Between 2012 and 2022, the percentage of OPT engineers in the San Francisco metro area grew from 5% to 17.7%. The mid-2010s saw the height of OPT engineer usage. Between 2014 and 2019, San Francisco OPT engineers grew from 6% to 25%, quadrupling in a five-year time period.

While the number of engineers stayed flat in the Dallas metro area, hovering around 40,000, the number of OPT engineers has numerically doubled from 1,998 to 3,913 between 2012 and 2022.

Only 60% of American citizens who graduated with a master’s degree from UMass Amherst’s computer science college were working in any capacity after graduation.