Well, the race to attract the outflow of the current Russian 'brain drain' is definitely on.
If the US is able to attract the majority of that (as it most likely will), while keeping out the Putin-aligned plants and/or otherwise mentally deficient factions (which remains to be seen), that will definitely be huge gain for them.
If the US is able to attract the majority of that (as it most likely will)
That remains to be seen. There is a huge undercurrent of Russophobia, and potential takers will have observed the FBI-led harassment of Chinese scientists (not too long ago a Tennessee jury refused to convict a Chinese national on account of the threadbare evidence), already these factors would make anyone coming from an enemy country hesitant. Combine that with funding and employment issues in the physical and life sciences - anyone young and ambitious would be well advised to settle in China instead.
Or at least some cosmopolitain eastern locality such as Dubai; the one which would naturally meet the 'unprecedented invasion of an independent nation' accusations with a lot of laughs.
Having said that, I can imagine that there would be (already is a) proxy brain drain from Russia to Dubai but catering to the Western customers.
Dubai is a stationary Potemkin village. There is nothing there for technical people to do outside of ill-conceived construction projects for princelings.
In the workplaces that Russian scientists and engineers will go in western countries, like software/pharma/bio/academia/etc, it's highly unlikely there will be virtually any ethnic hate. I've never once seen it in the places I've worked; we are all quite accustomed to diverse colleagues and most of us celebrate that.
I personally wouldn't count on China, an ethno-nationalist country that does not offer a pathway for naturalization for people who are not Chinese-passing, to provide a safe place for me or my family to reside. Not to mention the enormous scale of abuse of power the current Chinese government is engaging in.
Where? The highly skilled Russians part of the brain drain will most likely go to big cities, full of high earning and/or well educated people, not in hick towns full of xenofobic loonies.
Russians brain drain to the US is not something new, but has been going on for several decades and it seems to have worked fine for them.
You don't seem to be up to date on current events. The Russiaphobes are the well educated (but not necessarily high earning) people in big cities. It's the hip new thing to proudly broadcast your support for heroic Ukrainians and your disdain for evil nazi Russians.
Meanwhile, no source required for "hick towns full of xenofobic [sic] loonies".
Anyway, take a look at reddit, which is full of highly-educated baristas from large American cities. A common sentiment is that the "average Russian citizen" should be out protesting, and that if they aren't, then they support the evil nazi leadership.
This is totally opposite to my experience. I’m Russian living in bay area and people often ask how my family back at home. I never had even a slight negativity towards me based on nationality.
> observed the FBI-led harassment of Chinese scientists
give me a break - chinese students with USA sponsorship write reports back to their sponsors, and some of them do grab data and code, by the thousands.. I have seen it on networks and I believe in person at University.. one line about alleged harassment is equivalent to nothing without that context
Reports from Chinese graduate students to their sponsors - of course they would report to their funding agency, any funding agency will insist on progress reports. There's no need to elevate that to some sort of conspiracy straight of Our Man in Havana, complete with atomic vacuum cleaners.
It also has to do with keeping that brainpower from going to other potential problem nations. There is a reason the US basically paid former Soviet rocket and nuclear engineers after the fall of the USSR.
My employer is based in Warsaw, Poland with offices in Ukraine, Russia, and many other countries. A day or two after the invasion they sent a company wide email saying they will pay for and coordinate moving, transit, housing, food, etc for anyone and their family in Russia, Ukraine, or the surrounding countries. About a week later they shut down operations in Russia. Though not confirmed we were told a not insignificant portion of Russian employees fled to Poland and still work my employer.
I doubt this occurred at very many places, but anecdotally Poland gained a meaningful number of highly skilled tech workers. I haven't worked with any of the Russians, but many of my Polish counterparts hold the belief that the US is largely responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. I will be very interested to see immigration numbers of where Russians end up.
"gain for them".. which side does your "them" refer to?
because I could see gains for both US and Putin. US obviously gains with more smart people here working for the US and paying taxes. Putin gains because he remove smart people from Russia, making it easier to keep hold on power.
America doesn't need political purity tests, let them all come. If the concern is espionage, that's the FBI's concern to worry about. If the concern is them sending money back to Russia, simply forbid that. If the concern is their influence on American politics.. well that's a non-issue because native born Americans sympathetic to Putin far outnumber all the PhDs in Russia. And besides, American society can and should be able to tolerate dissent. A small number of wackos are outnumbered by reasonable people and aren't a realistic threat to the system.
People will not emigrate if it means leaving relatives and family behind. That's why you saw so little emigration from the USSR - once they're out they were completely shut off.
Maybe now it will be called "Operation Clippy", who knows?
However I wonder what the actual value now would be. They would get some inside info on some technology but it would be very far from the tech they got from WvB after WW2
The US work-based green card application (I-140)[1] has had the 'Soviet Scientist' category for decades. I knew it hasn't been removed after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but I didn't realize it has been in active use this whole time. From a commentary on a USCIS Interim Regulation from 2005[2]:
This benefit for Soviet scientists will be available for a limited time for a limited number of qualified scientists. Therefore, anyone who may qualify under the Soviet Scientist interim rule should begin filing as soon as possible to avoid missing this window of opportunity. This category is supposed to create a win-win situation for the individuals concerned, who are of exceptional ability, and in the national interest of the United States by bringing exceptional scientists to work within the government or the private sector on important projects.
I am one of the brain drain 2 waves ago from mid 90ies. Especially these days I thank my family to have moved from there to USA. I have an uncle who is twice the programmer than I am and he had a chance to come bit stayed there because, you know, emigration is rely hard and his girlfriend didn't want to come. Now he's just super stuck in Moscow with mortgage in a modest apartment, wife whose job got killed due to sanctions and two children and unsure that he has energy to make a move. Hope programs like that can help him but he should have moved 20 years ago....
> Moscow is too expensive: it prices even software developer leads out.
No, it doesn't. This "woe is me, underpaid all the time" rhetoric from someone with a software dev salary is getting really tiring.
Moscow is huge. And Software devs are a small minority of all occupations. Plenty of people afford living in Moscow just fine without anywhere near the level of salary typical of software.
Probably the only place in the world that priced out software devs was pre-Covid SV, where you weren't able to work remotely from cheaper accommodations. But that really is a unique location and a self-inflicted CA problem.
