            • ryandrake 1284 days ago
              Sure, two engineers together technically can make $700k+, just like runners technically can run a 4 minute mile. You're not talking about average engineers at average companies here, so it's not really generalizable advice.
          • PragmaticPulp 1285 days ago
            Not really. Many people earn those salaries for 5-10 years and then move literally wherever they want to raise families.

            It’s not hard to save a million or more on those salaries before you turn 30. That’s a lot of freedom.

          • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
            Cost of healthcare is minimal at Google. And yeah, you can easily afford a mansion if you want to commute long enough. 300k to 500k is enough for nice housing - unfortunately, as someone making $150k at 24 I’ll never have this American dream.
            • abnercoimbre 1285 days ago
              This is a rather damning statement and it saddens me that wealth keeps concentrating in such small pockets of America.

              I'm in Seattle but I have engineer friends in Florida making your salary and they definitely have nice houses.

              • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
                I live in the northeast - even if I get promoted it’s unlikely I’ll break 200k. Down payment for a house around here is like 150k or more :/
    • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
      [Edit: Parent commenter has now reworded their comment to remove confusion]

      Huh? OP wasn't a rando who just 'studied' for a few weeks and passed. He has been working in Tech for 7+ years [1].

      If anything the moral of this story is it doesn't matter that you have a 7 year experience, you still have to do fucking Leetcode for 2 months if you want to get a new job.

      [1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/bharathpbhat/

      • oDot 1285 days ago
        > ... it doesn't matter that you have a 7 year experience, you still have to do fucking Leetcode for 2 months if you want to get a new job

        Exactly my point -- two weeks of leetcode do not significantly affect the candidate's ability to perform the job, but it has immense influence on how well s/he'll do in the interview

        • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
          If that was your point I think you didn't state it correctly. Your original comment makes it sound like you think OP undeservedly got a job merely be hacking through a couple weeks of interview prep.
          • oDot 1285 days ago
            Edited for what I hope is clarity ;p
      • ramraj07 1285 days ago
        I see _some_ potential acceptability to this idea though. There are a few hypotheses for this to be true:

        1. If you're not a good programmer even with leetcode practice you can't get good 2. If you're a good programmer with leetcode practice you eliminate anxiety and are able to perform optimally according to your programming skills

        Thus, it is definitely semi annoying that you need to "prep" for interviews with leetcode, its not the absolute worst thing in the world. Software engineers in the US tend to routinely forget how good they have basically everything compared to every other profession / nation out there.

        This is also coming from and Indian dude currently back in India after a decade of being in the States. I think a 60 day window is perfectly acceptable (not great but not terrible either) for immigrant workers. I'm still glad for the opportunity this gives people. You're supposed to be a smart cookie anyways right? Didn't you know these terms when you started? Perhaps you should have made sure you had an exit plan. It's definitely on you if you come on a h1b and instantly proceed to buy a mansion that you can't sell off and leave nation if needed. Also, people blame their kids for not wanting to move them back to their original countries - I feel like the kids will be alright. It's probably the adults who will despise going back to a "lesser" lifestyle or something.

        • bradlys 1285 days ago
          Being a good programmer doesn't necessarily mean you're good at leetcode and just need to brush up. I don't meet almost anyone who uses DP in their daily life but you can bet your ass you'll run into a problem that requires DP in a FAANG interview. And you better put it on the board in under 20 minutes or you're getting passed for the next guy who did 1000+ problems as their prep. It wouldn't be so bad if being a good programmer was sufficient and you just needed a little bit of brushing up - but the arms race started years ago... So, now the bar is very high.

          Leetcode is solving small problems, often with tricks, in a very short period of time. Being a software engineer is solving large problems over large periods of time.

          • stack_underflow 1284 days ago
            It's interesting, when I tell people they need to be prepared for this bar I get a surprising number of people who just don't seem to want to accept that it's true or flat out claim that it's not true when I know they haven't interviewed in years.

            In the past 2 years I've done about 40ish+ interviews at all the big tech co's + smaller-midsize startups and aside from 3 or 4 take home assignments I was given, _every_ interview was leetcode style, to the point where I would just start noting which exact leetcode questions I was asked when friends asked about my experience. The only exception would be 1 or 2 "system design" rounds out of the 5/6 on-site interviews if the company was calibrating me for senior level.

    • lordnacho 1285 days ago
      It's bad, but compared to other industries there are some real pluses.

      At least you can actually hunker down and do these silly tests. There's a huge amount of advice on the technical stuff.

      And yes it means people who have a job already are disadvantaged, but that also means people who have no income have a way in.

      In a lot of other industries, there's no real way to boost your game. Often it's purely reputation of your school and previous employers, and your feedback on a failed application is just platitudes. People circle around for ages and never find anything but crappy advice that doesn't work.

      It's also a process that makes bias a little bit harder to introduce. If your pal from the country club can't fizzbuzz, it will be hard to convince people to accept him. Not saying this is bullet proof, but in most jobs it's a lot more vague whether someone is terrible.

      • gcheong 1285 days ago
        If only it had stopped at fizzbuzz as a quick check for whether you can meet the lowest bar for coding I think it would still have some merit but it just seems to have gotten out of hand to the point that ability to get a job now is completely decoupled from your prior experience.
        • bradlys 1285 days ago
          It's an arms race. Big name employers only wanted the top 1% of candidates. A bunch of people wanted to get into the top 1% and figured out a way (leetcode, ctci, etc.). And then employers kept only wanting the top 1% - so they just raised the bar higher and higher.

