Back

My experience working in tech jobs across the world has also shown me: while tech jobs are varied and diverse in SF and Silicon Valley, this is also where the industry ‘professionalized’ (and ossified, if you ask me) much earlier. So someone with no or very little experience is going to find it hard to break in, no matter what their nationality or immigration status.

It’s not as easy to ‘switch roles’ or ‘industries’ (in London or Berlin or SG I can easily see someone doing software dev at a fintech place then going to like consumer, not so here). You’re defined by the last job(s) you had. It’s also harder for people with non-STEM background to get in the way it used to be >10 years ago. The ‘office jobs’ like events planning or sales.. have also professionalized. You just do that thing and only that.

People are frustrated they don’t have a shot, especially when tech jobs feel like the only way to make a living wage these days in some cities.

And those of us who are >15 years in tech from a time when you got (eventually) well paid jobs for knowing how to turn on and off a computer (at first), and being in the right place at the right time (cities that eventually became tech hubs), don’t appreciate how hard it is to get into it now. The field needs people of all backgrounds. But at the same time, the industry has also been transformed by shareholder maximization over technological developments, above all else.

It’s hard to make an argument ‘learn to code’! The ‘better life’ hasn’t exactly always panned out for people who did that through bootcamps and other methods, who don’t have the cultural cachet of top schools and industry relationships. Maybe it did for a while, but no longer, I think.

Look at housing prices of all the tech hubs around the world: they are almost the same, too. Neoliberalism has made a certain same-ness about each one of these cities. Including the same tech vs non tech disparity.

Sometimes, I help acquaintances from China and India tech cos apply for Singapore tourist visas (citizens can apply for others). They have to send me their salary info to do that. Without fail, the people who work at the top companies in these countries make far more than the median U.S. tech salary, in USD. (Not *everyone*, but the people most likely to get international job offers, do)

They have no interest in coming to the U.S. to make an average Silicon Valley salary (they already make close to this number, and live in places where this goes further).

They will come for career growth, to do interesting things they can’t do elsewhere, to work at big tech with good stock options.

‘Everyone is a wage slave!!’ Is a lot of concern commenting, ultimately rooted in the exceptionalist belief that everyone wants the opportunity to come to the U.S.

Maybe it was true 20 years ago, it’s certainly not as true now.

@skinnylatte It’s not just money. The west is so racist Some of my asian friends who moved here (Australia) and have now returned to Asia. I have lived here all my life so I have coping mechanisms. Even so, I prefer the company of POCs.

@SeaFury I can’t leave where I am because I actually have radical Asian American activism in Oakland and SF. It makes a difference. We also aren’t a numerical minority here, and we have a huge cultural influence as well. It’s nice to have conservative Chinese grandpas I can’t stand and also super radical Asian grandmas who protested and participated in civil rights movements. Back in Asia there was only the conservative grandpa.

@skinnylatte Your case has another layer on top! They don’t necessarily want to go back to hometowns. China is a very attractive choice ATM.

@skinnylatte That is a pity. You have to know people