Tech jobs and stocks are up, layoffs are down, and the first AI software engineer is spooking tech workers - all while there's a 60% chance of a broad recession.

As a tech professional, you might wonder what this means for your career. That's why I dove deep into the tech job market for you over the past 8 weeks, where I…

• analyzed job market, compensation, and historical data

• spoke with senior leaders in tech

• and worked with actual candidates in the job search trenches.

What I discovered will hopefully help you understand:

1. The rollercoaster we're on

2. Where we're heading

3. and 5 lessons every tech professional like you should take away from all of this.

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We'll deep dive into hiring, layoff, and compensation trends, and hopefully, by the end of this post, you'll have a clear action plan for your career or job search.

But first, I wanted to give you some historical context.

So, I turned to the senior leaders I've worked with, who have over 30 years of experience, to get a better understanding of the tech industry's past. As a Senior Director with over a decade in the industry, I know my view of history is limited.

Most of you know that the biggest tech boom and bust was way back in 2000, but it took inflation-adjusted markets a staggering 18 years to recover, and there was a major recession in 2008 before it was near 1999 levels again.

NASDAQ Composite Index of Tech Stocks 1995-2019
(inflation-adjusted, gray indicates recession)

Perspective is helpful, but for those of you hurt by today’s market, I want to share a story that might give you some hope.

Meet Ethan Evans. He was laid off from his engineering job in the 2003 bust with a new baby, a stay-at-home wife, and little savings early in his career.

He had to take a less-than-ideal job that required him to move his family to another city.

But eventually worked out—even better than he could have imagined. Ethan went on to become a VP of Engineering at Amazon during its biggest growth years.

Ethan’s story can hopefully give you some perspective. The road ahead might be bumpy, but with the right mindset and resiliance, you can still come out ahead.

Now, that awful decade and a half did make these tech veterans cry wolf a few times.

If you look at the inflation-adjusted NASDAQ charts, you'll see pullbacks in 2015, 2018, and 2020 that spooked them into calling another tech job recession every couple of years.

But guess what? The market came back, and back, and back again, hitting new heights each time.

2015 pullback in NASDAQ (inflation-adjusted)

2015, 2018, 2020 pullbacks

In fact, 2021 was the biggest boom of all, with hiring and compensation at an all-time high. You might have experienced this yourself - multiple offers and top candidates getting 2-3x the historical averages. It was a tech worker's dream come true.

2020 recession and 2021 recovery

Then came the fall.

Changing consumer behavior after lockdowns caused advertising and consumer tech to dip.

But the real trigger for the downfall was in March 2022 when the US Federal Reserve started raising interest rates to slow inflation.

As a tech professional, it's crucial to understand how this impacts your industry. Tech stocks are valued on their future growth, and interest rates discount that growth. So, when rates went up, valuations started dropping from all-time highs. As it became expensive to get money from investors or lenders, companies had to slow hiring, with many starting layoffs in early 2022.

Then, Elon bought Twitter and laid off over 80% of its staff, showing that deep cuts are possible. Zuckerberg knocked over the first of the FAANG layoff dominoes at Meta, leading even Google to lay off more people than they ever had.

NASDAQ drop in 2021/22

Both Zuckerberg at Meta and Sundar at Google have said that slow hiring and occasional layoffs will continue as they believe they can grow more efficiently.

Zuckerberg outright said:

“Higher interest rates lead to the economy running leaner, more geopolitical instability leads to more volatility, and increased regulation leads to slower growth and increased costs of innovation…Given this outlook, we'll need to operate more efficiently than our previous headcount reduction to ensure success"

And this is coming from the two companies who led the way in growing both tech hiring and compensation since the early 2000s.

What is really happening though is that they are entering a time of uncertainty. There is a huge opportunity for them to ride another major growth wave, but there is also a path for them to become slow-growth giants like past cycles.

As a tech worker, this means you need to be prepared for both scenarios. When these companies strike oil or when they feel threatened in an emerging area, they will eventually need to hire furiously, even if that means laying off in other areas of the business that aren't cash cows. Your job is to position yourself in the right areas and develop the skills that will be in high demand. That doesn’t mean you can 100% avoid layoffs, but you can build the experience to recover if you are affected.

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So what specifically has changed in the job market over the past two years?

In 2023, Carta - the top startup equity platform - reported the first dip in startup employment in over five years.

Layoffs peaked in January 2023 with trueup reporting over 108,000 tech workers let go, while open jobs in tech dropped by 2/3rds, while new startup hires dropped 50% in 2023:

But here's an interesting observation: the new hire rate was about the same in 2019. This suggests that while the market has slowed down from the crazy heights of 2021, we're not in uncharted territory.

And if you look at the dips in total startup headcount, they're not nearly as dramatic as the massive growth seen in the past few years

So, what does this mean for you? People still have jobs, but the dynamics have shifted. Employees became scared to leave their unsteady jobs after seeing 1 out of 4 of their colleagues hired in 2022 not lasting a year - a 43% increase from the previous year. That's a scary stat, and it might make you think twice about jumping ship right now.

Plus, entry-level employees were 25% more likely to be cut, so if you're just starting out in your tech career, you need to be extra cautious and make sure you're indispensable.

Another trend we noticed is that non-engineering startup roles were cut first, which makes sense as engineering roles are necessary to maintain and build products. This is especially true in the deep tech sectors.

Fast forward to January 2024, and we saw another round of mass layoffs - about 60% lower than January 2023, but still significant.

But here's the thing: big tech executives told me in late 2023 that they would be doing layoffs to appease their finance departments in exchange for being able to hire more tech workers. And if you look at the data, it shows that open tech jobs did accelerate since the New Year until just last week - down 55% from the 2022 peak, but nearing 2019 levels.

Meanwhile, big tech stocks are increasing, and private company valuations are ticking back up as investors are more hopeful about IPOs after having nearly none in the past 1.5 years. Big acquisitions like Adobe and Figma are also being shut down by regulators.

The % of startup acquisitions for large startups has been declining

But it’s been a K-shaped recovery with 2021 darlings like Affirm, Zoom, and Match Group still not recovering. And the NASDAQ Small tech company index has not bounced back as fast as the rest of NASDAQ, which is already above it’s 2021 all-time high.

So, what does all this mean for you as a tech professional? Let’s unpack the 3 clear shifts that affect employees like you, so you can navigate these changes.

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3 clear shifts happened that affect tech employees:

Shift #1: Leaders were becoming individual contributors:

Individual contributor hires made up 30% more of the new hires than in 2019, though surprisingly 40% of new startup hires were still manager level or above.

I personally have seen many of my manager and director friends taking on principal or staff level IC roles

This could be an opportunity for you to level up your technical skills and make a bigger impact without necessarily managing people.

And Meta has gone as far as eliminating the Technical Program Manager role, hinting that it wants to get rid of anything that could be considered red tape.

Zuck himself said “part of our work will involve removing jobs -- and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company…”

So, if you're a TPM or in a similar role, it's time to start thinking about how you can pivot your skills to get closer to technical, product, or business decisions.

Shift #2: Most compensation took a dip after a run up through 2022

Base Salaries Weren’t Hit As Hard

Base salaries dipped only a couple of percent in aggregate, but entry level roles were hit up to 25% last year.

If you're just starting out, this might be a tough pill to swallow. But here's some good news:

AI salaries continued to rise, and most salaries started growing again in 2024.

