Most of the high paying tech jobs are located in SF Bay Area and Seattle. You need 135K base for level 1 and 169K base for level 2 in Seattle. It will be very difficult, if not impossible for new grads and entry level folks to get such a high base. On the other hand, there are few companies who only pay base component. So if you are working for a no name company with a 80K base salary in Ohio, you have better chance of qualifying. This is again a loophole. Desi consultancy companies can still bypass this new law by moving to cities which have little or no SWE jobs. Edit : Other issue is, a software tester or a database administrator making less than a SWE can still qualify. It would be better if we have a general salary based cutoff rather than occupation based. #workvisa #h1b
H1b is for high skill immigration workers. Entry level people aren't highly skilled. They need to be trained in the job. Rather hire a american and train them in the job.
Does one raise to SDE2 get me to the number?
This is only hurting people in SF and Seattle. Amazon New grad salary is same in Austin, Pheonix and Seattle. Technically, a person earning similar salary in Pheonix will qualify, but one in Seattle won't.
So is level 1 SDE1 and level 2 SDE2 and so on??
Don’t they have special mechanisms or paperwork to get around it tho?
Not sure. However, if this stays, I will prefer shifting to Pheonix or Dallas.
They can use private wage surveys instead of the official DOL ones but I doubt that would materially change the requirement given the percentile is fixed. The thing about the new wage levels is that they're incredibly high and would disqualify like 60-65% of the applicants based on last year's statistics. No one knows whether the courts will allow this change to stand
Two things: 1. With advent of WFH, consulting companies will take their jobs out of USA - good luck on that! 2. Tech lobby is stronger than you think. Recall Citizens united ? Their bankroll can make the Koch brothers look like paupers. So whichever admin comes, they’ll find a way around it. So, good luck gloating on cheap voting tactics!
Your last statement makes you sound very ignorant & entitled. What makes you think only software folks are the people who deserve jobs?
When does this take effect? Will Amazon start cutting people?
It’s already in effect since the first week of October. It doesn’t affect existing H1b, only new and changes that require prevailing wage, such as accepting an offer in a different company or significantly different job role.
Can you remote in TX and get a lower wage?
Let’s come back and see this after elections.
They are trying to solve all the problems in next 5 days.
USCIS is still accepting private wage surveys. That will likely allow international entry level folks to still get a H1B visa.
Completely agree. However the new wage levels are not for 2022, they're in effect as we speak.
Yup correct, however 2021 lottery is already over
It’s not only for the lottery, any H1b change requires prevailing wages, i.e moving freeze for all. Not to mention also PERMs that is the first step to get Green Card... the numbers are crazy high even for FANG, because only base salary counts