[ones_and_zeros]

If good engineers from China and India (or really anywhere) are just as good at their subject as anyone else then preference should be given to the citizen, but it's actually the reverse in practice, and that is by design.

If the foreign engineers are really that good then why do most of them do low level work with low status positions for 70k/year? Sounds like poor use of the "best and brightest" to me...

[Cookingboy]

There is no preference when it comes to hiring Top Tier engineers. Here at Google we try to hire everyone that can pass the interviews, if you are a U.S. Citizen that doesn't require Visa sponsorship then it's all the much better. I've never ever heard of anyone losing their job to foreigners in top Silicon Valley companies.

I never said foreign engineers are better, I said top ones are just as good as top ones here. Most of them work in low level positions for 70k a year but that's true for most American engineers as well. Cost would obviously play a big role for jobs of those level.

But I was replying to the comment about exceptional talent, not the overall job market.

What makes you think they WOULDN'T be as good? I've casually worked with some top tier Engineers from Baidu and Alibaba before this job and I'd say they'd have no problem landing a good position at Google or Facebook any day.

[coliveira]

When you start looking a the implications of the fallacies of "talent in short supply", all these crazy ideas start to crumble. A large number H1B visas in this country are used by temporary agencies that bring workers to do jobs for low pay. This doesn't seem to be the pool of bright programmers that their proponents have in mind.

[yen223]

A lot of foreign workers are willing to work for less money, in exchange for a H1-B visa.

Why are they willing to do that? Because H1-Bs are scarce.

Why is it scarce? Because a lot of Americans have decided that H1-Bs should be limited, because they fear foreign workers coming over and working for less money.