It's not even a first-world problem. It's more of a middle-upper class spoiled rich brat with a 1% salary problem. The NY alternative for this is "woe is me I can't afford private school for my 6 kids and a 5th ave apartment at the same time"
> Probably the only place in the world that priced out software devs was pre-Covid SV, where you weren't able to work remotely from cheaper accommodations.
You'd be surprised.
As far as I know, in the US both Seattle and Austin became terribly expensive to the point FANG salaries don't allow for a comfortable, well-off life style with a lot of disposable income to spare.
Austin alone is renowned for requiring a >$100k salary to live comfortably, when FANGs with a presence there barely pay $120k.
Personally, I know a couple of ex-Amazon developers from Madrid who outright quit because Amazon's salary (around €40k for SDE1) wasn't enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city center.
Compared to what? Compared to other Russian cities it is certainly expensive. Compared to e.g. San Francisco it is very cheap.
> it prices even software developer leads out.
Doesn't match my experience at all. It doesn't require extraordinary thrift for someone with a software developer lead salary to start a family and pay off a mortgage for a decent apartment.
Given the context provided for the statement, “Moscow is too expensive: it prices even software developer leads out”, local wages, since (as described) it is too expensive for even relatively high-wage workers.
The only expensive part in Moscow is home/appartment. Everything else is cheaper than in other cities. Moscow is a major logistic hub of whole country, everything is here. Food, entertainment, great public transport system.
I don't understand how this relates to the comment you are replying to, and can't make sense of it from the rest of your comment either. What did you mean?
> Plus west right now has anti Russian bon*r... never know if they may confiscate something
It no longer makes sense to move from Russia to US. There may be better living standard in Moscow now. Uncle does not point it out, since he does not want start family argument.
Canada and other govs are looking into confiscating assets of Russians who live in west. Bringing ~ $1M of assets (pension) from Russia to US might be very risky move.
I'm not convinced the US has a higher standard of living, especially for the PMC. Here all your money gets sucked up by housing which isn't a problem in Russia.
Well, in Russia it's almost impossible to live in your own quality home in a good weather with a local, well-paid job. That's still the selling point of the US.
Yes, Moscow have good living standard for some definitions of living, but usually it will still mean living in a relatively small apartment of high-rise residential building. Singapore-style (only that it gets very cold).
You can only use that summer house for 1-2 months per year tops, whereas your life would be passing between chilly winds of high rises and being crammed in subway/stuck in traffic.
Moscow seems similar to San Francisco/New York in this regard - you move there if you want to be where the action is and put up with minor inconveniences. Climate-wise the Bay Area of course wins hands down, but I'm constantly hearing people living in the Bay Area complain about ridiculous rents, homeless, feces on the streets and muggings and in these areas Moscow fares quite a bit better. Grass is always greener.
> There may be better living standard in Moscow now.
It depends on what you value, but living in Russia if you aren't swigging the government kool-aid is a lot like living in the heart of Trumpland as a liberal. Everything around you looks broken, everyone[1] believes in literally insane things, corruption endemic to single-party rule is everywhere, but you have to shut up and put up with it, because being an unpatriot will be hazardous to your economic and physical health.
If you shut up and keep your head down, the actual measured-by-economists standard of life is okay[2], it's all the other crap that you have to swallow to put up with it that really, really sucks.
[1] In reality, it's not everyone, but people who don't believe that keep their mouth shut, because they know what's good for them.
[2] Well, it was okay before sanctions, it's unclear what it's going to look like next year.
> It no longer makes sense to move from Russia to US. There may be better living standard in Moscow now.
Let's look at the numbers. I'll chose the capital of a country, out of many, that russia has harassed, stolen territory from, and is actively threatening at the moment, to make it a fair comparison.
Moscow GDP per capita: 22,060 USD 2018
Bucharest GDP per capita: 26,660 EUR 2018
Moscow average salary: 1100 USD 2021
Bucharest average salary: 1,614.91 USD 2021
If you factor in the massive gap between regular folks and oligarchs, and their employees, then the average worker in moscow is probably earning far less than that.
So, at least based on numbers, your statement of "better living standard in Moscow" is a propagandist lie you fall for. Even if Moscow is a Potemkin village, with big fancy buildings, the standard of living appears to be comparable to Bucharest, Romania, if not lower.
And Bucharest, thanks to russian dominance, is considered a poor city in a poor country in a poor EU country (Romania's per capita GDP and avg salaries are also higher than russia's).
His uncle should move to the US at least based on these facts. And if I may recommend, please, leave your country every now and then, so you escape putin's propaganda.
Every statement that paints Russia in a positive light must be propaganda, right? This becomes tiring really fast.
> Moscow average salary: 1100 USD 2021 Bucharest average salary: 1,614.91 USD 2021
It makes precisely zero sense comparing absolute numbers without factoring in cost of living. And we are talking about experienced software professionals. OP's uncle is probably making at least 4x more than that. Imagine making 4x average salary in your region.
I imagine there are people making 4x average salary in Bucharest as well, not just Moscow.
It makes precisely zero sense factoring in a lower cost of living, as likely Bucharest also has a low cost of living. Actually, the numbers I found factoring the cost of living Moscow v Bucharest were much much higher for Bucharest, to the point where I thought they were ridiculous, and wasn't sure about their accuracy, hence I chose those which put Moscow in a more favorable light.
> Every statement that paints Russia in a positive light must be propaganda, right? This becomes tiring really fast.
Yeah well, the statement paints a fake positive light about russia. I am sure even that country has many positives but I focused on specifically OP's statement, because it was simply a lie.
You know what else becomes really tiring? What russia did and does to its neighbours since its inception. Focus on solving that, as people are more than eager to move on past territorial expansion wars and live in the current century.
While I agree to you that everyone who can leave Russia - should do it for now, your arguments about personal economy are wrong. The thing with Russia is enormous inequality, which is not seen in average metrics. Moscow has enormously cheap taxi and delivery services because of abundance of immigration workforce and lack of social security. Imagine US allowing free immigration and work for all immigrants. All low skill professions will be immediately taken by wave of immigrants from LATAM and Asia, which will significantly increase quality of life for US middle and lower-middle class with all the spare cash from cheap householding, transportation and other services. Uber and Doordash will become dirt cheap. Amazon may transform into something even more dystopian.
