MS Moves R&D To Canada Due To Immigration Problem 765
telso writes "Microsoft will be opening a new software development center in Vancouver because of difficulties getting workers into the US. The company said the center will 'allow the company to continue to recruit and retain highly skilled people affected by the immigration issues in the US' It seems possible that shrinking immigration quotas have affected America's tax and knowledge base."
I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no shortage of programmers or software engineers in the U.S.; there is a shortage of people who are interested in being paid next to nothing.
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Political BS (Score:2, Flamebait)
In short, it was politically motivated bullcrap. The corporate culture takes another swipe at the American working class, while they game the system.
I call BS on the BS call (Score:5, Insightful)
Your saying that Microsoft can't find employees because they don't pay enough because salaries are being held artificially low because of the flood of new employees from other countries.
Something not quite right about that argument. Seems to me that if the programming field was being flooded with immigrants, Microsoft would not have trouble finding employees.
Re:I call BS on the BS call (Score:5, Insightful)
You could potentially argue whether their policy or actions achieve this "best bang" effectively, but I dont think there's enough real facts in the story to allow us to do that, so the bottom line is that this is just a draw for Microsoft bashers with the added benefit that you could use this to argue our nations imigration policies are either to lax or strict, depending on your goals..
Sorry.. I think it's really a non-story. Microsoft does business all over the world, and it makes sense that they'd have offices all over the world too.
1/2 of a corporations duties (Score:3, Informative)
Not hiring the people from within the nation you are incorporated in does not increase the general public good. It may temporarily increase the profits of your li
Re:1/2 of a corporations duties (Score:5, Insightful)
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It provides a better or less expensive products for the consumer.
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It provides a lucrative job for the immigrant.
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It increases company profits, which does the shareholders good.
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The increase in profits means an increase in taxes paid,
a definite public good.
Seems to do a least some good. What's more, a profitable company grows, increasing demand for more employees including non-immigrants. In other words, a job given to an immigrant does not necessary mean a job lost to a non-immigrant.Major rule of economics: Very few things are a zero-sum game.
Re:1/2 of a corporations duties (Score:5, Interesting)
You have one "american" employee leading an "american" company with 100,000 employees from every other country on earth.
The products which cost pennies to produce- are nonetheless priced at "full retail" in the american market while being sold for much lower prices profitably in other countries. And of course those products are either gimmicked ("indonesian only" $25 windows) or have laws making it illegal to reimport them to the US (My blood pressure pills-- 10 cents in india, $5 here-- illegal to import and sell for 50 cents).
The one "american" only pays taxes on realized profits and income. The rest is funny money stored in various ways. Net result to American- nothing really. Net result to the company- enormous.
Should I buy that companies products? Not if I can help it.
And the end result of that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes thats an extreme example but thats where this outsourcing approach ultimately leads. People are NOT just "resources" that can be picked up and dropped at will. They're all part of the feedback mechanism that keep the economy going - no job , no money. No money , no spending. No spending , no economy. Its time business started to appreciate th
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I think they should sell them for a profit.
And if they are selling them for a profit at 10 cents then 5.25 is obscene here.
We are getting the worst parts of capitalism without getting the benefits of it.
Yes- they should get it for 10 cents. And they should sell for 10 cents here too.
Is there some particular reason, I should pay $800 for a
This is not going to last. It will even out in the
Pharmaceuticals. BAD ANALOGY. (Score:3, Insightful)
What are they going to do, not make the drug at all?
Yeah, like a lack of profit stopped ugg from making the wheel.
Considering how many people die in America for being unable to afford drugs, the profit model is extremely harmful - indeed, it's a national security risk. Look what happened with the flu vaccine shortage last year.
Take profit out of pharmaceuticals. Necessity will always be the mother of invention. What idiot thinks that these CEOs would just rather go without medicine that'
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Re:1/2 of a corporations duties (Score:4, Interesting)
For a nice story about taxes paid by American corporations, click here [itjungle.com].
Re:I call BS on the BS call (Score:5, Insightful)
Actual MS Salaries (Score:5, Informative)
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/libr
(from http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2006/03/internal-mic
Fulltime out of university is level 59.
bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
That's a nice fairy tale, but you're confusing H1B visas and green cards. There is no requirement to interview American workers for H1B visas; for H1B visas, a company can simply write a letter saying that they couldn't fill the position with an American worker.