Equity Was Hit Harder

However, equity grants dropped as much as 37% and have only started to bounce back, and that’s before the valuation declines across tech. That means startup employees got a smaller slice of a shrinking or in most cases, a disappearing pie

A Recovery Has Started

If you look at Levels.fyi data for an Amazon SDE II engineer, you see a downtrend in total compensation as well as in the number of offers.

But you also see that since Q4, there has been a return to top-of-band offers of over $350,000.

Amazon SDE II Total Compensation May 2022-Mar 2024

Startup Equity Markets Are Rocky, but Hopefully Starting to Rebound

As startups hit record shutdown rates or falling valuations, fewer employees exercised their stock options and many of those who did were left with worthless equity after paying for them

But as public stocks rebounded, startup valuations started ticking back up, and employees becoming hopeful for IPOs after Reddit’s debut, they are exercising again at similar levels to 2019.

1 in 5 companies gave employees more than the 90 day window to exercise after leaving — but it’s honestly crazy that the window to pay for or lose your high-risk equity is only 3 months to begin with, even with the company’s incentives to do this.

And luckily, more startups with dropping valuations repriced their option grants to make them aligned with the new value of the company, but I found in coaching clients through negotiations that tons of startups were still overvaluing their equity up to 3x what investors would value them if they raised again.

Shift #3: AI and Deep tech industries hiring didn’t slow down as much as software heavy industries like edtech and gaming.

Of course, if you were part of OpenAI or Nvidia during all of this, your equity grants are worth many times more than they were before, as their valuations skyrocketed.

Unsurprisingly, many of those laid off tech workers are starting new AI startups. As with all booms, many will go out of business, but more jobs giving workers valuable experience in the area are now available.

But, what about remote work?

Well, Zuck and other leaders have cited data showing that remote workers had worse performance than in-office workers, but smaller companies and startups were still hiring more and more out of state workers until just the past few months. Things will start to stabilize, and hybrid work with a few days in office is going to be the most common setup for the next cycle. But there are still many more remote-first companies today than there were 4 years ago and that will slowly increase over time, and hybrid is a big improvement over the 5 days per week norm in 2019.

Some Perspective

If you zoom out, we’re actually still near all time highs in compensation and jobs in tech. But people don’t think in absolutes, they only think about the loss because they set their lives up around the expectation of continued growth and stability.

So here are 5 lessons all tech employees should learn through all of this:

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#1 Play the long game

The tech industry is known for dramatic ups and downs

Look at Ethan's story. He faced a layoff during a tough time in the industry but bounced back stronger than ever, eventually becoming a VP at Amazon.

The tech industry is resilient, and even with AI shaking things up, there will always be opportunities for those who are adaptable and willing to learn.

Make career decisions with a long-term perspective

Pick a company where you will be happy even if the business or role doesn’t turn out well in a year or two. Make sure you’re getting skills and stories that will pay off long-term in your career.

#2 You don't need to run to AI or deep tech, it will come to you…but you should be prepared.

AI will eventually to make its way into most tech roles, so instead of only chasing after AI-specific jobs, focus on developing the skills and mindset to work effectively with AI when it does arrive in your domain.

There are countless articles and LinkedIn posts about what to do about this, but I’ll try to keep it simple.

A good rule of thumb is to either:

• stay close to the deep tech

• or stay close to the money.

And if you are in a technical role, either:

• get deeper into the technical areas of AI and other deep tech

• or learn to work and speak product and business.

#3 Hustle hard in your job search

The market is still tight right now, so apply at high volume with more prep and more personal outreach for referrals. With open tech jobs dropping by 2/3 and new startup hires being slashed in half in 2023, the competition is fierce. To stand out, you need to be proactive.

Apply to a larger number of companies, tailor your applications, and leverage your network for referrals. It's going to take more effort, but it will pay off.

#4 Don't get blinded by startup equity.

1. During the recent downturn, many startup employees saw their equity become worthless.

2. In fact, only about 7% of Series C or later startups pay off much equity to employees.

3. And many startups are still overvaluing their equity in offer grants. When evaluating equity offers, carefully assess how the company is valuing the grant and take into account the possibility of lower valuation financing rounds.

#5 The grass isn't always greener.

Jumping to a startup can be tempting, but remember that equity might not be worth much, and startups have laid off more people than established companies like Google in recent times. Many startups are still figuring out how to treat employees well. On the flip side, jumping to big tech isn't a guarantee of stability anymore. Make career moves based on a holistic assessment of growth opportunities, learning potential, and culture fit, not just hype or prestige.

And what about AI eliminating jobs?

AI is going to be used to increase productivity in tech workers - we have already seen Meta and Google building internal AI tools for coding and other functions. The layoffs we've seen recently weren't due to AI. Instead, AI's impact will be on longer-term hiring growth.

There are two counter-acting forces from AI on the tech job market's future:

1. AI will accelerate the economic and societal impact of tech once again, leading to more industry and job growth.

2. But AI will also make companies more efficient, no longer needing as many workers for the same output.

The net result is probably substantial growth in the tech industry. Many roles like customer support will be totally reinvented. Organizational and lower-level analytical, QA, and coding roles will likely be automated. However, new roles will also be created to fill in the gaps between human and AI capabilities.

Stay nimble, and remember that your career is measured in decades, not a single year.

And if you want more tips to find a job in this economy, subscribe.

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• 💼 Layoffs way down in March, but job growth normalizing, too

• 💸 5 Science-based Resume Tips

• 🔥 Company Power Rankings: Top Tech Tournament Round 1 Results 🥇

• 💼 Who’s Hiring?

• 💰 23 Top Paying Tech Roles

• ⏱️ IPO Watch

💼 Hiring Trends

🏀 The 3-Pointer

1. Layoffs to start March are much lower than Jan/Feb by this time of the month. We can predict layoffs to continue stalling until Q3/Q4, as co’s try to hit FY targets

   

2. Job openings were accelerating fast in Q1, but started to flatten this week

   

3. Meta and Google layoffs this month were <50 people each

💸 Get Hired

🧰 Job Search & Negotiation Tips

5 science-based resume tips (these are basic, but >75% of resumes I review from coaching clients miss most of them)

1. Show. Don’t tell.
   Show measurable achievements, not just responsibilities. Metrics make resumes 40% more likely to get interviews. Example: "Led the launch of 2 new pricing tiers that lifted signups by 75% by conducting customer pricing research." (Source: Austin Belcack's study of 125,484 resumes)

2. Be concise.
   Keeping resumes to 500-600 words and 1-2 pages. Resumes over 600 words are 43% less likely to get interviews. Example: Ethan Evans, former VP at Amazon with 30 years of experience, has a 2-page, 700-word resume. (Source: TalentWorks study of 6,000+ job applications)

3. Prioritize.
   Prioritize important info on the left and top of resume sections. Eye-tracking shows recruiters scan in an F-pattern, reading little. Example: Make company names left-aligned and bolded, and put most impactful bullets first in each section. (Source: The Ladders eye-tracking study)

4. Cut the fluff.
   Cut fluff like buzzwords, adverbs, pronouns, and subjective self-ratings. Demonstrate skills with examples instead. Example: Instead of "Successfully implemented X software", use "Implemented X software, resulting in 95% daily usage by the support team." (Source: Hiring managers and recruiters)

5. Use (the right amount) of job keywords.
   Use relevant keywords from job descriptions. Matching 50%+ of keywords improves chances by 59%. Example: Move keywords from the top of resumes down to a skills section at the bottom, embedded in job bullet points, or a technologies bullet under key roles. (Source: Rahul Pandey, ex-Meta Lead Engineer & TalentWorks study of 6,000+ job applications)

