High Tech Recruiting Newsletter — June 29, 2026

A Washington State WARN filing confirmed Sony cut 292 jobs at Bungie’s Bellevue headquarters on June 25, following the end of Destiny 2 development. Sony Studio Business Group CEO Hermen Hulst said cuts hit “most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members,” with separations effective July 9. Bungie said Destiny 2 “fell short of expectations these past several years” and that with “future projects still in early incubation, we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size.” The round is Bungie’s third since Sony’s $3.6 billion acquisition in 2022, bringing total job losses at the studio to more than 600.

Melbourne-based employee engagement software company Culture Amp cut 70 jobs — roughly 9% of its workforce — on June 26, its third round of layoffs in three years. The cuts come just seven months after eliminating 60 roles in November 2025, and follow the January appointment of CEO Caroline Rawlinson after co-founder Didier Elzinga stepped down to become executive chair. Rawlinson attributed the changes to strategic realignment: “The world of work is changing faster than most of us have ever seen, and Culture Amp is making changes to its organisational structure and ways of working to accelerate execution and achievement of our ambitious goals.”

Seattle customer data startup Amperity conducted an undisclosed round of layoffs on June 25, citing an AI-driven operational transformation. The company, which employs more than 200 people globally, said “a number of talented people are leaving” and that it is “building AI into how we work across the organization.” The cuts follow a leadership shakeup two weeks prior: co-founders Derek Slager and Kabir Shahani returned as co-CEOs, replacing former Salesforce executive Tony Alika Owens in a “mutual transition.” CFO Amy Kelleran Pelly also became president while retaining her CFO role. Amperity has raised more than $180 million since its 2016 founding.

Oracle cut approximately 500 jobs in Romania on June 25, the second significant restructuring in under a year following roughly 400 cuts in late 2025. The layoffs affect an operation of approximately 4,000 employees, one of Oracle’s larger engineering footprints in central and eastern Europe. A former employee said the cuts were “decided in the previous fiscal year, with the names drawn up as far back as the spring,” warning that “further adjustments will follow.” Oracle’s global headcount fell from 162,000 to approximately 141,000 in the twelve months ending May 2026 — a 13% reduction the company’s filings attribute to AI adoption.

Lincoln, Nebraska-based construction tech startup CompanyCam conducted a round of layoffs on June 26, affecting marketing and creative roles, even as the company shows strong business indicators. Former Senior Creative Director Karley Johnson confirmed the cuts after five years at the company. Another affected employee described a “marketing-wide reorg.” CompanyCam achieved a $2 billion valuation — making it Nebraska’s first unicorn — after raising a $415 million Series C in 2025 and completed its first acquisition earlier in 2026. Despite the layoffs, the company lists open positions in engineering, machine learning, operations, product, and sales, suggesting targeted restructuring rather than broad retrenchment.

A new non-profit called Raise Us launched on June 26, aiming to help American workers “transition to an AI economy,” backed by more than $500 million from Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, the OpenAI Foundation, Cisco, IBM, ADP, and more than two dozen others. Led by former governors Gina Raimondo (CEO) and Eric Holcomb (co-chair), it is partnering with Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah as initial “proving grounds” for workforce transition pilots. Industry analysts were skeptical: one called it “the highest-profile example of AI-washing thus far,” noting that many of its backers have already executed multiple rounds of AI-driven layoffs.

Eliminating junior IT roles is creating a long-term talent pipeline crisis, warns a CIO.com analysis published June 29. Employment among early-career workers (ages 22–25) in AI-exposed occupations fell 16% since ChatGPT’s launch, with entry-level software developer roles dropping nearly 20%, per Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab. A Gartner survey found organizations cutting workforces for AI efficiency are not seeing financial returns; Gartner forecasts autonomous business will require more staff — not fewer — over the next two to three years. Microsoft VP Scott Hanselman advocates a medical-style “preceptorship” model for junior developers, warning that over-reliance on AI risks missing “subtle bugs, architectural flaws, and vulnerabilities that only skilled engineers can catch.”