"The reality is that we need to expand immigration in the former category and hit the brakes on the latter, but this also doesn't fit nicely into the "immigration is purely a means for exploitation" narrative that some people are trying to spin."
The reality that we need to attract more top talent, and the reality that companies are lobbying for more cheap labor are not mutually exclusive.
That said, the shortage of top developers could be attributed to any number of things, including:
* There is a limited number of top performers in all fields. This is natural, and cranking out more college grads won't change anything.
* Top performing students are choosing other fields, perhaps ones that pay better (finance, medical, consulting, basically any field with a higher glass ceiling)
* Or they choose jobs with better perceived job security. You don't constantly hear about outsourcing, indentured employment, and 10-years-to-irrelevance in most fields.
* The students lack the pre-requisite education to excel in CS (this probably isn't a huge problem among the top performers, but you can't avoid the fact that the elementary education system generally sucks and many prospects probably fall in the cracks).
* Companies (and by extension, our law makers) are taking a short-term outlook by prioritizing the immigration of lower-tier and middle-tier coders?
The reality that we need to attract more top talent, and the reality that companies are lobbying for more cheap labor are not mutually exclusive.
That said, the shortage of top developers could be attributed to any number of things, including:
* There is a limited number of top performers in all fields. This is natural, and cranking out more college grads won't change anything.
* Top performing students are choosing other fields, perhaps ones that pay better (finance, medical, consulting, basically any field with a higher glass ceiling)
* Or they choose jobs with better perceived job security. You don't constantly hear about outsourcing, indentured employment, and 10-years-to-irrelevance in most fields.
* The students lack the pre-requisite education to excel in CS (this probably isn't a huge problem among the top performers, but you can't avoid the fact that the elementary education system generally sucks and many prospects probably fall in the cracks).
* Companies (and by extension, our law makers) are taking a short-term outlook by prioritizing the immigration of lower-tier and middle-tier coders?