The requirement to interview American workers exists only for green card applications. Green cards remove any hold the company may have over their workers, so they are the exact opposite of what a company would apply for if it wants to keep salaries low by hiring cheap immigrants. Companies are indeed trying to skirt that requirement, but that's not to keep salaries low, it's to avoid losing an employee that has likely been with the company for many years and is very valuable to them.
I just recently read this in the news.
Perhaps your inability to read and understand written materials has something to do with your inability to command a higher salary.
Re:bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a minor mistake: H1Bs are temporary visas, green cards are immigrant visas. Green cards can't lead to salary depression for American workers because people hired on green cards are American workers, with all the same labor rights and mobility. So, your diatribe makes even less sense for green cards. Either you just don't know what you're talking about, or you're deliberately misrepresenting the facts to push your political agenda.
I have an education thank you and my salary is 3x the nation average. So stop being a little dick.
So, you are making $130k/year and you're still whining that you're not being paid enough. And because you're not satisfied with your already big salary, you're willing to bad-mouth companies, keep highly skilled and productive people out of the US, and make the US less competitive.
With people like you around, it's no wonder if the US loses the software industry to China and India, just like we lost the auto industry, steel, TVs, and VCRs to overseas.
And I CALL BS AGAIN! (Score:5, Insightful)
What immigration visa in the US is geared towards skilled people who can later on start a life in the country? Answer NONE. In Canada, UK, Germany, Switzerland, etc they all give you visas towards citizenship.
And please note that this qualified workers is a problem not only in the US, but EVERYWHERE! I know, my wife who is a manager for a software development team in Switzerland is dealing with the skilled labor shortage EVERYDAY...
Its not BS. Its the global economy (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact is whether you are buying a toaster, calling support or getting a job its increasingly a global economy. One way or another you are competing with people from India, China and Canada.
Microsoft going to Canada to hire people can only be attributed to one thing. They feel they get a better deal there. And before we call them greedy or evil, we should consider that most of us do the same thing when buying a toaster, we look for the best quality at the lowest price.
The fact that the USA is a less attractive than Canada as a place to hire foreign workers won't be a surprise to many foreign workers who have worked in the USA. The procedures for foreign workers in USA are complex, slow and characterized by hostility from immigration officials at every stage. (I left USA after my H1B visa was extended for the last time and green card procedures were too expensive, restrictive and lengthy for my taste (I would point out that my time in USA was otherwise excellent and I love the place, the people and the culture)).
In today's world, the only sustainable way to increase your earnings is to make yourself more valuable. If you are asking Microsoft to pay you more than another similarly skilled candidate based on geography or nationality then you are just asking them to subsidize you.
cheers,
David
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But let's say you're right. If a company makes all its money in a single town, should they only be able to hire people born in that town?
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I agree, & call "B.S." alongside you... needless to say, this time? Microsoft has actually pissed me off some (& they wrote me to take the word "Windows" out of some wares I wrote years ago for the shareware/freeware circuit no less, & that meant recompiling for resources (.exe's are
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Insightful)
Could they be moving to Canada because:
-it has a very similar social, economic, and political environment to the US which makes it good for business
-Canada has 'open borders' for highly skilled and educated foreigners (yes, even Americans)
-Canada has very strong labor laws protecting the immigrants: they have the same rights as the natives, can switch employers, won't be deported (in fact, "ratting out" a bad employer can them a permanent visa, as happened to a bunch of welders recently)
-Canada believes in cultivating the best and the brightest, no matter where they were born
Face it, Canada is a mini-US, but with a more reasonable immigration policy. Canada is now the fastest growing economy in the entire G8 (the only one at over 3%), the Canadian dollar, the GDP, and the worker wealth.
Re:Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Funny)
There, fixed that for you.
Re:Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Funny)
Canada has very strong labour laws, eh ...?
There, fixed that for you. :-P
Re: Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Insightful)
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That doesn't exactly contradict what I said. Sure we may have legal restrictions on exports... but there is nothing prohibiting other countries from producing that software on their own (assuming they've got some really smart people
Re:Mod parent up Plz (Score:5, Interesting)
A developer earning 50-60k up here is considered middle-upper class. He can afford a house on his own, along with all the latest tech toys. Try that in Redmond... yeah right!
