Samwise High Tech Recruiting Newsletter
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Anthropic Report Shows Junior Share of Technical Hires Fell From 27% to 9%
Anthropic says junior employees now make up a much smaller share of its technical hiring, according to a company report titled “How employment is changing at Anthropic,” covered by Trending Topics. The junior share of new technical hires fell from 27 percent to 9 percent, and their share of all technical-department employees dropped from 21 percent to 14 percent since early 2025. In April, about a third of machine learning managers said they were hiring fewer people because of A.I., compared with a fifth in software engineering. Anthropic cautions the report is a case study of a single company.
Sources: Trending Topics
Cloudera Barred From Green Card Program for Two Years Over Recruiting Discrimination Claims
Cloudera Inc. has agreed to a two-year ban from the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) program under a settlement with the Justice Department and Labor Department, Newsweek reported. The company will establish a $1.4 million back-pay fund for affected U.S. workers and pay $600,000 in civil penalties. The settlement resolves an April lawsuit in which the Justice Department accused Cloudera of discriminating against U.S. workers while recruiting for seven PERM-related positions, directing applicants to an email address that could not receive messages from outside the company. Cloudera characterized the email restriction as inadvertent and said it remains committed to fair, lawful and open recruitment practices.
Disney to Pay $60 Million a Year for 66 Character.AI Employees, Filings Show
Disney plans to pay $60 million a year to 66 employees recruited from Character.AI, according to bankruptcy filings reported by Business Insider and cited by WDW News Today. The filings disclose a $30 million retention pool, part of an estimated $180 million in total compensation and retention spending over the next three years. Disney also submitted a $20 million bid for Character.AI’s technology during the bankruptcy proceedings. The hiring comes weeks after Disney cut hundreds of positions, including technology jobs. Karandeep Anand, named Disney’s first Chief Technology Officer in September, reports directly to CEO Josh D’Amaro and oversees enterprise technology, infrastructure, data, A.I. platforms, product and engineering.
Sources: WDW News Today
Apple Hires Former Meta Litigation Chief Scott Tucker for New Global Litigation Role
Apple has hired former Meta lawyer Scott Tucker to lead its litigation team, MacRumors reported, citing Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Tucker becomes vice president of global litigation and financial services, a newly created position overseeing commercial lawsuits, patent disputes and legal matters involving Apple’s financial products. He previously led litigation at Meta and held a senior legal role at Morgan Stanley. The hire reunites him with Jennifer Newstead, Apple’s general counsel, who joined in March after six years as Meta’s top lawyer. Heather Grenier, who oversees commercial and competition litigation, will now report to Tucker, while Kyle Andeer takes on international legal matters, child safety, cybersecurity and law enforcement.
Fortune Details How Alexandr Wang Won Zuckerberg’s Trust and Took Over Meta’s AI Push
Fortune reports how Scale AI cofounder Alexandr Wang came to lead Meta’s artificial intelligence effort. In April 2025, following a lukewarm reception for Meta’s Llama 4 models, Mark Zuckerberg contacted Wang over WhatsApp, and their first call lasted about 44 minutes. Two days later Wang sent a memo recommending that Meta build around talent density and be willing to rebuild its team from scratch. Meta acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.3 billion to bring Wang aboard. Wang is now Meta’s Chief AI Officer and leads Meta Superintelligence Labs, whose core research team numbers closer to 100 of about 200 people, within a company of roughly 75,000 employees.
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency