Samwise High Tech Recruiting Newsletter
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Engineers Defy the Odds: New Data Shows Resilience Despite AI Layoff Wave
New data from venture firm SignalFire challenges the notion that AI is eliminating software engineering. Tracking employees at more than 80 million companies, SignalFire found engineers made up 55% of new hires at major tech firms in 2025—up from 46% in 2019—even as overall tech hiring fell 25% from pre-pandemic peaks. Engineering declined just 11%, the smallest drop. Early-stage startups hired 7% more engineers than in 2019. Challenger, Gray & Christmas data shows May 2026 saw the highest single-month tech layoff total in years, AI most-cited. Still, Anthropic’s Peter McCrory found “no larger material difference in unemployment rates” between AI-exposed and unexposed workers.
Sources: TechCrunch
Google’s Top AI Researchers Keep Departing for OpenAI and Anthropic
Google’s loss of elite AI talent continued this week, with Bloomberg reporting that Jonas Adler, who worked on AI-powered coding tools, and Alexander Pritzel, who contributed to Gemini’s training infrastructure, are joining Anthropic. Their departures follow Noam Shazeer—a Gemini VP of engineering and co-author of the landmark “Attention Is All You Need” paper—who announced a move to OpenAI on June 18, and John Jumper, director of DeepMind and winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold, who is headed to Anthropic. Alphabet shares fell roughly 7% on June 22 amid the news. Both OpenAI and Anthropic are approaching IPOs, making pre-IPO equity a powerful recruiting lever.
Sources: TechCrunch
Ex-Infosys Chief Sikka Launches Hang Ten Systems with $32M, Global Hiring Underway
Vishal Sikka, the former CEO of Infosys, has launched Hang Ten Systems, a Bay Area startup aiming to upend the global IT services market using AI agents. The company raised a $32 million seed round led by Mayfield and Aramco Ventures, with participation from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang. Early enterprise customers include Siemens Gamesa and Fresenius, the global medical company. Hang Ten is actively hiring across delivery, engineering, sales, and leadership roles worldwide. Sikka built his reputation at Infosys by pushing AI into traditional enterprise services; his new venture bets that AI agents can replace large swaths of that work and deliver it autonomously at lower cost.
Sources: TechCrunch
Workday AI Bias Case Survives Dismissal—Every Hiring Vendor Should Take Note
A California federal judge has again refused to dismiss most claims in the landmark Mobley v. Workday lawsuit, which alleges that Workday’s AI-powered applicant screening tools discriminated against job seekers on the basis of age, race, and disability. Judge Rita F. Lin upheld claims under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, ruling that because Workday’s AI tools were designed and maintained at its California headquarters, state anti-discrimination law can apply to nonresident plaintiffs as well. The case, first filed in February 2023 by Derek Mobley—who applied to more than 100 positions without securing a role—covers roughly 1.1 billion rejected applications.
Sources: HR Executive
From Tokenmaxxing to Token Rationing: Accenture Scrambles to Rein In Employee AI Spend
After spending months encouraging employees to maximize AI use, companies are hitting a wall. Leaked audio from an internal Accenture meeting—reported by 404 Media—shows the consulting firm is now trying to stop employees from burning through its AI token budget on low-stakes tasks like converting PDFs to slides. Accenture’s agentic AI strategy lead Justice Kwak acknowledged the problem directly: “Spend is becoming very unpredictable; and leadership, especially at the CFO, COO, and CIO level, are still asking the question of whether they’re getting value.” The reversal is striking—Accenture previously warned employees they would “risk losing out on promotions” if they didn’t use AI.
Sources: TechCrunch
Curated by JD · samwise.agency