Aman Agrawal

Big Tech just told H-1B holders — Come back before Sunday or risk $100K per head! 🚨 Trump just announced a $100K annual fee for every H-1B visa. Microsoft, Amazon, JP Morgan have sent internal letters asking all H-1B/H-4 employees outside the U.S. to return before Sept 21, 12:01 AM ET. 💭 What does this mean for Indian talent? -->Cost of hiring H-1B workers will skyrocket. -->Many companies may freeze or slow down H-1B hiring. -->This could lead to a surge in remote work opportunities and offshore roles — hiring Indian developers to work from India instead of relocating them to the U.S. -->Big Tech may challenge this move legally, but in the short term, there’s a lot of uncertainty for those outside the U.S. 🌏 My take: This could be a turning point. Indian IT talent may see more remote, high-paying roles as companies look to avoid massive visa costs — but it might also limit chances for on-site opportunities in the U.S. Day-22 #365days #H1B #RemoteWork #TechIndustry #Immigration

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In SF, Waymo makes more rides than Lyft. Soon, it will likely beat Uber. I thought the killer advantage would be a much lower price (no need for a driver). But it turns out even at the same price, people would rather ride alone than with a driver! Waymo said it would be in 10 cities by the end of the year (9 now that it left LA... for now). This will completely reshape the cab and ride-hailing industries. I talked with an Uber driver in SF and he told me "Right now we live off of the rides from SF to the airport. The moment Waymo takes that market, I'll stop driving." Surprisingly, I'm not sure Waymo will be able to capitalize on this, since they don't have the manufacturing capacity to capture this market. Tesla does though. If they get their service in shape by the end of the year, Tesla's robotaxis will start ramping up next year and take over the global market. This is one of the keys that justifies Tesla's valuation today. More here: https://lnkd.in/e_j-rfvH

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Signs and wonders If there was ever any doubt in the last month about the changing nature of our industry and the role of an engineer within it, those have been cast aside. The Seattle Times published this article today https://lnkd.in/gpSetTJ3. LeadDev asserts that interviewees might be penalized for not using AI https://lnkd.in/ggNsGqSx.  All of this points to such a drastically changed landscape from even 2 years ago that we all have to loop AI into our processes as we look for work and query those in a hiring position.  I don't necessarily see these positions as new, or very eye opening from opinions I have been forming over the past month. And certainly there are no lack of opinions surrounding AI. But they do buttress the idea that, as job seekers, we are hobbling ourselves if we don't know how to use these new tools. LeadDev even says we will have a hard time getting in the door.   One quote stuck out to me in that Times' article though. "Writing code is more fun than reading code". This points to the assertion that we still need that developer in the loop; we still need that head check to make sure what our AI is spitting out is still workable. As I have been working on new projects & side hustles this month, I spent some time vibe coding and put up https://lnkd.in/g7W3J4WJ. It's a fun remix studio that remixes your audio mp3s in the styles of several iconic producers: J.Dilla, Steve Albini, Scott Burns. It's an idea generator for your mixes if they sound flat or you are just trying to get them to sound different and don't know which way to go.  But and so anyway, AI mostly did that. And AI mostly messed it up. From not understanding memory management, to screwing up the integration from the front end to the backend. Were it not for the developer in the loop there would be just a bunch of UI that doesn't go anywhere and a bunch of backend code that errors out. It is hard to not get frustrated with a tool that gets you 70% of the way to a working solution, but chokes on the last 30%. Keeping in mind though that if I were to have done this from the ground up without AI, that solution would have taken more than a week of dilligently coding and researching. And whereas that seems like the way to get to a holistic solution where bugs are found early and workarounds are smoothed out to actual paths, the payoff; the proof of concept would have been a long way off. With AI it took 4 hours. What is missing here though is the high level thinking of the solution. For instance, as developers our coding always always always generates more ideas. What other ideas did I miss in letting AI take control?  

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Approximately 16,000 people were impacted in today's Amazon layoff. Tech careers have become increasingly uncertain post 2022. Seems like layoffs have become a recurring theme in the tech world. They show up on timelines, group chats, and in quiet 1-1 conversations where people are trying to read signals and prepare for the worst. Seeing all of this, I wanted to share a few thoughts that have been on my mind, especially for those carrying this pressure silently. [1] Do not make your job your entire life, especially in uncertain times I once saw a colleague cancel a trip he had been planning for months because an upcoming project felt too important to miss. A job can demand commitment, but it should not demand the rest of your life. When work becomes your only source of identity, layoffs do not just affect your income, they destabilize your sense of self. Anyone can be sent home with a mouse click. Careers are long. Companies will always optimize for business outcomes. Your life outside work is what keeps you grounded when things shake. [2] A layoff feels personal, but it usually isn’t Being laid off can make you question your ability, your decisions, and your worth, even if you have consistently done good work. The truth is that most layoffs are driven by strategy shifts, cost structures, and forecasts that have very little to do with individual performance. When you are inside the company, it is hard not to internalize it, but zooming out helps. Good engineers get laid off every cycle, and many of them go on to do excellent work elsewhere. The pain is real, but the story your mind tells you in that moment is often harsher than reality. [3] If you worked at Amazon, you already proved something important Cracking a high-bar environment like Amazon is not an accident or a stroke of luck. It takes learning, discipline, and the ability to operate under pressure. You learned how to work with ambiguity, deal with on-call stress, write design docs, navigate trade-offs, ship and maintain complex systems. Those skills do not disappear just because one chapter ends. When fear creeps in, remind yourself that you were capable enough to get in and survive there, which means you are capable of adapting again. [4] Fear narrows your thinking, preparation widens it When layoffs dominate your thoughts, everything starts to feel urgent and catastrophic. The best way to counter that is not panic, but preparation. Keep your skills sharp, stay connected with people outside your immediate team, and maintain a sense of perspective about where you are in a long career. You are not powerless, even when the situation feels out of your control. Layoffs are a big shake-up, and it is okay to feel unsettled by them. Just do not let fear convince you that your entire future depends on one company or one decision. If you have built skills and shown up honestly in your work, you can find your footing again, even if the path looks unclear right now.

