SAN FRANCISCO — The “knowledge transfer sessions” started a few months after Jeff Tan received notice last summer that he and about 80 co-workers would be laid off by the University of California, San Francisco, at the end of February.

At daily two-hour meetings with employees from HCL Technologies, an Indian tech services company that had landed the outsourcing contract from U.C.S.F., Mr. Tan trained HCL staff members in India by videoconference and employees brought to the United States on H-1B visas how to do his job.

More than any other industry, tech companies depend on the 85,000 foreign workers allowed into the United States annually under the H-1B visa program. The H-1B is a temporary visa intended to bring in foreign professionals with college degrees and specialized skills to fill jobs when qualified Americans cannot be found. Technology giants like Microsoft and Google have pressed for increases in the annual quotas, saying there are not enough Americans with the skills they need.

But for tech workers like Mr. Tan, the program has had very negative consequences.

“I thought the purpose of H-1B visas was to give America a competitive edge, not help companies ship American jobs abroad,” said Mr. Tan, who had worked for the university as an information technology systems administrator for 20 years. “This is now standard practice in the technology industry.”