Coding to Stay in the U.S.

This is part of a series on immigration that is running across 12 Patch sites.

They call it being “plugged in”—coding for hours on end without stopping. For many of the 89,000 immigrants who have computer-related jobs in the U.S., being in “the zone” is a way of life. But these workers aren’t just voluntarily slaving away for Silicon Valley fortune or fame; many are simply coding for their right to stay in America.

In 2009, computer-related jobs allowed nearly 89,000 immigrants to live and work in America on H-1B visas, or temporary work permits, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) statistical report.

When an American’s qualifications fall short for highly technical engineering positions requiring strong math and science backgrounds, companies increasingly turn to recruiting foreign talent or outsourcing. But what exactly are companies looking for when they search beyond our borders?

“Businesses don’t care if someone is blue, green or gold, from France, India or Chile,” said Paul Heller, an immigration attorney based in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. “Their only interest is making a profit and hiring the best people they can, period.”

Businesses typically search for talent in India, China and Canada, the top three countries with the most immigrants in America.

Once a foreigner has found an American job, he or she has to race against the other 200,000 work visa petitions the USCIS receives each year and then try to establish a successful career path to be able to remain in the U.S.

“Sometimes it’s about working with the right people and at the right company, knowing the trends and knowing how to network,” said Jonathan Xu, director of engineering at Kabam, an online social gaming company. Xu immigrated to Canada from Nanjing, China when he was 15 and then settled into the technology industry of Silicon Valley soon after graduating from college. After witnessing companies collapse in the dot.com crash, Xu decided to pursue a master’s degree in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.

“[Stanford] gave me a better overview of what success looks like,” said Xu. He explained that it wasn’t about having the master’s degree itself, but more about the experience of learning, understanding the bigger picture of Silicon Valley and what it really means to build a new product and company. Xu completed a two-year master’s program in nine months because he wanted to get back to work as soon as possible.

“There’s a lot of entrepreneurial spirit around Stanford,” said Xu. “Once you are there, you catch on the passion of fellow students around you.” This spirit and ability to develop innovative products is exactly what one local entrepreneur said he looks for when hiring talent.

Patrick Ferrell, CEO of Zenergo Inc. and founder of several Silicon Valley start-ups, including GamePro magazine, hired Xu as head of engineering to direct and develop product design and vision. Their office: a backyard garage in Mountain View—sound familiar?

“There’s a thrill of starting from scratch, building something valuable, finding the right mix of products and customers and proving the thing to be valuable,” said Xu. He said his secret to working long hours is not about his work ethic but his curiosity about the project itself. As long as he is interested, being creative and solving problems, Xu will keep working. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, and passing up his 40-hour workweek on a Wednesday doesn’t even faze him.

“The guys that do well here are really smart, work really hard and are creative. They have something to say,” said Ferrell, referring to successful immigrants in the U.S. He said his best engineers have come from outside of the United States. Unfortunately, he said, he can’t afford to sponsor them for H-1B visas, because the system is too complicated, expensive and risky.

“It’s absolutely brutal,” Ferrell said about the immigration system. “There are so many laws here and so much paperwork. Everything has to be perfect. If anything is wrong, everything can collapse.”

Small startups like Zenergo can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars in legal and filing fees to bring talent directly from foreign countries, even if they are well qualified. Most of the engineers Ferrell hires are immigrants, but they have already established their legal status or citizenship through previous companies or other means.

“The key person is the vice president of engineering in a tech company,” said Ferrell. “Once you’ve hired that person, you have to trust that they will hire the best absolute brainpower possible. But they need to be colorblind.” In other words, Ferrell doesn’t care if his engineers are “purple with only one eye on the side of their head,” as long as they write good code. Writing code is a universal language, so talented computer engineers can come to the Silicon Valley from China or India and be highly successful.

“They bust their ass. I couldn’t get that here in the U.S.,” said Ferrell. “U.S. schools are falling on their ass in terms of educating top line engineers. That is a real problem, and they need to fix it if they want us to hire from this labor pool.”

In 2009, 48 percent of all H-1B visas were for Indian-born workers, and 41 percent of all visas were for technical and computer-related occupations. As the immigration system becomes more complicated and expensive, startups and tech companies are outsourcing jobs overseas, because it is less necessary for a worker to be physically located in America.