          Now we're at the scale where if you haven't done a minimum of 200 problems before any interview round - you're not likely getting an offer from FAANG/etc.

          • hinkley 1284 days ago
            I wonder if anyone at FAANG has figured out that they collectively employ over 1% of the developers in the US.

            What they are trying to do is not just practically impossible, it is literally impossible.

            • bradlys 1283 days ago
              Considering that a significant (half or more?) portion of their engineers are from other countries... is it not still the 1%?
          • triyambakam 1284 days ago
            Ctci?
    • jp0d 1284 days ago
      It does seem like a US-centric thing. I've faced several interviews here in Australia and the teams care more about how the candidate will fit into the team. Most them sort of assume that what's written in the resume is correct. So the interview process is basically just trying to validate those claims. Also, it's really important to get your references right. But it depends a lot on the companies. Some of them have take home projects and white board problem solving sessions. We don't have anything like the H1B here. Either you're a permanent resident or an Aussie citizen. The only difference being the ability to vote and jury duty. Sure, some of the govt jobs are out of reach for permanent residents. The work visa holders are generally transferred by a company from another country.
    • omegote 1284 days ago
      > studying for a few weeks affects their outcome should raise eyebrows everywhere

      Lol then what do you think about the hefty exams people have to go through in Spain to become a public employee? People spent several years just studying after finishing college just to get a job - for life, that is.

  • contingencies 1285 days ago
    I had a commercial investment related visa in the US. Our mobile digital video company, in which I was basically #2 right under the CTO, was very successful and was acquired by HTC. Unfortunately, my position disappeared in the restructuring. I phoned up the immigration department and they said I had 10 days to get out of the country. This was 2011.
    • saltybytes 1285 days ago
      This. Happened to me as the agency I worked for got bought and pretty much everyone lost their job due to redundancy. I was CTO back then and I it hurt to see my team of engineers, creatives dissolve within a few days.

      Since I was unable to find another position in an instant (was on H1B) I took the offer of the purchasing agency to work as a database admin just to stay in the country. I took a huge pay cut and a significant change in my career. Never was I able to return to a managerial position after.

      It seems racist to bully the crém de la crém of tech workers to find a job in such a short period or to get the hell out of the country. I have not experienced such a hostile work environment in any other country.

      Now that I have a family I'm thinking to move to Europe where there's health insurance even if I lost my job. You receive financial aid for children (if you happen to have some), most countries in Europe offer free nursery schools, just to name a few pros.

      "Thanks US for taking advantage of all H1B workers. But I'm outta here."

      • contingencies 1285 days ago
        Oh, on my visa category, which was employer-linked, finding another job wasn't allowed. To remain in the US I would have had to first leave, then find a new employer, then get a new visa, then fly back to start again. I decided to leave.
  • simonkafan 1285 days ago
    This sounds horrible to me. I mean, do you really want to spend your life having to deal with leetcode for several months every 2-3 years? Maybe some people find coding interviews and leetcode problems exciting, I find them tedious and want to avoid them. Not talking about the pressure to find a new job in 60 days.

    So no FAANG? Indeed. You only live once and can spend your time better.

    • PragmaticPulp 1285 days ago
      If someone offered you a $100-200K bonus to complete LeetCode problems for a month, would you turn it down?

      There’s a lot of anger about the process, but it’s really impossible to beat the effort vs. reward balance.

      • speedgoose 1285 days ago
        The nice salaries are also there to attract talented people despite all this bullshit.
        • PragmaticPulp 1284 days ago
          It’s funny that our industry lets anyone, from any background have a fair shot at top paying jobs with only a few weeks or months of practice against freely-available practice problems that can be done from the comfort of your home. If you struggle, there is an endless supply of tutorials and YouTube videos to help you out. Did I mention it’s all free and you can do it on your own time?

          When I tell my doctor, lawyer, and finance friends about this they literally can’t believe it’s that easy. It’s bizarre that so many people would rather replace this with selecting people by pedigree or credentials.

          • stack_underflow 1284 days ago
            This has been my take on it as well. Sure it sucks having to jump through these hoops and sometimes even being evaluated by people you know don't understand the topic as well as you and are looking for specific answers/solutions, but this same process also helped me, a "C/D student" from a no-name school and a poor family with 0 connections in the tech industry end up with job offers in the $300k+ range.

            The only thing I'm salty about is that I can only get these offers in the US and not in Canada and that my options for permanent residence in the US seem to be gated behind an 80+ year wait... https://medium.com/@happy_sushi_roll/the-endless-wait-for-a-...

          • ip26 1284 days ago
            The fatigue is over having to run the same gauntlet again, and again, and again. Proving yourself over and over gets really old.
            • ApolloFortyNine 1284 days ago
              I once interviewed a candidate with 10 years of experience who failed a rendition of fizz buzz.

              After being asked the coding question, they even asked if I had been provided with their resume.

              Leet code mediums and above I agree are pretty much testing if you know leet code. But the vast majority of 'easy' level questions are extremely basic coding challenges that anyone with experience should be able to solve.

