Originally Posted by
mattm
It's a complicated issue, I think more complicated than what can be captured in an article really.
There are lots of US-born workers at MSFT at least. And lots of H1B's, etc.
I don't make hiring/pay decisions, but have given some interviews, and where the person comes from has had no effect - it's all about what they can do or not. And the pay is graded on their job level, not where they're from. Just because someone is an H1B doesn't mean you can pay them less.. unless they work in another country, of course.
Overall there seems to be a lack of qualified candidates, no matter where they're from. Some (unemployed tech) Americans attempt to blame "outsiders" on their lack of getting jobs/interviews, but I really don't think that's the issue. The issue is that these jobs are hard to qualify for.
This is my experience as well.
That said, it may well be that some high tech lobbyists are pushing for looser immigration from certain continents just to get more candidates. At any rate, there has a been a significant Asian-born influx into the industry, and starting salaries continue to rise. Common negotiating advice for a software engineer when salary comes up: you should be embarrassed to state your salary requirement, and you'll usually get it.