Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

"I hope it comes back to bite them." Also, Amen to that. I hope Paul Jacobs chokes on his $19M/yr salary.....
— June 17, 2011 6:37 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

I know other local STEM graduates who say the same thing (they can't get an interview out of Qualcomm, despite the fact that they have experience and a degree in the field). The practice of ignoring qualified American workers while hiring cheaper foreign workers by the boatload is being mirrored across many large corporations such as Qualcomm, Cisco and Microsoft. Even non-tech companies such as CVS and Rite-Aid and large financial companies are doing it. This practice should be called what it is - economic treason. My feeling is that if companies such as Qualcomm do not want to hire Americans, they shouldn't be allowed to sell to Americans. In the era of multi-national exploitation, we as Americans should allow access to our markets, by only those companies that employ Americans. Faux US companies such as Qualcomm and Microsoft should be exposed for what they are.
— June 17, 2011 6:33 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

My comments really pertain to the feelings towards the company from those in the profession. From that perspective, Qualcomm doesn't have such a sterling reputation. Although with one exception - those enginers who are looking to get a Green Card in the US.
— May 10, 2011 1:33 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

There was also the person who commented that perhaps the reason that Qualcomm is so highly focused on H-1B recruitment is because that was the price for access to the Indian market. After thinking about it more, my response is that it's not okay to sell-out American workers in exchange for access to a market. Such an agreement may line the pockets of the few executives, but it hurts American workers and it should therefore come at a price. The word on the street amongst Engineers is that Qualcomm is a terrible company to work for. Microsoft and Qualcomm seem to be running in a tightly contested race for the most despised tech company in America. Given the hiring policies of IBM, Cisco and other tech companies that's saying a lot.
— May 9, 2011 4:57 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

No doubt that Qualcomm is monitoring this thread. Looking at it from their perspective, it's a no-win situation to respond. This is because: 1) Everything posted is true and taken from their own public statements or other public information. 2) Their hiring practices really aren't defensible. 3) The situation is even worse than so far described because all of the H-1B company demographic information is from 2008. 4) By responding, it will attract more attention when what they really want is for this thread to quietly fade away. There may also be legal reasons for not responding. For example, there are several lawsuits pending in the Bay Area regarding use of H-1B hires against Government minority hiring requirements. For those who don't know what this means, here is a quick recap: For companies to qualify for government contracts, companies must hire a certain number of minorities. It's a dirty little industry secret that companies are using their H-1B recruits against these minority hiring requirements. This is completely reprehensible and especially abhorrent because most H-1Bs that come to the US are children of wealthy families who were never a minority in their own country and who were never victims of discrimination or suffered from the lack of opportunities that these hiring regulations were designed to correct. It's particularly troubling because, in essence, it misuses government regulations to enforce discrimination against white American males in favor of H-1B hiring.
— May 7, 2011 11:37 a.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

Thanks for the complement. It's pretty easy to see from the total H-1B LCAs filed that Qualcomm is probably saving about $20K+ per H-1B recruit. As I mentioned, very few are highly paid or paid at true prevailing wages. Indian_H1B claims to be making +175K, if true this is a single outlying datapoint.
— May 7, 2011 11:03 a.m.

The Federal Reserve's Money Orgy

Just to underscore what you've written - An article came out today that says that CEO pay has risen 24% since 2009 and is now higher than it was at the peak of the housing bubble in 2007. (. http://money.msn.com/investment-advice/article.as… .)
— May 6, 2011 4:03 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

From the data above, you can see how Qualcomm has derived their salaries being paid from the government provided tables. For example, one entry shows 14 Senior Software Engineers II being recruited via the H-1B Visa and located in San Diego and were paid the minimum government mandated the second to the lowest tier of prevailing wage of $79,539.00/yr in 2010. The current government prevailing wage for tier 2 is $79,498/hr (down slightly from 2010). Digging through all of the LCA entries, it's clear that most of Qualcomm's Senior engineers were paid at the second to the bottom tier from the government tables. These likely represent the large numbers of overseas workers that the company has hired. However, there are a few (very few) at the top salary tiers and it's my bet that those represent H-1Bs that are already in the US and are being paid commensurate US salaries. The take-away from this is that for the type of work that Qualcomm does and for the type of talented senior software engineers that they are recruiting, they should be paying at the top tiers of the government tables - in the range of $95K-$111K. These numbers are the norm for most high tech companies as can be validated through independent sources such as (. glassdoor.com .). Instead what is happening is most of Qualcomm's Visa LCAs are being filed using the second to the bottom salary tier of $79K/yr. Or about the norm of what Qualcomm senior software engineers were paid 10-15 years ago. All of this is perfectly legal, albeit it ethically and morally corrupt and a sell-out of American workers. If this happened in a few isolated cases, it would be one thing, but because Qualcomm has imported huge numbers of workers, (6,224 which is about 50% of Qualcomm's workforce and a significant percentage of the overall engineering work force in San Diego), and because these engineers are being paid the low tier prevailing wages, it can't help but have widespread impact on engineering salaries across San Diego. This also means that long term, the driver for senior software wages in San Diego has nothing to do with a free job market, but are instead being driven from Government tables, specifically tier II wages in this case.
— May 6, 2011 2:50 p.m.

Are American Engineers in Short Supply?

The salary information for H-1B "LCAs" can be obtained from myvisajobs or other government databases. Here is a few examples: QUALCOMM INC. SAN DIEGO, CA SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER CERTIFIED 1 $101,806.00/Year $101,806.00/Year Full Time SANTA CLARA, CA 3/1/2010 - 2/28/2013 QUALCOMM INC. SAN DIEGO, CA SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER CERTIFIED 1 $96,034.00/Year $96,034.00/Year Full Time SAN DIEGO, CA 8/12/2010 - 8/11/2013 QUALCOMM INC. SAN DIEGO, CA SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER II CERTIFIED 14 $79,539.00/Year $79,539.00/Year Full Time SAN DIEGO, CA 4/2/2010 - 8/22/2012 The government prevailing wage information can be obtained from flcdatacenter.com here is an example for software engineers in San Diego: Area Code: 41740 Area Title: San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA MSA OES/SOC Code: 15-1032 OES/SOC Title: Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software Level 1 Wage: $30.60 hour - $63,648 year Level 2 Wage: $38.22 hour - $79,498 year Level 3 Wage: $45.85 hour - $95,368 year Level 4 Wage: $53.47 hour - $111,218 year Also, there is a discussion on Wikipedia about how the use of prevailing wages are used to depress wages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Wage_depre…
— May 6, 2011 2:17 p.m.

The Federal Reserve's Money Orgy

Exactly! And the fact that the whole cycle occurred in the space of just a few months makes it all the more shocking.
— May 5, 2011 6:20 p.m.