          • jgwil2 1282 days ago
            Of course, this is great for people on the outside trying to break in, but less so for people already in the industry. I can honestly see both sides of this. The fact is, once you've earned credentials, you would like to see them respected, rather than having to prove yourself again and again. Furthermore, it is widely acknowledged that these coding puzzles have little to do with the actual work. I'm sure your medical doctor friends would change their tune if they were forced to answer undergraduate organic chemistry questions (or whatever) every time they wanted to change jobs.
  • 49yearsold 1285 days ago
    This is mind boggling to see so much effort need to put into getting into FAANG. I am 49 years old and working as an engineering manager in a public company. I have spent decades writing large distributed, Saas, on-premise, enterprise application - many of which I helped implementing, architecting and supporting. Then I just went to leetcode and saw one of the "EASY" question about how to prepare for FB interview. It is something about finding an island that's surrounded by water given a two-dimensional array. I simply stared at it and have no clue how to solve it. Am I the dumb one or does anyone have similar reactions when they see these leetcode problems? Also - if I plan to interview at FAANG - I plan to interview at least for engineering manager positions - but looks like even these positions are tied to these kind of coding questions? I am depressed.
    • stack_underflow 1284 days ago
      These types of questions basically boil down very cookie cutter patterns that generally bucket into graph traversal/search, being comfortable with coding/manipulating linked data structures, enumerating+pruning search spaces, and knowing little tricks to reduce an order of magnitude from the runtime or space complexity after having applied one of these patterns. These all generally require knowing all your basic data structures as a prereq (stack/queue/deque/vector/hash table/self-balancing search tree, then using those primitives to compose graphs etc).

      My advice for people who wanted to prep for these interviews originally used to be to read through some books that prep you for algorithm competitions (e.g. ICPC, IOI, GCJ), but I find that to be a bit overkill and not as efficient a use of time (although some of these books do a much better job of explaining things than any of these interview prep books I've gone through). Today the advice I'd give is get a book like 'Elements of Programming Interviews' in the language you plan on using and a leetcode subscription and just get down to learning about a data structure/algorithm/problem solving paradigm and then solving a bunch of questions that fit that technique.

      If you really want to go with the overkill approach, I'd recommend a book like Competitive Programming 3: https://cpbook.net/

    • H8crilA 1285 days ago
      I mean, are you still writing any code? If not then those questions will look pretty damn difficult, as their objective is to filter for people that know how to write code (it's a high precision, lower recall filter, though). As an engineering manager you're probably not really writing any code on a regular basis. It's the same for expecienced managers in a BigCoolKnownCorp that I work for, I think they would have problems with an entry level whiteboarding code question.
      • 49yearsold 1285 days ago
        Correct - I don't write code 100% of my time but I do code reviews on daily basis, involved in architecture, design of new feature; implementing a side project using swift, xcode,java for personal finance app. But still I feel so clueless when I see these questions on leetcode or similar sites.
        • bradlys 1284 days ago
          It's a different skill set. Even as an IC, this requires hundreds of hours of practice to get to an adequate level.
        • mav3rick 1284 days ago
          Do you not value the fundamental tenets of CS ? Is it beneath you to learn them ?
          • H8crilA 1284 days ago
            Keep in mind that even if you value them you'll eventually forget them given enough time in the ranks of the managers.
            • mav3rick 1284 days ago
              I won't. That's like saying Jeff Dean has forgotten Big O or how hash maps work.
    • DethNinja 1285 days ago
      Only thing those questions show is how irrational the software engineering companies have became in the USA. This does not bode well for their futures as well.

      As an engineer who implemented/architected SaaS applications, I cannot take these questions seriously at all and I genuinely refuse to work for companies that ask leetcode.

      Do these questions help me to find good/above average Junior Engineers? No. Do these questions help me to find good/above average Senior Engineers? No. Do these questions help me to find good/above average Managers? No. Do these questions help me filter people who cannot memorize algorithms/interview questions or spend enough time on them? Yes.

      So where is the logical connection between leetcode problems and finding good/above average employees? As far as I can see there is none.

      There is literally almost no connection between a candidate being capable of solving leetcode and being a good software engineer that is capable of controlling/reducing complexity of the engineered applications and working well with other team members.

      More rational approach would be asking people architectural questions, even at the Junior level. I expect a good junior engineer would have already implement a small scale system at least as an final year thesis project, so they should be capable of handling questions related to engineering/architectural design.

    • marcinzm 1285 days ago
      As I understand it, manager positions a tFAANG require some amount of leetcode as they want people who are technical (and they define technical as being able to do leetcode). Not sure how much they weigh that portion of the interview. That said, leetcode takes practice and is not an innate skill for the vast majority of people. I don't mean practice as in "an hour here and there" but more like "4 hours a day for two months." There's a reason people call it grinding leetcode.
  • nph5667 1285 days ago
    I find it quite amusing the efforts programmers have to put into a job interview. Especially comparing to what they will be doing every day at job if they are accepted. It's two separate worlds - job interview and job itself.
    • goodrubyist 1285 days ago
      Yeah, I found to read that part dispiriting too. The fact that practicing on leetcode has such a substantial effect on one's chances, to me, shows that it's very likely that either employers don't know how to select candidates, or maybe, they're just trying to track the best proxy they know for job performance.

      I, personally, think that the ability to write "clean code", to think and care deeply about decisions related to code when it spans multiple fiels, is way more valuable in many jobs (not all!). Yet, unsurprisingly, I see that very few give any serious thought to it, given what companies care about is leetcode.