It will also force Americans who are doing those jobs right now to live on welfare, effectively bankrupt welfare system. They are voters, so due to democratic processes this will never happen, but this is not the case in Russia.
> Every statement that paints Russia in a positive light must be propaganda, right? This becomes tiring really fast.
A hyper violent fascist dictatorship (going on two decades now), with no human rights, where just proclaiming the war in Ukraine to be a war can get you 15 years in prison - yeah, there are a lot of very good reasons why Russia can't be painted in a positive light at present.
This is the same fascist dictatorship that just instructed its soldiers to intentionally genocide, rape and torture civilians by the tens of thousands in neighboring Ukraine.
We're talking about one of the most evil regimes of the last several hundred years. And it all derives directly from the culture of the country, just as the Soviet era did before it.
>"We're talking about one of the most evil regimes of the last several hundred years."
On that time scale Russia is no special at all. Atrocities committed by the West will make normal human want to loose sanity. For your own education and as a little sample just check what Belgium did in Congo. England had raped half of the world. The rest of the world was just as bad. Just less powerful. So please cut the bullshit.
Current Russian regime and their leaders deserve to be dealt with for sure. Personally I would dump Putin into meat grinder (not really because I am not a rabid dog he is but these are my feelings).
But to claim that Russia did this because of the rotten nature of Russian people in general - this is not true and is pure racism.
Since we're talking about moving from Russia to the US as a technology professional (and seeing as I am and know plenty of "immigrant and foreign workers" here), I can assure you the Qatar concern does not apply.
>"Canada and other govs are looking into confiscating assets of Russians who live in west."
I think they are talking about oligarchs whose assets were acquired as a results of a deal with the government. If they confiscate assets of your regular working immigrant because of nationality that would be outright theft and shame.
If you’re targeted towards high end scientists, then that’s not all of intelligencia. That said, you want enough smart people that there’s some opposition, but it hasn’t seem to do too much in recent years.
Russia has a very long history of importing foreign tech and know-how, largely to support their natural resource export economy. Foreign expertise will be imported for pay when sanctions drop, someday.
It hasn't made any positive difference leaving the present brains in Russia - look where we're at. Those brains that ideologically align with the liberal West are presently trapped inside of a Russia they are likely to fundamentally disagree with, we should bring them over to our side if we can.
What will be left? The same power structure and malevolent culture that already exists, minus some of the brains.
I believe the last few rounds of brain drain out of Russia have helped to leave their scientific, aerospace and military programs in the relatively dire condition they are at present vs the Soviet past (emphasis on helped, there are other factors such as eg Ukraine no longer being part of the USSR, with Ukraine being an important contributor to various Soviet accomplishments). It has net weakened Russia considerably in my opinion, that's a good thing, until or unless their culture changes.
> Is it really a good idea to take all the brains out of Russia? What would be left? Criminals and nuclear weapons? Is this a good outcome?
For the past decades, it already felt that the main exports from Russia were a) fossil fuels, b) organized crime. What else does Russia provide the world?
Not for Russia, no. But that's not whose program this is, now is it?
The ideal situation for the American ruling class is to simply import highly skilled workers from other countries, rather than produce them at home. This alleviates the domestic burden of paying for a truly world class education system.
They already have long time ago. Offering land in Russia for people living in former occupied areas to return, so at least economically they've lost the battle.
Guess ideological push is not that big if a factor either.
It has already been announced, all of a sudden, in the first week of the war. It had all the signs of being a creation of old bureaucrats who had really outdated personal values. So they promised near 0% mortgage plans and exemption from military service for “IT specialists”, fast track for foreign workers' permits, cut or reduced taxes, grants, and subsidized loans for IT companies. Oh, and “IT specialist” is someone who has a diploma to prove it (cue the sarcastic trumpet effect). Another joke is that university education usually makes you a useless reserve lieutenant in whom military is not interested anyway, and juniors with college degrees who do get drafted right after they get them are certainly not getting any offers from international companies. Well, neither are local ones going to give you any additional points for having a degree, to be honest.
So they expect people to shut up and work on supporting government goals in order to keep better living standard than “regular people”, like they themselves did in the Soviet era (yeah, at the time when just having stylish foreign clothes meant you were well connected, and above “regular people”). It's hard to imagine that someone with a decent IT career can see that as an opportunity.
However, there is enough swindling types to ride the “we are constantly reducing our dependence on imported technology” propaganda wave who try to make contacts with relevant officials in order to transfigure government budgets into personal wealth. There have been many companies relabeling Chinese hardware after making minimal changes, and there is going to be more. So, among other things, it was announced that we need “our own Github”, and they vaguely described it as some kind of “central source of open source”. Man, even I can make “my own Github”, and maybe even a second one if I'm not feeling lazy. That announcement only resulted in people scratching their heads and guessing whether Github would be blocked, and require additional network configuration to be accessed.
From my social circle, most developers are leaving for SWIFT ban. It really affected badly prowestern Russians who make living remotely. In Georgia or Kazakhstan, you can still speak Russian, but it is much easier to do business.
I also really fail to see a situation where the west would think it acceptable. If Russia completely leaves Crimea and pays reparations to rebuild Ukraine - maybe. But that is never going to happen
The West, particularly Europe, has an energy dependence problem. I think they might have to accept some things they don't want. Was nuclear power such a terrible option?
Sanctions are not likely to be lifted until "wrong" people profit from Russia's oil. Russia looks like a banana republic where the puppet government gone rogue.
> It also plans to help Russian physicists at the CERN nuclear lab continue working there, rather than return home when their normal visas expire, if they wish.
Do you want Stranger Things? Because that's how you get Stranger Things.
The US already produces too many scientists measured by people with PhDs. As someone who finished their PhD during the pandemic and faced a bad job market for research jobs, I feel that without increasing the federal science budget, the current generation of US PhD graduates will have to compete with more experienced Russian scientists entering the US job market. From what I understand exactly that happened during the early 90s and many new PhD graduates found themselves without a job related to their degree.
I don't recommend to anyone to get a PhD these days.
a vigorous and unending renegotiation between management, the agents of management, and people who "do it", in action.. advanced negotiating tactic - broadly give public opinion in mainstream media about "shortages" of whatever it is that you want more control over.. next, read carefully for market change and new entrants.. rewards, feast on newbs and do-gooders with special offers and limited term deals.. repeat..
