Speaking about a few cons from an H1B perspective from countries like India.
1. The nature of H1B Visa makes it inherent for people to not take the risk of working at a startup. Part of the problem is the short time between layoffs and finding another job. H1b's may have very little time[1] to search for a job after a layoff. A startup could make it easier for them. Short of a layoffs due to financial reasons, startups could have a decent protocol for making the transition smoother. If the engineer is not a good fit, unless he is terrible, he can work a few months more until he finds another position. A few weeks notice as a standard is very little and keeps good engineers away from startups.
2. Some startups process Green Cards(GC) only 1 year into employment as a part of their "policy". This is partly understandable as GC processing is a bit costly. But the cost is not that much(<10,000 based on my experience)[2, 3]. So this 1 year hard stop is non-sensical from a monetary standpoint(especially with developer salaries running in 80-150K over many years)[4]. It also creates a sense that GC is being used as a carrot and stick approach to make people stay, this is morally questionable because for the H1B's have a lot at stake (pack bag and go to india if you don't find a job fast enough, disrupting family and personal lives).
A better idea would be to process it immediately as Google/FB etc do. This gives a lot of people confidence to work and even if it does not work out its not that big a deal.
PS I can vouch that a GC is more important than 10K$ here or there in the long run.
[1]At the moment a one time 90 days grace is provided thanks to a 2017 USCIS rule(which is plenty), but it can be only used once per H1b VISA. i.e. if you use that up once you can't use it again.
That's an excellent point about the terrible H1B grace period policy. A lot of good companies have an informal policy about that, but I agree it needs to be more widespread. Do you know if any companies offer that policy publicly?
1. The nature of H1B Visa makes it inherent for people to not take the risk of working at a startup. Part of the problem is the short time between layoffs and finding another job. H1b's may have very little time[1] to search for a job after a layoff. A startup could make it easier for them. Short of a layoffs due to financial reasons, startups could have a decent protocol for making the transition smoother. If the engineer is not a good fit, unless he is terrible, he can work a few months more until he finds another position. A few weeks notice as a standard is very little and keeps good engineers away from startups.
2. Some startups process Green Cards(GC) only 1 year into employment as a part of their "policy". This is partly understandable as GC processing is a bit costly. But the cost is not that much(<10,000 based on my experience)[2, 3]. So this 1 year hard stop is non-sensical from a monetary standpoint(especially with developer salaries running in 80-150K over many years)[4]. It also creates a sense that GC is being used as a carrot and stick approach to make people stay, this is morally questionable because for the H1B's have a lot at stake (pack bag and go to india if you don't find a job fast enough, disrupting family and personal lives). A better idea would be to process it immediately as Google/FB etc do. This gives a lot of people confidence to work and even if it does not work out its not that big a deal.
PS I can vouch that a GC is more important than 10K$ here or there in the long run.
[1]At the moment a one time 90 days grace is provided thanks to a 2017 USCIS rule(which is plenty), but it can be only used once per H1b VISA. i.e. if you use that up once you can't use it again.
[2] http://www.immi-usa.com/eb2-green-card-cost/ [3] http://www.immi-usa.com/immigration-attorney-fees/ [4] https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/salary/results?l=San+Francisc...