“If you would have asked 10 years ago what Russia was known for, it would be Putin, the oligarchs and oil,” he said, referring to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. “Now when you ask folks, ‘What do you think about Russia?’ you get things back like: ‘Oh, great cryptography.’ ‘Oh, it’s a lot of talented engineers.’”

Leonard Grayver, a lawyer specializing in start-ups who is on the board of the American Business Association of Russian-Speaking Professionals, said the hacking had put Russian tech talent at “the forefront.” His firm brokers technology deals between Russia and Silicon Valley, handling tech licensing and talent acquisitions, and he said the average size of a deal had risen to $4 million this year, from $1 million to $2 million last year.

And as companies staff up with Russian talent, he is getting a new question that he finds bizarre: “Are we letting the wolf in the henhouse? ” Some companies have asked him to help arrange for heightened internal security, he added.

“A lot of clients are trying to find ways to hire those Russian hackers and at the same time instituting heightened security protocols internally,” he said. “They’re isolating source code so you don’t have access to the main tree.”

When young Russian technologists first arrive in San Francisco, the person they often text is the investor Nicholas Davidov. Mr. Davidov, 30, said he was part of what he called the New Wave, which is a group of Russian founders and engineers who came over to Silicon Valley in the last few years. They gather at a Russian immigrant-owned bar in San Francisco, Rum & Sugar, and every Wednesday at a smoke shop in Redwood City, Calif., where they share stories.

Most of the comments that Mr. Davidov and his friends now get are couched as jokes, he said.

“Somebody announced me on one of the conferences where I was speaking and said, ‘I invited Nick because I wanted to collude with Russians,’ ” he said. “Just a lot of jokes.”