^product engineers not produce *

Well stated 13:24

I work for a FAANG, and it's true. Internal systems are not interesting, mostly drudge work, and there are a lot of Indians and H1 workers.

Produce engineers are different. These are the idea think outside the box people.

My kid is a CS major, and they won a hackathon by thinking outside the box, and problem solving a unique issue.

Drudge work has been offshored for years. This is not new. America has always been about innovation.

Unfortunately, low level IT jobs are harder to come by here, but even so, the small shops like the door manufacturers who don't have the economies of scale to outsource, or sponsor H1s still need IT workers. They just don't pay very well.

IT manager here with way too many years in the industry. There's basically two tiers of people and needs.

The first is what I call corporate IT. It's stuff like building systems for internal use in the company to manage their fleet of trucks or track office assets or whatever, this is vital to each company, but is also not very challenging. You don't need to design this stuff to scale up to 1 million users. You don't need to worry about usability because the company can require everyone to take a training course, and there's no competition. These are companies where IT is vital but it's not their main business. For example, a friend of mine is IT manager at a company that makes doors. They use a lot of IT, but the're a door company first and foremost.

These jobs are not that challenging, but also it's hard to find people as a lot of the work can be drudgery. H-1Bs fill this area well.

Then there's companies where they are software companies, and they must innovate. This is both your big companies like Google and Facebook, but also lots of smaller companies, especially startups, and everything in between like OpenTable and DealerSocket (you probably use them to schedule your auto service). Here you need your people to get real innovators, to design easy-to-use, scalable, and secure systems. This is a much more difficult challenge. These jobs are best for the top 10% of engineers, be they US-born or H-1Bs. At companies, like this, it's a rigorous interview process and only a few % of those who apply will be offered jobs.

I've been in both types of companies, but currently I'm in the second type. We tend to hire more American-raised engineers because the American culture of "independence" also means the engineers are willing to challenge the status quo and think outside the box. That's what I need no my team. We can also find those among H-1Bs (especially if looking at the best of the best), but it's less common, particularly in Asian cultures where for example respecting your elders above all is a big thing. I like someone that will challenge my technical decisions so we can hash it out.

The kind of person I look for in the second category is someone who lives and loves computers. They were playing with them since they were a kid, in a curious way not just playing games on them.

As for the job market -- well computers and automation aren't going away any time soon, and we're on the path to more not less reliance. We'll always be in need of _good_ people.

Anonymous wrote:You guys missing one huge thing for H1-B workers - they are the ones that are on-call/working during Thanksgiving, Christmas, July 4th, ... Most "Americans" I work with and myself included in this bunch do not want to work through holidays. I've known some to threaten to quit if they miss these important family moments. Guess what managers want as part of a long-term team plan?

No. My husband has been in call both holidays. On leave this week and working today.

That would be like American Indian asking all the white immigrants to pack up and move back to Europe.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Routine CS majors who basically do software engineering and maintenance will be replaced by AI in the long run.

They will be replaced by H 1 Bs first and then the H 1 Bs will be replaced by AI but nevertheless will stay in America.

Somehow this will be described as a huge win for America.

If they've become citizens, paid taxes, 401K and social security for decades, birthed and raised kids here, how can you expect them to pack up and move to a home country which doesn't feel like home after being away for all of their adult lives?

You guys missing one huge thing for H1-B workers - they are the ones that are on-call/working during Thanksgiving, Christmas, July 4th, ... Most "Americans" I work with and myself included in this bunch do not want to work through holidays. I've known some to threaten to quit if they miss these important family moments. Guess what managers want as part of a long-term team plan?

Anonymous wrote:Computer engineering. Much harder than a CS degree, but that makes hiring smooth sailing. Can go into a much broader range of careers and pivot back to SWE if that’s your hearts content.

This, and take at least one course in VHDL, learn ARM assembly (if school teaches some other assembly then buy a Raspberry Pi and teach yourself ARM), learn about Linux kernel internals, take an embedded systems class, and learn the usual UNIX tools (as, bash, emacs or vi, gdb/lldb, nm, etc.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has lost its way.

It has not lost its way.

We're trying to bring to light an issue that is negatively affecting current American careers. Congress needs to address it.

This is what the American public narrowly voted for. Unless there is a huge change in the 2026 election, then this is the world we will live in.

Anonymous wrote:There is a shortage of engineers. CS is not engineering. LLM and AI will be assisting CS and engineers for the foreseeable future. AI is a tool. Code generated by AI still has to be tailored to the environment etc. Developers aren’t going anywhere. There will just be need for fewer.

I’m ok with H 1 B programs as long as they’re paid the same rate as American developers.

They won't be. The employers will hold the visas over their heads and treat them as indentured, exploitable commodities. They have not made a secret of this. They also have no plans to further invest in public education in the US to make the importing of tech talent unnecessary.

Anonymous wrote:My sister was telling me her son is applying to colleges as a CS major. He has received a couple of acceptances for CS and is waiting for some others. He was talking to a friend's brother last week and came home concerned that hiring seems to have slowed down. The brother who is also a CS major essentially said there is an oversaturation of CS majors this year and for the next few graduating classes. Not all the students who graduated CS in May have gotten jobs. I didn't think much of it but now hearing how H-1B visas are potentially being increased, this is adding to the concern.

Will the job market be saturated driving not only salaries but working conditions down?

My son is a 9th grader is interested in STEM so curious if others have thought at all about this.

Yes, the goal of the administation is to bring in cheaper foreign labor in the tech space and use the visas as a weapon to keep those employees in line in terms of wages, hours, sick leave etc. They are there to be exploited and US native born residents need not apply.

There is a shortage of engineers. CS is not engineering. LLM and AI will be assisting CS and engineers for the foreseeable future. AI is a tool. Code generated by AI still has to be tailored to the environment etc. Developers aren’t going anywhere. There will just be need for fewer.

I’m ok with H 1 B programs as long as they’re paid the same rate as American developers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread has lost its way.

It has not lost its way.

We're trying to bring to light an issue that is negatively affecting current American careers. Congress needs to address it.

all three branches are now controlled by Rs, with Trump as their leader. And Trump has already stated he thinks H1 is a great program; he even uses it.

So, good luck with that. This is all on Rs now.

Anonymous wrote:This thread has lost its way.

It has not lost its way.

We're trying to bring to light an issue that is negatively affecting current American careers. Congress needs to address it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You see what you did there? If you are against H 1 B program you are racist.

There is no shortage of American talent and CS graduates in this country. We just had thousands laid off last year. We don’t need to bring foreigners to take middle class jobs.

Our kids going for CS in college have pretty bad chances of being employed.

This is the correct answer.

The bias is against American employees by the folks hiring Indian immigrants over Americans.

Might want to reach out to Trump about this.