
A new visa that will allow UK tech startups to hire entire teams - bpolania
http://www.businessinsider.com/uk-tech-team-visa-hailed-revolutionary-2015-10?nr_email_referer=1&utm_content=emailshare&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_campaign=BI%20Select%20Mondays%202015-10-19&utm_term=Business%20Insider%20Select
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smackay
"positive rebranding of the Exceptional Talent visa scheme" pretty much sums
this up - spin on a lackluster program. Revolutionary - hardly.

Want to do something revolutionary or at least something that might make a
difference, pull in teams from under-developed countries, train them up by
putting them in top tier companies specifically not as cheap labour (a mini-
YCombinator for want of a better description), then let them go do their
thing.

~~~
eru
Or just auction of the visas to the highest bidders. Or let in anyone who
surpasses the average native in education (or tax-paying power).

~~~
scrollaway
> Or just auction of the visas to the highest bidders.

Yes, let's have money decide who gets or doesn't get into the country, who can
and cannot get hired from abroad. Isn't legal bribery great...

> Or let in anyone who surpasses the average native in education

And how do you determine that?

~~~
sqrt17
> Yes, let's have money decide who gets or doesn't get into the country, who
> can and cannot get hired from abroad. Isn't legal bribery great...

I'm pretty sure that people with enough money already have ways and means to
get around visa restrictions by doing contortions similar to what companies do
to avoid paying taxes.

As an example, the US process for H1b visas is a highly technical affair that
allows companies with large legal departments (e.g. IBM) to hire people
significantly below market rate while other companies would have trouble
employing people from abroad on an H1b visa. This leads to a double market
distortion: one is positively discriminating for companies with a large legal
department, narrowing the number of positions that people from outside the US
can access, and the other is that the H1b holders themselves are (if you look
at the facts) underpaid in comparison to the normal US job market.

Having an auction would ensure that the corresponding money flows to the state
(and can help alleviate any qualification shortage that makes it necessary to
rely on talent from abroad), while making sure employers have fair and non-
discriminatory access to international employees, prioritized by the value
these companies put on the talent. Also, an auction would mean that the price
is set by the market, i.e. if one particular field of employment has a
shortage, then paying extra money to sponsor a visa beyond what other fields
can pay makes economic sense and companies from that particular field would
spend more money but also get a larger share of the available visa pool.

~~~
scrollaway
You're abolutely right, but that doesn't mean pushing this mentality further
is a good thing.

~~~
eru
Why not? Transparency and efficiency are good.

It's not like the current systems are reward paragons of virtues with a visa.

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andy_ppp
I'm not sure why the article focuses on hiring people from Silicon Valley...
Mostly people hire externally to the UK to reduce wages but in CA wages are
roughly double what they are in London, let alone the rest of the U.K.

~~~
madaxe_again
We hire outside of the UK to have as broad a talent pool as possible. People
cost what they cost.

What this article is actually about is tier ii visas being gutted to pander to
the right wing anti-immigration lobby.

Tech employees are jumping ship from this country left right and centre
already - the EU is important both as a hiring pool and a market, and when the
UK leaves, so will a big chunk of the tech industry.

~~~
sjclemmy
> ..when the UK leaves...

Really? You feel that strongly that the people of the UK will vote to leave?
Whilst there is vocal support for leaving, there are also a lot of level
headed people who understand the benefits of being part of the EU.

~~~
dijit
I'm British, and while most people who are clued up on what the EU does for
Britain do not want to leave; other people do not have the time in their life
to make an informed opinion and must rely on what friends/family say.

Because the media is manipulated completely, this causes a few people to just
'take' the information from the media and think it's close to real, and those
people spread the same message forward, making it more respectable to believe
in until you fill up minds of 90% of the people.

so, 90% of people believe the EU community is 'the big bad' who 'steals all
the money' and imposes stuff on us.

and there's no way to change that really.

~~~
mollmerx
I have a hunch that this may play out in a similar way the Scottish
Independence Referendum did last year.

It is in the interest of business and the elite to stay in, while there is
significant popular opinion and some small businesses that want out.

If in the run up to the actual vote things are looking close, as they did in
Scotland, the side campaigning to stay in will wheel out the big shots (former
PMs, captains of industry etc.) and throw money at the problem - resulting, I
suspect, in a narrow win to stay in.

Right now we don't even have a date for the referendum, so it's too early to
be expending resources like that.

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Peroni
Any change to the current Tier 1 structure is a welcome change however, until
they reveal the definitive qualification criteria, I won't be reading too much
into this. The Tier 1 visa process in the UK is a logistical nightmare which
is why only 7 of TechCity's allocation of 200 Tier 1 visas were utilised in
the first place.

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mlamat
Can the team leave the employer for another one, or is this another case of
indentured servitude with a funny name?