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Update: Google is going back to in-person onsites for SWE roles in the next 2-3 months. I published a piece a few weeks ago where I summarized AI's effect on eng interview processes after surveying ~50 FAANG interviewers on interviewing.io, and in that piece I said there was no indication that any of the FAANGs were going back to in-person. (Piece linked in the comments.) Then I got this update from one of our interviewers last week. Things change fast. I'll share them as I learn more!

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Tech layoffs reached 89,964 people across 204 companies this year. Google just added dozens more to Sunnyvale's count. The pattern isn't slowing down. Google filed notices for over 50 permanent layoffs in Sunnyvale. These cuts hit November 9. Just this week, they eliminated 100+ roles in their Cloud division. Design teams took the biggest hit. This isn't just Google. The numbers tell the story: 🔹 Microsoft - thousands across multiple rounds 🔹 Meta - 3,500 employees cut 🔹 Intel - 21,000 workers (20% of workforce) 🔹 Amazon - 27,000+ since 2022 Why now? Three key factors drive these cuts: AI automation reduces need for certain roles. Companies streamline after rapid pandemic expansion. Economic uncertainty forces conservative planning. The Silicon Valley ecosystem is shifting. Fewer traditional engineering roles. More AI-focused operations. Canceled billion-dollar construction projects signal caution ahead. For tech workers, this means adapting skills faster than ever. The industry rewards those who embrace change. What skills are you building to stay resilient in this evolving landscape? #TechLayoffs #SiliconValley #CareerResilience𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞: https://lnkd.in/gxz-5f6x

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"We’re hiring - in person in SF." 🚩 🚩 🚩 My unpopular take: the San Franciscan (and Bay Area) talent pool is way overhyped. There’s nothing wrong with building hubs in cheaper (and sometimes more effective) places. If Claude Code solved coding, let’s not forget that it’s also solving the need for people to be in specific places at specific times. You can build things with remote teams. You just need to know how. And contrary to what you might think from this post, it's also about spending time together, in person. But not necessarily all the time or even every week (hybrid models). Only hiring in SF is definitely not the solution (only if you're a super hyped up research lab able to afford a million per head). -- Follow me (Alexander Nevedovsky) for unfiltered repeat founder thoughts (no AI slop) on startups, investing & AI agents.

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$100,000 H-1B fee: most people are missing the key clause: 1. The White House clarified the new $100,000 fee applies to new H-1B petitions filed on/after the effective date. It does not apply to current H-1B holders, their renewals, or re-entry for those already holding valid visas. 2. This is NOT an annual fee. It’s a one-time fee that applies only to the petition. Sources: 1. https://lnkd.in/gkDwTaMB (White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's X handle) 2. https://lnkd.in/gwuqSbex (USICS memo) #H1B #IndianIT #USImmigration

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This might not be a new idea, but a coworker and I were talking about the highly debated topic of using DSA problems to evaluate an engineer in an interview process. We both agreed that most LLMs were probably trained on a plethora of algorithmic challenges and can likely give you a decently optimized answer for any question you come across, so we were chatting about what different evaluations you could use in place of a standard DSA challenge. What we ended up liking the most was the idea of putting multiple answers to a DSA problem (or practical product issue) in front of the candidate and have them debate the pros and cons of each approach. A good portion of the job is making decisions on what to optimize for, so maybe a discussion like this could be a better indicator of how well a dev can reason and make good judgements given some constraints for a task. Or maybe I'm mixing this up too much with systems design questions? I know that a popular idea is having someone review a PR for a feature, so maybe this is also in that same vein. To be clear, I don't think that measuring knowledge of data structures/algorithms is something to discredit or ignore entirely. I think it's something that definitely augments a dev's ability to produce a well-functioning product. Anyway, maybe we'll try this out next time we interview someone for our team, but it would be cool to hear if you've ever had an experience with something similar or your take on whether or not it would be an effective approach.

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