📈 Company Power Rankings

🏅Top Tech Tournament 2024 - Round 1 Results

AI:
1. OpenAI defeated Anthropic, 80.7% to 19.3%
2. Google DeepMind defeated Hugging Face, 62% to 38%
3. Mistral AI defeated Inflection AI, 78.4% to 21.6%
4. Anduril Industries defeated Scale AI, 55% to 45%

Fintech:
5. Stripe defeated Plaid, 71.7% to 28.3%
6. Coinbase defeated Robinhood, 61.9% to 38.1%
7. Brex defeated Klarna, 50% to 50% (Brex advanced on LI/Blind votes)

Creative:
8. Canva defeated Adobe, 52.5% to 47.5%

Microchips/Silicon:
9. NVIDIA defeated Arm, 90.9% to 9.1%
10. AMD defeated Intel Corporation, 74.4% to 25.6%

Data:
11. Databricks defeated Snowflake, 58.5% to 41.5%

DevTools:
12. GitHub defeated GitLab, 84.6% to 15.4%

Elon:
13. Tesla defeated The Boring Company, 92.1% to 7.9%
14. Neuralink defeated xAI, 58.8% to 41.2%

No Code:
15. Notion defeated Airtable, 68.4% to 31.6%
16. Webflow defeated Zapier, 55.2% to 44.8%

Entertainment:
17. Netflix defeated Spotify, 82.5% to 17.5%

E-Commerce:
18. Shopify defeated SHEIN, 89.5% to 10.5%

Gaming:
19. Epic Games defeated Electronic Arts, 76.5% to 23.5%
20. Roblox defeated Niantic, 81.6% to 18.4%

Marketplaces:
21. DoorDash defeated Instacart, 72.2% to 27.8%
22. Airbnb defeated Uber, 68.3% to 31.7%
23. CloudKitchens defeated Faire, 54.8% to 45.2%

Space:
24. SpaceX defeated Blue Origin, 80% to 20%

Self-Driving Cars:
25. Nuro defeated Pony ai, 86.2% to 13.8%
26. Waymo (Alphabet) defeated Cruise (GM), 83.3% to 16.7%

Social Media:
27. TikTok (Bytedance) defeated Snap, 66.7% to 33.3%
28. Meta defeated Reddit, 89.2% to 10.8%
29. LinkedIn (Microsoft) defeated X (Twitter), 81.8% to 18.2%
30. YouTube (Alphabet) defeated Twitch (Amazon), 82.9% to 17.1%

Trillion Tech:
31. Apple defeated Microsoft, 66.7% to 33.3%
32. Google defeated Amazon, 70.6% to 29.4%

Vote for Round 2 at TopTechTournament com

Now it's time to take action…
Here are this week's company power rankings, so go start those reach-outs!

Legend:

💸 Pays top of market

💰 Pays competitively

🔥 Heating Up

Tip: Consider these as targets

1. Epic Games: Apple has reinstated Epic's developer account after previously canceling it due to the companies' ongoing feud. This move signals a potential thawing of relations between the two tech giants.

2. Reddit: The social media platform's closely watched public debut on the NYSE is generating buzz, with some speculating it could mark the return of the "junk stock IPO," while others are optimistic about its staying power.

💵 Raised Funds This Week

Tip: Should be hiring soon. Reach out to hiring managers before they even post the jobs

• Axonius (New York): $200M Series E at $2.6B valuation. Cybersecurity for connected devices.

• Dtex Systems (San Jose, CA): $50M Series E at $400M+ valuation. Insider threat detection using machine learning.

• RapidSOS (New York): $75M Series D extension. AI for emergency response.

• Overjet (Boston, MA): $53.2M funding. AI for dental diagnosis.

• Ema (San Francisco): $25M funding. AI to automate tasks across job functions.

• Harness Wealth (New York): $17M Series A extension. Financial and tax advice for startup founders/employees.

☁️ Proceed with Caution

1. Worldcoin: The crypto startup known for scanning users' eyeballs has been banned in Spain for three months due to privacy concerns, indicating potential regulatory hurdles and public backlash.

2. Tesla: The electric car maker's only factory in Europe suffered over $1 billion in damages from an attack by eco-terrorists, highlighting the company's vulnerability to sabotage and the challenges of operating in politically charged environments.

3. Terraform Labs: Despite a Montenegro court once again canceling the extradition of disgraced co-founder Do Kwon to the U.S., the company remains mired in legal troubles and faces an uncertain future.

🚀 Who's Hiring

Companies posting new roles this week

• Anduril (surveillance and defense systems) 🦄

  • Many software engineer, mission software engineer, and modeling & simulation roles

  • Valuation: $8B, total funding: $2.2B

  • Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Thrive Capital

• Coinbase (cryptocurrency exchange) 🌎

  • Backend, frontend, site reliability engineer roles

  • Public company, valuation: $49B

  • Remote roles in USA and Canada

• Databricks (data analytics) 🦄

  • Many software engineer and machine learning engineer roles

  • Valuation: $43B, total funding: $4.0B, on IPO watchlist

  • Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Insight Partners, Battery Ventures

• Abnormal Security (email security) 🦄

  • Backend, machine learning, site reliability engineer roles

  • Valuation: $4B, total funding: $284M

  • Backed by Greylock Partners, Insight Partners, layoff 12 months ago

• Scale (AI training data) 🦄

  • Software engineer, applied AI, machine learning research roles

  • Valuation: $7B, total funding: $603M

  • Backed by Accel Partners, Founders Fund, Index Ventures, Y Combinator, Thrive Capital

• Samsara (IoT solutions)

  • Senior software engineer, machine learning, security roles

  • Public company, valuation: $19B

  • Remote roles in US and Canada

• Astera Labs (fabless semiconductor) 🦄

  • Verification, product, cloud infrastructure engineer roles

  • Valuation: $3B, total funding: $206M, on IPO watchlist

• OneTrust (privacy management) 🦄

  • Software engineer, quality engineer, AI/ML roles

  • Valuation: $5B, total funding: $1.1B

  • Flagged for bottom 10% employee happiness

• CrowdStrike (cybersecurity)

  • Software engineer, UI engineer, intern roles

  • Public company, valuation: $78B

  • 100% remote roles in USA

• Stripe (payments) 🦄 🌎

  • Software engineer, edge and security roles

  • Valuation: $50B, total funding: $8.7B

  • Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Union Square Ventures

  • Layoff 9 months ago

• Discord (chat application) 🦄

  • Software engineer, ML, design, infrastructure roles

  • Valuation: $15B, total funding: $995M

  • Backed by Accel Partners, Benchmark, General Catalyst, Greylock Partners, Index Ventures

  • Layoff 2 months ago

• Uber (ridesharing)

  • Senior software engineer, AI, cyber defense roles

  • Public company, valuation: $165B

  • Layoff 1 month ago

• Anthropic (AI systems) 🦄

  • Research prompt engineer role

  • Valuation: $4B, total funding: $3.3B

• Chime (online banking) 🦄

  • Software engineer, machine learning roles

  • Valuation: $25B, total funding: $2.3B

  • Backed by Sequoia Capital

• Rippling (HR software) 🦄

  • Fullstack and machine learning engineer roles

  • Valuation: $11B, total funding: $1.2B

  • Backed by Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, Kleiner Perkins

Copy

Top 23 Highest Paying Roles In The US

Here's a bullet point list format for all 23 tech jobs, ranked and with key compensation details:

These are median, top 25%, and top 10% compensation levels across all levels for all of the US, so they may be higher or lower depending on region and data availability.

