Samwise High Tech Recruiting Newsletter
Friday, September 18, 2026
GeoComply Promotes Steven Vo to Chief Technology Officer
GeoComply has promoted Steven Vo to chief technology officer, elevating an original 2012 hire to the top of the company's technical organization. Vo spent six years in senior engineering roles at Amazon and Uber before rejoining GeoComply in 2021 as senior vice president of engineering. His elevation to CTO positions him to lead the company's overall technology strategy and product direction. GeoComply provides geolocation compliance technology used by regulated online gaming and sports betting operators to verify that users are located within licensed jurisdictions before allowing access to wagering platforms.
Sources: SBC Americas
AI Creates Skill Mismatches Across Tech Job Postings, Andela Research Finds
An Andela analysis of roughly 50,000 job descriptions finds that 53% of AI job postings list required skills that do not match the stated job title — a phenomenon the company terms “skill bleeds.” Reporting by CIO Dive identifies a cluster of emerging roles gaining traction: LLM application engineer, DevSecOps security engineer, docs-as-code engineer, lakehouse analytics engineer, and FinOps reliability engineer. Cory Hymel, head of research at Andela, attributed the mismatch to a market that has not yet reached consensus on what AI roles actually require. “Companies are saying, I need to go hire an AI engineer, but that's an extremely broad term,” Hymel said.
Survey: 72% of Enterprise AI Failures Trace Back to Poor Data Foundation
A Collibra and Harris Poll survey of 300 enterprise data management employees and AI decision-makers finds that 72% say AI failures in their organizations trace back to a poor data foundation. More than half of respondents — 53% — report moving AI reporting closer to their data organization, while 58% are establishing clear accountability structures for AI outputs. Despite increasing AI deployment, 87% continue to manually review AI agent outputs. Felix Van de Maele, chief executive of Collibra, said the findings point to a visibility problem: “Without that visibility, governance gaps aren't discovered until something goes wrong.”
AI Now Tops CISO Spending Priorities; 80% Expect It to Drive New Cybersecurity Roles
Seven in ten CISOs now identify AI as their top priority for new cybersecurity spending, according to the 2026 Security Budget Benchmark Report from IANS and Artico Search, which surveyed more than 500 security executives. Primary AI investment areas are automating security operations and enhancing identity and access management. Overall security budgets grew just 5%, barely above the prior year's 4% gain. On the workforce side, 80% of CISOs expect AI to generate demand for new cybersecurity roles and skills, while 70% say they do not anticipate cutting headcount because of AI. IANS senior research director Nick Kakolowski noted that vendors are using AI features to justify significant price increases.
Microsoft Conducting Ongoing Silent Layoffs in September 2026
Microsoft is conducting ongoing workforce reductions in September 2026, with community reports indicating principal program managers at Level 60 among those affected. The cuts are proceeding without formal announcements, WARN notices, or company press releases. Techrights, reporting September 18 and drawing on prior-day coverage by schestowitz.com, characterized the pattern as “forever layoffs” — a reference to ongoing quiet reductions that avoid the public attention of mass-layoff announcements. Posts on the employee community platform Blind confirmed impacts. The September round adds to a series of Microsoft workforce adjustments throughout 2026 that have similarly proceeded without formal public disclosure.
Sources: Techrights
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