Then throw in the pervasive anti-American sentiment that continues to grow all around the world, and well, we Canadians don't look so bad anymore. We're far from perfect, we still have dirty dirty politicians and high tax rates, but to many people we're seen as a much lesser evil than our southern neighbors. I'm going to get flamed for this, but you guys need to start working to clear your name. Maybe a decade ago, the USA was a land of riches, I even contemplated relocating for a development job... then Dubya showed up and changed everything around. Not since Truman has there been a worse hated US president around the world. People are afraid of the USA. We see how badly their own citizens are treated, I can't even imagine how bad it is for immigrants.
Pervasive anti-American sentiment?? (Score:4, Insightful)
*snip long rant about the Bush administration*
Me: Wow, sounds like you are less than happy with the US.
Him: I hate everything the government stands for.
Me: Maybe you could go home to protest it? Send a letter to the Congressman and tell him thats why you're taking your PhD home with you.
Him: Are you "#$"% nuts?
And yes, thats what most immigrants feel like. There are occasional frustrations with living in America -- complaining about incompetent bureacrats is a well-established tradition for everybody, regardless of place of birth. (And the INS and its successor agencies are probably among the worst in the federal government.) But would large numbers of folks give up the tremendous opportunities living in America has over those frustrations? As my Chinese-accented colleague put it, are you "#$"# nuts?
The number of citizenship applications, one easy barometer of "So, how many of you folks want to hitch the rest of your lives to the United States of America?", is up 60% in four years. That is more than double the number when Clinton left office and a Dark Shadow Fell Across The Land. http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/05/news/citiz
Also, I don't know if subtleties of domestic politics make it abroad that often, but while Dubya's Republican Party is often depicted as being anti-immigrant, and that might well be true for a large part of the party base (also true for a large portion of the Democratic base), Dubya is personally *extraordinarily* pro-immigration. He wanted comprehensive immigration reform, which would have included a mass legalization of illegal immigrants living in the US, to be his domestic legacy. It failed for a couple of reasons, including opposition from broad portions of the bases of both parties and absolutely incompetent political maneuvering. (I think that is distressingly common in the Bush administration, and I say this having voted for him twice.)
(Disclaimer: I'm actually an expat in Japan, but I feel like waving the flag a little bit this close to the Fourth of July. America should be justifiably proud of how it treats immigrants, in the main. The system has its fair share of issues, but its nothing intractable, and its so much better than Japan its not even funny.)
(P.P.S. On the general topic of the thread, to all Slashdotters who worry that the immigrants are forcing you into poverty: learn to compete. I got a degree in Japanese along with my IT skills, and now on either side of the Pacific for jobs which require a bilingual English/Japanese engineer I can compete quite favorably with folks making a tenth of my salary, because if they can't speak both languages than hiring ten of them still won't replace me. Languages are just one way you can make yourself something other than an interchangeable cog. Domain expertise, business skills, communication skills, a finance background, proficiency in obscure legacy technologies, jumping early onto new ships like the Ruby on Rails boomlet, etc, etc.)
Re:Pervasive anti-American sentiment?? (Score:4, Insightful)
But this is in Vancouver (Score:4, Informative)
A developer earning 50-60k up here is considered middle-upper class. He can afford a house on his own, along with all the latest tech toys. Try that in Redmond... yeah right!
Except Microsoft is opening this up in Vancouver, the most expensive city in Canada to live in. Average house price: $750,000.
50-60k is most certainly not middle-upper class in the bigger cities in Canada. Not Vancouver, not Calgary, not Edmonton, not Toronto. Maybe Regina or Winnipeg.
As someone who liaised with developers in India: (Score:3, Insightful)
[Several politically-correct suggestions, mostly based on the idea of non-Canadian workers in Canada, deleted.]
As someone who has been liaison with developers in India I can suggest other possibilities:
Canada has people who:
- Speak English understandably and understand us when we speak it.
- Are working in the same time zone rather than offset by a shift or more.
- Are working whe
Re:As someone who liaised with developers in India (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's because Canada is Microsoft's #3 exporter of staff, behind India and Japan (link) [smh.com.au] and an L visa is obtainable after a year.