~~~
Peroni
Technically, yes however employer 2 would still need to jump through
significant hoops as the individual visas would still need to be transferred.
It's easier but not easy.

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makeitsuckless
As far as I can tell, that still makes it harder to get into the UK than many
other countries in the EU.

~~~
klipt
Yeah, the UK cannot deny entry to EU citizens, no matter how unskilled, so to
make the number of immigrants more politically palatable, they're cracking
down on non-EU citizens, no matter how skilled.

Easiest way into the UK is probably to naturalize in some other EU country
first. I wonder where is easiest? Germany, Belgium, Ireland?

~~~
mollmerx
Malta has the reputation of being the easiest to acquire EU citizenship.

It's unlikely that Germany would be one of the easiest, as it requires 8 years
of permanent residence to become a citizen. After living in Germany for 8
years it's unlikely you'd still want to move to the UK anyway, as you would
have learnt the language and have come to appreciate the higher quality of
living.

~~~
klipt
I know Malta sells citizenship for some million Euro, but having millions of
disposable Euros doesn't sound "easy" for most people :)

The question is entirely academic for me, since I'm close to having a green
card in the US. But is the quality of life in Germany really better than UK?
I'm from South Africa and speak some Afrikaans, so I suspect I could learn
German more easily than your average English speaker.

Of course one disadvantage of Germany is they don't allow dual citizenship...

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kspaans
I came to the UK from Canada to work in the software industry. My employer
sponsored a Tier 2 General visa for me (cost me, and them, and took 1+
months). A friend of mine got into the UK under the "Youth Mobility Visa". His
process was shorter and simpler, but AFAICT he can't renew his visa once it
expires.

I don't consider myself exceptionally talented so I don't think a Tier 1 would
have been right for me, but I wonder how many software tech (as opposed to
sciencey/businessey/researchey) people get into the UK with that visa?

~~~
Peroni
Very few. Seven in total last year I believe. I hired an exceptional Data
Scientist from Moscow for a London based startup on a Tier 2 visa. He had a
PhD plus a number of years of commercial experience and was being offered an
outstanding salary. Technically, he could have qualified for a Tier 1 visa but
the process involved was a nightmare. It was genuinely easier to bring him in
on a Tier 2.

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peteretep
Current visa requires evidence of:

* Publications

* Keynote speaker at global conference

* Won or nominated for a recognized Tech award

* Major Open Source project(s) maintained

~~~
Peroni
Not quite. If any of the above exist, it can help with your application but
none of the items you list are required.

~~~
winst0n
It still sounds very complicated. Doesn't the UK need talented people? Or are
they getting enough from mainland Europe?

~~~
Peroni
It's a painstaking and time consuming process. There's a huge talent pool
within the UK and mainland Europe however given the tech/start-up
commonalities between the UK & US, it would make an enormous difference if the
process of hiring from the US was simplified.

~~~
spacecowboy_lon
Just as long as it a quid pro quo the other way for green cards UK - USA.

