Poorva Agarwal

H-1B Visa Charges: Protecting Jobs or Killing Competitiveness? The recent hike in H-1B filing costs has thrown both corporate recruitment teams and staff augmentation firms into uncharted waters. While some hail it as a win for local talent, others warn it could cripple industries like semiconductors, AI, and advanced software that already face severe skill shortages. For corporate TA teams, the dilemma is clear: 🔸Do you absorb the higher costs to secure critical skills? 🔸Or risk delaying projects while trying to fill gaps locally? For staffing firms, the challenge bites harder: 🔸Bill rate pressures are real - how do you sell higher costs to clients? 🔸Do you double-down on nearshore/offshore delivery? 🔸Or retreat from niche, high-skill areas where local pipelines simply don’t exist? The bigger question: ❓Are we safeguarding local talent - or pushing innovation and global competitiveness further away from US soil by making access to top global talent more expensive? is this really our loss or the US's in long run? Recruitment leaders & staffing partners - what’s your take? Will this shift really fuel local hiring and upskilling, or is it just a short-term patch that risks long-term damage? #H1B #Trump #TrumpCard #Recruitment #Staffing

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Sales growth can’t wait for visa clarity. The H-1B noise is real. Costs are going up. Timelines are stretching. Uncertainty is high. But I don’t see this only as an immigration issue. I see it as a sales growth challenge for Indian IT companies. Here’s my honest take. Don’t pause your US sales plans. Waiting will cost more than acting. Build local sales capability. US-based talent reduces dependency and speeds up access. Adopt flexible hiring models. Contract-to-hire and fractional leadership keep you agile. At Leon & Walker, we’re helping tech firms rethink sales hiring with this mindset. I believe the leaders who act now, not wait, will own the next growth cycle. Leon & Walker Talent Partners Anuradha Prasad Prajwal Kashyap #SalesRecruitment #LeadershipHiring #FractionalSearch #TalentStrategy

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💡 If I were preparing for my next job change as an SDE-2… here’s exactly how I’d do it 👇 After multiple interview cycles (and learning it the hard way 😅) and conducting over 400+ interviews I realized that preparation isn’t about doing everything, it’s about doing the right things — consistently. Here’s my breakdown 👇 ⸻ 🚀 1️⃣ 60% — Coding Fundamentals Focus on mastering core data structures — Arrays, Strings, Linked Lists, Trees, and Graphs. Know their basic iteration and traversal patterns — DFS, BFS, two-pointer, sliding window, recursion, etc. 📘 Personally, I recommend neetcode.io — it’s structured and concise. I solved around 150 well-chosen questions (not 500!) and cleared coding rounds across multiple top companies. 👉 Quality > Quantity — Understand the why behind each problem. ⸻ 🏗️ 2️⃣ 20% — System Design At the SDE-2 level, depth isn’t as critical as breadth and clarity of thought. I’d focus on: • Core building blocks: API Gateway, Load Balancer, Caching, Database, Sharding, Replication • Common tools: Kafka, Redis, S3, Elasticsearch, CDN • Practicing popular design questions — first with my own ideas, then validating with tutorials. 📈 I also build a mind map connecting system design patterns and use-cases — it trains your intuition for interviews. 🧠 Use platforms like HelloInterview to build structured understanding. ⸻ 💬 3️⃣ 20% — Behavioral Rounds This is where many strong engineers lose points. List your work artifacts and bucket them into themes: • Delivery • Ownership • Conflict Resolution • Collaboration Then ensure your examples reflect SDE-2 scope — impact, influence, and technical depth. Communicate crisp and structured stories (STAR or PAR works great!). ⸻ 🏢 4️⃣ Company-Specific Prep (Final Week) Spend 1 week researching the company, team, and products. Come up with 3–5 thoughtful questions — beyond “what’s the tech stack?”. Example: “How does your team measure ranking model improvements while balancing latency constraints?” It shows depth, curiosity, and genuine interest — a key differentiator in a competitive market. ⸻ 🔥 Final Thoughts Preparation is a muscle — build it with structure, not chaos. Follow this 60–20–20 plan and you’ll walk into interviews confident, composed, and ready to win. 💪 You’ve got this. Follow me for more such actionable prep frameworks to help you land your dream job! 🚀 ⸻ #CareerGrowth #SoftwareEngineering #InterviewPreparation #SystemDesign #CodingInterviews #SDE2 #TechCareers #Neetcode #HelloInterview #JobSearch #EngineeringExcellence #Faang #Meta #Amazon #Google #Microsoft