I need specifc talent. I don't care how great you are a physics, pharmacy, mechanical engineering, or any of dozens of other PhDs that you might have, I'm hiring people who program and your degree isn't the right one.
Don't be too quick to write someone off for their degree. The best Python programmer I know has a PhD in civil engineering. And I've certainly got the impression that people write me off as a programmer far too soon because my PhD is in mechanical engineering.
Obviously a PhD is not a substitute for actual programming skills.
But what is so specific about your needs that the candidate absolutely must have a CS degree -- and for which it simply will not suffice, as is nearly universally standard throughout the industry, to have "equivalent experience"?
I didn't say I'm hiring CS degrees. I just said a non CS degree isn't anything. There are lots of great programmers with many different backgrounds. However if you don't have a CS degree you need to prove you can program. Even those with a CS degree need to prove they can program, but odds are a bit better they can.
Some PhDs are great programmers. Some read half of how to learn YYY language in 24 hours and think they are god's gift to programming.
In general I find people without a CD degree don't get why clean code is important. Since I'm on a project with tens of millions of lines of code (big, but I'm well aware that other projects are much bigger) clean code is important.
Meh ... PhD are super-specialized, which is great if that's what you are looking for, but may not be particularly good if not.
For example, a person with a PhD in history will probably be a good writer and researcher, but may need a couple of years training and experience before they're an amazing journalist, for example, and may only be OK at PR, even after a couple of years. If you want PR 'talent' then the history PhDs would not be very helpful.
A bio PhD would be amazing at many things, but would probably suck as a nurse.
So it's not just the raw talent, but also training and inclination.
I know people doing/with PhDs who are great theoreticians and good programmers but I also know people who (will) have all the creds in the world but simply know fuck all about actually making useful software/anything. Even in an industrial research context they'd be less useful than you'd think because they wouldn't be able to translate it into useful business applications.
My wife working in research at the moment and wouldn't recommend that either (as she works her thousandth weekend in a row for low pay getting stressed about output to find the next research position)
I'm thinking of non-academic jobs too. There are a lot of research positions requiring a PhD in my area. There's still a massive surplus of PhDs in my area despite this.
It always amazes me that when the upper class is bothered by the more competitive job market the "immigrants are stealing our jobs" is fine and tolerated idea. When it's the lower class its no one is taking your job, they are creating jobs.
Similar discussions when people talk about IT and Indian visa holders.
I didn't say they were "stealing" my job, just that new graduates won't be able to compete well against more experienced folks. A PhD is a bad deal even without more immigration.
Edit: I don't think your comment is fair. My recommended solution was not to cut immigration or anything like that.
I will be very worried for the future of civilization when these hundred-year institutions that were supposed to be at least partly self-funding acquiesce to the popular demand to bankrupt themselves over not even a generation. MIT could spend that much… for 8 years. Then what?
MIT's best research was 1960-2000. At the end of that period, the endowment was around 1/10th of what it is now. That's a very healthy level of funding. $2M per professor is enough that it doesn't need to worry about money, but that there aren't obscene levels flowing into odd pockets in odd ways.
Once an institution is overcapitalized like that, dynamics change. There's a ton of corruption in 2022-era MIT (and peer institutions), conflicts-of-interest, and the insane level of competition leads to a lot of unethical behavior. There's so much money swishing around that it's tempting to skim off the top. Combine that with the traditional MIT rule-breaking ethic, and you've got trouble.
I would love for MIT to spend 90% of its money, and be back to 2000-era endowment. I would even more love for MIT to expand it's faculty and student bodies 10-fold, and give more people an opportunity to be there.
What I hate is MIT now being brand-obsessed, money-focused, hyper-competitive, and valuing high-impact and high-profit research over high-integrity research.
The only meaningful buyer of research is the federal government, and the amount of research it buys is fixed by Congress. It's not responsive to "market conditions" in the same way as e.g. software, where software engineers create a booming sector that drives demand for more software engineers.
I think the quality of my research is considerably above average. Unfortunately the people making hiring decisions mostly look at things like number of publications and years of experience and rarely the actual publications themselves.
It is their loss, and I don't want to work with organizations that hire like that. But that's how hiring is done in academia. A lot of the non-academic research labs work similarly. (Classified research does not have strict publication requirements in my experience, though.)
Having a job doing valuable research would be nice. I'm not too picky about the topic, but it seems that most employers view the capabilities of a candidate very narrowly. So I'm probably stuck with things like what I did during my PhD.
I use to think this way. I do not anymore. A PhD is independent research training which is by far the most important skill for new knowledge and hence new business and new technology creation. We need way more PhDs than we have if we are to survive and thrive as a species.
I agree that a PhD is training, though I will disagree that it's independent research training as few PhD graduates can do truly independent research in the sense of not needing to collaborate with others. Academia emphasizes collaboration far too much in my view.
I don't think a PhD is necessary to learn how to do research, however, and I think it's actually a bad way to learn how to do research. The system is quite abusive in my view and pays poorly. I think it's likely someone could do better by taking a well-paid job and going on long research sabbaticals every once in a while.
A while back I recall someone on HN comparing a PhD to an apprenticeship, which is not consistent with my experience. My PhD advisor did not provide a lot of value I couldn't have got on my own.
From what I remember of the academic job market in the 1990s, this was a real issue. You had all these top level researchers filling positions that would have been taken by newly minted PhDs. It resulted in a spurt of quality work being produced at the destination institutions, but I was even then concerned about the effect on the younger generations both in the West and the ex-USSR.
Dude obtained his PhD in 1991 and had some bad blood with his advisor. Coupled with the influx of Soviet talent and some stubborness with staying in academia, he had to deliver food and make sandwiches for almost a decade before finally landing a lecturer job and eventually academic breakthrough more than a decade after that.
I'm not sure if we want Russia without smart people. Then it's a criminal on top, a bunch of gullible people at the bottom, controlling 3500 nuclear weapons.
I suspect the US is way down in the list of possible emigration routes. It's just a very annoying process if you consider the default route. Getting an offer from a US-based company is the easy part. The hard part is winning the H1-B lottery. The very annoying technical part is getting an appointment in an embassy as a non-resident (there are no visa interviews conducted in Russia, so you have to apply elsewhere, appointments are rare) and then some people (esp. cybersecurity and ML, if rumors are right) get sent to SAO (Security Advisory Opinion, "administrative processing") for a random period of time. No updates or feedback at all during that time, obviously, so you cannot plan anything.