• #23 Customer Service Representative

  • Median Compensation: $70,000

  • Notes: Most distributed role, highly remote-friendly.

• #22 Business Analyst

  • Median Compensation: $109,000

  • Top 10% Compensation: Over $180,000

• #21 IT Specialist

  • Median Compensation: $114,000

  • Top Compensation: Over $200,000 for managers

• #20 Technical Writer

  • Median Compensation: $133,000

• #19 Security Analyst

  • Median Compensation: $135,000

  • Top Compensation: Over $200,000 at senior levels

• #18 QA Tester (Software Development and Engineering Tester)

  • Median Compensation: $139,000

  • Top Compensation: Over $200,000 at senior levels

• #17 Recruiter

  • Median Compensation: $139,000

  • Top Compensation: Over $200,000 for manager levels

• #16 Project Manager

  • Median Compensation: $139,000

  • Top Compensation: Over $200,000 at top companies

• #15 DevOps Engineer

  • Median Compensation: $150,000

  • Top 25% Compensation: Over $200,000, with top levels reaching over $250,000

• #14 Marketer

  • Median Compensation: $157,000

  • Top Compensation: Over $200,000, potentially up to $300,000 for high-level positions

• #13 Sales Manager

  • Median Compensation: $160,000

  • Top 10% Compensation: At least $320,000

• #12 Product Designer

  • Median Compensation: $154,000

  • Top 25% Compensation: Over $200,000, with senior levels nearing $300,000-$400,000

• #11 Data Scientist

  • Median Compensation: $162,000

  • Top 25% Compensation: Over $218,000, with top roles at $300,000-$400,000

• #10 Program Manager

  • Median Compensation: $178,000

  • Top 10% Compensation: Over $300,000

• #9 Solution Architect

  • Median Compensation: $195,000

  • Top 10% Compensation: Over $300,000

• #8 Sales Engineer

  • Median Compensation: $200,000

  • Top 10% Compensation: Over $300,000, with potential payouts of $400,000-$500,000

• #7 Product Manager

  • Median Compensation: $202,000

  • Top 25% Compensation: Over $270,000; Top 10% over $300,000

• #6 Technical Program Manager

  • Median Compensation: $220,000

  • Top 25% Compensation: Over $300,000; Top 10% over $375,000

• #5 Data Science Manager

  • Median Compensation: $235,000

  • Top 10% Compensation: Over $400,000

• #4 Product Design Manager

  • Median Compensation: $242,000

  • Top 25% Compensation: Over $350,000; Top 10% over $490,000

• #3 Software Engineer

  • Median Compensation: $173,000

  • Top 10% Compensation: Over $350,000, with potential in big tech to reach $400,000-$600,000

• #2 AI Engineer

  • Median Compensation: $250,000

  • Top 10% Compensation: Over $460,000; specific roles at OpenAI at $950,000

• #1 Software Engineering Manager

  • Median Compensation: $300,000

  • Top 25% Compensation: Over $430,000; Top 10% over $581,000. Directors at places like Meta exceed $1.5 million.

🕒 IPO Watch

🟢 Promising

• Circle - Major USDC stablecoin developer confidentially filed for IPO

• Shein - Chinese fast fashion giant seeking approval for US IPO, but Beijing investigating

• Zeekr - Chinese electric vehicle company planning 2024 IPO

• Reddit - Social media community platform planning March or April IPO, but could push

• Rubrik - Data management and security company pushed back plans to Spring 2024 or later

• SeatGeek - Sports/concert ticket marketplace filed for IPO in April 2023, expected in 2024

• Turo - Car-sharing startup has delayed IPO plans a few times, but could go public in 2024

🟡 Still waiting

• High-paying 💸 Databricks, 💸 Plaid, and 💸 Stripe have all not yet revealed IPO plans

• Unfortunately, 💸 Databricks, SpaceX, and 💸 Stripe have all allowed employees to sell shares to investors recently to delay the need for an IPO

• Navan, Fanatics, and Klarna have all been quieter after earlier IPO speculation

📈 Recent IPOs:

• Oddity Direct-to-consumer beauty brand

• Arm England-based chip designer

• Klaviyo Marketing automation platform

• Instacart Grocery delivery

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024

64 Tech Companies Go Head-to-Head To Find The Top Tech Company To Join In 2024…

Start Voting

1. Vote at the end of this issue for the 32 Round 1 matches across divisions such as AI, Fintech, Space, etc.

2. Check results and vote for future rounds at TopTechTournament.com

3. See all the details below and comment with any companies we missed!

Here we go…

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💼 Hiring Trends

🏀 The 3-Pointer

1. Nearly 4k layoffs the last week of February

2. But job openings growth continues with +6,400 job openings last month

3. The trend is real, but hopefully slowing. From 2022 to early 2024, U.S. tech sector layoffs surged from over 93k to more than 191k, with 30k in 2024 so far

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024.

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=💸 Get Hired

🧰 Job Search & Negotiation Tips

Tip: Leverage AI to automate your job search

1. *Oops! Sonara shut down in recent weeks. Similar, but not as automated solutions using AI include Teal and LazyApply. Automated job applications are probably not ready for prime time anyway!

2. Use Careerflow.ai to automate job tracking and optimize your LinkedIn/resume

3. Use Prospect and TrueUp to find tech jobs based on your resume

📈 Company Power Rankings

Now it's time to take action…
Here are this week's company power rankings, so go start those reach-outs!

Legend:

💸 Pays top of market

💰 Pays competitively

🔥 Heating Up

Tip: Consider these as targets

• xAI - Elon’s AI co. aiming for $20 billion valuation in upcoming funding round

• Anthropic - AI company released Claude 3 models to its popular chat bots (note: used in the making of this newsletter)

• Mistral - The well-funded Paris AI startup has launched a competing product to OpenAI's ChatGPT and struck a partnership with Microsoft. This could position Mistral as a key player in the rapidly growing AI market.

• Reddit - Planning IPO at $6.5 billion valuation

• Stripe - Payment giant offered employees a tender offer to sell their shares at $65 billion valuation (down from $95B), though this could mean IPO is further off

• Waymo - The self-driving car company received approval to operate robotaxis in the San Francisco peninsula, Los Angeles, and on San Francisco freeways

💵 Raised Funds This Week

Tip: Should be hiring soon. Reach out to hiring managers before they even post the jobs

1. Abridge - Raised $150M Series C for AI-powered clinical notes (Pittsburgh) | Lightspeed, Redpoint Ventures

2. Fervo Energy - Raising $221M for advanced geothermal drilling technologies (Houston) | Notable investors: Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Masayoshi Son

3. FogPharma - Raised $145M Series E for cancer drugs combining small molecules and biologics (Cambridge, MA)

4. Figure - Raised $675M Series B at $2.6B post-money valuation for humanoid robots with AI (Sunnyvale, CA) | Microsoft, OpenAI Startup Fund, Nvidia

5. Kenai Therapeutics - Raised $82M Series A for cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases (San Diego)

6. Glean - Raised $200M Series D at $2.2B valuation for AI-powered workplace search (Palo Alto) | Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners

7. Intenseye - Raised $64M Series B at $90M+ total funding for workplace safety monitoring (New York) | Lightspeed Venture Partners

8. Inkitt - Raised $37M Series C at $117M total funding for AI-powered story publishing platform (San Francisco) | Khosla Ventures

