Engineering manager notes shift from balanced Indian-Chinese H‑1B hires to Indian dominance over decade

Karthik Hariharan, an engineering manager at DoorDash, said that a decade ago his hiring of software engineers in San Francisco showed an almost equal split between Indian and Chinese H‑1B workers.

He observed that most of the Chinese engineers he hired later returned to China, taking senior positions such as VPs and CTOs in major Chinese tech hubs.

In contrast, many Indian engineers who came on H‑1B visas remained in the United States and have progressed to director‑level roles.

Hariharan’s comments coincided with the Trump administration’s decision to suspend PERM labor certification filings for eight large IT companies, a step that blocks a key route to green cards for H‑1B holders, particularly affecting Indian workers.

He noted that while performance issues can affect any group, the current imbalance reflects broader hiring and retention dynamics rather than ethnicity alone.