Miscellaneous News

[Randomuser]

I hear a lot of Indians saying if they make it impossible for H1B visas, they will just outsource to India instead.

When you think about it logically it doesn't make sense.

The purpose of outsourcing to India is because 1. People there can do the job and 2. It is cheap.

Therefore as a company you are have the incentive to outsource as much stuff as possible to save costs. Especially when outsourcing IT stuff isn't new.

So then this begs the question, if these H1b jobs in the US could be simply outsourced to India, why hasn't it already been done ? Why are these jobs still in the US where they need to go through so much effort and cost? This is basically a contradiction.

Unless of course, maybe these jobs simply can't be outsourced. Outsourcing your entire head of software development for example isn't feasible . Or even allowed.

People wonder why India is poor in actual results of STEM like competitive programming. Maybe this is why. Logically most cannot conceptualize how things work. If you don't have the right mindset, then you're screwed. Programming properly is different from being a code monkey copying stuff from libraries and stack overflow.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Not because of rise of Chinese giants like Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, and Bytedance? From my experience, only those that can't get in tier 1 Chinese tech companies come to work in the US. The bar to get into those Chinese companies are much higher than US big tech.

foreign undergrad degrees aren't that common. for entry level, they tend to hire straight out of Chinese universities. For undergrad, the point of overseas study is either you are already rich, or you are looking to emigrate. For MS/PhD level talent, the H1B route was also very common to recoup costs and for the high H1B salary that FAANG is willing to pay for but say a chemical company is much less likely to pay for.

If it was solely about studying, there's plenty of strong MS/PhD programs in China and nearby Asian countries like South Korea, Japan and Singapore that pay scholarships and in the case of Singapore and Japan, allow for staying in the country afterwards. It is much less competitive to get into a SKY university or Tokyo as a foreign student than as a domestic Korean or Japanese. It is also significantly less competitive (still competitive, just less than undergrad) to get into a top graduate program in China than a top undergrad program.

Yet going to an Asian country is not nearly as common as going to the US for graduate study, and while you expect most Chinese grad students to stay in China, a disproportionate number left.

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

foreign undergrad degrees aren't that common. for entry level, they tend to hire straight out of Chinese universities. For undergrad, the point of overseas study is either you are already rich, or you are looking to emigrate. For MS/PhD level talent, the H1B route was also very common to recoup costs and for the high H1B salary that FAANG is willing to pay for but say a chemical company is much less likely to pay for.

Chinese undergrads in US come from wealthy families and failed to get into 985 schools. They work in FAANG since they aren't competetive for companies like Huawei/Bytedance/Tencent and other top tier tech in China. At mid-to-senior levels, compensation at those companies are relatively much better than FAANG. Downside is 996 and intense competition.

People wonder why India is poor in actual results of STEM like competitive programming. Maybe this is why. Logically most cannot conceptualize how things work. If you don't have the right mindset, then you're screwed. Programming properly is different from being a code monkey copying stuff from libraries and stack overflow.

Well-said! 99% of Indian H1bs in software just rely on cheating, nepotism, and rote-memorization to get jobs. Once in, all they do is talk and make excuses. Even in FAANG, about 1/10 Indian engineers are actually good (and around 50% even meets the minimum competence criteria). As for offshore teams based in India- they are even worse by about an order of magnitude. Boeing learnt the hard way.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

Chinese undergrads in US come from wealthy families and failed to get into 985 schools. They work in FAANG since they aren't competetive for companies like Huawei/Bytedance/Tencent and other top tier tech in China. At mid-to-senior levels, compensation at those companies are relatively much better than FAANG. Downside is 996 and intense competition.


Well-said! 99% of Indian H1bs in software just rely on cheating, nepotism, and rote-memorization to get jobs. Once in, all they do is talk and make excuses. Even in FAANG, about 1/10 Indian engineers are actually good. As for offshore teams based in India- they are even worse by about an order of magnitude. Boeing learnt the hard way.

that's the whole point. Existing money -> US CS degree -> FAANG was a commonly accepted route to emigration + a high paying job. We are not talking about the ultra rich who can study an art degree, just the regular rich who still need to see ROI. We are also not talking about the ultra ambitious who can make it to HBAT management.

studying in the US is not really about the degree itself since the degree itself is not important. The important part is the H1B.