Also, Microsoft DOES have R&D in China, India, Ireland, among other places, so opening one in Vancouver is incredibly overdue.
Sorry, I'm just nitpicking and I agree with your post, Mr. Lightning. This message isn't for you. However everybody else who posted trash about Microsoft opening an office in Canada because it's cheaper:
FUCK YOU
You assholes obviously haven't spent much time in Vancouver or Toronto in the last decade or Alberta in the last year. Stop posting shit about nonsense you have no fricking clue about. Have you guys actually sent your resumes to Microsoft? Geez. Sound like the neighbor's barking dogs.
Oz
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And the difference is? Of course they can always pay enough to pull the talent away from their current employers...
Thats never been the question in my book. Their is just not a ethical (in my view of a perfect world anyway) way to keep all the capable people of learning a desirable skill like programming, especially something as relocatable. So the second best, in m
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Interesting)
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A useful threat over engineers and politicians... (Score:4, Insightful)
Give us the tax/law breaks we need or we'll hire less people in Redmond and the state/US will earn less tax.
Having some flexibility just over the fence gives MS a lot of options to get heavy handed.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
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US Population: 300,000,000
Over 95% of smart people are foreign-born.
"Pay them enough" reasoning is BS: the fact that I could sleep with the entire Swedish bikini team at once if I "paid them enough" is immaterial if I just plain cannot afford the price, OK?
We are already buying Japanese cars and Chinese TVs with your "pay enough" attitude.
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As a purely hypothetical question, what's the going rate for the Swedish bikini team?
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Which is true, but far, far less than 95% of the smart people with post-secondary degrees are foreign-born and foreign-educated; for all the United States' primary and secondary education problems, its university system is still among the best in the world. The kind of people Microsoft is interested in for these positions -- Ph.D.s, post-docs, etc. -- were probably educated in the U.S., with a smaller but still significant number in Europe. Post-9/11 hassles make t
Bullshit Mod (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
My take on it is that it is what they say it is. Yes, there is no shortage of US programmers. But what's missing are *good* programmers willing to relocate to the Redmond area without a huge incentive. I would imagine that Vancouver is a great place to pick up new talent.
And having a variety of ethnic backgrounds working on a product is extremely valuable. The US is not the only market MS is going after. Their software needs to reflect the cultures its moving into. I will give a relevant example.
I once worked on a word processor that the marketing and sales team were trying to sell to the Japanese market. This word processor claimed (on the box) to support Japanese scripts. Well, one of them anyway. Katakana to be precise. Katakana is used in Japan almost exclusively for foreign loan words and signs. A word processor that only supports katakana is completely useless.
We had a Japanese programmer on the team. He explained this to management. Some talk went back and forth about what to do. In the end, the decision was made to remove it from Japanese shelves. Seriously, before this fellow clued in Management, they thought the word processor must be massively pirated in Japan. Otherwise how come no sales?
You want a diverse culture in your development teams. Having lived both in Canada and the US, Canada values diverse culture more. The US is the "melting pot" (your uniqueness will be added to our own). Canada has "multiculturalism" (which admittedly has its own problems). It makes sense to move some development to a place like Canada (as long as management is moving with it). There are lots of other places that would be good too. But Vancouver is quite close to Redmond.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I work in R&D and let me tell you that the majority of folks at American universities who graduate with masters or doctoral degrees are non-Americans. For whatever reason, the vast majority of Americans do not seem to particularly favor staying in school for grad school. If you do not believe me, just have a look at the graduate student list of any technical school and you will see that there is a significant number of non-Americans in there.
I work at a baby-Bell doing R&D and in our team, we have 4 PhDs, and only one one of them is American. Two are Indian and one is South Korean. Even in grad school, the numbers are similar. In fact, most of the interns that we have tend to be non-Americans, as well.
So is it any wonder that MS is moving part of the R&D to Canada? If you are comparing a software engineer or a programmer with the kind of people MSR employs, you have no clue about what is happening.
And secondly, I doubt MSR would pay "next to nothing". Most people in R&D, especially in areas like EECS tend to get quite a bit, easily making six figures or more.