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🚨 H-1B Visas: $100,000 Fee Could Reshape US Tech Hiring 🚨 Over the past few days, Trump announced a $100K fee for new H-1B visas - nearly 50x the current cost. While clarified as a one-time fee for new applicants, the ripple effects could be huge: 👉 Talent Pipeline at Risk: For 30+ years, H-1Bs have fuelled US innovation, from Silicon Valley startups to hospitals. With 70% of H-1Bs going to Indian professionals, this program’s future is suddenly uncertain. 👉 Hiring Challenges: Median salaries for new H-1Bs (~$94K) don’t even cover the fee. Expect more offshoring, remote contracting, and selective sponsorship as companies adjust. 👉 Broader Impact Universities, hospitals, and startups could face talent shortages. H-1B holders contribute ~$86B annually to the US economy - this isn’t just a visa issue, it’s a competitiveness issue. 🇺🇸 Will US companies adapt - or will innovation hubs shift elsewhere? 🇺🇸 #SoftwareEngineering #USHiring #Recruitment #Visas #OverseasTalent #H1B #TechHiring #ImmigrationPolicy #TalentPipeline #FutureOfWork

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𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐬 $17.5 𝐁𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐚’𝐬 𝐀𝐈-𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 🇮🇳🚀 #Microsoft just placed one of its largest global bets ever: 👉 $17.5 billion investment in India 👉 Focused on Cloud, AI infrastructure, and AI skilling This isn’t optimism. This is long-term conviction. #Microsoft’s message is clear: India isn’t just a user of AI anymore. India is becoming a global AI builder. 🔍 What this means for the job market: This investment will massively accelerate demand for: ➡️ Cloud Engineers (Azure-heavy stacks) ➡️ AI/ML & GenAI talent ➡️ Data engineers & architects ➡️ Cybersecurity professionals ➡️ Platform & infra specialists And not years from now, right now. The real bottleneck won’t be technology. It will be finding the right talent fast enough. ⚡ How #Truelancer Enterprise helps companies ride this wave: ✅ Pre-vetted, cloud & AI-ready talent ✅ Interview-ready profiles in 48–72 hours ✅ Onboarding in under 14 days ✅ Flexible hiring models — Contract, C2H, Permanent, Gig, Executive Search ✅ Ability to scale teams without locking long-term fixed costs 💡 When global giants bet billions on India’s AI future, The smartest companies prepare their talent strategy first. 📩 We’re open for Vendor Empanelment & Strategic Partnerships business@truelancer.com #Microsoft #AIInIndia #CloudComputing #ITStaffing #FutureOfWork #Truelancer #VendorEmpanelment #AIHiring #TechHiring #TalentAcquisition #StaffingPartner2025