Some of my friends were sent for about 1.5 months and had to postpone their three-month internship (sic!) at Google because of that. That was about five years ago. Some other had to wait months before being able to renew (sic!) their work visa. There are rumors of people waiting years without hearing back.
To compare, one can obtain a national German visa in a week or two after receiving an offer, if you have your university degree translated to German (not even apostille is required for lots of cases). This visa gets converted into a EU Blue Card once you arrive and apply for it, IIRC.
True, but I'm not buying it. Visa interview and SAO problems are universal for all applicants, I believe. SAO is even more relevant for "semiconductors, space technology, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing and computing, nuclear engineering, artificial intelligence and missile propulsion" (quoting the article), if rumors are true.
The only specific relaxation the article mentions is:
> The legislation includes language that would permit technically qualified Russians with masters or doctoral degrees in a range of fields to immigrate to the US without the usual visa requirement that they have a job lined up in advance. They would have to pass a US security background check.
As I said, getting the offer is the easy part. Lifting that requirements does little. They even say explicitly that some kind of "security background check" is still necessary.
A random story: a friend of mine (Software Engineer, LGBTQ+, smart and sociable folk) has tried to relocate to the US for years. They even got multiple offers in the same year with multiple entries to the H1-B lottery to increase their chances. No luck. In the end they simply relocated to London instead.
> To smooth the path, Massachusetts established the Global Entrepreneur in Residence (GEIR) program. By working part-time at the University of Massachusetts, entrepreneurs can obtain a cap-exempt H-1B visa anytime during the year, since universities are exempt from the annual H-1B quota. The program gives an entrepreneur time to master the company building process, and document their talent and ability, so that they can eventually obtain a visa independent of the University of Massachusetts.
Another one, but I haven't heard it first-hand: Google typically does not even bother with H1-B last years, so unreliable it is. So the default route for a person who is needed in the US is to work in a London/Zurich office for a year and then apply via L1-B.
Maybe the campaign is aimed at people like "Wernher von Braun and Kurt Debus, later the first director of the Kennedy Space Center". Again, I don't think getting an offer for such kind of people is hard in any way.
- Maybe the campaign is aimed at people working in universities, which are H1-B cap-exempt. In that case, the lottery is lifted, which does make the process easier. Still not as easy as with Germany or the UK.
They could really stand to open up visa appointments via virtual meetings & such. There was a time I was within literal walking distance of a US Embassy, but no, we had to fly to the other side of the damned country to go to the Embassy there for an appointment. Because God forbid that one embassy authenticate who we were and take us to a meeting room to webex with the people at the other embassy or something.
The parent is describing a specific situation for a specific country for a specific - very narrow - subset of population in comparison with e.g. the process in Germany. What does a global list of worldwide preferences have anything to do with it? Adding "absolutely incorrect" and "literally" doesn't make this random factoid any more relevant.
Unfortunately, I don't have the stats, but I'm pretty sure the US is one of the top destinations for scientists and engineers too. And for the Russian part, as @ajross pointed out, the article is literally about making the process easier for them.
Also, my comment is clearly not a "random factoid". You can even see that Germany is the second one in the list (kinda to @yeputons's credit).
Finally, I don't appreciate the language policing. We can talk like normal human beings on HN, and save the corpo-speak for our day jobs.
Do they wait until June to give Christmas presents, too?
Those who could flee did it when planes were still flying, and dollars were still in the ATMs. Senior, highly paid, having an experience in working for an international company, currently hired by an international company — those have been moving abroad for years, had an option to quickly relocate with their families, and tried to keep their current jobs. The campaign would probably help to decrease pressure in Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey, which are now really full of Russian emigrants who don't have any specific plans.
As for the scientists, it has been common for the top students to go abroad for decades. Even if they intended to return, it could help with career opportunities and having better perspective. Also, some fields have been badly funded or badly managed, so some scientists basically had to move to work where they could do actual work.
A bit of context - Russia has been experiencing IT people shortage to the extent that they have granted military draft exception to IT workers, be it government or private. That US move is a part of the surfacing new "neuter the Russian Nazi beast" strategy that seems to be adopted by the civilized world. I mean it would be great if Ukrainian and NATO forces quickly reached the Moscow and denazified and demilitarized Russia like it was done to Germany in 1945. Unfortunately, that may not happen soon, and there may be years ahead with the Russian Nazist regime (as it is a totalitarian fascist regime with "master nation" ideology thus by definition it is a nazist one) menacing its neighbors and threatening the world with nukes. So, the beast has to be starved and neutered in those years ahead.
The brain drain of 90-ties has resulted in severe impact to Russia - as you see there is no capable Generation X aged leadership in Russia with most of the areas of technology and military having made no noticeable progress - like for example those blood thirsty old generals having no idea about drones, cell networks, etc. and only capable of WWII style ruining of the cities using unguided bombs. Brain draining the next generation from Russia would tremendously deepen Russian impotence in tech/military/space/etc. over the next decade.
I could never get the point of these crazy-ass restrictions in the first place. If the US was serious about attracting such people, they would have visa-on-arrival (or online) and some kind of automatic green card, like many other countries do. It's not like there will be an overwhelming flow of people from Russia, just to get a plane ticket nowadays is like $2k - and you can always enforce the criteria you'd like (income, education) before entry.
The current "campaign to attract" will probably require travel to some random country first to get a visa, and presenting tons of random documentation, and waiting for arbitrary amounts of time in random places (US, Russia, third-party countries for a visa). It will only attract people who are truly hell-bent on moving specifically to the US.
I am afraid this will provide justification for the Russian govmt to close borders and may actually achieve opposite effect to what is stated. I wonder if this is intended or not.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] threadIf the US is able to attract the majority of that (as it most likely will), while keeping out the Putin-aligned plants and/or otherwise mentally deficient factions (which remains to be seen), that will definitely be huge gain for them.
That remains to be seen. There is a huge undercurrent of Russophobia, and potential takers will have observed the FBI-led harassment of Chinese scientists (not too long ago a Tennessee jury refused to convict a Chinese national on account of the threadbare evidence), already these factors would make anyone coming from an enemy country hesitant. Combine that with funding and employment issues in the physical and life sciences - anyone young and ambitious would be well advised to settle in China instead.