    • tomp 1285 days ago
      Better than doctors who have to put 10+ years into a job interview...
      • nph5667 1285 days ago
        Do you think so? I am not familiar with doctor's state of things, but do they have to prepare for 10 years for each interview during their career, or just once in a lifetime to get into a profession? Are they tested on irrelevant stuff to their job's duties every time they change the job? I am genuinely interested. I see that the current state of job search/acquiring in software industry is inadequate both for employers and candidates. Both sides can tell you horror stories in that regard. And I cannot say nobody tried to innovate here. They definitely did - certification efforts, recruiter's tests, not to mention each company has it's own "system". Nevertheless, what I see here is that you are almost always tested for irrelevant stuff, stuff you can completely get out of your head the moment you are hired. Until the moment you have to find a new job. Something's wrong here.
        • PragmaticPulp 1284 days ago
          Trying to compare a few weeks of LeetCode to years of graduate school followed by years of underpaid 80-hour residency workweeks is out of touch.

          Also, any programmer with a few years of experience shouldn’t have to completely relearn how to do LeetCode style problems every few years. The LeetCode easy and medium problems aren’t that difficult for anyone with a few years of experience.

          Finally, I don’t understand how so many people are convinced that LeetCode problems are an entirely different domain than typical programming work. Sure, they’re toy problems, but the concepts are relevant to anyone doing things at scale that involves more than just connecting some APIs together.

          • bradlys 1284 days ago
            > Finally, I don’t understand how so many people are convinced that LeetCode problems are an entirely different domain than typical programming work. Sure, they’re toy problems, but the concepts are relevant to anyone doing things at scale that involves more than just connecting some APIs together.

            But the overwhelming majority of us are just connecting APIs or what not.

            Most people (even in FAANG) are not using DP in their day-to-day...

    • BossingAround 1284 days ago
      At times, I feel like job interview might be the most exciting problem solving an engineer might do for a company. After that, it's more of the same old "do this thing you've done 10 times but now in Go with go-routines."
  • ignoramous 1285 days ago
    > Is the work that I am going to be doing in this team critical to the product/business? Note that in the case of larger companies, you should try to understand if the product or business that the team supports is large enough.

    Highly recommend reading this classic: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

    • wiz21c 1285 days ago
      Definitely a good read.

      But too few optimistic notes under too many cynical notes.

      But he's damn right on many accounts...

    • newbie578 1284 days ago
      Wow, that was a great read! Thanks for the link man, the guy hit a lot of points.
  • iandanforth 1284 days ago
    This is a solid guide for studying for ML positions.

    There was a similar article a few years ago that I also use for reference that people looking for this kind of work might find useful:

    https://medium.com/@XiaohanZeng/i-interviewed-at-five-top-co...

  • aaomidi 1285 days ago
    I wish for a day my amazing coworkers aren't used as pawns in a political game and are given the stability they have earned and they deserve.
  • scarface74 1285 days ago
    I read through most of the comments before posting and I am still ambivalent about whether we should allow more or less people immigrate to the US.

    But, the more I read about the H1B system, I am sure that if we as a country think people are deserving to come over here and we think they add to our economy, we should treat them like humans and not have them in constant fear of being deported at the whim of their employer.

    Decent people can disagree about immigration, but I don’t see how decent people can disagree about how you treat people who took all of the necessary, legal steps to be here. It’s just human decency.

  • JonLim 1285 days ago
    Does the 60 day timeline include the amount of time you need to be approved for the visa, as well?

    I wasn't laid off, but am in the process of changing employers with my TN visa. This is probably the least smooth part of the entire interviewing/job changing process, at least from my perspective, as a software dev who doesn't have a degree in computer science or computer engineering.

    Wish it were all a little more transparent, and that it wasn't just a big waiting game with lawyers and USCIS!

    • returningfory2 1285 days ago
      > Does the 60 day timeline include the amount of time you need to be approved for the visa, as well?

      No. You must start a new job within 60 days. Due to H-1B portability rules, you can start a new job as soon as your employer has filed paperwork with USCIS. The H-1B processing time doesn't count.

      I recently started a new FAANG job on H-1B, and because I received an RFE it actually took nearly 3 months after starting to get the approved petition.

      • JonLim 1285 days ago
        Oof, that's a long wait. If you don't mind me asking, is it because of the whole H1B status with the current administration, or of additional hoops you had to jump through for the RFE, or something else?
        • returningfory2 1284 days ago
          I received the RFE before I started, the 3 month wait time was just to prepare the RFE, send it, and then wait for USCIS to adjudicate it.
          • JonLim 1284 days ago
            Ah, thanks for sharing that. Guessing once the RFE was sent off, everything was okay?

            Crazy that it took 3 months to prepare and send the RFE, though I'm assuming USCIS provided an answer within 15 days with Premium Processing.

      • yibg 1285 days ago
        What happens if it’s not approved?
        • returningfory2 1284 days ago
          You're in a lotta trouble. It happened to a friend of mine and when his H-1B looked like it was going to be denied his FAANG company moved him to an office in Europe.
    • kinkrtyavimoodh 1285 days ago
      I _think_ if you have applied for Premium Processing and get the receipt, you can start working with the new employer. But please check with your employer's lawyers, as these things can keep changing and the rules are too complex for me to keep track of.
      • JonLim 1285 days ago
        The lawyers have not mentioned anything near that, otherwise I'd be working right now!

        My application used Premium Processing, and I got an RFE, so I'm still sitting here on my hands. It's frustrating, but is it worth asking the lawyers about being able to start since I'm in the process of the application?

