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Every opening of another satellite office that exploits the large salary gap...

I was under the impression that the satellite offices aren't just to exploit the wage gap, it's also to set up a pipeline to get more foreign engineers to the SV based motherships through the TN-1 visa.

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This is true. Some are there are glorified waiting rooms. Others are "legit" an employ actual Canadians - the latter type tend to pay dramatically less than their American counterparts, and exist largely to "insourcing" tasks to a cheaper locale.

I worked for one of them, was not fun. Everything we did was basically something management didn't want to pay a $120K Californian to do. Without the giant salary gap these satellite offices simply would stop existing.

You mean "L-1". These are visas for people who've already been working for a US company, to transfer to the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa

TN work permissions (usually not really a "visa" as such, and note the lack of numeral) are for Canadians and Mexicans to work in the US, and have no tenure requirement with the company. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TN_status

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