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I’ve interviewed 30+ Sr. SDEs going for L5/L6 level roles at Meta, Google & Amazon. A lot of them failed the database question in the SD round. The mistake? They name the technology before they understand the workload. If you want the 1Cr+ total compensation, you have to stop thinking like a coder and start thinking like an architect. Here is the exact 4-step framework I use to map any workload to the perfect tech stack: Step 1: Label the workload Before naming any database, answer 3 questions in your head. 1. Is this OLTP vs Analytics vs Search/Logs 2. Is traffic read heavy, write heavy, or balanced 3. Do we need strong consistency or is eventual consistency fine Once you know this, the search space is already much smaller. Step 2: Choose the data model family Pick a model instead of a product: - Relational tables - Document - Key value - Columnar analytics - Time series - Search index Quick rules of thumb: - Complex relationships, transactions, money flows -> relational - Flexible JSON-like records, changing schema -> document - Simple id lookups, very hot keys -> key value - Heavy reporting on large history -> columnar analytics - Metrics or events over time -> time series - Free text search, fuzzy matching, ranking -> search index Step 3: Map to real technologies Now you can safely talk about specific tools. 1. Classic relational OLTP Use for: orders, payments, bookings, user accounts Tech: Postgres, MySQL 2. Distributed SQL for high scale or multi region Use for: same as above, but with very high scale or multi region writes Tech: CockroachDB, YugabyteDB, TiDB 3. Key value and caching layer Use for: sessions, feature flags, counters, rate limits Tech: Redis, Memcached 4. Document store Use for: user profiles, settings, content documents Tech: MongoDB, Couchbase 5. Wide column store Use for: large scale write heavy workloads, telemetry, big sparse tables Tech: Cassandra, HBase 6. Columnar analytics and OLAP Use for: BI dashboards, offline analytics, aggregates on billions of rows Tech: ClickHouse, other columnar warehouses 7. Time series and metrics Use for: monitoring metrics, IoT sensor data, time based events Tech: TimescaleDB, InfluxDB, Prometheus 8. Logs and search Use for: application logs, product search, log search Tech: Elasticsearch, OpenSearch Step 4: Internal decision flow, you can sketch In the interview, you can even draw a tiny flow like this: 1. Is it core transactional data with strong consistency needs    -> Yes: start with Postgres or MySQL    -> Need multi region or very high scale: move to CockroachDB / Yugabyte / TiDB 2. Is it analytics or reporting over large history    -> Yes: replicate into ClickHouse style columnar store 3. Is it metrics or time series    -> Yes: Timescale / Influx / Prometheus 4. Is it full text search or logs    -> Yes: Elasticsearch 5. Do we need very low latency for a small working set    -> Yes: add Redis cache in front of the chosen primary store

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Positive thoughts to my ex-colleagues at Amazon. A tough period indeed. The first few days after a layoff feel surreal. The silence after the news can be deafening, and the urge to immediately fix everything is strong. But here’s the truth most people don’t tell you , it’s okay to pause. Rest. Let your brain and body catch up to what just happened. Clarity only comes after you exhale. Once you’ve had time to breathe, start treating the next chapter like a strategic reboot. Use this moment to re-evaluate what kind of work excites you and what kind you never want to return to. The layoff might have closed a door, but it also cleared space for something better aligned with who you are now. When you’re ready to re-engage, AI tools can take a lot of the heavy lifting out of the job search. ChatGPT can help you tailor your résumé for each role and practice interview questions. Tools like Rezi and Teal can optimize your resume for applicant tracking systems. Even LinkedIn’s own AI features can help you write stronger “About” sections or suggest better keywords to match your profile with recruiters’ searches. Use this time not just to find another job, but to redesign your career story. A layoff isn’t the end of your professional identity. It’s a forced pause that can turn into your most creative rewrite yet. #Layoffs #CareerGrowth #AItools #JobSearch #Resilience #LinkedInCommunity

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H-1B Professionals: If Your Green Card Has “No Timeline,” Read This I’ll keep this real. Every week, I speak to H-1B candidates who say: “My employer mentioned green card… but nothing has started.” That’s exactly when many professionals begin looking at the contract market — not for hype, but for clarity and momentum. Here’s the Practical Difference: 🔹 Full-Time (in many cases) • Sponsorship is discussed, but timelines are often unclear • Priorities can shift internally • You may wait without real visibility 🔹 Contract (with the right employer) • Project-driven work keeps your skills current • More structured handling of PERM → I-140 → I-485 • Clearer communication on process, documentation, and expectations • Ongoing deployment helps maintain consistency Let’s Be Clear: Contract is not a shortcut. Full-time is not a guarantee. The real decision is the employer. Ask Yourself: ✔️ Are they transparent about timelines? ✔️ Are they consistent with projects? ✔️ Do they follow a structured approach to immigration (when offered)? If you’re on H-1B and want to explore project-driven roles with better visibility, feel free to share your resume to sagar.k@careersoftusa.com or connect. #H1BJobs #USContractMarket #GreenCardStrategy #TechCareers #RecruiterInsights

