TechCrunch+ roundup: Tips from H-1B workers, managing remote teams, tearing down the pitch deck

According to layoffs.fyi, more than 23,000 tech workers have been laid off so far this month. By comparison, the site recorded 12,463 layoffs in October.

Facebook's parent company Meta announced the first major job cuts in its history this week, shedding 11,000 jobs. Like Twitter, Stripe, Brex, Lyft, Netflix and other Bay Area-based tech companies, many affected employees are immigrants here on work visas.

An unexpected layoff introduces an element of chaos into anyone's life, but when an H-1B worker loses his job, a very loud clock starts ticking: unless he can pick up the phone a new job or change their immigration status within 60 days, they'll need to leave the country. And as tech companies of all sizes freeze hiring and plan further cuts, their ability to live and work in the United States is suddenly in question.

Earlier today, I hosted a Q&A with immigration attorney Sophie Alcorn for H-1B workers who have been laid off (or who think they may be).< /p>

"You either get a new job, leave, or find another way to legally stay in the United States, but you must take action within those 60 days." Start looking for new opportunities now, she advised, because it will take time for new employers to submit documents to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

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"The best-case scenario would be for this new company to file your change of employer petition and for USCIS to receive the documents no later than the 59th day since your last day of employment," Alcorn said.

“It takes at least three weeks to prepare everything”, which means that candidates and employers must act quickly as the days go by. "You probably need a signed offer around day 33," she said.

Much of the information provided by Alcorn was just as relevant to hiring managers as it was to laid-off workers: a number of factors can combine to further complicate an already difficult to understand process. For example, what happens to H-1B workers who are laid off while overseas? Can getting married really solve an immigration problem? (Certainly not!)

Because so many people have been laid off in a season when it's traditionally hard to land a new job, I asked Alcorn if she thinks the layoffs will lead to an exodus of tech talent from Silicon Valley .

“The American Dream is still very important to immigrants,” she said. "A lot of people are going to struggle to find a way to stay here, even if it's not necessarily in the Bay Area with the high cost of living. They still want what America stands for and they're going to re-evaluate their relationship with Big Tech and the nature of work."

Image Credits: Inok (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

I once ran an office where the CEO and I were the only two people not on the engineering team. We occupied a module in a coworking space, so we all sat around a large table.

Apart from our group lunches, the developers rarely spoke to each other, as most communication was via Slack, Jira, and GitHub....