H1B Changes mean fewer mid engineers and more Ohtanis

At the end of the 2017 MLB season, Shohei Ohtani (the Babe Ruth of his generation),  was up for grabs.

Every major league team wanted him. 

To sign him, teams had to pay his Japanese club a $20 million posting fee and then pay Ohtani himself millions more.

The fee sounds expensive, until you consider he became one of the greatest players in history. Three MVPs later (soon to be four), Ohtani has generated hundreds of millions in revenue for both the Angels and the Dodgers, who signed him to a $700 million contract. For them, he was worth every penny.

Now, imagine the same concept applied to software developers.

The Old H-1B Model: Cheap and Common

For years, the U.S. capped new H-1B visas at 65,000 per year, each costing employers only about $3,000. The program was intended to attract the world’s best and brightest — the “Ohtanis” of tech.

But in practice, most visas went to mid-level developers brought over by large Indian consulting firms. These developers filled .NET, Java, and QA roles across enterprise companies. Sure it was essential work, but not the kind of groundbreaking innovation the program was meant to encourage.

Because U.S. salaries were higher, domestic developers were often priced out, while the visa holders handled the maintenance and integration work. Companies saved money, and consulting firms profited.

The Shift in 2025

By 2025, the Trump administration decided to change that. David Sacks (former CEO of Yammer and now Trump’s crypto and tech advisor) explained that Indian firms had exploited a loophole that hurt U.S. workers.

To fix it, the government raised the H-1B initiation fee from $3,000 to $100,000.

Suddenly, bringing in mid-level talent no longer made financial sense. You don’t pay Shohei Ohtani money for a backup infielder. And you don’t pay a $100k visa fee for someone maintaining legacy code.

The result? Only the best of the best and true “10x engineers” are worth sponsoring.

The New Reality: Paying for Ohtani-Level Talent

Now only companies with deep pockets such as OpenAI, Apple, Google, Meta, and Amazon can afford to pay $100,000 for a new visa. 

But for them, it’s a smart investment. 

If a top engineer can generate tens or even hundreds of millions in value, a $100,000 visa fee is a rounding error. It’s simple math: pay millions to create billions in value. These firms will pay whatever it takes, no matter where the talent comes from, whether that’s India, China, Nigeria, or Peru.

The Rise of Latin America

So where does that leave the rest of the software world and the teams maintaining and extending code bases for American companies?

With visas priced out, Indian offshore work now skipped over due to timezone issues, and Eastern Europe disrupted by the war in Ukraine, U.S. firms are turning to Latin America.

Countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina have become hubs for reliable, skilled engineers who can work in real-time U.S. hours — at competitive rates. The region now supports major companies like Salesforce, Mulesoft, Google, Meta, and Oracle, while building its own thriving tech ecosystem.

Latin America is no longer the backup bench. It’s stepping up to the plate.