I got the cold shoulder from a couple of aviation companies when I invited them to come speak and demo in our three-day FAA Ground School class at M.I.T. Maybe it is Boston’s typically miserable January weather that is putting them off, but I wonder if the main reason for the lack of interest is the ease of recruiting skilled foreigners via the H-1B visa program (created in 1990).
In the 1980s, companies that needed nerds would flock in-person to MIT, a rich source of a scarce resource. Companies would organize presentations about what they did and why it was interesting and then invite audience members to apply for jobs. Certainly it was unusual for a company to turn down an invite to show up and get in front of 70 young folks studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Aeronautical Engineering.
Readers: What do you think? Is on-campus recruiting suffering in the H-1B age?
MIT is still the duck’s guts. Silicon Valley still has more Patriot’s fans than 49er fans, but what used to be Oklahoma fans are now cricket fans. General aviation might just be shrinking too fast to justify speaking tours.
GA is shrinking, but these companies have airline customers as well!
They probably just know they can’t compete. Between silicon valley with stock options and finance with huge bonuses I can’t imagine aviation companies being able to offer particularly attractive package. Both aforementioned recruit on campus at MIT all the time.
DENIS: Most MIT Aero/Astro graduates do stick with their passion. They might go to Boeing or Airbus, but also to “manned drone” startups, etc. Selling out to Silicon Valley is not as attractive as you might think because most of the lucre seems to end up in the pockets of (a) California government workers, and (b) existing owners of California real estate. Measured in terms of commute time, square footage of living space, etc., I don’t think that the highly paid Facebook or Google coder has a higher standard of living than a Boeing or Airbus engineer nominally earning half as much pre-tax.
You know that. I know that. Recent grads read about stock options package, and think “how bad can real estate situation really be, obviously can’t be that bad otherwise people wouldn’t flock there”. By the time they find out it is actually that bad it’s too late. I know quite a few people who went that route.
I run a microelectronics business in the SF Bay Area and there is a lack of qualified candidates in physical electronics. In the end had to hire some one out of retirement earlier this year. There is a hollowing out of the foundation of the technical prowess of this country. From investors to smart kids, most went after whatever is in fashion in software. There is an effective ban on Chinese money into SV, but there are few replacement funding sources interested in hardware – by that i mean true hardware, not some speaker or thermostat or VR goggle that is just a thinly veiled vehicle to sell more frivolous software or mindless entertainment. In 10-15 years, China will for sure lead the world in microelectronics. There is no will to truly compete with them. This is a cold war that the US will lose unless some drastic measures are taken, by the government unfortunately.
Can you give an example of “true” hardware? I know you’re singling out the home products that Apple and Google make by listing speakers and thermostats, but it’s hard to see what makes the implementation of these much different than any other possible consumer electronics in the age of powerful general-purpose system-on-chip platforms. Are you wanting to design niche ASICs or analog parts?
I can’t tell if you’re more frustrated with the lack of sophistication in SV hardware design, the lack of SV funding for non-consumer products, or something else, but I’m interested.
Yes H-1B are still going gang busters. However, lots of US corporations have shifted to hiring OPTs now that the veil is being lifted on their H-1B abuse. Under heavy corporate lobbying, in “executive action” in the final months of Obama’s term, he extended the never Congressionally approved (and consequently illegal) Option Practical Training for foreign STEM graduates to 36 months. So now corporations can hire foreign STEM without SS taxes, benefits, unemployment taxes, etc. for three years — in lieu of graduating citizens. Make you mad? It should; you have been and continue to be betrayed by your own government to serve corporate profit. Better make your voices heard or suffer the consequences. What you don’t have a lobbyist in Washington DC?
How many geniuses can MIT produce in a single year?
I used to work a gig for UBS where 99% of techies were foreign-born geniuses (aka H1B). As one of them put it: look, you and Jim (a UNIX SA) are the only two Americans in this department, so clearly our home country is #1 in the world in Computer Science.
Geniuses on the industrial scale! A REAL GENIUS is required for this job! Dunning-Kruger for Congress!