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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   13107 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 22, 2025

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Software is special because the previous wave of applicants didn’t just need the H1B, they also needed whatever local cartel was required. The bar and going to law school in America and the fact the law is a verbal heavy field strongly preference native speakers raised in the US. The AMA locks foreign doctors out of any desirable residency places (which it mandates for almost all foreign doctors). Engineering has various local licensing requirements, and a lot of federal stuff requires you to be a citizen anyway. Meanwhile, sales, consulting, finance and a lot of other professional service jobs have a strong sales/relationship component which again makes it harder for Indians and Chinese applying from overseas.

Software engineering was unique in that it didn’t really require social skills, doesn’t usually require client interaction, paid well enough to get the visa, didn’t have a domestic licensing cartel and could be taught as a technical skill in foreign universities and schools.

Yep, I agree with all of this. Software engineers really should do what other engineering fields have done and set up that rent-seeking licensing cartel. It's bad for society overall, but most other fields do something like that, so why not us?

Oh, kick me out of the one field that pays me well despite the lack of credentials, why don't you?

You could just... get the new credentials? Plus, this would likely cut down on the impetus for nearly every shop to do Leetcode style interviews, so you'd be just exchanging one set of nonsense for another.

You could just... get the new credentials?

Yes, going back to school for 3 years (to learn things I already know, mind you) is just what I want to do when I'm 40.

Plus, this would likely cut down on the impetus for nearly every shop to do Leetcode style interviews, so you'd be just exchanging one set of nonsense for another.

Hearing Americans talk about Leetcode is one of those things that makes me go "wait what?". Every job I had over the past decade just handed out an assignment to be completed over a couple hours / a day, and they judged based on that.

Yes, going back to school for 3 years (to learn things I already know, mind you) is just what I want to do when I'm 40.

I'm 37 and that's what I'm doing. Getting a mostly pointless master's in comp sci since my undergrad degree is in the humanities.

Sorry to hear that, bro.

Eh, my employer is paying for it and occasionally I learn something new and interesting that I didn't already know.

Right. However bad infinite Indians are, the "real engineering" gerontocracy is far worse.

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