“Within the last couple of years, the job opportunities were better in India for them,” said Steve Goldner, an executive recruiter for Cresta Partners, which serves Palo Alto-based companies. On the other hand, Goldner said he doesn’t feel that companies are at a loss for strong American talent. He sees a subtle “buy American, employ American” attitude from companies.

“I think there’s a lot of resentment that jobs went overseas and initially went to people that were working for less,” said Goldner. “A number of companies now will not sponsor an H-1, regardless of the qualifications of the candidates. It’s an expensive process.”

However, outsourcing for lesser pay and making people work like “indentured servants” is a problem, he said. Some companies will exploit H-1 immigrants who are laid off from their jobs so they can keep their H-1 statuses.  

“You don’t treat them like crap because they have no other choice,” said Goldner, who claims to have witnessed companies force immigrant employees to work for lower wages and longer hours.

Rajesh Kamat, VP of technical operations at Selectica Inc., a contract management and high technology company in San Jose, immigrated to America from Bombay, India, in 1995 after graduating from the University of Mumbai with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. After waiting six months for an H-1B visa, Kamat arrived in Silicon Valley but was disappointed by the quiet streets and lack of high rises compared with the busy city of Bombay.

“When you come to the U.S., especially since I was first generation from my family, life is a bit difficult; you are on your own for the first time in a very different country,” said Kamat. He said that simple things like purchasing a light-rail ticket were difficult, at first. He had no friends or family when he moved to California, so he did not know what to expect.

“My salary was very low, much lesser than what somebody here would have been paid,” said Kamat, recalling that he was not the only Indian immigrant in this situation. “We kind of get burnt on that side.” He said he soon bonded with the other immigrants as they explored and learned the technology industry together.

After waiting five years for his green card status to make any movement, Kamat restarted the process and applied through his wife’s company, Sun Microsystems, in 1999. H-1B visas can only allow an immigrant to work in the U.S. for up to six years. Kamat’s time in America was ticking and soon to expire in 2001. Fortunately, his wife’s green card application was approved within 18 months, and Kamat gained legal immigrant status in the nick of time in December 2000.

Selectica, focusing on computer integrated systems design and software publishing, was founded in 1996 and has since thrived, generating $15.2 million operating revenue in the 2010 fiscal year. Had Kamat’s green card not come through, Silicon Valley would have lost a talented vice president of engineering who helped Selectica and its customers grow for 10 years. Kamat and his wife have since gained U.S. citizenship and are now naturalized U.S. citizens.

“Our culture teaches us to be dedicated and loyal,” said Kamat. “The biggest thing that makes people succeed is their commitment.”

After 10 years with the company, serving the past two with a VP position, Kamat attributes his successful career to his dedication, ability to communicate customers’ needs and skills that allow him to stay in touch with technology. He’s also devoted to the job, sometimes working 36-hour shifts to resolve customers’ systems.

Only 85,000 new H-1B visas are issued a year; 65,000 are initial employment petitions, and the other 20,000 are reserved for those with master’s degrees and extraordinary talent. The visa petition process, commonly referred to as the H-1 lottery, started up in the spring. This typically means that no matter how qualified the foreign individual may be for the position, that person’s fate falls into the hands of Uncle Sam.

“This isn’t a game,” said Heller, who has practiced immigration law for over 25 years. “The government has no place in telling a company who to hire and not to hire.”

Immigration law is a dense, complicated subject. In fact, he said, it's not your typical Sunday morning read. It's the most complicated area of law and leaves immigrants in the dust trying to understand the process.

Likewise, obtaining a visa or a green card can be a dreadful, tedious and expensive process for many immigrants, and it forces American companies to lose brilliant foreign talent.

Recently, a startup visa bill re-entered Congress that would allow foreign entrepreneurs to obtain special visas if someone from the U.S. invests $100,000 interest in their startups.

For the many talented immigrants waiting in backlogged lines for visas and green cards, the wait for reform continues.

This article was produced through a collaboration of PatchU and the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at San Jose State University. PatchU is a Patch Media initiative to build strong relationships with colleges and universities across the country. The mission of PatchU is to connect students and faculty to opportunities at Patch.  

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