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spacecowboy_lon
If you aquihire the team you can you do it as an intra company transfer?

~~~
Peroni
You still need a visa. It's slightly easier but then you assume that
aquihiring is straightforward, which it isn't.

------
noja
Good to see they are finally addressing the root cause of the problem.

------
lifeisstillgood
Oh god, I am beginning to feel kinship with Donald Trump and Ron Paul - I want
to tell my government to stop interfering.

TechCityUK is a government quango?? I thought they were some kind of over-
funded startup/charity. Give me small government or give me death.

Oh no, I've been reading American comments on here too long.

Edit: I was going to delete as not constructive, but genuinely this was a
surprise, and not a good one. TechcityUK looks and feels like a well funded
startup with great government connections but no business plan. I did kind of
assume they were gov connected if only because they can do events with
government ministers, but an actual funded quango just annoys me - they just
got in the way the last time I visited (GDS/CCS roadshow, where the GDS staff
and I just exchanged emails but I still somehow got on the TechcityUK mailing
list - and hang on they keep trying to charge me - a lot - annually for the
pleasure of funding them as a taxpayer. What kind of quango is this?

Aaargh, pass me the shotgun Mabel, I'm gonna gits me a revenoo man.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
So, sniping from the sidelines, whilst fun, is not constructive nor man in the
arena valuable so, in a debate with just myself, here is my five point plan
for what my tax money should be wasted on

1\. TechCityUK seems to have the usual, born out of a politicians excitement,
mission to "bring together and ignite a spark". Now in our hyper connected,
social media addicted, Meetup fueled entrepreneur scene, a government agency
to bring us together is just laughable. As a case in point I have now been to
I think three events at techCity and not one did I go to because of techCity -
two were meetup.com and one was the GDS mailing list. Now perhaps they have
great office space really cheap (it is a nice office slap bang in (expensive!)
central London) but as I am supposed to go to a bootstrap business Meetup
tonight above a pub in Kings X (Google Charlie Irish and apologise from me I
might not make it as usual), as they manage without government subsidies I
suspect the role techCity has is ... Redundant to the max.

2\. Immigration. Oh let's get involved in that quagmire. I have actually sued
the Home Office (back when we had a Home Office) to get a coder back in the
country. Worked for us for 18 months then told to fuck off, we can find a Brit
to do the job. Turned out we couldn't.

So here is my immigration suggestion. If I have a foreign coder working for
me, and you tell her to fuck off out the country, you can _either_ pay me
compensation while I go find another British worker, and train them up, or you
can fund her for six months in ForeignLand while she sets up a home office.

In short if you don't want foreign workers in our country dear government,
paying taxes and doing value added work, then you can fund the difference
between why, for heavens sake, I cannot find a British born coder for love nor
money and why there are dozens of East Europeans with Maths degrees out of
their bottoms wandering around London.

I may not have a coherent view there but I am definitely blaming government
for it.

3\. Open Source and procurement. Ok this is a bit of my own bugbear
([http://www.oss4gov.org/manifesto](http://www.oss4gov.org/manifesto)) but the
CCS/GDS hub is doing a fine job, and needs to be cloned and passed around
local and regional and the rest of central government. Whilst there may be
difficulties with actual cloning, expanding their team and remit is more
viable.

So firstly we need to make open source the default for all new government
software development (it's more or less there). Then the default for
_existing_ services - this is fundamentally because we are now having our
government run by software and like our laws we should be able to read it. It
also means there will be massive massive opportunity to funnel the huge
government spend out to an Eco-system of smaller developer communities who
will do what TechcityUK cannot dream of.

And before or as part of that, we need to introduce acorn-like OSS projects -
take expert civil servants, give them good project managers and funding and
get them to seed OSS projects, hackathons, OJEU announcements, whatever. Start
a project on GitHub, because the people we want to attract to working on
government projects are not the kind of people who will do an RFT first.

4\. Move it out of the South East. I have spent 40 years here on and off. It's
not nice, it's just powering along. But it's sucking the rest of the country
dry. Take those techCity funds, and rent out corrotated iron sheds in country
lanes all over the land, and hand them to young idiots with an idea. And give
them train passes to travel down to London to go to Charlie Irish's meetups to
meet old idiots.

Have the gumption to directly fund and support young people with a vague idea
that starting a business is a good thing. Have them attached to idiots like me
who will ask difficult questions every month or six weeks and just accept that
90% will show no return - expect for the best return of trained experienced
entrepreneurs.

5\. There is far more in the scope of government paying for software from a
vibrant community of open developers. How to marry that to high quality,
tested, regulated code is a challenge and one Inwould love to discuss in
detail.

Anyway, must get some shuteye so I am ready for a day of napping at my desk.

~~~
maffydub
"Turned out we couldn't [find a Brit to do the job]."

You genuinely couldn't find one? What kind of skills were you looking for?

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Had to be willing to put up with me ... Very rare skill set :-)

Yes, we should plan and prepare for non uk workers leaving. Just as for uk
workers. But that is no way to build a team, saying, "dont do anything that we
cannot hide someone else to do just as well". That's a race for the bottom.

You hire the best you can, trust them as much as you can and push them as far
as you can. The results almost always pay you back. If that process will come
to a natural halt on its own rhythms then fine. But When halfway through this
process the men in black knock on the door and chuck your people out, phrases
like "should have prepared better" aren't much help.

Every start up has people that it relies on - eventually they automate
themselves away, and move on tot the next thing you totally rely on. But take
them away for whatever reason and you is stuffed.

If immigration rules say ... You can lose that person with not a lot of
notice, then really they are saying, only hire British.

That annoys me

~~~
maffydub
;)

So how much notice did you get that your employee would need to leave the UK?
Was it that their visa was suddenly withdrawn, or was it that their visa was
expiring but you hoped (but ultimately failed) to get it renewed?

I'm only asking because I haven't really come across this before - I know of
cases where there's a lot of effort to get a visa but, generally, once they've
got one, it's been pretty smooth.