☁️ Proceed with Caution

• Apple canceled its self-driving car project and will likely lay off staff and move some staff to AI units, limiting open roles

• Gaming layoffs: Supermassive, Sony Playstation and EA - Gaming companies laid off employees (25%, 8%, 5%)

• Expedia laid off 8%

• Bumble - The public dating app company laid off 350 or 30% of its company

🚀 Vote (or apply): 64 Top Tech Tournament Companies

AI Division

• OpenAI: Private, $29.0B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, https://www.joinprospect.com/company/openai, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/OpenAI, https://trueup.io/co/OpenAI

• Anthropic: Private, $4.4B Valuation, https://www.joinprospect.com/company/anthropic, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Anthropic, https://trueup.io/co/Anthropic

• DeepMind: Public, $66B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Deepmind, https://trueup.io/co/Deepmind

• Hugging Face: Private, $4.5B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Hugging-Face, https://trueup.io/co/Hugging-Face

• Inflection AI: Private, $4.0B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Inflection-AI, https://trueup.io/co/Inflection-AI

• Mistral AI: Private, $2.0B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Mistral-AI, https://trueup.io/co/Mistral-AI

• Anduril: Private, $8.5B Valuation, 3x Growth Potential, https://www.joinprospect.com/company/anduril, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Anduril, https://trueup.io/co/Anduril

• Scale AI: Private, $7.3B Valuation, 2x Growth Potential, https://www.joinprospect.com/company/scaleai, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Scale-AI, https://trueup.io/co/Scale-AI

Big Fintech Division

• Stripe: Private, $50.0B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, https://www.joinprospect.com/company/stripe, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Stripe, https://trueup.io/co/Stripe

• Plaid: Private, $13.5B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Plaid, https://trueup.io/co/Plaid

• Coinbase: Public, $39.6B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Coinbase, https://trueup.io/co/Coinbase

• Robinhood: Public, $14B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Robinhood, https://trueup.io/co/Robinhood

• Klarna: Private, $6B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Klarna, https://trueup.io/co/Klarna

• Brex: Private, $12.3B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Brex, https://trueup.io/co/Brex

Creative Software Division

• Adobe: Public, $267B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Adobe, https://trueup.io/co/Adobe

• Canva: Private, $25.4B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Canva, https://trueup.io/co/Canva

Chips Division

• NVIDIA: Public, $1.98T Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/NVIDIA, https://trueup.io/co/NVIDIA

• Arm: Public, $137B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Arm, https://trueup.io/co/Arm

• AMD: Public, $286B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/AMD, https://trueup.io/co/AMD

• Intel: Public, $181B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Intel, https://trueup.io/co/Intel

Big Data Analytics Division

• Snowflake: Public, $76.5B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Snowflake, https://trueup.io/co/Snowflake

• Databricks: Private, $43.0B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Databricks, https://trueup.io/co/Databricks

Developer Tools Division

• GitHub: Public, $3T Valuation (part of Microsoft), https://www.levels.fyi/companies/GitHub, https://trueup.io/co/GitHub

• GitLab: Private, $12B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/GitLab, https://trueup.io/co/GitLab

ElonTech Division

• Tesla: Public, $628B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Tesla, https://trueup.io/co/Tesla

• Boring Company: Private, $5.7B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Boring-Company, https://trueup.io/co/Boring-Company

• Neuralink: Private, $5.0B Valuation, 2x Growth Potential, https://www.joinprospect.com/company/neuralink, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Neuralink, https://trueup.io/co/Neuralink

• xAI: Private, Valuation ~$20B, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/xAI, https://trueup.io/co/xAI

No Code Division

• Notion: Private, $10B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Notion, https://trueup.io/co/Notion

• Airtable: Private, $12B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Airtable, https://trueup.io/co/Airtable

• Webflow: Private, $4.0B Valuation, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Webflow, https://trueup.io/co/Webflow

• Zapier: Private, $4.0B Valuation, 2x Growth Potential, https://www.joinprospect.com/company/zapier, https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Zapier, https://trueup.io/co/Zapier

Entertainment Division

• Netflix: Public, $257B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Netflix, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Netflix

• Spotify: Public, $50B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Spotify, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Spotify

E-commerce Division

• SHEIN: Private, $66B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/SHEIN, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/SHEIN

• Shopify: Public, $107B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Shopify, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Shopify

Gaming Division

• Electronic Arts: Public, $39B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Electronic-Arts, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Electronic-Arts

• Epic Games: Private, $32B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Epic-Games, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Epic-Games

• Roblox: Public, $28B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Roblox, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Roblox

• Niantic: Private, $9.0B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Niantic, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Niantic

Marketplaces Division

• Instacart: Public, $7.3B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Instacart, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Instacart

• DoorDash: Public, $50B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/DoorDash, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/DoorDash

• Uber: Public, $167B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Uber, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Uber

• Airbnb: Public, $101B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Airbnb, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Airbnb

Space Division

• SpaceX: Private, $150B Valuation, 2x Growth Potential, JoinProspect: https://www.joinprospect.com/company/spacex, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/SpaceX, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/SpaceX

• Blue Origin: Private, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Blue-Origin, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Blue-Origin

Self-Driving Cars Division

• Nuro: Private, $8.6B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Nuro, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Nuro

• Pony.ai: Private, $8.6B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Pony.ai, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Pony.ai

• Cruise (GM): Private, $30B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Cruise-(GM), Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Cruise

• Waymo (Alphabet): Private, $30B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Waymo-(Alphabet), Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Waymo

Social Media Division

• TikTok (Bytedance): Private, $225.0B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/TikTok-(Bytedance), Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/TikTok

• Snap: Public, $19B Valuation, Top 50 Highest Paying, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Snap, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Snap

• Meta: Public, $1.24T Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Meta, Trueup: httpshttps://trueup.io/co/Meta

• Reddit: Private, $10B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Reddit, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Reddit

• X (Twitter): Private, $19B Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/X-(Twitter), Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/twitter

• LinkedIn: Public, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/LinkedIn, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/LinkedIn

• Twitch: Public, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Twitch, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Twitch

• YouTube: Public, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/YouTube, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/YouTube

Trillion Tech Division

• Apple: Public, $2.84T Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Apple, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Apple

• Microsoft: Public, $3T Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Microsoft, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Microsoft

• Google: Public, $1.78T Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Google, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Google

• Amazon: Public, $1.76T Valuation, Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/Amazon, Trueup: https://trueup.io/co/Amazon

🕒 IPO Watch

🟢 Promising

• Reddit - Social media community platform filed for IPO at $6.5 billion valuation

• Shein - Changing to the London Stock Exchange? Chinese fast fashion giant may avoid SEC rejection by moving to the UK-based exchange for IPO

• Navan - Corporate travel management company formerly known as TripActions; on IPO watchlist

• Astera Labs - Fabless semiconductor company; on IPO watchlist

• Circle - Major USDC stablecoin developer confidentially filed for IPO

• Zeekr - Chinese electric vehicle company planning 2024 IPO

• Rubrik - Data management and security company pushed back plans to Spring 2024 or later

• SeatGeek - Sports/concert ticket marketplace filed for IPO in April 2023, expected in 2024

• Turo - Car-sharing startup delayed IPO a few times but could go public in 2024

🟡 Still waiting

• High-paying 💸 Databricks, 💸 Plaid, and 💸 Stripe all silent on IPO plans

• Now 💸 OpenAI has joined 💸 Databricks, SpaceX, and 💸 Stripe in allowing employees to sell shares to investors recently to delay the need for an IPO

• Navan, Fanatics, and Klarna have all been quieter after earlier IPO speculation

📈 Recent IPOs:

• 🔥 Arm (+89.65% since IPO!) England-based chip designer → Stock soared +48% in a single day this week!