      • returningfory2 1285 days ago
        Nearly every lawyer will encourage you to wait for the receipt notice, although interestingly you only need proof that you've submitted a petition to starting working; i.e., a Fedex proof-of-sending receipt.
    • imhoguy 1285 days ago
      Just wondering. Can't this time-out be life-hacked somehow with getting e.g. no pay and no show up job just to stop the timer, or just creating LLC and employing oneself?
      • JonLim 1284 days ago
        Not that I would (or have) tried either idea, but you'd still need USCIS to grant you a TN visa that's tied to your employer, and I imagine it would be tougher if it was a no name or self made company.

        In fact, for your own company, I think that's a different kind of visa, but I'm not very well versed in immigration law.

  • pm90 1285 days ago
    This happened to me as I was laid off from my first job in the US after a year.

    It was perhaps the most insanely stressful period in my life. You cannot begin to fathom the desperation that comes with it. There is literally a ticking time bomb until the country is like “whoops, looks didn’t work out for you buddy. Just pack your bags and leave your life and go home. Bye!”. I think of myself generally as a rather carefree person but I couldn’t sleep at night because there was the very real chance that I would just not get a job in time. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

    I basically did what the author describes... cast a pretty wide net in my job search. Couldn’t make it into the FAANGS but got another job just in time. The timing was pretty insane though. And as a person still on an H1B that worry is always on top of my mind, although as a fairly experienced engineer now, it is somewhat less intimidating.

    The other thing that Citizens May not realize is that CBP can stop you from entering for any fucking reason whatsoever. Which is what prevented me from buying a house and making other long term investments.

  • austincheney 1284 days ago
    The advise in the article is great for beginners or people willing to work as beginners. For people who are senior developers or who have previously been in corporate management these tips won’t work.

    If you are a senior developer you shouldn’t be spending any time on practice interview whiteboards. You should already know how to code with confidence and be ready to honestly disclose where your experience ends. A good senior developer provides solutions to problems, which is more than pressing buttons on a keyboard.

    The problem a senior is more likely to encounter is navigating the stylistic code biases of a controlling interviewer, such that if you aren’t writing code their way you are wrong. This is absurd. You either must have the confidence and soft skills to talk though those biases, if are adept enough to identify them, or be willing to work exactly their way like a beginner even after they hire you.

    A huge red flag when interviewing are places that cannot differentiate junior developers from senior developers. For example if a junior developer is reliant on some tool for important basic requirements then a senior must be an expert at that tool completely ignoring the idea that such a tool is likely completely unnecessary.

    Some people need interview prep. It could be that some candidates lack the soft skills. If the interview conversation capabilities don’t come naturally then you are projecting a false persona to be hired, a fraudulent first impression that evaporates once hired.

    I do empathize with people trying to play up their capabilities just to be hired. There are tons of developers that are drastically under qualified for the seats they occupy.

    • ram_rar 1284 days ago
      As much as I love this advice, reality is stark different from this. End of the day, you're judged by how accurately could you solve some random leetcode problem.
    • Hydraulix989 1284 days ago
      Not true at all. Senior developers are routinely subject to the same algorithmic questions in their coding interviews, especially at FAANG (I successfully interviewed and got offers for senior positions at multiple FAANGs two years ago).

      Even worse, the actual coding one does on the job is a completely different skill set than being able to dish out Dynamic Programming recurrences and tree traversals under tight time pressure, so by being farther removed from undergrad where these algorithms are taught, senior engineers generally have to prep even harder than junior engineers for these types of questions. I don't think I've ever actually used Dynamic Programming to solve a real problem on the job before.

      The one case where this actually applies is during the System Design interview.

      • austincheney 1284 days ago
        > Even worse, the actual coding one does on the job is a completely different

        When I encounter this during an interview, which I have, I don't accept the offer. Why would I want to go through an interview process that is completely unrelated to the job I will be performing? There is no expectation of success in that and its completely open to disappointment. Again, if you are a beginner you do what you must. Senior developers are fewer and in greater demand so they can afford to be a bit more selective.

        • Hydraulix989 1284 days ago
          Why aren't more senior engineers "selective" against these interviews?

          Easy: Because FAANG and the companies that do these interviews pay senior engineers THAT much more ($100's of k) than the companies that don't.

          Swallowing my pride and grinding through Leetcode for a month or two in preparation for tech interviewing was easily worth the extra boost in compensation.

    • syspec 1284 days ago
      This advice while noble, will it help you land a job
      • austincheney 1284 days ago
        I based that advise upon my own personal experience. If it wasn't true for me I wouldn't have written it.
  • drinchev 1285 days ago
    Probably my 1 year old daughter talks right now, but I really have no time to do stuff on the weekend. I'm happily not living with a visa though, but still I think if you don't have enough time, you can always "spend" some career achievements and go to a less paid gig. When the market recovers your career will recover too.
    • PragmaticPulp 1285 days ago
      Interview prep sounds more onerous than it really is. Any experienced dev can churn through most interview practice questions quickly. It’s easy to look at the total number of questions and feel overwhelmed, but really practicing in 30 minute bursts here and there is sufficient for 95% of job interviews.

      I’m also a parent. I’ve found that lunch breaks are a great time to practice.

      But really there’s no reason to practice unless you’re job searching. If you’re laid off like this blog post is talking about then you’ll have plenty of time to practice.

      I agree that this idea of spending all of your free time and weekends on side projects and practice question is nonsense, though. I don’t know anyone who does this.