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Incomplete thoughts about compensation (7) Money doesn’t compensate for a crappy job – every engineer I’ve met and talked to about bad previous jobs all said without exception that a high compensation doesn’t compensate for a terrible job. To be clear, these are/were all good engineers – I would be happy to work with them again in the future (and I’m happy to currently work with some of these at Databricks). Beside being good, they all had massive compensation working either in financial companies (e.g. high speed trading at hedge funds) or big tech companies (e.g. Meta, even after their stock did 4x) but still they had no regret moving on to find a better job. “Better” had different meanings for them, some were looking for just a less toxic environments, some were looking for a different domain and others were looking for a better work life balance. Obviously money matters, but for engineers that make quite a lot of money (as being in the top 1% of income), more money might not be what you are looking for. Similarly to the point I made in other posts, not everyone wants the additional responsibilities/stress of becoming more senior, the people's responsibility of becoming a manager or having to work on a crappy tech stack – even if money is involved. TL;DR: Consider your compensation as one input of your job (and whether you should switch job) but don’t treat it as the main/only criteria – would it be because in the long term, growth is more important and that the weight of your compensation will decrease as you earn more. #softwareengineering #compensation #growth #happiness Illustration's prompt: cartoon of a software engineer being rich but feeling stressed and miserable

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The recent proposal to impose a $100,000 fee on companies for every H1B employee is deeply worrying. For companies, this creates a massive financial burden. It’s not just about new hires — even retaining existing H1B employees could become unsustainable. This will likely push firms to cut back on international talent, no matter how skilled. For Indian engineers, especially those planning to pursue a Master’s in the US, this raises serious questions. Many invest huge amounts of money and years of effort with the hope of building a career in America. But if companies are reluctant to sponsor H1Bs due to such heavy costs, the opportunities for graduates may shrink drastically. This policy doesn’t just affect individuals — it impacts innovation, startups, and industries that rely on global talent. It risks closing the very doors that once made the US the hub of opportunity. #trump #hlb

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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿. At Amazon, engineers tend to progress from SDE-I → SDE-II → SDE-III (Senior SDE) → Principal Engineer. This somewhat sends the signal that a PE is an “SDE-IV” - which is incorrect. An Amazon, PE is a unique role with a step change in autonomy, impact and scope, and mixes tech, business and people skills. It is not exactly the same as Google L7, Meta E7, Microsoft L67, etc. It is peculiarly amazonian - and that’s why I love being an Amazon PE. When I was promoted to PE in 2014, I learned this because: (1) I had a couple of great managers (hi Dan Sommerfield and Joseph Fitzgerald!) that had experience promoting, managing and growing other PEs at Amazon. (2) Amazon had a vibrant, single PE community (https://lnkd.in/gH_pWDry), which gave me countless opportunities to be involved in the weekly PE lunches, PE Design Reviews, PE Offsites at Suncadia, etc. Being a part of this community, watching how other PEs thought and acted, was essential in calibrating and improving myself. I remember the first few events that I attended, quietly listening and thinking “wow when I grow up I want to be like X.” Back then there were about 250 PEs in the entire company. Today there’s 10x that. So scaling that PE community has been a challenge. This means newly promoted or hired PEs don’t have the same [2] that I had. They may be isolated in a team or an org without exposure to dozens or hundreds of their peers on a regular basis. We’ve also hired a lot of new managers who may not truly understand what makes an Amazon PE unique. Maybe they never managed one, or maybe they managed one in other companies where the expectations are different. This means newly promoted PEs may also not have the same [1] that I had. I worry that without [1] and [2], our PEs may end up being treated as SDE-IVs, which again: they are NOT. I have some ideas, such as ways to replicate the PE community (but more locally - perhaps by org). This is something I think about a lot. Our PEs are essential and peculiar, and I want to keep us that way. If you're a new manager of an Amazon PE: take some time to understand how your PE is not an SDE-IV. If you're a new PE: make the effort to find a community or even build your own.

