[jzwinck]

It seems like her H-4 EAD status might give some employers pause. First it is tied to your H-1B if I understand correctly, so if your status changes she could become unable to work. Not to mention if you decide to move to another country. Consider that her explicit status is that of a dependent, which gives a potential employer the signal that she is a "trailing spouse" meaning for her to stay with the company she not only needs to like her job and be good at it, but you need to do the same. Yet they can't interview you.

H-1B is known to be a sort of lever that employers can use to keep you at a job. She seems to present just the opposite, yet with qualifications which are a dollar a dozen.

I apologize for being blunt, but it appears to be an atypical, disadvantageous situation. You might do well to embrace it and aim for some contract work in the near term--none of the above will be a negative then.

[s_r_n]

Curious what you mean by "a dollar a dozen?" I thought that the demand for developers in SV was high right now, and a master's in EE with coding experience would also be in high demand.

It seems like the reason she's not getting phone calls is more because she doesn't have a portfolio, not that her skills are so common that they're negligible.

[jzwinck]

A foreigner with MS from a US school but prior from a foreign school which as far as we know isn't a famous heavy hitter like Physics in Moscow. Minimal work experience. I said dollar a dozen after some consideration. There is some substance there but it simply isn't standing out relative to a thousand other candidates. More work experience will help, hence the contract suggestion.