      • ram_rar 1285 days ago
        I feel, its important to keep practicing every now and then. I usually swarm hard during job search and eventually lose touch. The again, have to go through the cycle. But every time, I go through, its lesser effort than before. But if you keep practicing all the time, then you'll always be prepared.
  • ram_rar 1285 days ago
    My undergrad college final year students were one of the last ones where many of us inclined towards coming to US for grad school. This was back in 2013, when INR was also doing very poorly and I remember, my semester fees was as volatile as crypto.

    Nowadays, I always tell my junior folks to calibrate all the pros and cons on being in H1b visa very seriously. The level of uncertainty can drive you nuts. Its not just 60 days grace period, but also future visa extensions post 6 yr mark is insane. I know senior folks in my previous companies getting RFE (Request for Evidence) on pretty much every extension. Its a gut wrenching experience, especially if you have kids and house.

    If folks who care to know more, John Oliver has made an entire episode on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXqnRMU1fTs

    • tomp 1285 days ago
      I’m not from India but from an almost-first world EU country, and I’ve been working in London for a while. My advice for someone else in my position (starting out) would definitely be to try to go to the US. Salaries are just so much better, it’s incomparable. You could save in the US in a year as much as you would make (post tax) in Europe in 5 years. Even in London and Switzerland, pribably the best-paid countries in Europe, you’re probably at least 2x worse off. (This is of course for top talent working in tech/finance/both.)
      • triceratops 1285 days ago
        Combining your advice and that of GP, it sounds like the optimal course of action is "Work in the US for 6 years, save as much as you would in 30 years in Europe, then move somewhere else"
        • humanlion87 1284 days ago
          That is a pretty optimal plan and that is what quite a few colleagues I know are doing. Not moving to Europe, but planning to move to Canada. Save up some money in the US, move North and settle down.
      • thewarrior 1285 days ago
        As someone who chose to stay in London for me the increased certainty is worth the hit to my salary. Salary matters but it isn’t everything. Obviously it’s not the same for Europeans who can get a green card in a few years.

        But a lot of people are waking up to this and offices in places like London and Canada are expanding. I personally know people who make very good money in both places. In fact anecdotally there’s increasing presence of big tech in London as a backup for H1B rejects by all majors. In the long term this will contribute to the decentralization of tech companies outside the US. These policies are short sighted and foolish.

  • achalshah 1285 days ago
    Hey bbhat - glad to see you landed on your feet. :)
  • spicyramen 1284 days ago
    It depends, I was TN for 3 years and Cisco working as a FT registered me as computer technician and low balled me that they needed to increase my salary 20k when Department of Labor found that I was a SWE with technician salary in San Jose. Allowing immigration or not depends on your country and economy I'm grateful with US but wouldn't mind if they encourage more restrict rules to employ their own citizens, I blame it on my country who doesn't give me the same technical opportunities to grow. Not happy in a foreign country you are welcome to leave
  • philjohn 1285 days ago
    It's always good to have your ear to the ground about potential troubles in a company - this can be anything from an "all but essential travel freeze", to downgrading of snacks and other perks, or decisions that don't quite ring true/don't make sense.

    Forewarned is forearmed.

  • known 1281 days ago
  • codeisawesome 1284 days ago
    Well in Singapore it’s “find a job in 30 days or get out” so I suppose the US H1B deadline is.. less cruel?
  • parserman 1285 days ago
    I just want to say thanks
  • itsmefaz 1285 days ago
    are you still on H1B?
  • person_of_color 1284 days ago
    saving
  • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
    Unfortunately interviews are easy for him as an IIT and Stanford elite, so this advice is mostly just obvious.
    • titanomachy 1285 days ago
      I don't believe that. Even within the elite, there are different grades of jobs and achievement. Preparation can be the difference.
      • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
        Perhaps, but no amount of preparation has been able to vault me to even close to the elite, mostly because I guess I don’t have the genes for it.
        • TrackerFF 1285 days ago
          Most interview questions around data structures, algorithms, etc. follow the same patterns. In the end, it's just a pattern recognition problem (IMO).

          Once you recognize the different variations, you solve a bunch of those problems to become more efficient at 'em.

          Really, it's no different than solving certain calculus problems. If you've solved enough integrals that require certain substitutions and identities, you'll notice them right away - but of course, if you've never seen 'em before, the problems can become next to impossible - given a very limited time fame to solve them.

          Sure - some candidates will be highly intelligent, notice intricate patterns right away, and solve them on the spot (in the same way they'd perform on IQ tests), but for the majority it's just discipline and preparation.

          There's a reason people are following these ridiculous study guides, which involve hundreds to thousands of Leetcode/hackerrank/etc. questions. If you actually study the problems, and do them over and over again, you'll get there.

          And by "just" doing that, you can indeed outclass the so-called elite candidates.

          • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
            I've done nearly 300. I still can't crack Google or Facebook etc and I'm still extremely depressed that I"m just inherently unable to because my CS education wasn't good enough (because I wasn't good enough to get a better SAT score etc etc). I work at Amazon, so I know what the "elites" think of people like me.

            I've gone and reread Skiena, etc but the end result ends up just my eyes glazing over proof notation and crying.

