The court moved first this week, and the White House answered four days later. On 14 September, the day before it was due to start, a federal judge froze the rule that would have ended "duration of status" for F-1 students. On 18 September, the President renewed the $100,000 H-1B fee through September 2027 and signed an order telling agencies to weigh an employer's layoffs when they review its H-1B filings.
Hiring kept a slow autumn pace. The notable adds were OpenAI's 2027 Applied Emerging Talent engineer role, a Stripe early-career role for people who can start before December, and a cluster of quant internship postings from Tower Research, HRT and Five Rings.
Applications that opened or closed
| Company | Role | Region | Date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | Software Engineer, Applied Emerging Talent (2027) | San Francisco | Published 14 Sep | OpenAI jobs |
| Stripe | Software Engineer, Early Career — Immediate Start | SF, Seattle, New York | Published 17 Sep | Stripe jobs |
| Five Rings | Recent Graduate – Trading Assistant | New York | Published 14 Sep | Five Rings |
| Tower Research | New Grad C++ Software Developer | Montreal | Published 15 Sep | Tower Research |
| Tower Research | Software Engineer Intern (Summer 2027) | New York, Montreal | Published 17 Sep | Tower Research |
| HRT | PhD Winter Internship 2027 | New York | Published 18 Sep, closes 16 Oct | HRT |
| Schonfeld | 2027 DMFI Quant Developer Intern | London | Published 16 Sep | Schonfeld |
Publication dates come from each firm's applicant-tracking system (Ashby or Greenhouse), retrieved 21 September 2026. A "published" date can reflect a repost, so treat it as when the role reappeared rather than when the team started hiring.
OpenAI lists a $180,000 salary plus equity for the Applied Emerging Talent role. It asks for 0–1 years of experience, JavaScript and React, and "some backend languages (we use Python)" (OpenAI jobs, retrieved 21 September 2026). This is a product engineering seat: the posting lists end-to-end ChatGPT and API features, not research.
Stripe's role is easy to misread. The speedyapply 2027 new-grad board lists it at "$207k/yr", but the posting itself gives a US base of $122,100–$134,400, requires a degree completed by summer 2026, and is only for people "actively looking to start before December 1, 2026" (Stripe jobs, retrieved 21 September 2026). If you graduate in 2027, this is not your req. If you graduated in 2026 and are still looking, it is one of the few fast-start seats at a top-tier product company this autumn.
On the quant side, HRT's PhD Winter Internship is a three-week introduction to quantitative research for PhD students "with little or no experience in quantitative trading", paying a weekly base of $5,800 plus housing and meals, with applications due 16 October (HRT careers, retrieved 21 September 2026). Tower's New York Summer 2027 software internship lists a weekly base of $3,500–$4,200. Five Rings' Trading Assistant seat pays a $100,000 base plus a discretionary bonus and welcomes recent graduates. It is an operations-adjacent trading role, not the quant trader track. We found no new quant new-grad trader or researcher reqs this week: the Quant section of the speedyapply new-grad board still showed Five Rings, Belvedere, Citadel and Akuna reqs aged 32 to 68 days (regenerated 20 September).
Interview and process changes
No firm we track published a change to its new-grad interview process between 14 and 21 September. If you are choosing between Tower and HRT this cycle, our HRT vs Tower Research comparison from yesterday covers how their loops and pay structures differ.
Comp, layoffs, and expansions
Oracle began another round of layoffs on Monday 14 September. Staff learned from 6 a.m. emails or when they lost access to corporate systems, and the notices cited "a broader organizational change" (The Register, 14 September 2026). Oracle gave no headcount figure for the round. The context is the contrast: Oracle had just reported first-quarter revenue of $19.3 billion, up about 30% year on year, and has put an extra $700 million into its 2026 restructuring budget, taking the plan to as much as $2.1 billion (The Register). Capital spending for the quarter was $28.5 billion, against $8.5 billion a year earlier (Yahoo Finance, September 2026). The round reached India within two days, with product engineering hit hardest (People Matters, 16 September 2026).
That combination (capex more than tripling, engineering headcount cut) is also what the new H-1B order is aimed at, which makes Oracle the company to watch when agencies publish guidance.
Visa and policy
Duration of status: blocked, for now
Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the District of Massachusetts granted nationwide preliminary relief on 14 September. The rule that would have capped F-1 admission at four years and cut the post-completion grace period from 60 to 30 days is postponed "pending further order of this court or resolution of this proceeding on the merits" (University of Washington ISS, 15 September 2026). According to ICEF Monitor's 15 September report, the judge found DHS had failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act in several respects, called the security rationale "based almost entirely on a small handful of anecdotes", and noted that the anticipated harms, including students disenrolling, had already begun.