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Informative)
IBM, EA, ATI, AMD (just to name a few) all have huge labs in major cities in Canada. It's completely unsurprising for MS to finally follow suit and open a lab in Canada, where tech / engineering talents are aplenty. It's a bit surprising that they didn't open it near Waterloo, where a huge percentage of MS engineers are from... But Vancouver just makes more sense because of its proximity to Redmond.
BTW, a somewhat related article on CBC claims the Canada government is throwing money into luring back expat canadian tech workers down in the US [www.cbc.ca]:
"Meanwhile, the province is trying to lure back Canadians working south of the border. This summer, it is launching a $2-million program promoting new job opportunities, improved taxation and a higher dollar in their home country."
Draw your own conclusion at why MS is making this decision right after the announcement about "improved taxation" in Canada.
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Shrinking something, anyway! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shrinking something, anyway! (Score:4, Funny)
Engineering is becoming a commodity (Score:2)
Getting rid of US jobs to cut cost is nothing new. That ipod, phone, whatever is made in China. Those shoes are made in Phillipines. Why the hell should companies keep engineering jobs in US if they can get the job done elsewhere?
LOL (Score:5, Funny)
Starting with you.
Re:LOL (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
That's the governments intent. (Score:2, Insightful)
Economic inequality was the major stumbling block for the creation of the European Union. It's no different for the creation of the American one.
The new steel-worker (Score:5, Informative)
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Depends on what you mean by "decent". If by "decent" you're talking purely about dollars and cents that amount to a salary, you're not going to get paid more (at least in India and Canada), on average, than in the US.
Re:The new steel-worker (Score:5, Funny)
During the 3 hours when the sun will shine here, I emerge from my igloo to play the government required hour of hockey. Then after I have finished I go hunting for my family's dinner with my trusty bow and arrow. Once home with my cariboo meat, I will sit back down in my igloo, crack open a Molson Canadian and watch one of the two channels we get up here, CBC and the Curling network. And this was a good day, some days it is too cold to even leave the igloo. I can't wait for global warming.
Pfff... (Score:3, Funny)
Too late to save money (Score:5, Insightful)
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FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
immigration. Microsoft continues to attack programmers
in the U.S. by attempting to drive down salaries via
the H1B scam.
If it was truly a problem for Microsoft, they would
not be opening new centers in Bellevue and Boston, would they?
Re: NOT TRUE (Score:4, Informative)
Don't underestimate Ballmer (Score:4, Funny)
H1B (Score:2)
Going to Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
Outsourcing works (Score:2, Interesting)
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It's like a pyramid scheme -- it only works if only a comparatively few people do it.
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: We don't want to pay American employees what they're worth, so we're going somewhere else.
It's their right to do so, but....
I was on a congressionally funded study of some specialized skills of which the government believed there was a shortage. We had a distinguished economist on the committee and his first comment was, "There is no shortage. Employers (the government, in this case) always perceive a shortage because they want to pay their employees less."
There are more than enough qualified engineers in the US to work for the tech firms. They're just not willing to compete on the salaries. When Bill Gates says, "we need more visas for the best and the brightest,' he means he wants to pay less for talent.
Re:Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's good enough for Flint, Michigan, it's good enough for Silicon Valley.
Retaining engineers is easy (Score:3, Interesting)
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So would my paycheck decrease if I added a negative number of codes because I re-factored things? I think it was at apple that someone did just that, they had a form for how many lines were added and one day he put down a negative number which apparently caused the whole method to be aba
Could also be (Score:5, Insightful)
M$ software quality will continue to decline (Score:2)
Immigration/Hiring Policies Shrank Knowledge Base (Score:2, Insightful)
They aren't *moving* R&D... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Other centres exist in North Carolina, Ireland, Denmark and Israel, while full research-and-development locations exist in the U.K., India, China and California's Silicon Valley."
It's really not that big a deal. Microsoft probably can't hire enough people in the US, and opening development centers in other countries make sense. Not that great a story....
Re:They aren't *moving* R&D... (Score:4, Insightful)
And how do you know that? Did you interview with Microsoft and was offered a position but declined because pay was too low? Or did you friends had such experience?
honest question for microsoft management (Score:2)
Microsoft R&D? (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps A Career Change... (Score:5, Funny)
Secondly, there's no shortage of excellent marijuana in Vancouver. After hours and hours of working for Microsoft, nothing will make you feel better than a few bong hits of BC bud. I think being really high makes Vista worth having. It's slow, you're slow. The nifty visuals are "trippy" and while it's paging out to disk, you can munch.