Having said that, I can imagine that there would be (already is a) proxy brain drain from Russia to Dubai but catering to the Western customers.
I personally wouldn't count on China, an ethno-nationalist country that does not offer a pathway for naturalization for people who are not Chinese-passing, to provide a safe place for me or my family to reside. Not to mention the enormous scale of abuse of power the current Chinese government is engaging in.
Where? The highly skilled Russians part of the brain drain will most likely go to big cities, full of high earning and/or well educated people, not in hick towns full of xenofobic loonies.
Russians brain drain to the US is not something new, but has been going on for several decades and it seems to have worked fine for them.
Make sure that source shows that this hatred/dislike is against regular russian citizens and not the russian government.
I'm sure there are plenty of folks who are against regular russians, but I want evidence that it's some sort of major concern.
Anyway, take a look at reddit, which is full of highly-educated baristas from large American cities. A common sentiment is that the "average Russian citizen" should be out protesting, and that if they aren't, then they support the evil nazi leadership.
give me a break - chinese students with USA sponsorship write reports back to their sponsors, and some of them do grab data and code, by the thousands.. I have seen it on networks and I believe in person at University.. one line about alleged harassment is equivalent to nothing without that context
Right now the federales are coming after a mathematician from Southern Illinois University: https://www.science.org/content/article/trial-mathematician-...
Dude is interested in control theory and had a joint appointment at two Chinese universities. You do ask - what does the government hope to achieve?
I doubt this occurred at very many places, but anecdotally Poland gained a meaningful number of highly skilled tech workers. I haven't worked with any of the Russians, but many of my Polish counterparts hold the belief that the US is largely responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. I will be very interested to see immigration numbers of where Russians end up.
because I could see gains for both US and Putin. US obviously gains with more smart people here working for the US and paying taxes. Putin gains because he remove smart people from Russia, making it easier to keep hold on power.
America doesn't need political purity tests, let them all come. If the concern is espionage, that's the FBI's concern to worry about. If the concern is them sending money back to Russia, simply forbid that. If the concern is their influence on American politics.. well that's a non-issue because native born Americans sympathetic to Putin far outnumber all the PhDs in Russia. And besides, American society can and should be able to tolerate dissent. A small number of wackos are outnumbered by reasonable people and aren't a realistic threat to the system.
hmm - working people usually send money to those that need it, whatever the language spoken...
However I wonder what the actual value now would be. They would get some inside info on some technology but it would be very far from the tech they got from WvB after WW2
This benefit for Soviet scientists will be available for a limited time for a limited number of qualified scientists. Therefore, anyone who may qualify under the Soviet Scientist interim rule should begin filing as soon as possible to avoid missing this window of opportunity. This category is supposed to create a win-win situation for the individuals concerned, who are of exceptional ability, and in the national interest of the United States by bringing exceptional scientists to work within the government or the private sector on important projects.
[1] https://www.uscis.gov/i-140 [2] https://www.murthy.com/2005/04/29/soviet-scientist-interim-r...
No, it doesn't. This "woe is me, underpaid all the time" rhetoric from someone with a software dev salary is getting really tiring.
Moscow is huge. And Software devs are a small minority of all occupations. Plenty of people afford living in Moscow just fine without anywhere near the level of salary typical of software.
Probably the only place in the world that priced out software devs was pre-Covid SV, where you weren't able to work remotely from cheaper accommodations. But that really is a unique location and a self-inflicted CA problem.
It's not even a first-world problem. It's more of a middle-upper class spoiled rich brat with a 1% salary problem. The NY alternative for this is "woe is me I can't afford private school for my 6 kids and a 5th ave apartment at the same time"
You'd be surprised.
As far as I know, in the US both Seattle and Austin became terribly expensive to the point FANG salaries don't allow for a comfortable, well-off life style with a lot of disposable income to spare.
Austin alone is renowned for requiring a >$100k salary to live comfortably, when FANGs with a presence there barely pay $120k.
Personally, I know a couple of ex-Amazon developers from Madrid who outright quit because Amazon's salary (around €40k for SDE1) wasn't enough to afford a two-bedroom apartment in the city center.
Compared to what? Compared to other Russian cities it is certainly expensive. Compared to e.g. San Francisco it is very cheap.
> it prices even software developer leads out.
Doesn't match my experience at all. It doesn't require extraordinary thrift for someone with a software developer lead salary to start a family and pay off a mortgage for a decent apartment.
Given the context provided for the statement, “Moscow is too expensive: it prices even software developer leads out”, local wages, since (as described) it is too expensive for even relatively high-wage workers.
I don't understand how this relates to the comment you are replying to, and can't make sense of it from the rest of your comment either. What did you mean?
> Plus west right now has anti Russian bon*r... never know if they may confiscate something
Who are "they"? Confiscate what?
Canada and other govs are looking into confiscating assets of Russians who live in west. Bringing ~ $1M of assets (pension) from Russia to US might be very risky move.
Yes, Moscow have good living standard for some definitions of living, but usually it will still mean living in a relatively small apartment of high-rise residential building. Singapore-style (only that it gets very cold).
Or maybe wooden shack with 2 hour commute for $1M :)
Buing summer house on turkish riviera seems like better option.
It depends on what you value, but living in Russia if you aren't swigging the government kool-aid is a lot like living in the heart of Trumpland as a liberal. Everything around you looks broken, everyone[1] believes in literally insane things, corruption endemic to single-party rule is everywhere, but you have to shut up and put up with it, because being an unpatriot will be hazardous to your economic and physical health.
If you shut up and keep your head down, the actual measured-by-economists standard of life is okay[2], it's all the other crap that you have to swallow to put up with it that really, really sucks.
[1] In reality, it's not everyone, but people who don't believe that keep their mouth shut, because they know what's good for them.
[2] Well, it was okay before sanctions, it's unclear what it's going to look like next year.
Let's look at the numbers. I'll chose the capital of a country, out of many, that russia has harassed, stolen territory from, and is actively threatening at the moment, to make it a fair comparison.
