Thread regarding Oracle Corp. layoffs

Work is a transaction for money. Never lose sight of that.

Excellent advice. Give value for that money, but nothing more.

Big money always wins; large global conglomerates using from Wall Street investors pay big money to Washington DC lobbyists and politicians under the table to create, promote, maintain and grow H--1 program quotas, which contribute to replace Ame_rican workers.
One has to wonder if Am-erica is still a democracy anymore?

American IT workers had a unique opportunity to create a union or guild back in the 1990s. Oh, life /was/ super good for techies back before and during the broadband wave, when every business large and small clamored to be “online”. Gear sold itself. Tech jobs going begging with great salaries and perqs. Lots of people churn.

We jumped on the forums of the time like Slashdot, and argued about why we, the most celebrated workers with the most cutting edge skills on the planet, would need such representation. We’ll always be on top. Companies love us and they need us. Unions are no longer necessary.

Then came the tech crash of the early 2000s. Layoffs. Outsourcing booms. Many people never recovered their careers. Those perqs and salaries dried up, replaced with “feel lucky you are still working” mentality. The outsourcing created animosity towards foreign born techs. Be cause if you are angry at the H1B guy, you aren’t directing that toward the pointy haired boss who made the decision to fire you and replace with a lower paid person.

Bosses figured out they could hire several bodies overseas for the price of one US body.

That’s what it is ALWAYS about. Even now, I’m in a real good tech company with a good reputation. I hear all the platitudes, enjoy the pizza parties and all the “our employees are soooooo wonderful” gifts. But now I’m older and wiser. It’s advertising pure and simple. If company fortunes dictated, my soooooo wonderful fanny would be on the unemployment line with everyone else.

Work is a transaction for money. Never lose sight of that.

There just are not enough compared to the availability.

I'll disagree with that, Why would they take an H1B over a local? Easy, an H1B is a captive. Odds are you either stick with your company or go back from whence you came. whereas a local can and often will if deemed necessary, leave on a moment's notice.

Hi, not sure about what you are talking about exactly. I have been at Oracle for four years, third different role now and have been laid off twice because of immigration processing delays. They hired me again and again and offered 40% raise both times. Two of the three roles had explicitly said they will not sponsor a visa for the applicant in the job description and were open for >4 months, had >50 candidates.

Yet they chose to hire me and pay over market and sponsor my visa, why? Because you don't have enough of people to fill these roles. It does not mean Americans are not smart. Not at all, all my American leaders are way smarter and experienced than me. The younger American intake through Class of and other programs are really great and passionate too. There just are not enough compared to the availability.

I am not even a software engineer by the way, nor a data scientist. I am also not cheap labor that you think of when you imagine developing countries. We are not here to bring your wages down. If anything, your wages grow because of the companies immigrants start here, the funding they raise. Open your mind a little. There's space for everyone. But if you want companies to ki-l each other over an American candidate, that just won't happen ever (except when a security clearance is required). If there comes a time when we stop coming, your jobs will come to us instead. Senior PMs in India at companies like Amazon, Stripe and other well-funded startups almost make as much money in Tier 2 cities in the USA. That will continue to climb. If are serious about keeping tax dollars here, open up, everyone in this country is an immigrant. Immigration is not limited to people crossing borders illegally and supplying dr-gs ;)

I’m another old timer and it used to be that we were celebrated. It was a cool job to be in tech. It still matters who you are and how talented you might be at some companies. But that is not true at orahole.

Back in the day I had a manager who went to a conference where he came back with what he thought was an astonishing piece of information. That was that between the worst programmer and the best programmer there is a 26 times difference in productivity.

That is that the best among us write code at a rate that is 26 times faster than those at the bottom of the stack. There’s a huge difference in work done depending on who you hire. Oracle management is in denial of that fact. They think all programmers are interchangeable. Absolutely not true. Not even close.

I've known people with young kids in their forties who went and got PHDs

You are not wrong there, I received my PhD in my late '50's. Not that it did me any good, but at that time I needed something to do and I did it. And yes, if I can do it, so can just about anyone else.

Tech workers are just like lightbulbs.

30 years ago that wasn't the case. We were valued, celebrated, even. I got in almost 40 years ago because it was new, interesting and we were considered magicians and paid accordingly. In today's world, what you posted is the absolute truth. I tell young people to stay out of the tech world and look to find something else. You are no more valued than bic pens or lightbulbs. You are almost a nuisance.

All immigration has been damped down or effectively ended in the US, due to Covid and the trump admin policies. For about four years now. Our population is falling. No time to dump on people who want to come to the US, warts and all. The US has the warts, that is. Not the people.

Tech workers are just like lightbulbs. You burn them out and then you go buy new ones, the cheapest ones you can fine. No different from when you go into a Wallmart.

For those younger people who think that bringing in cheap labor is just the way it works, there was a time not too many years ago when that was not the case. Bringing in cheap labor is new. It used to be that everyone in the tech work force was from the states. I would personally like to see that happen again. LE uses cheap labor to line his own pockets. It doesn’t benefit the company.

You would benefit from taking a few basic economics courses.

For those younger people who think that bringing in cheap labor is just the way it works, there was a time not too many years ago when that was not the case. Bringing in cheap labor is new. It used to be that everyone in the tech work force was from the states. I would personally like to see that happen again. LE uses cheap labor to line his own pockets. It doesn’t benefit the company.

Typical naive take from the OP. If you didn't want to work in this kind of environment then maybe you can share why you decided to specialize in commoditized tech skills? Did you somehow think you could just do some up-front work and then be safe in your job role forever? Did you feel no need to continue educating yourself so that you would command ever higher salaries? Do you think that other mega tech companies are any different from Oracle in this regard?

Easily remedied by:

• going back to school, it's still possible to course correct
• staying away from "inbox/outbox" kinds of skills (like so much of IT, programming and related skills)
• strengthen your skills and make more by consulting
• etc... I could go on and on.

I've known people with young kids in their forties who went and got PHDs, law degrees, MBAs, etc. It can be done. Quit complaining and go do what it takes to dig yourself out. Otherwise, be happy with your commoditized role and shut it

• learning more about finance, management, project management

Sounds like you are against shareholder value. Are you anti capitalist too? This is the country you live in. If you hate it that much then find an alternative or else shut your trap.