Ravi Theja Yada

Oh man, all the immigration talk has me posting my first long post here. Here we go! Recruiting for top engineers is one of the toughest and highest ROI activities for any tech company. I've never been on any team where we felt we hired enough engineers, because honestly, there just aren’t enough of them. All this H1B talk is hilarious. So many people assume companies are eager to hire talent from overseas, but the reality is that H1Bs cost us the most important thing we have: time. If we could hire more great engineers directly in the States, we absolutely would. The time saved on immigration paperwork, sponsorship, and waiting periods would be invaluable. Do you really think @elonmusk is prioritizing hiring overseas at the cost of losing time? Absolutely not. At Microsoft, I was part of the recruiting team that hired for Devices, Azure, and 343 Industries. We filled many specialized technical roles, but less than 10% of those hires required H1B visas. At Facebook, the story was the same. The bottleneck wasn’t prioritizing visa candidates - it was simply a shortage of exceptional talent. At a high level, great engineers aren’t just technically excellent. They’re effective communicators, strong collaborators with non-engineering teams, and aligned with the company’s mission and values. Finding someone with all these qualities is rare. When you do, the question of visa sponsorship becomes secondary. The priority is always bringing them onto your team - do whatever it takes. The idea that companies “prefer” H1Bs because they’re cheaper or easier is so silly. What’s driving the demand is simple: there aren’t enough top tier engineers to keep up with the demand. That’s part of why I love recruiting so much. When done well, it becomes one of the most high-impact functions for any company.