Moscow GDP per capita: 22,060 USD 2018 Bucharest GDP per capita: 26,660 EUR 2018
Moscow average salary: 1100 USD 2021 Bucharest average salary: 1,614.91 USD 2021
If you factor in the massive gap between regular folks and oligarchs, and their employees, then the average worker in moscow is probably earning far less than that.
So, at least based on numbers, your statement of "better living standard in Moscow" is a propagandist lie you fall for. Even if Moscow is a Potemkin village, with big fancy buildings, the standard of living appears to be comparable to Bucharest, Romania, if not lower.
And Bucharest, thanks to russian dominance, is considered a poor city in a poor country in a poor EU country (Romania's per capita GDP and avg salaries are also higher than russia's).
His uncle should move to the US at least based on these facts. And if I may recommend, please, leave your country every now and then, so you escape putin's propaganda.
> Moscow average salary: 1100 USD 2021 Bucharest average salary: 1,614.91 USD 2021
It makes precisely zero sense comparing absolute numbers without factoring in cost of living. And we are talking about experienced software professionals. OP's uncle is probably making at least 4x more than that. Imagine making 4x average salary in your region.
It makes precisely zero sense factoring in a lower cost of living, as likely Bucharest also has a low cost of living. Actually, the numbers I found factoring the cost of living Moscow v Bucharest were much much higher for Bucharest, to the point where I thought they were ridiculous, and wasn't sure about their accuracy, hence I chose those which put Moscow in a more favorable light.
> Every statement that paints Russia in a positive light must be propaganda, right? This becomes tiring really fast.
Yeah well, the statement paints a fake positive light about russia. I am sure even that country has many positives but I focused on specifically OP's statement, because it was simply a lie.
You know what else becomes really tiring? What russia did and does to its neighbours since its inception. Focus on solving that, as people are more than eager to move on past territorial expansion wars and live in the current century.
It will also force Americans who are doing those jobs right now to live on welfare, effectively bankrupt welfare system. They are voters, so due to democratic processes this will never happen, but this is not the case in Russia.
A hyper violent fascist dictatorship (going on two decades now), with no human rights, where just proclaiming the war in Ukraine to be a war can get you 15 years in prison - yeah, there are a lot of very good reasons why Russia can't be painted in a positive light at present.
This is the same fascist dictatorship that just instructed its soldiers to intentionally genocide, rape and torture civilians by the tens of thousands in neighboring Ukraine.
We're talking about one of the most evil regimes of the last several hundred years. And it all derives directly from the culture of the country, just as the Soviet era did before it.
What positive light?
Well, to be fair, there are lots of indications that's about to change.
On that time scale Russia is no special at all. Atrocities committed by the West will make normal human want to loose sanity. For your own education and as a little sample just check what Belgium did in Congo. England had raped half of the world. The rest of the world was just as bad. Just less powerful. So please cut the bullshit.
Current Russian regime and their leaders deserve to be dealt with for sure. Personally I would dump Putin into meat grinder (not really because I am not a rabid dog he is but these are my feelings).
But to claim that Russia did this because of the rotten nature of Russian people in general - this is not true and is pure racism.
I think they are talking about oligarchs whose assets were acquired as a results of a deal with the government. If they confiscate assets of your regular working immigrant because of nationality that would be outright theft and shame.
What will be left? The same power structure and malevolent culture that already exists, minus some of the brains.
I believe the last few rounds of brain drain out of Russia have helped to leave their scientific, aerospace and military programs in the relatively dire condition they are at present vs the Soviet past (emphasis on helped, there are other factors such as eg Ukraine no longer being part of the USSR, with Ukraine being an important contributor to various Soviet accomplishments). It has net weakened Russia considerably in my opinion, that's a good thing, until or unless their culture changes.
For the past decades, it already felt that the main exports from Russia were a) fossil fuels, b) organized crime. What else does Russia provide the world?
The ideal situation for the American ruling class is to simply import highly skilled workers from other countries, rather than produce them at home. This alleviates the domestic burden of paying for a truly world class education system.
So they expect people to shut up and work on supporting government goals in order to keep better living standard than “regular people”, like they themselves did in the Soviet era (yeah, at the time when just having stylish foreign clothes meant you were well connected, and above “regular people”). It's hard to imagine that someone with a decent IT career can see that as an opportunity.
However, there is enough swindling types to ride the “we are constantly reducing our dependence on imported technology” propaganda wave who try to make contacts with relevant officials in order to transfigure government budgets into personal wealth. There have been many companies relabeling Chinese hardware after making minimal changes, and there is going to be more. So, among other things, it was announced that we need “our own Github”, and they vaguely described it as some kind of “central source of open source”. Man, even I can make “my own Github”, and maybe even a second one if I'm not feeling lazy. That announcement only resulted in people scratching their heads and guessing whether Github would be blocked, and require additional network configuration to be accessed.
Once sanctions are lifted, they plan to go back.
How many sanctions were lifted since 2014? How many sanctions were lifted from Cuba since 1960s?
This of course can change any day, but for now SWIFT transfers still work with non-sanctioned banks (e.g. Tinkoff). So this may be a pretext.
Do you want Stranger Things? Because that's how you get Stranger Things.
I don't recommend to anyone to get a PhD these days.
It can’t be both. PhDs can do more things this just become a professor, which does have a fixed number of spots.
a vigorous and unending renegotiation between management, the agents of management, and people who "do it", in action.. advanced negotiating tactic - broadly give public opinion in mainstream media about "shortages" of whatever it is that you want more control over.. next, read carefully for market change and new entrants.. rewards, feast on newbs and do-gooders with special offers and limited term deals.. repeat..
But what is so specific about your needs that the candidate absolutely must have a CS degree -- and for which it simply will not suffice, as is nearly universally standard throughout the industry, to have "equivalent experience"?
A strange view of the world (even the world programming), to say the least.
In general I find people without a CD degree don't get why clean code is important. Since I'm on a project with tens of millions of lines of code (big, but I'm well aware that other projects are much bigger) clean code is important.
For example, a person with a PhD in history will probably be a good writer and researcher, but may need a couple of years training and experience before they're an amazing journalist, for example, and may only be OK at PR, even after a couple of years. If you want PR 'talent' then the history PhDs would not be very helpful.
A bio PhD would be amazing at many things, but would probably suck as a nurse.
So it's not just the raw talent, but also training and inclination.