 

[Eventine]

Definitely. it would completely destroy 90% of the motivation, as a huge draw is being able to work in the US tech industry. In the past, Chinese students did a wide variety of subjects in STEM, but in the past 10-15 years, I noticed a greatly narrowed focus onto CS and software. I don't think it is because of a huge interest in CS, but because CS reliably gave out H1Bs.

One of the last remaining super powers of US industry is its global dominance of software platforms. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Oracle, Adobe, etc. still control the vast majority of the market. Chinese tech. companies are dominant in China due to Chinese policy but they have not been successful at wresting away market share from American software companies in the rest of the world.

China actually needs more disruptive software companies, not less; and Trump's war against H1bs and out sourcing is actually a great opportunity for China to capitalize to try and destroy America's global dominance over software. With Trump's moves, the cost of developing software will rise for American tech. companies. This means there's an opening that China can exploit.

 

[siegecrossbow]

that's the whole point. Existing money -> US CS degree -> FAANG was a commonly accepted route to emigration + a high paying job. We are not talking about the ultra rich who can study an art degree, just the regular rich who still need to see ROI. We are also not talking about the ultra ambitious who can make it to HBAT management.

studying in the US is not really about the degree itself since the degree itself is not important. The important part is the H1B.

That’s the end result of the rat race known as late stage capitalism — once upon a time they still threw a bone to the plebs. Nowadays people who aren’t connected are left to fend for themselves.

 

[proelite]

Eh, one of the last remaining super powers of US industry is its global dominance of software platforms. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Oracle, Adobe, etc. still control the vast majority of the market. Chinese tech. companies are dominant in China due to Chinese policy but they have not been successful at wresting away market share from American software companies in the rest of the world.

China actually needs more disruptive software companies, not less; and Trump's war against H1bs and out sourcing is actually a great opportunity for China to capitalize to try and destroy America's global dominance over software. With Trump's moves, the cost of developing software will rise for American tech. companies. This means there's an opening that China can exploit.

You're mistaken thinking that America needs a 60k SWEs per year from India to remain competitive.

 

[Eventine]

You're mistaken thinking that America needs a 60k SWEs per year from India to remain competitive.

I'm more talking about the Chinese and Eastern European talent they're closing their doors to. Those people really do have an out sized impact in Silicon Valley. The average American can't math or code their way out of a wet paper bag - they rely on highly competent Chinese and Eastern Europeans to solve most of their problems.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

One of the last remaining super powers of US industry is its global dominance of software platforms. Google, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, Oracle, Adobe, etc. still control the vast majority of the market. Chinese tech. companies are dominant in China due to Chinese policy but they have not been successful at wresting away market share from American software companies in the rest of the world.

China actually needs more disruptive software companies, not less; and Trump's war against H1bs and out sourcing is actually a great opportunity for China to capitalize to try and destroy America's global dominance over software. With Trump's moves, the cost of developing software will rise for American tech. companies. This means there's an opening that China can exploit.

Much of US software dominance is political though. It is not a free market. Example: Huawei. Not even a software company, but it got too close to control over the peripherals of software.

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

that's the whole point. Existing money -> US CS degree -> FAANG was a commonly accepted route to emigration + a high paying job. We are not talking about the ultra rich who can study an art degree, just the regular rich who still need to see ROI. We are also not talking about the ultra ambitious who can make it to HBAT management.

studying in the US is not really about the degree itself since the degree itself is not important. The important part is the H1B.

All true, but I believe original discussion point was identifying the cause for Chinese undergrads studying in China choosing to pursue CS degrees. As you mentioned earlier, not many of those students come to US to pursue post graduate degrees.

I'm more talking about the Chinese and Eastern European talent they're closing their doors to. Those people really do have an out sized impact in Silicon Valley. The average American can't math or code their way out of a wet paper bag - they rely on highly competent Chinese and Eastern Europeans to solve most of their problems.

But among quality non-Indian talent, most already have green cards/citizenship. So this wont become a problem until decades down the road. With AI eliminating entry level software jobs, within 10-20yrs US will be facing a huge deficit in mid-to-senior level software engineers. I guess US corporations are betting on AI eliminating more senior level software roles within that timeframe.