[mrchicity]

If they could hire someone locally at their desired level of pay, they wouldn't. But while a legitimate talent shortage (at any price) may exist for super elite, specialist roles, there are plenty of citizens who can do typical engineering or IT work. Companies that don't pay enough will have a hard time with hiring though, thus perceiving a shortage.

Employers know it's harder for them to switch jobs so they have leverage. They can't complain or do much if management requires they be on-call in the evening or work late. This makes the H-1B worker more attractive to management at the same salary level, since they'll do more work and won't rock the boat. I've also seen H-1Bs receive the same base salary offer, but over time their variable compensation/RSUs (large portion of TC at many tech jobs) and salary progression are much worse.

I don't think it's unreasonable to limit H-1Bs to exceptional talent, or at least review their total compensation more thoroughly to ensure they aren't putting excessive downward pressure on the wages of ordinary middle-class citizens.

[doh]

Each company treats their employees differently but we don’t. Our compensation is equal and based on position (so two people that do the same job are paid the same). We do differentiate options but only based on the current state of 409a (so person joining earlier gets more).

We pay the best we can. It’s completely open and transparent to all our employees. But there is no way to compete with $400k salaries paid to selected workers by few companies.

So what should we do? Close?

[mrchicity]

That's great that you don't do that.

Sorry if this is blunt:

Paying low 100s + de minimis equity for distributed systems and DSP engineers in a super high COL city like LA is going to be a hard sell for most. People with real experience in those fields will be older, can't reasonably support a family there on that salary, and have a lot of options. The type of inexperienced employee who could pick these things up quickly is already being courted by FANGs on campus, for more money.

To get someone to work for that salary, the equity needs to be meaningful, or the startup needs to be the next Facebook or Google, not a niche product. If I'm thinking of working for you, at the max equity you list, the rosiest picture I could paint myself is an exit 4 years from now for $500mm, after which I'd get $500k assuming no dilution = $125k a year. And that's assuming all the stars align to make that happen.

I don't think you should close, since you have a cool product, but maybe consider moving to a lower COL area? I'm sure you could find plenty of people in a place like Huntsville, AL. Lots of defense contractors have engineers with the skills you need and I bet working for a fun startup would be more exciting than what they're doing now.

[belltaco]

Or he can set up a sister office in Vancouver, and hire people from all over the world(including Huntsville, Alabama).

In person conferences can happen in LA or Vancouver with tourist visas.

And have the same time zone.

More and more companies are doing this, that's why the article mentions Toronto.

[DiogenesKynikos]

This is why over the long-term, restrictive immigration laws will cause tech jobs to move abroad. There is no fundamental reason why the global tech industry has to be so concentrated in Silicon Valley. The workforce - which is heavily international - is there at the moment, but if American immigration policies restrict the workforce, the companies will eventually move operations to wherever their workers are.

[pm90]

Bingo. And once talent does move offshore, it’s going to be really really hard to get it back. Because let’s face it: SV is a horrible place to live in. Housing is too expensive, poor public transportation, endemic homelessness and the chance that an earthquake will wipe out the whole region.

If another city say Bangalore or Vancouver does get the critical talent required to kickstart the Tech boom and be a viable competitor, tech companies will migrate wholesale and never look back.

[unimployed]

(1) While we are at it, let’s stop externalizing costs to some other territories. And to really make things equal, we are going to price all other things equally at a global level with certain cost adjustments to account for shipping and geography and similar factors. Oh let’s not forget that all labor needs to be allowed multinational freedom of movement and migration to anywhere, similar to how much freedom multinational corporations enjoy. And probably going to need to unify all 195 nations into 1 global state too.

Then this little immigration and globalization issue will finally disappear, which would be fantastic for everyone.

(2) Or we can continue opening up the globalization box piece by piece because each change is really great for some groups and really bad for other groups, which only serves to heighten social conflict and wars like the trade war that has been happening. There will never be enough assistance provided for groups that are negatively impacted by globalization; governments are much too slow acting reactively and proactively.

You realize that most of the changes that you and others want to make are just as unrealistic solutions as the above, and only one is a permanent solution? Right? And as a result of the fragmentation of the world we find ourselves in, incremental changes will not solve anything really. You can move the tech hub or dominant economy somewhere else and it will end up getting restricted again because there will never be enough relief from crowding unless the tech hub becomes more decentralized like most other industries. Further, even being decentralized there will be incumbents created in Canada that will eventually find the changes to be undesirable just like the USA.

Canadians will eventually say China is ok but Indians are externalizing too many degree education costs. And there might be another trade war, and someone thinks they have the answer by moving the dominant economy somewhere else and the same issues will surface again.. and round and round we go in circles until people have finally had enough of kicking the can down the road, throwing the garbage over the wall, and the globalization wars and option 1 happens.

[DiogenesKynikos]

If human civilization survives long enough, option 1 (one world government) will definitely happen, because it makes a lot of sense in a highly interconnected world. But it's very hard to say how far off it is.

[doh]

Good analysis. The reality however is, that there are hardly any people with experience in other areas. We can only follow the current distribution and don't have a decade to build out our own talent from scratch. We invest heavily in education and growth, but it still has some time limits.

We already have sister offices in CO, MN and Czech Republic for this reason. It ads crazy complexity to the operations, but at least we have access to more talent than we had before.

[blihp]

I'd suggest that your premise ('hardly any people with experience') is wrong. Half the skills you list are relatively common. For a company of your size, finding a few dozen people with most of those skills in any major metro area in the U.S. is pretty trivial. Granted, the price you'll have to pay for them might not make you happy[1]... but they do exist.

[1] it's not FAANG level, but it's also not 105k. (if your top end compensation is significantly higher, you should probably be indicating that. Or perhaps breaking out minimum salary by position if they differ significantly.)

[doh]

> Half the skills you list are relatively common

Which skills?

> it's not FAANG level, but it's also not 105k.

105k is minimum wage for an engineer. That's why it says minimum in the post.

[blihp]

> Which skills?

C/C++, DBA/Architect, Java, DevOps, QA

> 105k is minimum wage for an engineer. That's why it says minimum in the post.

Perhaps it's just me, but when I see a salary listing without I high-end, I assume that's because it's pretty low.

[masonic]

Can I ask what the oldest age is that you have hired for a non-management position?

[doh]

In their 50s. The average age in the company is now in mid 30s

[masonic]

L.A. is a particularly expensive area to locate while disallowing remote work.