Chris Pepper Responds to Paul Graham on Programming Jobs

Chris Pepper:

The immigrants I interview and work with are not 100–1,000 times as effective as US Citizens, which is the implication I get from Paul’s article: that the US has plenty of non-great programmers, but we need to recruit outside our borders to find enough great programmers. Immigrants are not hired with an understanding or expectation that they will be twice as effective as US candidates. We hire immigrants (and employers deal with the costs and paperwork) because we need people to do lots of (often basic) jobs, and there are simply not enough qualified candidates — whether programmers, system administrators, or other tech types. […]

But be honest. H-1B visa demand is not high because companies are striving for excellence. The visas are being used to preserve the existing labor market (salary levels) rather than paying higher salaries as dictated by supply and demand.

★ Friday, 2 January 2015