• 📉 Klaviyo (-9.34%, but rebounding) Marketing automation platform

• 📉 Instacart (-11.33%, but rebounding) Grocery delivery

• Oddity (-13.17%) Direct-to-consumer beauty brand

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024

AI eyes on the big guys today…

1. Which MMANGA to join in AI boom?

2. Is front-loading stock vesting bad for employees/candidates?

3. How many job applications and outreaches do you need to land 6 offers?

Here we go…

Subscribe now

TECH COMPANY MARCH MADNESS

🏀 The 3-Pointer: AI’s Impact on MMANGA

1. Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley discussed the impact of AI on MMANGA: Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, and Amazon on their Bg2 Pod
   Bg2 is #1 in my top 5 podcasts for understanding macro trends in tech

2. I summarized their assessment of each company below as 3-pointers

3. Surprisingly, net talent flows in January (hiring minus layoffs/departures) and stock trends map to the company ratings on riding the long-term AI wave

So what? If you think that e.g. Google is undervalued and Nvidia and Meta are overvalued in the 1-4 year horizon when your equity grant vests, that could affect your decision to join. If you believe in Nvidia long-term, you might take that risk anyway.

Nvidia - Winner 🏆
$NVDA: +64% YTD

• Nvidia poised to ride $2 trillion AI compute wave. Leading ecosystem hard to replicate. But boom/bust risks similar to Cisco’s in 2000 exist if adoption stalls.

• AI's ubiquitous nature makes growth more durable than past niche crypto boom/bust. But forecast misses likely amid demand/supply balance volatility, temporarily putting off some investors.

• Any major selloffs in the near-term ultimately will be buying opportunities. Inevitable incentives around AI productivity gains favor durable demand, whatever near-term turbulence or increase in competition.

Microsoft - Winner 🥇
$MSFT: +10% YTD

• Boosts all key businesses - Office, cloud, developers

• Copilot makes engineers 30% more productive

• All-in partnership with OpenAI cements leadership

Meta - Winner 🏅
$META: +39% YTD

• More engaging ads and content in apps via AI

• Pivoting hard into conversational commerce

• New platform for vertical AI chatbot businesses

Amazon - Neutral ◻️
$AMZN: +16% YTD

• Core retail gains slightly from better recommendations

• Fierce new AI-powered competition emerging

• AWS renting AI compute more than building new

Apple - Uncertain ◻️
$AAPL: -2% YTD

• Risks missing AI boom, but iPhones prime for disruption

• Depends if Apple gets serious enough about AI

• Could unlock phone as a service business model

Google/Alphabet - Loser 🔴
$GOOG: -0.5% YTD

• Search facing disruption from AI chatbots and an innovator’s dilemma

• Other biz units benefit somewhat from AI tech

• But over 80% of profits at risk, and the stock reflects this

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024.

Share

💰 Salary Spotlight

Is front-loading equity vesting in stock offers employee-friendly or slight of hand?

• DoorDash is the latest big tech company to join the trend of front-loading equity vesting schedules to make their first 1-2 years of total compensation on new job offers seem more competitive.

• This also limits the large amounts of equity compensation paid out if there is a stock run up before years 3-4 of an employee’s tenure.

• Google has been doing this for a couple of years, and they will now only match competing job offers on the boosted first-year total compensation, not the average of 4 years

Optimists say: Front-loaded equity is better since employees stay <2.3 years

Cynics say: This artificially inflates offers and deflates an employees income at a company over time if the company doesn’t make up for it with large equity refreshers.

What do you think?

What else would be valuable for your job search? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Leave a comment

💸 Get Hired

🧰 Job Search & Negotiation Tips

Tip: Data suggests that today’s job search is a QUANTITY AND QUALITY game.

1. 0.6% of applications led to an offer based on 12 candidates with <5 years of experience who tracked their job search funnel

2. There is a consistent 6-7% application-to-round 1 interview rate. This included roughly 70% online application forms and 30% warm and cold outreach for intros.

3. 50% of offers come from companies where they have connections where they had a much higher conversion rate at each stage, but some of the accepted (and better) offers came from cold outreach.

   

So what?

1. You need to do warm, 2nd degree, and cold outreach via email and LinkedIn at high volumes AND tailored — but split to 3 tiers 70/20/10 for level of effort.

2. You also need to cold apply if you do not get quick responses. This makes your resume still very important for getting interviews, but the resume is also critical all the way up until the hiring decision.

3. If you apply cold online, don’t stop there. Continue to try to find an intro internally who can flag you to the hiring manager or recruiter.

   PS: These candidates came to me for negotiation coaching when they were near offer stage, which was too late for me to help expedite their job search and after they missed some important opportunities to increase leverage for negotiating.

📈 Company Power Rankings

Now it's time to take action…
Here are this week's company power rankings, so go start those reach-outs!

Legend:

💸 Pays top of market

💰 Pays competitively

🔥 Heating Up

Tip: Consider these as targets

• Mistral launched a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT with a MSFT partnership

• Nvidia riding $22.1B quarterly revenue as demand for AI chips outstrips supply

• Reddit filed for IPO (see IPO Watch below) and offering shares to contributors

• OpenAI let employees sell PPUs (like shares) at $86B valuation (10x for some)

💵 Raised Funds This Week

Tip: Should be hiring soon. Reach out to hiring managers before they even post the jobs

• Antora Energy (Sunnyvale, CA) - Thermal battery startup raised $150M Series B led by Decarbonization Partners

• EigenLayer (Seattle, WA) - Crypto startup raised $100M from Andreessen Horowitz

• Abridge (Pittsburgh, PA) - AI patient-doctor notes platform raises $150M Series C

• Fabric (New York, NY) - Healthtech startup raised $60M Series A led by General Catalyst

• Crisp (New York, NY) - Retail data startup raised $20M Series B extension from Blue Cloud Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Spring Capital and others

• Synadia (San Mateo, CA) - Cloud startup raised $25M Series B led by Forgepoint Capital

• Carewell (Miami, FL) - Online caregiver retailer raised $24.7M Series B led by MBF Healthcare

• Dub (New York, NY) - Investment copying platform raised $17M seed round led by Tusk Venture Partners

• Recogni (San Jose, CA) - AI hardware startup raised $102M Series C co-led by Celesta Capital and GreatPoint Ventures

• Magic AI (San Francisco, CA) - Software engineer AI assistant raised $117M

• Clumio (Santa Clara, CA) - Cloud data protection company raised $75M Series D led by Sutter Hill Ventures

• Oula (Brooklyn, NY) - Maternity care startup raised $28M Series B co-led by Revolution Ventures and Maverick Ventures

• PermitFlow (San Jose, CA) - Construction permitting software startup raised $31M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins

• Monzo (London, UK) - Challenger bank startup raised up to £350M at $4B valuation target

• Moonshot AI (Beijing, China) - Generative AI startup raised $1B from Alibaba and HongShan at $2.5B valuation

☁️ Proceed with Caution

• Klarna - Board of Directors drama with a failed attempt by Sequoia Capital to oust former Sequoia partner Michael Moritz from the board. Valuation has gone from $46B to $7.6B in recent years.

