The H1b salaries are public. And the L4 prevailing wage for software engineers in the Seattle area is $200k.

H1b also only takes into account the actual salary, it completely ignores stock bonuses.

If this is public information, I'd love to know what the median salary is rather than taking your word for it on a specific area I am not familiar with.

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cyberax 4 days ago | parent [-]

https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-prevailing-wage/area/seattle-tacom... - filter by "Software". Level 4 is $212202, Level 1 is $117749.

The USCIS uses the BLS data for the prevailing wage. You can also check it on the BLS website if you want.

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leakycap 3 days ago | parent [-]

Level 4 is also described as "This is the fully competent wage level. It is for anyone who have sufficient experience to plan and do work that requires judgement and do independent evaluation, selection, modification and skills. Usually these roles would have management or supervisory responsibilities."

Do you think that the median "Software" developer being brought over on a H1-B is Level 4? Even if you think a large number of them are L4, do you see the issue with trying to exceed a median salary at 150k if the L1 is 117k and the L4 (management or supervisory) is only 212k ... and we're using data from one of the most expensive corners of the US?

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cyberax 3 days ago | parent [-]

For software engineering jobs, L4 is a senior engineer position. You'll also be hard-pressed to get the H1B approval for L1.

Anyway, I looked at studies of H1B wage gap and they either find none or at most 10-20%.

	▲	leakycap 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Anyway, I looked at studies of H1B wage gap and they either find none or at most 10-20%. I'm relieved to hear this and appreciate you giving me a better understanding of the pay situation in Software.