"It's historic; it's never happened before," said New Path Ventures co-founder Vinod Dham, a renowned expat chip designer and investor who pioneered the Pentium architecture while at Intel Corp. "I expected software design engineers to be returning to India, but not chip designers. It is the uncertainty in the U.S. job market and the growth happening in India that's making it happen."

In fact, engineers and recruiters cite a raft of reasons for the reverse migration, from rising living standards in India to a sense among some engineers that it's time to give back something to the communities that educated them. Mostly, though, it's because India is now seen as a center for innovation.

"More multinational companies are setting up not just back-end operations in India but also product development centers and research labs," said N. Muralidharan, managing director of Jobstreet.com India Pvt. Ltd.

India may be the "last really great emerging market," said Mark Zetter, president of Venture Outsource Group (San Jose, Calif.). While returning engineers may not be working at the same level of technical sophistication, Zetter said, they have greater control over their own destiny in India than they would working for a U.S.-based company.

The opportunities seem so ripe that even engineers "who still have jobs in the U.S. want to explore options back home," said Gautam Sinha, chief executive of search firm TVA Infotech Pvt. Ltd.

Over the past few years, many big U.S. technology companies have set up engineering centers here or in Hyderabad, Pune, New Delhi or Chennai. The industry slump that started in 2001 led many companies to cut thousands of engineers at their U.S. locations, but few laid off workers in India.

Indeed, many Indian companies continue to hire. "We've had this shortage of experienced people. The people who are returning now are not those who went to the U.S. during the boom there; it's those with [at least several years] of experience," said S. Karthik, managing director of Analog Devices Inc.'s India Product Development Center.

Network Associates Inc.'s Bangalore engineering center estimates that 10 to 15 percent of its staff of 175 consists of workers who have "returned from the U.S. within the last 18 months," said Sridhar Jayanthi, the center's director, who himself spent 18 years overseas.

The designers following Jayanthi's footsteps homeward are returning to dramatically improved living and working conditions in India, notably in the urban centers. The government's policy of privatization and reform has raised the availability and reliability of the nation's power and telecom delivery systems and has upgraded housing. "It is an environment that people from the U.S. can relate to," Jayanthi said.

Many of those returning to India lost a U.S. job to the downturn and were unable to find another within the period legally allowed by U.S. immigration authorities. But others went to the United States a decade or more ago and are returning to raise their children in India or to take care of family members still living here.

Ravish Sinha, a senior software engineer at Yahoo's Indian center, left India in 1999 and worked in the States, including a stint with Applied Materials Inc., before moving back home three years later. "The U.S. was going through a tough period, and I found India emerging as a land of better opportunities in terms of the quality of work done and career growth," Sinha said.

Sinha's colleague Arjun Bathija returned because he wanted to raise his son in India.

Shivananda Koteshwar worked for four years in the United States before returning two years ago to join Synopsys India as an engineering manager at its Bangalore center. He was looking for "opportunities in India to grow both personally and professionally, the chance to pursue my long-time interest to work closely with universities, but mostly the opportunity to work with Synopsys," Koteshwar said. "I also thought I could have a better lifestyle and make a bigger difference working in India."

Giving back, fitting in

Engineers are also returning to give back to the country that educated them. "By bringing my experience and expertise to India, I will be able to pass on my knowledge to many other engineers. It is my way of paying back my motherland for providing such a wonderful engineering education at almost no cost," said Kumar of TI (India).

Even diet is an issue for some returning engineers. Many children in India are brought up under a caring but strict regimen that addresses diet and includes the pressures of education. The social structure in India is not often conducive to socializing with people from other cultural backgrounds.

Many companies are welcoming voluntary relocation of their engineers to their Indian facilities. While an Intel spokesman declined to comment, the word here is that the company is not only happy some engineers are relocating to India but is giving them incentives to do so.