We asked about visa sponsorship. We did not ask about salary. The general pattern with visa sponsorship was that small companies don't want do it, out of concern about the success rate (only 30% of H1B applications last year won the lottery). Some large companies will sponsor visas, but they set a higher bar (they have to be really excited to take on the extra work). The exception is larger companies with teams outside of the US (several YC companies have offices in Canada) to take advantage of different immigration restrictions.
Doesn't this imply that a branch development office, in a country with friendlier immigration policies, should be a high priority for almost every US-based startup?
I assume most startups want to grow their engineering headcount (there are exceptions, of course). The pickier/more-focused you are about what kinds of engineers you want to hire, the more you have to gain from casting a wider net geographically.
But if you find the perfect teammate and she can't come to your main country due to visa restrictions, or maybe even won't come because the immigration story isn't worth the trouble, then what are your options?
I'm not talking about money here, though of course that will be a factor for some people. It just strikes me that the "YC companies with offices in Canada" have a serious recruiting advantage over those without, once they need to seriously grow their teams.
Not really, until you have scale. It costs a lot of time/effort/money to maintain multiple offices. There is lots of waste as communications break down. You end up spending on flights/hotels just to get people on the same page. This is not to say it cannot be done, just that it takes more directed effort, which not all employees have or care for.
At larger scale, it makes a LOT of sense and is done regularly.
Some times, it can be a hiring DISadvantage, as candidates run away from jobs where they need to wake up in the early hours for a conference call and also need to jump on conference calls at 11pm.
I do this currently, we have a dev team in the Ukraine. It is worth it price-wise, but the cost not accounted for is my personal time, i'm often on conference calls during kids' bedtime story telling.