            • stack_underflow 1284 days ago
              Sounds to me like you're focusing on the wrong things or don't have the right resources for the task at hand. (that is, I don't think I've ever had to brush up on a proof for any algorithm or data structure when prepping for interviews)

              Take it from someone who also had a shit background/education in math/CS and had to teach myself a lot of these things from scratch - it's doable, you just need time, and I guess the mindset that you can learn these things. See my comment history for some book recommendations. If you really feel like you need to learn things from scratch to give yourself the confidence of having a solid foundation, look at some of the intro computer science courses on Coursera. When I realized most of my uni's cs courses were... not great, I just ended up going through courses like Stanford's Introduction to Algorithms on Coursera and teaching myself.

              I can also tell you as someone who was in Seattle for a while and had a bunch of friends at Amazon, I don't think anyone is going to think less of you, if anything, being able to survive at a place like Amazon seemed to be recognized as its own accomplishment...

              edit: I'll also add (from personal experience), if it still feels like these things are difficult even once you feel like you have all the right resources, look into seeing medical professionals to make sure you're not being held back by anything, like sleep apnea, any cognitive disability (not sure if that's the right term...) etc

        • carls 1285 days ago
          While you are correct in that (1) the credentials/pedigree and (2) some measure of intelligence will strongly positively impact job searching, your original comment seems to imply that this is sufficient.

          Then, this comment that I'm currently replying to, pins most of the responsibility on not "having the genes for it."

          Your HN username also leads me to think you have a "fixed mindset" around your capabilities.

          Regardless of to what extent (1) and (2) impact general career success, I suspect your mindset is a self-limiting one. For example, even if 80% of a person's success was determined by their genes and pedigree, and only 20% by their personal effort or resourcefulness, I suspect the mindset you have is to focus on lamenting the fact that you don't have the 80% and neglect the 20% you do have control over, leaving it on the ground and thereby reducing your own chances of success. It'd be a little bit like someone who wasn't born particularly tall, saying "Well, what's the point of drilling dribbling, passing, defending or shooting? There's no way I'll ever be the world's best player with genes like mine?" resulting in a self-defeating and self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.[1]

          I don't want to come off as a preachy person on the internet to someone who I don't know, but if I could make a suggestion I would be curious for you to introspect as to why you may have this worldview. Folks I know in real life who have a mindset similar to those expressed in your comments often seem to feel insecure, unconfident or otherwise engage in self-shaming and constant comparisons with others.

          [Edit] In the spirit of sharing, I will confess that that your mindset also reminded me of mine when I was in college. I had gotten rejected from a large number of universities I wanted to attend, and had only gotten into my state university. My peers and friends from high school largely went to prestigious brand-names.

          The insecurity gnawed at me and made me engage in many foolish behaviors during college, and also caused me to constantly compare myself with others. I was ultimately very unhappy.

          Through a series of experiences (i.e. therapy, honest introspection and self-reflection, conversations with trusted friends, being challenged on my mindset by others), I slowly came to understand how my mindset contributed to the same failures I was complaining about.

          It's been over a decade since then and I have long since shed the mindset that held me back then, and am much happier for it.

          -----

          [1] Even this example is probably inaccurate because it draws from a domain where genetics play a larger role than I think they do in professional success. I suspect many attributes of a successful professional come from behaviors and tactics that are learned through social mimicry and learning from others rather than some genetic predisposition towards e.g., being thoughtful, being articulate and concise, running effective meetings etc.

          • lowiqengineer 1285 days ago
            > The insecurity gnawed at me and made me engage in many foolish behaviors during college, and also caused me to constantly compare myself with others. I was ultimately very unhappy. Through a series of experiences (i.e. therapy, honest introspection and self-reflection, conversations with trusted friends, being challenged on my mindset by others), I slowly came to understand how my mindset contributed to the same failures I was complaining about

            I was the same way in college, but I also didn’t go to Berkeley, rather a school 80 or so spots below. I wish I could fix myself, but the therapy I’ve done hasn’t helped and my general lack of accomplishments in life contributes.

            • carls 1284 days ago
              Even if you had gotten into Berkeley, I suspect your current mindset will just instead feel similarly insecure about why you didn't get into Stanford.

              And even if you had gotten into Stanford, I wonder if you would feel insecure around the Stanford whizzes who seemed like geniuses.

              And even if you were one of those top academically performing students, I wonder if you would still continue to compare yourself to the most elite in that circle (i.e., "Joe got a research internship at Google Brain as a Sophomore! I just have this lousy Facebook internship that it seems like half my peer group got.")[1]

              My point is this: if you choose to, you will almost always find a way to be miserable. This isn't a personal attack on _you_ specifically. I think all humans engage in this sort of constant comparisons, at least to some degree. I do this too.

              But I'm pointing this out because there's also a component to this that is our _choice_. We choose who we compare ourselves against, and we choose how that comparison affects us (e.g., as a source of inspiration, as a source of excitement, as a source of self-deprecation).

              I notice that in your comments, it seems like you have willing given up your choice and agency over to some set of other immutable forces, like your genes, your school's ranking or some other force.

              I hope you reclaim your agency and power. It just seems a shame to a whole life in which you willingly give away your agency to be happy.

              Finally, as for "fixing yourself", I would just observe that a useful framework for mental wellness to use is that of physical health: being healthy is a choice we can make, and we need to keep on making on a daily basis. At no point can you say, "Well, I'm fit and healthy now so I guess I can go back to eating chips and chugging beer." Fitness isn't a state that is obtained and can never be lost. It's a process of constant daily choices to improve and maintain. It's also affected by genetic and external factors we have little control over.