In practice, UW's international office says nothing needs to be done: students entering on or after 15 September should still be admitted under D/S, and the thing to check is that your I-94 shows "D/S" rather than a fixed date. The next hearing is 2 October, and ICEF expects the government to appeal. This reverses the headline of last week's roundup, which went out the day before the ruling. The travel caution in it still applies until the case is settled.
The $100,000 H-1B fee renewed through 2027
Proclamation 10973 was due to lapse on 20 September. On 18 September the President signed a new proclamation extending the entry restriction, and with it the $100,000 payment for covered petitions, through 21 September 2027 (Envoy Global, September 2026). RedBus2US puts the effective time at 12:01 a.m. on 21 September. It still targets beneficiaries outside the US. Envoy notes that the underlying fee was vacated by a federal court and cannot currently be enforced, so the renewal mainly shows the administration's intent until the appeal is decided.
For a new grad on F-1 or OPT inside the US, the practical position has not changed this week. Carnegie Mellon's international office notes that the original proclamation does not apply to people already in the US, so a change of status from F-1 to H-1B was outside its scope (CMU Office of International Education, retrieved 21 September 2026). The separate DHS proposal to charge $103,265 on every cap-subject H-1B petition, including advanced-degree cases, is a different matter. Its comment period closes on 24 September (Ogletree, 25 August 2026).
The layoffs order
The executive order signed alongside the renewal, "Enhancing Program Integrity and Interagency Coordination in the Administration of the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Program", tells Labor, Homeland Security and State to consider whether an employer "directly or indirectly" laid off similarly situated US workers in the prior year, or plans to, when they adjudicate H-1B petitions, visas and Labor Condition Applications. It applies to all H-1B employers, not only H-1B-dependent ones, and gives the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division 30 days to review past LCAs (Ogletree via National Law Review, 20 September 2026). Fragomen's 18 September alert says implementing guidance is still to come.
What that means for a 2027 graduate: employers with recent layoffs may become more cautious about sponsoring, and the question "has your team or company had layoffs in the past year?" is now worth asking a recruiter directly. On Blind, a Software Engineering Career thread about the order, started around 19 September by an Atlassian employee, split along predictable lines. Some welcomed it as a check on lay-off-then-sponsor behaviour. Others called it pre-midterm theatre that would not change hiring, and a few argued it might simply make companies think twice before cutting. A month earlier, in a Work Visa thread on the $103,265 proposal (24 August 2026), an Amazon commenter predicted the courts would stop it as they had the first fee. Another commenter argued the constant rule changes had already made companies wary of hiring H-1B workers at all. Both views can hold at once: fees can lose in court and still cool sponsorship.
OPT fees: a rule exists, the number does not
A proposed rule titled "Optional Practical Training Fees" cleared White House regulatory review on 11 September, with the result "consistent with change" (Zeng Law Group, 14 September 2026; Bloomberg Law, 14 September 2026). ICE sent it for review on 20 August. The widely repeated $100,000 figure comes from a 30 July Wall Street Journal report, not from the rule. The amount, who pays, STEM OPT treatment and the effective date will only be known once the proposal is published in the Federal Register and opens for comment.
| Item | Status on 21 Sep 2026 | Next date |
|---|---|---|
| F-1 duration of status rule | Postponed nationwide by court | Hearing 2 Oct |
| $100,000 H-1B fee (Proclamation) | Renewed to 21 Sep 2027; fee vacated by court, appeal pending | Appeal ruling |
| $103,265 H-1B petition fee (proposed) | Open for comment | Comments close 24 Sep |
| H-1B layoffs executive order | Signed 18 Sep; guidance pending | DOL LCA review within 30 days |
| 60-day H-1B grace period removal (proposed) | Open for comment (Fragomen, 10 Sep) | Comments close 10 Nov |
| OPT fee rule (proposed) | Cleared OIRA 11 Sep; not published | Federal Register publication |
What to do this week
1. Check your I-94 for "D/S". The ruling protects you only if your admission record reflects it. Talk to your DSO before any travel around the 2 October hearing. Our OPT and STEM OPT timeline guide explains how the work-authorisation clock interacts with a job search.
2. Comment on the $103,265 fee before 24 September if you have a view. The OPT fee rule will open its own comment window when it is published; that one affects you directly.
3. Ask sponsorship questions earlier. With the layoffs order in force, ask recruiters at companies that have cut staff this year whether they are still filing H-1B petitions for 2027 hires, before you invest in a five-round loop.
4. Apply to the OpenAI and HRT roles this week if they fit. HRT's PhD programme closes 16 October. OpenAI's posting has no deadline, which usually means rolling review. Applr's OpenAI software engineer mock runs the practical coding and product-sense rounds, and the HRT quant researcher mock covers the probability and research questions.
