Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
"My point was at point of time there has been not more than 5% H1B in Qualcomm." This is the 2nd time that you've posted this, and I ask you for the 2nd time to prove it! Did you even read the article that Don wrote? If so then you will have read comments from someone from Qualcomm who described working on a team with mostly people on H-1Bs. To claim that there were never more than 5% people working on a H-1B, despite everything pointing to the opposite conclusion just shows an attempt on your part to cloud the facts with unsubstantiated numbers. According to Jacobs, 60% of the workforce in 2008 was foreign. This despite the fact that most of the non-engineering workforce isn't foreign (HR, Finance, Sales, Marketing, etc.). If the overall workforce is 60% then the engineering workforce must be much higher because we know from the H-1B stats that 99% of the H-1B Visas went towards the IT/Engineering fields. Presumably many of these engineers became perms from the pool of 6200 H-1B Visas that the company received. This doesn't even take into account the 3rd party H-1B Visa's being used by contractors at the company. Obviously the company is a huge consumer of H-1B Visas! To claim otherwise is complete nonsense! "As you easily ignored the fact that any employer with more than 10% H1B employees is considered " H1 Dependent Employer" and Qualcomm is not one of them that proves the point!!!" How do you know that Qualcomm is not an H1B dependent employer? I don't believe that they have to publicly disclose this information and even if they do there are many loop-holes in the legislation. Here is a prime example quoted directly from the section of the DOL Employment Guide that discusses H1B Dependent Employers: "H1B dependent employers who wish to hire only H1B workers who are paid at least $60,000 per year or have a master's degree or higher in a specialty related to the employment can be exempted from these additional rules" Obviously this loophole was meant to exclude big tech companies such as Qualcomm who often hire people at salaries over $60K or who have a masters degree. I've never said that people on H-1Bs don't contribute or don't file patents. Obviously if they are working as an engineer for a company they are doing engineering work which for a company focused on IP such as Qualcomm means writing patents. This will happen no matter who is working for the company. My point is that companies such as Qualcomm are deliberately flooding the workplace with workers on H-1Bs at the same time that they outsource. You have a clear anti-American bias in your writing that implies that Americans are not suitable to this sort of work, which is why I cited instances of Americans who contributed to the IP of Qualcomm. You've twisted this to claim that somehow I'm biased against people with a H-1B, and that I've said that they don't innovate or file patents. Both claims are completely false!— March 22, 2011 3:54 p.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
Lots of factors to discuss. Ignoring the indigenous vs non-indigenous issue for a moment. Is there really a shortage? The article in the UT that pellis posted a link to made this claim, but I have first-hand knowledge with many of these companies that would contradict this claim. Most telling in the UT article though were the comments by Bob Stamp the recruiter from Cubic: "But it’s tough to find workers to fill high-skilled slots, said Bob Stamp, the company’s corporate staffing manager. “Most companies would ideally like to have the ‘A’ players, with four to seven years of experience, but those are very hard to find and if you do find them, they’re very difficult to pry out of their current jobs,” he said." Since when did Engineering come to be viewed as such a competitive sport that anyone over 30 is a B player? NFL Quarterbacks have longer runs than some engineers. Would Bret Favre if he were working as an engineer be employable as a 'C' player? Engineers aren't paid for their physical prowess, but for their ability to engineer. A process that requires intelligence, knowledge, experience and problem solving abilities. Most of these grow with age rather than shrink. This was exactly my message to pellis earier. Based on his post I think he was around 30 years old and he was already talking about "ageism taking it's toll". In 10 years, he will probably feel as though he is just coming into his own as an engineer - he will have learned the team dynamics necessary for SW execution, will have learned SW process, will have honed his programming and engineering skills and will probably feel that he is better at engineering than he ever was at 30. But at 40, companies will view him as a 'C' or 'D' player. One who is either A) too expensive, B) too old and slow to drive innovation or C) his skills are too antiquated, or all of the above. This age issue is tightly coupled with the H-1B Visa problem, because the massive numbers of 20 somethings have created a perception that engineering is somehow like the Olympics - it's all down-hill after 16...— March 22, 2011 11:57 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
Unfortunately I do believe that in most cases they are taking lower compensation packages. I feel that I'm very tuned in to the local start-up job market scene and I clearly see this to be the case. Based on what "Indian_H1B" has said, I'm guessing that some large companies are still giving annual increases in order to keep their best staff happy. But this is a tenuous road, these highly compensated people will find that they need to take a pay cut if they take a job elsewhere. No question that they will have to take a pay cut if they stay in San Diego. They might find similar compensation in a big company like Cisco in the Bay Area (not sure), but the cost of living is higher so they will end up on the short-end by moving. On the other end of the spectrum from the highly compensated engineers, are those engineers that aren't driving innovation but are still necessary cogs in the machine. The Qualcomm mindlance test job that I posted a link to is an example of such a job. That link was pulled (not surprised), but the job still shows up if one search the mindlance website directly. If one does search the mindlance website, the compensation range is visible and it's a shocking $30k/yr. I've never seen test engineering compensation that low, even for a temp. Temp wages in fact used to be higher than perm employees because of the lack of benefits. Based on what I've seen first-hand, I think that this is typical of the job market. There are masses of mediocre engineers working in temp jobs where the salaries are being crushed. At the other-end, the best engineers at start-ups have felt the pinch for quite some time, but the best engineers at a large company such as Qualcomm are probably just now beginning to see the trend. I expect that highly compensated engineers such as "Indian_H1B", who incidentally, represent a small minority of the overall engineering market, will be in for a shock over the next few years. This is because the influx of engineers and the outflow of jobs is building. Just to add to this, as I mentioned previously one VP of Engineering at a local start-up told me that he saw no need to pay for $100K/yr for engineers anymore because there are so many engineers available. I know the highest paid person on his staff who is making $120K/yr and this person said to me, "I'm just hoping that this gig will keep me going for another 5 years, after that who knows".— March 22, 2011 11:18 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