• Rivian - Laid off 10% of staff

• Lucid Motors - Only building 10% of predicted 90,000 EVs in 2024

🚀 Who's Hiring

Don’t narrow your search too much!
New jobs posted this past week (trueup.io):

• Public 5,352

  Private 4,972

• >$100B 2,106
  <$5B 2,239

• B2B 6,724
  B2C 3,170

Companies posting new roles this week…

• 💸 Stripe - https://trueup.io/co/Stripe - Unicorn • 8,000 employees • 353 open jobs

• Zero Hash - https://trueup.io/co/Zero-Hash - Early-stage startup • 180 employees • 6 open jobs

• Blue Origin - https://trueup.io/co/Blue-Origin - 9,000 employees • 1,391 open jobs

• GitLab - https://trueup.io/co/GitLab - Public • 2,000 employees • 127 open jobs

• Mattermost - https://trueup.io/co/Mattermost - 160 employees • 30 open jobs

• TikTok - https://trueup.io/co/TikTok - 50K employees • 3,000 open jobs

• Ocado - https://trueup.io/co/Ocado - 320 employees • 141 open jobs

• Helm - https://trueup.io/co/Helm - Early-stage startup • 80 employees

• PhonePe - https://trueup.io/co/PhonePe - Unicorn • 10K empl. • 128 open jobs

• Cato Networks - https://trueup.io/co/Cato-Networks - Unicorn • 800 employees

• Imagen - https://trueup.io/co/Imagen - Early-stage startup • 120 employees • 7 open jobs

• Zscaler - https://trueup.io/co/Zscaler - Public • 6,000 employees • 707 open jobs

• LaunchDarkly - https://trueup.io/co/LaunchDarkly - Unicorn • 500 employees • 17 open jobs

• Tower Research - https://trueup.io/co/Tower-Research - 1,100 employees • 55 open jobs

Who Pays Recruiters The Most?
💸 Top 50 Highest Paying Companies (Full List: Levels.FYI, Recruiter)
Reminder to be good to your recruiters…Laid off first. Paid last.

🕒 IPO Watch

🟢 Promising

• Reddit - Social media community platform planning March or April IPO, but could push

• Shein - Changing to the London Stock Exchange? Chinese fast fashion giant may avoid SEC rejection by moving to the UK-based exchange for IPO

• Navan - Corporate travel management company formerly known as TripActions; on IPO watchlist

• Astera Labs - Fabless semiconductor company; on IPO watchlist

• Circle - Major USDC stablecoin developer confidentially filed for IPO

• Zeekr - Chinese electric vehicle company planning 2024 IPO

• Rubrik - Data management and security company pushed back plans to Spring 2024 or later

• SeatGeek - Sports/concert ticket marketplace filed for IPO in April 2023, expected in 2024

• Turo - Car-sharing startup delayed IPO a few times but could go public in 2024

🟡 Still waiting

• High-paying 💸 Databricks, 💸 Plaid, and 💸 Stripe all silent on IPO plans

• Now 💸 OpenAI has joined 💸 Databricks, SpaceX, and 💸 Stripe in allowing employees to sell shares to investors recently to delay the need for an IPO

• Navan, Fanatics, and Klarna have all been quieter after earlier IPO speculation

📈 Recent IPOs:

• Oddity Direct-to-consumer beauty brand

• Arm England-based chip designer

• Klaviyo Marketing automation platform

• Instacart Grocery delivery

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024

1. 📈 Tech jobs are up +25% from Feb ‘23 low and accelerating

2. 🥳🤝 My bday was in VR, but I’ll help you IRL with a script to request referrals

3. 🏝️ Let’s get you a remote job or referral this week

Here we go…

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📋 Table of Contents

💼 Hiring Trends

• Open jobs at tech companies are up +25.3% since the low last February, and the NASDAQ is up +37.3%, so we’re due for even more…right?

💸 Take action. Get Hired.

• 💸 Tip: How to ask for a referral?

• 🔥 Company Power Rankings: Hot & Recently-funded

• 💼 Who’s Hiring? 25 Remote-first companies hiring today

• ⏱️ IPO Watch: Track who is and isn’t going public in 2024

💼 Hiring Trends

🏀 The 3-Pointer

1. Tech job openings grew +10% in the last 30 days, the fastest rate since early 2022.

   • We predicted despite mass layoffs, tech leaders were hoping to hire more

   • That is starting to come true

2. Tech job openings grew +25.3% from their low a year ago
   …but not all sectors saw the same improvement
   % change in job openings year-over-year:

   1. 💳 Fintech: 🔻 Shrunk by -0.9% — e.g., FIS, Stripe

   2. 🧠 AI/ML: 🟢 Up by +62.9% — e.g., Nvidia, Databricks

   3. 🌌 GenAI: 🟢 Surged by +198.9% — e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face

   4. 🚘 Autonomous Vehicles: 🔻 Decreased -11.2% — e.g., Cruise, Zoox

   5. 🛍️ Marketplaces: 🟢 Increased +10.6%, really accelerating this year 🔥 — e.g., Uber, Doordash, Carvana, Shopee

   6. 📦 Direct-to-Consumer: 🔻 Down -11.4% — e.g., Peloton, Hellofresh, Stitch Fix

   7. 💰 Crypto: 🔻 Fell by -8.1% — e.g., OKX, Crypto.com, Binance, Coinbase

3. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, had something to say about Layoffs:

   It was obviously really tough…but in some ways actually becoming leaner kind of makes the company more effective.

Tech stocks grew +37.3%, and tech job openings also grew +25.3%…

…but the Magnificent 7 are soaring way higher than the Nasdaq

…and FAANG+ laid off many before and after that stock surge

🤞Let’s hope the jobs rally continues and the layoffs decline continues!

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024.

Share

💸 Get Hired

🧰 Job Search & Negotiation Tips: Script to Ask for Referrals 🤝

Tip: What works on me and I see working for others when asking for a referral…

a) Hook: Your headline or first line is catchy, relevant, and easy to understand.

Long-time Airbnb Superhost and Product Manager looking for a PM Lead role…

Tip: You may also use a shared background - same company, school, city, career switch.

b) Authority: Only your best foot forward. Big brand or impressive relevant win

Hey Amal,

I’m a PM at Upwork who scaled a talent marketplace product +62% in 2 years while also staying an Airbnb Superhost. I would love a chance to build at Airbnb.

c) Value: Provide some personalized value.

For them personally:

I also loved your LinkedIn post recently on experimenting for diversity. I left a comment on the post and think it would get a lot of engagement if you showed some of the data in a visual chart. I can design one up if you send me the data.

For their role:

I have a bunch of feedback on the platform and new features as I started growing after a plateau. Mind if I send them over or set up a quick chat to discuss them?

d) Follow-up: As a leader, I get busy. Don’t take silence as a “no.”

• You NEED to follow up to get my (or any manager’s) attention

• Email me, LinkedIn connect, InMail me, send a short follow-up

• Try something more impressive. Try to get a warm intro to me

I’m writing some deep dives on outreach and networking. What else would be valuable? Let me know by leaving a comment.

Leave a comment

💰 Salary Spotlight

I’m cooking up some quick ways to give you companies that pay well for your level and function, are hiring, and are generally good job search targets…

…more to come.

🎉 My Birthday Party was in VR 🥽

Inspired by the Apple Vision Pro release, 12 of us hit up Sandbox VR room in Seattle for my birthday to play a little Squid Games VR.

