These claims have very little in common with the facts on the ground. A Google engineer can afford a condo five miles away in Sunnyvale ($700k), or a house ($1M) if they have a partner earning decent money too. These prices are absurd, and untenable for regular people who don't work in tech, but let us be realistic. Those are the prices because there are people paying them.
>A Google engineer can afford a condo five miles away in Sunnyvale ($700k)
If we're using the 2-2.5x income definition of "afford" that stands in the rest of the country, no. Total compensation across software engineers at Google looks to be about $160k [0]; a Googler can afford about $400k.
Not a lot of $400k condos around here.
To get to $700k, you'd need a married pair of Googlers (not an easy thing to do in this overwhelmingly male industry), the equity from a paid-off house somewhere else in (more likely), or the willingness (and lenders' willingness) to spend a much higher multiple of your income (seems to be what's happening).
I'm not sure the average Google software engineer according to Glassdoor is representative enough of Google software engineers who would be buying housing that it's valid basis to make assertions about housing affordability.
It's extraordinarily unaffordable in the Bay Area and none of my friends there (at Google, Facebook, or elsewhere) would say it's easy, but I don't think $400k is the right number to pick even if you're conservative about affordability.
Google has been hiring extremely heavily over the last 4-5 years, and their HQ gets tons of early 20s fresh university hires. So I'd expect that $160k number (which I see as $166k?) to be skewed down a bit. Anyway, fresh early 20s university hires aren't likely to have the savings, stability of personal situation, or desire to buy property.
You're probably looking at more established engineers as buyers, and they'll have been able to save longer and advance in their careers, and $160k + the standard 20% down payment is probably on the low side for that.
Glassdoor's numbers don't change much when you bump up the experience, and I'm afraid I don't have sources other than my fairly extensive social network at large Bay Area tech companies, but I can pretty confidently say 3-6 years out of school that yearly total comp number will be $200k+ and if you're saving properly without 6 figures of debt you'll have upper 5/lower 6 figures saved to put down on a place.
$700k is still a stretch, so I think your point still stands, but I don't think you need to be a dual-income Google/Facebook/etc. software engineer household to afford it.
Then there is also the issue of the ease or difficulty of getting someone from a foreign country to work in the UK. Are work permits required? How much paperwork? etc
If I were an American, what would it take to work in London?
> If I were an American, what would it take to work in London?
A good internet connection and some perseverance in getting remote jobs. Also strong work habits.
I have many friends back home in Slovenia who stay in Slovenia but work for San Francisco. Sure they don't make 100k, but they don't have to. At 80k they're socking away 40k+ per year. And the SF startup is super stoked because they get good engineers for peanuts.
I'm really curious how this revocation of visas works in combination with the 90-day limit on the executive order. If the executive order is not extended, can they be un-revoked?
The most economically productive businesses are located in the most expensive areas, because they get the highest ROI from hiring top employees. Skilled workers get paid less in MS because the national economy needs skilled workers less in MS.
How do you figure? Right now, consulting companies spam the lottery with shitty jobs. With the new system favoring quality $130k+ jobs there will be a bigger supply of good H1Bs to compete with.
I'm very unsure about this, but thinking maybe I should hurry and buy a house if this passes.
> You sure about that? Right now, consulting companies spam the lottery with shitty jobs. With the new system favoring quality $130k+ jobs there will be a bigger supply of good H1Bs to compete with.
The supply is artificially set by law. The fact that they will cost $130K instead of whatever it was before will make it much easier for me to compete with them.
It might also make it economically feasible for US companies to hire US workers who might not have all of the needed skills, and train them. That works for me.
Because the visas are distributed by lottery, and the largest number of applications are filed by Isfosys-type spammers. People with >$130k jobs in SV are being denied due to the $70k body shops spamming the lottery. If the spam goes away, those non-spam applications become a more reliable proposition.
I'm not saying it's morally right or wrong. I'm just saying the set of people that get H1B visas will change, and the shift will be toward higher-end jobs.