Opportunity (Score:2)
Assuming this is about Indian oursourcing through Canada (which is exactly what is happening in my industry, aerospace), there is opportunity here. Hook up with someone you know in Canada, get them to hire and the workers, and you provide the American interface to your American customers. Provide contract services.
It's called the global delivery model. OK, you wouldn't be a coder anymore, you'd be an agent, but at least you would get to wear a Rolex.Problem with "Plenty of programmers here" argument (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, having said that, I work on a team that's only about 20-30% US-born citizens. The rest are a mix of Russian, Romanian, Chinese, Indian, and Mexican. But they're not your stereotypical wage slaves hired to save costs. They're bright, intelligent contributors. And my girlfriend, an Australian citizen in a different group, gets paid as much as I do and got even more out of her relocation benefits (apparently shipping across the Pacific isn't cheap).
So, why then does MS hire foreigners. Because (arguably, at least) MS isn't interested in the top 4X% of American developers, they're interested in the top X% of all developers. Since that subset isn't entirely American, they're very interested in immigration issues. Not to drive down wages, but to drive up hiree quality.
You can argue all the live-long day that Americans are the best in the industry (correct or not), but you can't reasonably state that *all* American developers are better than *all* non-American developers.
Re:Problem with "Plenty of programmers here" argum (Score:5, Interesting)
Also don't forgot that first world citizens from countries such as England, Germany and Japan need visas too. A lot of Americans on this forum are dumbing this issue down into a "slave labour" issue but I call BS on that.
There are many extremely bright people across the world and not letting them into America to train Americans just makes your country even dumber.
Good luck with that.
Lack of Talent Indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I work, I am often tasked with interviewing senior level software developers and team lead candidates. Occasionally, an architect level position, also, but that is rare as our company has not a software architect, per se.
Over the last 6 months I have interviewed approximately 15 candidates, and I was probly seeing about 1 candidate for about ever 150 resumes submitted. Some of these people had 5 years experience, some had as much as 18 years. We're a
I'm willing to grant that they are nervous, may not know everything, whatever. But overwhelmingingly, the fact is, these people say that can do x and y and in reality, after the stated 15 years experience, can even demonstrate the minimum competency required for the position. We are not rediculous expectations by any standard. But if you've been doing remoting for 7 years in
The typical response is: I just google it. That's fine, but someone who never wrote a line of code before can Google it, too. We need to know you can actually perform well in the duties you'll be assigned. Some people get up and walk out of the interviews stating they are too difficult. We finally hired a couple of these guys and they performed very lousy.
The bottom line is that, it is indeed difficult to find someone qualified for certain tasks. If we hire for a bit of a lower-level position such as typical ASP.NET stuff and maybe some middle-tier business rules tasks, its a bit easir to find people but it is still difficult to find someone that when hired, can perform very well until about 6 months into the task after which, they leave and go to another company making more money and more responsibilities (and we pay relative to the 50th-70th percentile of the local norm) and have a disreable culture.
In any case, just incase it was because I was doing the interviewing and they were nervous... I have recently interviewed for a software architect level position for a fortune 100 company requiring the ability to chug roughly 400 million transactions daily with an extreme degree of reliability, and I did fine in the interviews. I was able to answer and demonstrate all but 2 of the questions or tasks asked of me and received a job offer. I have only 10 years experience and no college degree (yet). I don't know whether I'm special, but I think my observation remains: finding someone qualified is difficult enough, but getting the company to offer what they are worth (rather, what they think they are worth) is even more difficult. Most places I've worked hasn't a problem rewarding people that prove themselves or that dazzle during interviews. But if you just barely get by in interview or just get hired because they are taking a chance while not sure of you, and ask for $100k, you're probly not going to get it.
On that note, I've hired people before that I wasn't too sure of but they showed potential, they wanted a rediculous amount of money and we offered what we thought t
Lack of Talent - in the management (Score:5, Insightful)
When you want top talent and/or qualifications, YOU PAY. Else, you get what you pay for.
