I'd also highlight that beyond over-hiring being responsible for the downturn in tech employment, I think offshoring is way more responsible for the reduction in tech than AI when it comes to US jobs. Video conferencing tech didn't get really good and ubiquitous (especially for folks working from home) until the late teens, and since then I've seen an explosion of offshore contractors. With so many folks working remotely anyway, what does it matter if your coworker is in the same city or a different continent, as long as there is at least some daily time overlap (which is also why I've seen a ton of offshoring to Latin America and Europe over places like India).
Both sides of the aisle retreated from domestic labor protection for their own different reasons so the US labor force got clobbered.
In big dollar markets, the program is used more for special skills. But when a big bank or government contractor needs marginally skilled people onshore, they open an office in Nowhere, Arizona, and have a hard time finding J2EE developers. So some company from New Jersey will appear and provide a steady stream of workers making $25/hr.
The calculus is that more H1=less offshore.
The smart move would be to just let skilled workers from India, China, etc with a visa that doesn’t tie them to an employer. That would end the abusive labor practices and probably reduce the number of lower end workers or the incentive to deny entry level employment to US nationals.
The problem is that the left, which was historically pro-labor, abdicated this position for racial reasons, and the right was always about maximizing the economic zone.
I felt enormous sympathy for my coworkers here with that visa. Their lives sucked because there was little downside for sociopathic managers to make them suck.
Most frustrating was when they were doing the same kind of work I was doing, like writing Python web services and whatnot. We absolutely could hire local employees to do those things. They weren't building quantum computers or something. Crappy employers gamed the system to get below-market-rate-salary employees and work them like rented mules. It was infuriating.
One theory is that the benefit they might be providing over domestic "grads" is lack of prerequisites for promotion above certain levels (language, cultural fit, and so on). For managers, this means the prestige of increased headcount without the various "burdens" of managing "careerists". For example, less plausible competition for career-ladder jobs which can then be reserved for favoured individuals. Just a theory.
It's a hard truth for many Americans to swallow, but it is the truth nonetheless.
Not to say there isn't an incredible amount of merit... but the historical impact of rampant nepotism in the US is widely acknowledged, and this newer manifestation should be acknowledged just the same.
Sorry, dude, it's like, all I know.
I hear this argument where I live for various reasons, but surely it only ever comes down to wages and/or conditions?
If the company paid a competitive rate (ie higher), locals would apply. Surely blaming a lack of local interest is rarely going to be due to anything other than pay or conditions?
Nadella ascending to the leadership of Micro"I Can't Believe It's Not Considered A State-Sponsored Defense Corp"soft is what got my mildly xenophobic (sorry) gears turning.
Actually disregard, this isn’t worth it, but I don’t grant any freebies.
Other than a few international visitors, I’d expect the makeup to look like the domestic tech worker demographics rather than like the global population demographics.
I have never once worked with a product manager who I could describe as “worth their weight in gold”.
Not saying they don’t exist, but they’re probably even rarer than you think.
These types all go to the same schools and do really well, interview the same, and value the prestige of working in big tech. So it's pretty easy to identify them and offer them a great career path and take them off the market.
Technical founders are way trickier to identify as they can be dropouts, interview poorly, not value the prestige etc.
Again, IMO the good ones added a lot of value by making sure no balls got dropped, which is easy to do with large, multi-team projects. Most of them, though, did a lot of just "status checks" and meeting updates.
