Samwise High Tech Recruiting Newsletter
Tuesday, October 6, 2026
OpenAI Pilots Mission Interview for Marketing and HR Job Candidates
OpenAI is piloting a new “mission interview” for candidates applying to certain teams, starting with marketing and human resources, the company told Fortune on Monday. The step gives candidates a dedicated space to discuss how they would contribute to OpenAI’s mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity, and is meant to gauge their judgment and ability to weigh trade-offs. An OpenAI representative said there is no “right” answer. Interviewers will come from a team separate from the one the candidate is applying to, and OpenAI is building a training program to certify them. The company has roughly 8,000 employees and 830 open roles, Fortune reported.
Anthropic IPO Filing Shows CEO Dario Amodei Made $18 Million Last Year
Dario Amodei made $18 million last year as CEO of Claude AI developer Anthropic, the company’s IPO filing shows, placing him in the middle ranks of top technology executives, Reuters reported. His pay was above the CEOs of Alphabet and Amazon but behind those at Oracle and Nvidia. Amodei and his sister, Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, each had their annual salaries doubled in July to $1.4 million, with stock and options making up the bulk of their 2025 packages. Daniela Amodei’s total was $16.4 million. Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao earned $720,250. An Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment on the figures.
Sources: Reuters via The Star
HackerRank Makes Chakra AI Interviewer Generally Available After 500,000 Test Interviews
HackerRank made Chakra, an AI agent that conducts job interviews, generally available to customers on Monday after about six months in beta. Chakra observes candidates as they work on a real-world code repository with an AI assistant and evaluates not just their answers but how they got there, including what the company calls “AI fluency.” The startup says Chakra conducted more than 500,000 interviews during testing, with Snowflake, Snorkel and Capgemini among those that tried it. CEO Vivek Ravisankar said one Chakra interview replaces three rounds: a recruiter screen, a take-home assessment and an engineer interview. Chakra scores candidates, but final hiring decisions remain with humans.
Sources: TechCrunch
Amazon Web Services Hires Microsoft Superintelligence Executive Pedram Rezaei
Pedram Rezaei, a nearly 20-year Microsoft veteran who was most recently a corporate vice president on Microsoft’s Superintelligence team, is joining Amazon Web Services as a distinguished engineer, GeekWire reported. He will work in AWS’s Agentic AI and Emerging Technologies organization, led by Swami Sivasubramanian, initially on Kiro, the AWS coding tool, and Quick, Amazon’s AI assistant for workplace tasks. According to Sivasubramanian’s memo, Kiro’s user count doubled from the first quarter to the second, while Quick’s monthly AI users grew fourfold. The memo also said two longtime AWS engineers, Marvin Theimer and Reto Kramer, have returned to work on neurosymbolic AI and automated reasoning.
Pinterest Names Amazon Executive James Dibbo as Chief Financial Officer
Pinterest said on Monday it has appointed Amazon executive James Dibbo as chief financial officer, effective October 26, Reuters reported. Dibbo, 56, succeeds Julia Donnelly and has led finance for Amazon’s Ads, Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios businesses, among others. “James has led complex global businesses at scale, helped build high-performing teams and understands the intersection of consumer experience, shopping, advertising and technology,” Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said. The company said in August that Donnelly would depart on October 30; she is leaving to pursue a new opportunity at a private, early-stage company after joining Pinterest in 2023. Pinterest shares were down about 1% in extended trading.
Sources: Reuters via KFGO
Ninja Theory Developers Report Layoffs After Xbox Proposes Closing Hellblade Studio
Developers at Hellblade studio Ninja Theory have said they have been laid off or face redundancy, Video Games Chronicle reported Monday. Employees who confirmed their jobs are at risk or have ended include a gameplay programmer, a technical director, a technical artist and sound designers. Last month Xbox carried out a second wave of cuts, 268 layoffs on top of 1,600 in the first wave. Matt Booty said then that two separate agreements for Ninja Theory fell through and that Xbox would begin consultation with employees on a proposed closure. The fate of Senua, a game announced in June 2026 for release in 2027, is now considered uncertain.
Sources: Video Games Chronicle
Sirius XM Wins Summary Judgment in Lawsuit Alleging AI Hiring Software Was Biased
Sirius XM was granted summary judgment on Sept. 30 in Harper v. Sirius XM Radio, a lawsuit alleging that AI tools discriminated against a Black job seeker, HR Dive reported. The plaintiff, who applied to about 150 roles between November 2023 and November 2024, claimed the company’s hiring software, iCIMS, screens and rejects applicants in a way that “intentionally and disproportionately” discriminates against African American workers. The court said he had not shown how the alleged use of AI could have discriminated against him based on his race, and that he failed to present both direct and circumstantial evidence. Neither Sirius XM nor iCIMS responded immediately.
Challenger Projects Seasonal Retail Hiring Will Fall 2.5% to About 450,000 Jobs
Seasonal U.S. retail hiring is expected to fall 2.5% year over year to about 450,000 new jobs in Q4, down from 461,500 in the last quarter of 2025, according to predictive data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, HR Dive reported. The report said only a handful of companies have publicized 2026 headcount plans, suggesting retailers will lean on existing staff and on-demand pools. Amazon, which made 250,000 seasonal hires in each of the last three years, usually announces its plans by mid-October and has not yet done so. Andy Challenger said almost every announcement of the last three years is “smaller and more surgical” than the pre-pandemic playbook.
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