OPT Employer Tracker — May 2026: Who's Hiring, Who's Paused

What This Tracker Is

Every month we compile community-sourced and publicly available data on which employers are actively hiring OPT/STEM OPT holders, which have paused, and which have newly enrolled in E-Verify. This is a community resource — not legal advice, not guaranteed to be current. Always verify directly with the employer's HR or your DSO.

New This Month: Active OPT Sponsorship

• Google: Reinstated OPT sponsorship for New Grad SWE roles (L3). Confirmed via recruiter outreach. E-Verify: Yes.
• Salesforce: Actively hiring OPT for product roles in Chicago and SF. STEM OPT renewals confirmed for current employees.
• Citadel: Hiring OPT for quant roles. Known to sponsor H-1B for strong performers — a pipeline worth noting.

Paused or Reduced

• Amazon AWS: STEM OPT renewals reduced for non-engineering roles. Standard OPT still active for SDE and PM.
• Meta: Headcount freeze in place through Q3. OPT positions still posted but moving slowly.

Chicago Startups — New E-Verify Enrollments

• Fieldwork (Series A, logistics tech) — newly E-Verify enrolled as of April 2026
• Locale AI (seed, real estate analytics) — E-Verify confirmed
• Packsmith (pre-seed, CPG SaaS) — enrolled March 2026

Know of a change we missed? Email us at community@opt-ionality.com and we'll update the tracker.