5. Check the New Grad 2027 tracker for quant and big-tech reqs that opened in August and are still live. Most of this week's quant postings were internships, so the full-time reqs from summer are where the new-grad seats still are.
Sources
- NAFSA, "Legal Challenge to the Final Rule Ending Duration of Status (D/S)", updated September 2026
- University of Washington ISS, "New Regulation Eliminating D/S is Postponed", 15 September 2026
- ICEF Monitor, "US court grants preliminary injunction to block rule that would have ended Duration of Status admissions", 15 September 2026
- Envoy Global, "H-1B $100,000 Fee Requirement Extended Through September 2027 Amid Ongoing Court Challenges", September 2026
- RedBus2US, "H1B $100K Proclamation Extended to 2027, New Layoffs EO for H1B Approvals", September 2026
- National Law Review (Ogletree), "Executive Order Calls for Interagency Review of Employer Layoffs in H-1B Filing Process", 20 September 2026
- Fragomen, "New Executive Order Directs Federal Agencies to Consider Layoff Activity and Labor Market Data in H-1B Adjudications", 18 September 2026
- Fragomen, "DHS Proposes Eliminating Discretionary 60-Day Nonimmigrant Grace Period", 10 September 2026
- Ogletree, "DHS Proposes New $103,265 Fee for Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions", 25 August 2026
- Carnegie Mellon University OIE, "Executive Order Related to H-1B Nonimmigrants Issued", retrieved 21 September 2026
- Bloomberg Law, "White House Clears Fee Proposal for Foreign Grad Work Program", 14 September 2026
- Zeng Law Group, "OPT 真的要收 10 万美元了吗？先把事实链讲清楚", 14 September 2026
- Blind, "New executive order: Silicon Valley's layoff-to-H-1B pipeline just got a compliance department", September 2026
- Blind, "100k for all H1B petitions" (Work Visa board), 24 August 2026
- The Register, "Oracle celebrates banner quarter with another round of layoffs", 14 September 2026
- Yahoo Finance, "Oracle reportedly starts fresh layoffs while spending billions on AI infrastructure", September 2026
- People Matters, "Oracle India layoffs 2026: Which teams are being affected", 16 September 2026
- OpenAI jobs, "Software Engineer, Applied Emerging Talent (2027)", retrieved 21 September 2026
- Stripe jobs, "Software Engineer, Early Career — Immediate Start", retrieved 21 September 2026
- HRT careers, "PhD Winter Internship - 2027", retrieved 21 September 2026
- Tower Research, "Software Engineer Intern (Summer 2027)", retrieved 21 September 2026
- Five Rings, "Recent Graduate - Trading Assistant (NYC)", retrieved 21 September 2026
- speedyapply, 2027 SWE College Jobs new-grad board, regenerated 20 September 2026
Frequently asked questions
- Is the F-1 duration of status rule in effect?
- No. On 14 September 2026, one day before it was due to start, Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of the District of Massachusetts postponed the rule nationwide pending further order or a ruling on the merits (NAFSA; University of Washington ISS, 15 September 2026). Duration of status stays in place for now, and the next hearing is set for 2 October 2026.
- Was the $100,000 H-1B fee extended?
- The administration renewed it. A proclamation signed 18 September 2026 extends the entry restriction behind the fee through 21 September 2027 (Envoy Global; RedBus2US). But a federal court vacated the fee in June and the appeals court refused to reinstate it in July, so whether the renewed version can actually be collected depends on the litigation (Envoy Global, September 2026).
- What does the September 18, 2026 H-1B executive order do?
- It directs the Departments of Labor, Homeland Security and State to consider whether a sponsoring employer laid off similarly situated US workers in the prior year, or plans to, when they review H-1B filings (Ogletree via National Law Review, 20 September 2026). The Department of Labor also has 30 days to start reviewing previously filed Labor Condition Applications. Implementing guidance has not been published yet (Fragomen, 18 September 2026).
- Is there a $100,000 fee for OPT now?
- No. A proposed rule titled Optional Practical Training Fees cleared White House review on 11 September 2026, but it has not been published and the fee amount is not public (Bloomberg Law, 14 September 2026; Zeng Law Group, 14 September 2026). The $100,000 figure comes from a July Wall Street Journal report, not from rule text. Nothing is payable until a final rule takes effect.
- Which quant internships opened this week?
- Per the firms' own Greenhouse job boards (retrieved 21 September 2026): Tower Research posted Summer 2027 software engineering internships in New York and Montreal and a new-grad C++ developer role in Montreal; HRT posted a three-week PhD Winter Internship paying $5,800 a week with a 16 October deadline; Five Rings posted a Trading Assistant role for recent graduates in New York at a $100,000 base.