I know what I am talking about, I am stuck at hiring people with 20%-under-norm salary and temporary status... and half of the people we get suck. But sometimes, we get good candidates... and all we have to retain them is warm, fuzzy "you're in the family" feelings. We are so notorious for our stingy paycheques that a candidate in the last recruiting round asked about the salary when we called him for the interview, and declined the invitation when we said the amount.
Absolutely right. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a senior engineer for a large, very well known software company (not MS). One of my duties is interviewing engineers. Lots of engineers. I see five or six candidates a week, in addition to phone interviews. Once we've found somebody -- anybody -- who meets our hiring requirements, we'll do whatever it takes to get them here. Living across the country? We'll relocate your household and find your spouse a job. Living in Canada? We'll get you a visa. Compensation is same in both cases, and due to the costs of acquiring the visa, H1-B workers actually cost the company a lot more. As a result, we prefer Americans, but as I said, we'll take anyone we can get.
We've got development centers in the UK, Africa, India, China, and several places in the US. These all cost us far more per person -- in facilities costs, training, legal costs -- than the US dev centers. We do this to try to attract people who don't want to relocate.
Those of you who think Microsoft is just trying to avoid paying you the billions you so obviously think you're worth, should go apply to the Redmond campus. If you're as good as you think you are, they'll fly you in for interviews. And if you pass those, then they'll talk about compensation. At that point, you can't really lose the offer, barring stupidity. The poster who said they'd use a difference in expected salary to disqualify a candidate in order to get an immigrant worker instead is, to give them the benefit of the doubt, blatantly mistaken.
Look, just do me a favor: If you think you're hot shit and want a six-figure job, make yourself a list of the top ten tech companies in the US. Then go to each of their job sites and submit your resume. My recruiters are waiting. Unless, like most of the posters here, you think that's "slaving away for minimum wage."
Train your custom officers, MS would stay in USA. (Score:5, Interesting)
It must be an utter nightmare for MS to bring in the smartest developers available around the world, enriching the intellectual capacity of the USA, helping an American company grow wealth for their American shareholders.
In an unrelated field, my wife, who is a Canadian with two science related bachelor's degrees and a professional registration has been blocked twice from entering the USA on temporary work visas by ignorant american customs officers.
And she was going to perform work needed by American companies that were not able to find qualified American professionals. High end specialized scientific work
The first time, the company she was going to consult for made a small mistake on their reference letter. She had to wait for several hours
The second instance
This fuckwad didn't have even the most basic understanding of the situation
Her client nearly lost her services, which would have delayed their project, which would have meant laying off American citizens from their jobs, and would have delayed or pre-empted millions of dollars of economic activity in a remote area of the USA where the jobs are desparately needed.
But many hours later, after missing her connecting flight, she did get through
There was another incident
Re:Train your custom officers, MS would stay in US (Score:3, Interesting)
I have been hosed getting into Canada from the US before.
One instance you stated there was a mistake on her forms. They still let her in, after oh no, SHE had to get proof and a CORRECT copy?
Oh my, those horrible bastards wanting her to have legal forms filled out correctly.
As for my last screw up to getting into Canada?
I showed up for planning meetings to decide whether or not and if we were, how to implement a shop floor system f
After reading the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Where? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Where? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. I have two friends that have had incidents relating to American laws to protect american workers.
One WAS working in the 'states, but his visa ran out. The company was unable to renew his work visa because he hadn't completed his CSC degree. He HAD been working for this company for 3 years and getting anyone else up to speed would take a LONG time as he was lead developer for a large system. The argument given was that there are americans that are better qualified for the role, i.e. people with degrees who are American citizens that would love the job (which is questionable as the pay wasn't amazing). He did have >10 years programming experience, but that obviously isn't equivalent to someone with a "degree".
The other friend was an artist for gaming companies (he worked at Canadian rockstar for a while and more recently has been art lead at other companies in Canada). He was told straight out by american interviewers, "Great portfolio, wish we could hire you, but you have no degree and we have to hire an American that is "better" qualified."
Re:ahem.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This was waiting to happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is. . . Will the Canadians put up with it?
Or will they insist that Microsoft hire qualified Canadian programmers first (as the US gubermint refuses to do)?