              In that way, I think it's similar to mental health. You may not be able to "fix" yourself by seeing a therapist a few times. But you can continuously improve your mental health by noticing each time you compare yourself with a stranger online, engage in self-shaming, talk "down" to yourself, or blame your genes. Those choices can compound over time, and given a long enough time period, will start to show marked improvements in the same way that doing some pushups, pullups, squats etc. consistently every day for months or years will improve your physical health.

              I wish you the best of luck.

              --------

              [1] That example is something I have actually seen in peers/friends who, by external accounts, seem very successful. But they themselves are miserable because they're always comparing themselves with someone else who seems even more successful. "Comparison is the thief of joy." - Teddy Roosevelt.

    • bradlys 1284 days ago
      > Unfortunately interviews are easy for him as an IIT and Stanford elite, so this advice is mostly just obvious.

      The other aspect of this is that this person probably enjoys this to some extent. The likelihood someone goes through all those hoops, lands on their feet, and absolutely hates it all the while is probably a bit uncommon. I'd imagine the OP enjoys trying to solve some of these problems.

  • botwriter 1285 days ago
    I'm sure I'll get downvoted to oblivion but what the hell! A bit of common sense but...

    In times of economic turmoil when unemployment is high countries should incentivise hiring their own citizens rather than foreign talent.

  • effnorwood 1284 days ago
    Get a job
  • tus88 1285 days ago
    Strange how HN is so keen on having millions of people come here to compete for your job and put downwards pressure on wages.
    • manuelabeledo 1284 days ago
      This has not happened, at least not in software engineering.

      Also, it is more desirable to attract talent to the US, where they will spend money and pay taxes, than just outsourcing.

      • tus88 1284 days ago
        That's because it has been prevented by immigration rules.
        • manuelabeledo 1284 days ago
          Then your comment is purely hypothetical, apart from wrong.

          Also, H1-B visas and others alike are non immigrant visas, so there are no “immigration rules” in play here.

    • marcinzm 1285 days ago
      Amazingly, most ethical people who are doing well aren't selfish enough to hoard all of it for marginal gain to themselves at massive cost to others.
      • tus88 1285 days ago
        Secure employment is hardly a marginal gain. Then again, HN used to be filled with engineers, now it's filled with entrepreneurs hoping for cheap labor so it makes sense.
  • theodric 1285 days ago
    Make preparations to return to your home country and try to find a new job where you are. Leave before your H1B expires so you can qualify for another, if you want that. If you don't want that, then you've just been given what you want.
  • an_human 1285 days ago
    I'm too from India! Can you share your experience on how you got your first job? From college to first job
  • unnouinceput 1284 days ago
    I don't get it. Is that hard to apply for citizenship in US once you're there and working/paying taxes, all legal?

    Because if there is some legal crap that basically once you get H1B you can't apply for citizenship then this needs to be changed.

    Otherwise there is absolutely no excuse to become a US naturalized citizen. You went there, spend a decade and then you complain you have 60 days and then you're out. What about 600 days before that? That's just laziness.

    • krishnanvs 1284 days ago
      Based on the name I am assuming that Op is from India. For Indians it is not laziness but the fact that the current waiting time to get a greencard, which is basically permanent residency and the right to stay in the US for over 60 days after you loose a job, is over 100 years right now - yup over a century, not 10 or 15 years which was the case till 2015.

      This is primarily due to a large number of Indians applying for greencards and the rule that only a certain number of people per country can be awarded one. My friends and colleagues from India who have spend their entire adult lives in the USA and now reaching their early thirties have still not yet gotten their residency - let alone citizenship.

      It was one of the major reasons for me, as an Indian, to leave the US and come back to India - there was no way to get permanent residency within a reasonable timeframe.

    • vinnrex 1284 days ago
      Yes. The immigration system in the US is complicated. There's a diversity quota based on the nation you were born in and there's a lottery involved. The other way is the Employment-Based Green Card.

      For a person like the OP who is of Indian origin, they are unable to go through the diversity based lottery and have to go through the employment based one. Depending on the subcategory you apply in, your wait times could be as long as 10 years.

      On a personal note, my opinion is that the US immigration also places too much importance on the nation of origin. In my case for example, I've spent over 20 years of my life in Canada and am a Canadian Citizen, but if I wanted to immigrate to the US, my nation of origin (where I was born) would be the deciding factor on what category I could apply to.

    • svrma 1284 days ago
      Please consider doing basic research before being very critical. The wait time for Indian and Chinese born H1B immigrants to get a Green Card (permanent residency) is almost two decades. Hence, it is indeed not possible for the author (India born) to have a Green Card/Citizenship in a span of a decade as a H1B holder.
    • jee1shi 1284 days ago
      The system is very difficult to navigate: https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-i-became-us-citizen-t...
    • wobbly_bush 1284 days ago
      > What about 600 days before that? That's just laziness

      Your mind will be blown when you read up about the actual immigration process.

    • manuelabeledo 1284 days ago
      It takes years to be even considered.

      And for some nationals (Chinese, Indian), decades.

  • an_human 1285 days ago
    What is this mail to link at bottom? my-user-name-here@gmail pls change it
    • miked85 1285 days ago
      That format was intentional to stop scraping/bots; it apparently works on some humans as well.
    • michaelt 1285 days ago
      That's a traditional 1990s trick to stop bots scraping your e-mail address to send you spam.
    • chrisseaton 1285 days ago
      Why do you want them to change how they write their email address? Are you a bit and unable to solve their captcha? Otherwise what’s the problem?