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Will SDE-1 roles exist in 2-3 years? Yes. But not for “ticket implementers.” AI already handles boilerplate, CRUD, refactors. If your strength is execution, you’re replaceable. AI makes implementation cheap. Thinking just became expensive. The future SDE-1 won’t be entry-level coders. They’ll be entry-level thinkers. What's your view on this? Are we preparing for that shift? 🚀 #SoftwareEngineering #AI #Careers #SystemsDesign

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Mid-level devs ignored by new GCCs favoring product pros? Outsourced setups skip your resume,Build connections before postings drop. You have 4 years at a service company. GCC interviews are "easy" (no hard DSA). But you never get the interview. Why mid-level hiring feels rigged ?: GCCs want "product-ready" engineers (startup/FAANG backgrounds) Service company experience = auto-reject in ATS filters Referrals bypass filters—but you don't know anyone yet Bulk hirings go to partner firms (you're not on their list) The 3-Month Head Start Plan: Month 1: Identify 5 GCCs announcing India expansions (Google "[Company] India GCC 2025") Month 2: Connect with their first 10 engineering hires on LinkedIn (check company page updates) Month 3: Send personalized messages: "Saw you joined [GCC]—would love to learn about upcoming team expansions" What to say when they respond: "I've worked on [specific tech stack]. Do you know when [team name] roles might open?" Not: "Can you refer me?" (too early) Give them a reason to remember you when hiring starts. Repost for others to get on GCC radar before job posts ♻️

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For the engineer who feels busy but not productive: This 5-minute morning habit I use at Amazon will change your week. Most engineers plan only for the sprint, which keeps them reactive. The ones who grow the fastest think in multiple timeframes: day, week, quarter, and year. Here is how I structured it: ↳ Day: Plan your "Big 3" before checking Slack or email. ↳ Week: Every Monday, review your quarterly goals and prioritize 2–3 workstreams. ↳ Quarter: Do a role gap analysis, define what to focus on. ↳ Year: Define a theme that matches your life stage. This system creates feedback loops that connect your code today to your five-year vision. It keeps you from drifting into busywork and helps you grow with intention. 👉 Join 20,000+ engineers reading the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dQhnPzJB ♻️ REPOST to help someone today #softwareengineering #coding #programming

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After spending 5 years at Amazon and getting promoted, one day, I was honestly wondering, was Amazon just paying me to talk to people all day? Because what used to be my job: – Writing and reviewing code – Solving technical problems hands-on – Shipping features, fixing bugs, and celebrating releases Now, my days looked like a repeat of: – Clarifying requirements with product and business teams – Aligning with designers, PMs, and other stakeholders (again, and again) – Unblocking teammates, managing dependencies, answering endless “just a quick sync?” messages And there was way less time for what I thought was “real engineering”: Heads-down coding, late-night debugging, or getting lost in technical deep-dives. But that’s exactly what being a Senior Engineer is about. Some days, you’re still the builder —rolling up your sleeves to untangle code, set up a quick fix, or architect a new feature. Other days, you’re the translator —turning vague business goals into crisp technical plans, or just making sure everyone’s rowing in the same direction. Some days, you mentor. Some days, you fight fires, keep the train running, or just absorb the stress so your team can focus. And honestly? It took me a while to realize that this is real engineering. Because code only matters if you’re solving the right problem, for the right customer, at the right time. If you build on unclear requirements, it might look solid, but it never holds. The best engineers code but they do more than that… They’re bridge-builders, knowing when to step back, ask one more question, pull people together, and build trust before they build software. That’s what senior roles are really about.