Another question. If the compensation is good, is the startup business plan sound? Startups require a lot of effort to launch and nobody wants to put a ton of blood sweat and tears (sweat equity) into a company that fails... been there and done that! One last thing. People seem to begrudge software developers making six figure incomes, but they don't realize the level of initial and on-going education required to stay proficient in this field. Once that is factored in, we're probably lower paid than those in many fields (comparing education to education). I have a realtor neighbor who makes much more money than engineers with only a high school education. My mechanic is making $90/hr, and he gets paid for overtime, when HE decides to work overtime. kball, I don't mean to sound as though I'm denigrating your company or opening, but if compensation is a problem, you might want to look at hiring fresh grads or those working their way through school.— March 21, 2011 6:44 p.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
Further note, it seems the mindlink referenced above was pulled (not surprised). A simple search of open Mindlance job openings showed that the job ad is still running though. The name of the hiring company has been removed, but the location (San Diego), job description, skills, etc. are all the same. Furthermore, Mindlance lists this job in their category of paltry $30K/yr jobs. This is where test engineering is headed thanks to the crush of jobs.... The ad is cut and pasted below (along with the link): Reference # : 11-01861 Title : win mobile tester Location : san diego, CA Experience Level : 2 Years Start Date / End Date : 03/10/2011 / 03/09/2012 Assignment Detail Description * Windows Mobile Test * Multimedia testing * Feature testing - browser, audio, video, camera etc. Qualcomm tools added advantage (. http://careers.mindlance.com/private/myjobs/openj… .)— March 21, 2011 6:15 p.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
"Once again you are just reading one sentence without whole view." I read the whole sentence, the problem is that your posts tend to have many unconnected thoughts scattered in too many areas to try and address with the 3000 word limit in this comments section. I would like to respond to every one of your points, but I have to pick the ones that are most relevant to this discussion. Even still I've written many exhaustive replies to you which would test the patience of most people. "You look at fresh graduate but than you don't look at that person already has few patents on his name which number may be more than any another person on this forum!!!" Having patents is certainly a better predictor than internships at companies, but it doesn't change my main point that a single person does not a trend make. "I am signing off from this thread!!! Keep your fight alive!!!" This is the inevitable response of someone who either A) Is coming out on the short end of an argument or B) Someone who can't express their points properly in a public forum. Me thinks that both probably apply in this situation.— March 21, 2011 12:52 p.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
I think that you are either illogical or thrown of by the nuances of the English language. Don essentially said that, he didn't know if Indian's are the largest growing illegal immigration group in the US and that *IF* they are, then they are still "small by comparison to other groups". The article that I posted confirmed the initial conjecture (which wasn't Don's) and also Don's conjecture that they are small by comparison to the other groups. The fact that you are a Qualcomm hiring manager who failed to understand this and instead attacked him by writing the comments below, just goes to reinforce the problems facing Americans who work inside that sort of company culture. "It seems like you like to write on topics which ignites people wrong way without knowing any facts and make comments which is totally irresponsible!!! At least do you homework before you make controversial statements!!"— March 21, 2011 11:53 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
To be sure, the educational system in the US could be made better. My main point was not to imply that the US has the best educational system in the world, but rather that on standardized international tests, when one compares apples to apples that US students are holding their own. The mainstream media has been reporting exactly the opposite message and using apples to oranges comparisons. Many of your points also apply (perhaps even more readily) to schools in other countries, particularly in Asia, where the emphasis is on test performance rather than creative thought. Dr. Matloff recently wrote about this where he said that some book stores that he visited in Shanghai were dominated with books on how to perform well on college board exams. Some of the math books that he looked at were filled with tricks on how to quickly come up with the correct answer. What was completely lacking in this process was the creative thought process needed to apply math to describe physical problems (word problems basically).— March 21, 2011 11:41 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
Definitely very provocative and though provoking. I would like to think that the real world is not as diabolically evil as your post would suggest. But many of your points do ring true.— March 21, 2011 11:28 a.m.
Are American Engineers in Short Supply?
Also, not everyone needs to have advanced degrees. This is particularly true in the software industry where rapid change means that much of what is learned in school will quickly become outdated. Most of the people that I know who pursued advanced degrees, did so mainly because it was a credential needed to try and differentiate themselves from the growing masses. But everyone now has a masters degree, so the people that I know who are currently pursuing a master degree do so because it's no longer a differentiator and has instead become an expensive requirement. This serves to show 1) how crowded the field has become and 2) how it has only served to push people from the field because the return on investment is too low. Incidentally, developing software is also a relatively easy process compared to other engineering fields. Someone could make the claim that developing App software for example is really more trade (art really) than science. Preferring people with a masters degree over someone with 10 years of experience developing that specific type of App is an example of HR run amok.— March 21, 2011 11:11 a.m.