I know people doing/with PhDs who are great theoreticians and good programmers but I also know people who (will) have all the creds in the world but simply know fuck all about actually making useful software/anything. Even in an industrial research context they'd be less useful than you'd think because they wouldn't be able to translate it into useful business applications.
Yes they have specific expertise in some field. But also they know how to do intendent research. This is the critical skill.
Edit: I don't think your comment is fair. My recommended solution was not to cut immigration or anything like that.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/how-why-gove...
My personal view is more similar to yours. We simply dont fund science almost at all. The economy is simply dysfunctional.
We spend plenty on research, just inequitably, and with bizarre pyramid schemes.
MIT's best research was 1960-2000. At the end of that period, the endowment was around 1/10th of what it is now. That's a very healthy level of funding. $2M per professor is enough that it doesn't need to worry about money, but that there aren't obscene levels flowing into odd pockets in odd ways.
Once an institution is overcapitalized like that, dynamics change. There's a ton of corruption in 2022-era MIT (and peer institutions), conflicts-of-interest, and the insane level of competition leads to a lot of unethical behavior. There's so much money swishing around that it's tempting to skim off the top. Combine that with the traditional MIT rule-breaking ethic, and you've got trouble.
I would love for MIT to spend 90% of its money, and be back to 2000-era endowment. I would even more love for MIT to expand it's faculty and student bodies 10-fold, and give more people an opportunity to be there.
What I hate is MIT now being brand-obsessed, money-focused, hyper-competitive, and valuing high-impact and high-profit research over high-integrity research.
Having a job doing valuable research would be nice. I'm not too picky about the topic, but it seems that most employers view the capabilities of a candidate very narrowly. So I'm probably stuck with things like what I did during my PhD.
I don't think a PhD is necessary to learn how to do research, however, and I think it's actually a bad way to learn how to do research. The system is quite abusive in my view and pays poorly. I think it's likely someone could do better by taking a well-paid job and going on long research sabbaticals every once in a while.
A while back I recall someone on HN comparing a PhD to an apprenticeship, which is not consistent with my experience. My PhD advisor did not provide a lot of value I couldn't have got on my own.
Dude obtained his PhD in 1991 and had some bad blood with his advisor. Coupled with the influx of Soviet talent and some stubborness with staying in academia, he had to deliver food and make sandwiches for almost a decade before finally landing a lecturer job and eventually academic breakthrough more than a decade after that.
Some of my friends were sent for about 1.5 months and had to postpone their three-month internship (sic!) at Google because of that. That was about five years ago. Some other had to wait months before being able to renew (sic!) their work visa. There are rumors of people waiting years without hearing back.
To compare, one can obtain a national German visa in a week or two after receiving an offer, if you have your university degree translated to German (not even apostille is required for lots of cases). This visa gets converted into a EU Blue Card once you arrive and apply for it, IIRC.
The article is literally about a proposed relaxation of the visa policy for Russians with postgraduate science/tech degrees.
The only specific relaxation the article mentions is:
> The legislation includes language that would permit technically qualified Russians with masters or doctoral degrees in a range of fields to immigrate to the US without the usual visa requirement that they have a job lined up in advance. They would have to pass a US security background check.
As I said, getting the offer is the easy part. Lifting that requirements does little. They even say explicitly that some kind of "security background check" is still necessary.
A random story: a friend of mine (Software Engineer, LGBTQ+, smart and sociable folk) has tried to relocate to the US for years. They even got multiple offers in the same year with multiple entries to the H1-B lottery to increase their chances. No luck. In the end they simply relocated to London instead.
Another one: Massachusetts (yes, a state, not the federal government) have established a Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program several years ago using a loophole in H1-B visas. Quoting https://vdc.umb.edu/2019/04/20/how-does-the-massachusetts-gl...
> To smooth the path, Massachusetts established the Global Entrepreneur in Residence (GEIR) program. By working part-time at the University of Massachusetts, entrepreneurs can obtain a cap-exempt H-1B visa anytime during the year, since universities are exempt from the annual H-1B quota. The program gives an entrepreneur time to master the company building process, and document their talent and ability, so that they can eventually obtain a visa independent of the University of Massachusetts.
Another one, but I haven't heard it first-hand: Google typically does not even bother with H1-B last years, so unreliable it is. So the default route for a person who is needed in the US is to work in a London/Zurich office for a year and then apply via L1-B.
Maybe the campaign is aimed at people like "Wernher von Braun and Kurt Debus, later the first director of the Kennedy Space Center". Again, I don't think getting an offer for such kind of people is hard in any way.
- Maybe the campaign is aimed at people working in universities, which are H1-B cap-exempt. In that case, the lottery is lifted, which does make the process easier. Still not as easy as with Germany or the UK.
That's absolutely incorrect. The US is literally the number one destination of international migrants. [1]
[1]: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/top...
Also, my comment is clearly not a "random factoid". You can even see that Germany is the second one in the list (kinda to @yeputons's credit).
Finally, I don't appreciate the language policing. We can talk like normal human beings on HN, and save the corpo-speak for our day jobs.
Those who could flee did it when planes were still flying, and dollars were still in the ATMs. Senior, highly paid, having an experience in working for an international company, currently hired by an international company — those have been moving abroad for years, had an option to quickly relocate with their families, and tried to keep their current jobs. The campaign would probably help to decrease pressure in Armenia, Georgia, and Turkey, which are now really full of Russian emigrants who don't have any specific plans.
As for the scientists, it has been common for the top students to go abroad for decades. Even if they intended to return, it could help with career opportunities and having better perspective. Also, some fields have been badly funded or badly managed, so some scientists basically had to move to work where they could do actual work.
The brain drain of 90-ties has resulted in severe impact to Russia - as you see there is no capable Generation X aged leadership in Russia with most of the areas of technology and military having made no noticeable progress - like for example those blood thirsty old generals having no idea about drones, cell networks, etc. and only capable of WWII style ruining of the cities using unguided bombs. Brain draining the next generation from Russia would tremendously deepen Russian impotence in tech/military/space/etc. over the next decade.
The current "campaign to attract" will probably require travel to some random country first to get a visa, and presenting tons of random documentation, and waiting for arbitrary amounts of time in random places (US, Russia, third-party countries for a visa). It will only attract people who are truly hell-bent on moving specifically to the US.