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H1B Landscape is Changing The H1B world is shifting, and I see a few trends that could shape demand: 🔹 Premium H-1B Talent – only highly specialized roles will justify sponsorship costs. 🔹 Domestic Talent – citizens, green card holders, and OPT/CPT candidates may get first priority. 🔹 Hybrid Teams – blending domestic and offshore talent will be the new norm. 🔹 Offshore/Nearshore Expansion – some projects will move to cost-effective geographies. From my view, contracting isn’t disappearing. It’s evolving. Fewer H1B-heavy roles, more domestic opportunities, and selective premium placements for specialists. 💡 How is your team preparing for these changes? #H1B #TalentStrategy #Staffing #HybridWork #ITStaffing #FutureOfWork #Cloudbridge

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Imagine you're sitting in an interview for an L5/L6 Software Engineer role at Google, and you're asked this question: "Design Uber for a metro city." Here's how I would break it down if I were the one being interviewed. There are lots of aspects we can cover here, but I'll only cover the high-level design. Btw, if you’re preparing for system design/coding interviews, check out our mock interview tool. You can use it for free here: https://lnkd.in/gpCn7t2T  1. Requirements The classic pain points in ride-hailing apps: - Matching is slow because the system can't efficiently find the nearest available driver from a pool of hundreds of thousands in real time - Consistency is fragile because concurrent ride requests can accidentally assign the same driver to multiple riders - Location tracking is expensive because millions of driver pings per minute overwhelm traditional databases Functional requirements - Rider inputs a start location and destination, gets a fare estimate and ETA - Rider requests a ride based on that estimate and gets matched with a nearby available driver in real time - Driver receives a ride request notification and can accept or deny it - Driver navigates to the pickup location, then to the destination, updating status along the way - Drivers periodically send their current location so the system knows where they are Out of scope (worth mentioning to show product sense) - Multiple car types (UberXL, Black, etc.) , we'll assume one tier - Ratings and reviews for drivers and riders - Scheduled rides in advance - Surge pricing algorithms - Payment processing Non-functional requirements - Low-latency matching: under 1 minute from ride request to driver match (or a failure message) - Consistency of matching: a ride is matched to exactly one driver, and a driver is never double-booked across rides - High availability outside of matching: the rest of the system (fare estimates, location updates, navigation) should be up at all times - High throughput in surges: the system must handle hundreds of thousands of requests within a region during festivals or special events Rest of the breakdown: https://lnkd.in/gieR-EqR

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A junior engineer at Amazon nearly burned herself out and put her career at risk, doing the work of two people alone, thinking it would get her promoted… without ever saying a word. Back when I was at Amazon, I noticed a strange pattern with a junior; she was quietly taking on more and more work, often beyond work hours, without ever bringing it up. You see, some people just won’t ask for what they deserve; they just keep giving until the other person notices or they break. And that’s exactly what happened here… The Junior engineer was quiet, consistent, and brilliant. For months:  - she would fix issues that went unnoticed  - she would unblock teammates outside of work hours - she would always show up early and was the last one to go… Even after doing the work of 2 people, she was always calm and present even though she was struggling and burning out. I think being young, she herself didn’t realize that all of this extra effort was costing her everything, and her manager didn’t even know… She just kept hoping that one day someone would finally see how much she was giving. But nobody did, because she never spoke up for herself. When I asked her about her promotion, she finally opened up and admitted she didn’t know what else to do. We talked, and I told her to set up a meeting with her manager and lay out everything she was handling, all the extra hours, and all the work nobody saw. When she finally did, her manager was shocked. He said he had no idea she was taking on so much. He genuinely thought she was comfortable and happy with her workload. That single meeting made all the difference in her career. After that conversation, they made a plan, mapped her progress, and set clear expectations for the next few months. And just like that, in the next review cycle, she got the promotion she deserved because she finally found the courage to ask for it. This is what I keep seeing in our industry: Too many of us live that same story. – we over-deliver. – we under-communicate. – and we wait for a signal. But sometimes,   the signal you’re waiting for   is the one you were meant to give. Sometimes it’s not just about work.   It’s about the things we leave unsaid,   hoping they’ll be understood. If this made you think of someone,   maybe it’s time to tell them to speak up. Silence only feels safe…   until it costs too much.

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