We can now see the future. It is both beautiful and terrifying…

📈 Company Power Rankings

Now it's time to take action…
Here are this week's company power rankings, so go start those reach-outs!

Legend:

💸 Pays top of market

💰 Pays competitively

🔥 Heating Up

Tip: Consider these as targets

• Coinbase - Posted first profit in 2 years causing shares to surge

• Nvidia - Surpassed Alphabet/Google to become the 3rd most valuable US company

• Apple - Opening $1b new campus in North Carolina to create 1000s of jobs

💵 Raised Funds This Week

Tip: Should be hiring soon. Reach out to hiring managers before they even post the jobs

• 🔥 Bugcrowd - $102M round for security vulnerability platform 💸

• 💰 Lambda - $320M for cloud computing at $1.5B valuation

• 💵 Lilac Solutions - $145M round for lithium extraction 💧

• 💰 Bold - $50M round for Colombia fintech 💸

• 👀 Higharc - $53M Series B for home design software 🏠

• 💸 LeoLabs - $29M to track satellites 🛰️

• 💸 Scribe - $25M for process documentation 📝

• 🔥 Alembic - $14M for marketing analytics 📈

• 💵 Clarity - $16M for deepfake detection 🚨

• 👀 Duetti - $15M+$75M debt for music licensing 🎵

• 💰 Flower Labs - $20M for federated learning 🤖

☁️ Proceed with Caution

• Cisco laid off 4250 this week

• Toast laid off 550 this week

• Instacart laid off 250

🚀 Who's Hiring

Companies posting new roles this week

🏡 25 Remote-first Companies Who Are Hiring and Pay Well

🏢 - Remote-first or friendly, 🌍 - Fully distributed, 💵 - Pays the same everywhere

1. CrowdStrike (346 jobs): 🏢 - Cybersecurity

2. Atlassian (345 jobs): 🏢 - Business collaboration software

3. Remote (136 jobs): 🌍 - HR for distributed teams

4. GitLab (127 jobs): 🌍 - DevOps tools

5. Block (Square) (125 jobs): 🏢 - Payment and point-of-sale solutions

6. Affirm (111 jobs): - Consumer installment loans

7. Coinbase (106 jobs): 🏢 - Cryptocurrency exchange

8. Mozilla (85 jobs): 🏢 - Firefox browser and other internet apps

9. Chainlink Labs (85 jobs): 🏢 - Smart contracts

10. Twilio (81 jobs): 🏢 - Cloud communication APIs

11. Insightsoftware (65 jobs): 🏢 - Financial reporting software

12. Stripe (64 jobs): 🏢 - Payments infrastructure

13. Grafana (62 jobs): 🏢 - Open source analytics & monitoring

14. Autodesk (61 jobs): 🏢 - CAD software

15. Reddit (59 jobs): 🏢 💵 - Online communities

16. Apollo.io (59 jobs): 🌍 - Sales intelligence

17. Cloudbees (55 jobs): 🏢 - Continuous deployment software

18. Dropbox (52 jobs): 🏢 - File storage

19. Wikimedia (52 jobs): 🏢 - Runs Wikipedia

20. GitHub (52 jobs): 🌍 - Git version control

21. Cribl (48 jobs): 🏢 - Data management and access

22. Zillow (48 jobs): 💵 - Real estate marketplace

23. 1Password (47 jobs): 🏢 - Password manager

24. Shopify (44 jobs):🏢 - E-commerce platform

25. Salesforce (42 jobs): 🏢 - SaaS business applications

BONUS: Webflow (13 jobs): 🌍 💵 - Website design and hosting

Start Survey

🕒 IPO Watch

🟢 Promising

• 💸 Plaid has a new President, possibly hinting at IPO plans

• Reddit hasn't released its public IPO filing yet, but Bloomberg reports that the social networking site did $800 million in revenue in 2023, a 20% jump over 2022.

• Circle - Major USDC stablecoin developer confidentially filed for IPO

• Shein - Chinese fast fashion giant seeking approval for US IPO, but Beijing investigating

• Zeekr - Chinese electric vehicle company planning 2024 IPO

• Rubrik - Data management and security company pushed back plans to Spring 2024 or later

• SeatGeek - Sports/concert ticket marketplace filed for IPO in April 2023, expected in 2024

• Turo - Car-sharing startup has delayed IPO plans a few times, but could go public in 2024

🟡 Still waiting

• Unfortunately, 💸 Databricks, SpaceX, and 💸 Stripe have all allowed employees to sell shares to investors recently to delay the need for an IPO

• Navan, Fanatics, and Klarna have all been quieter after earlier IPO speculation

📈 Recent IPOs:

• 🔥 Arm (+89.65% since IPO!) England-based chip designer → Stock soared +48% in a single day this week!

• 📉 Klaviyo (-9.34%, but rebounding) Marketing automation platform

• 📉 Instacart (-11.33%, but rebounding) Grocery delivery

• Oddity (-13.17%) Direct-to-consumer beauty brand

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024

Weekly inspiration…

Laid off with a new baby to VP at Amazon…

From Ethan Evans, former VP of Engineering at Amazon (on LinkedIn)…

The layoffs are getting bad. In 2003, three days after returning from adopting my daughter in China, I was laid off. My wife had left her job to be at home with our new child. We had gone from two incomes and no kids just months prior to no incomes with an infant.

Obviously, we were afraid. We were early in our careers and we had little savings. If you are in a similar situation, it is okay to be afraid. Here is what we did: job hunting became my full time work. Every day I applied for jobs and I networked with anyone I could.

We reduced expenses and did the math on when the 401k would all be gone, the credit cards would be maxed out, and the checks would start to bounce. I began reading books whenever I was not job hunting to improve my skills. I learned SQL in this process.

It took me three months to find a job, a bad job that required a move. But it worked out. My daughter turns 20 in a few days and as you know I eventually ended up at Amazon. This was long before "paternity leave" was a thing, but I spent the first three months of our lives with our daughter at home with her every day.

You can get through this!

Focus, cut expenses, and work as hard at job hunting as you did at "work."

📈 This week:

1. Chip manufacturing and AI industries getting red hot, but VCs are scared of inflated valuations among the smaller startups

2. Learn how to outreach to land interviews (deep dive coming soon)

3. Should you join a startup? We talk to a 30-year startup veteran.

4. Big tech stocks and revenues surge amidst layoffs…what does it mean?

5. [Video] Feeling stuck in your current role? This separates the top 10% tech careers

Subscribe now

💸 Take action. Get Hired.

• 💸 Tips: 3 Tips This Week!

  • Don’t work at a startup? (guest post)

  • How to do outreach to get interviews

  • What to do if you’re feeling undervalues (video)

• 🔥 Company Power Rankings: See who’s heating up and cooling off

• 💼 Who’s Hiring? Companies posting new jobs this week

• 💰 Top Paying Companies: Product Manager top-payers this week

• ⏱️ IPO Watch: Track who is and isn’t going public in 2024

🏀 The 3-Pointer

1. AI and manufacturer stocks are through the roof, with Nvidia approaching Amazon’s market cap and Arm stock soaring +48% in a day.

2. OpenAI hit a $2B revenue run rate and plans to raise at $100B, but some investors/VCs didn’t buy their last share sale. VCs generally are afraid that most of the AI startups will fail under the weight of OpenAI and inflated valuations.

3. It is still a great time to join (some) AI companies, but if things shake out like every other new tech wave market bubble, only the top 5-10% of these companies will make it unscathed to the other side. Take the role to learn and grow, but be okay with losing out on equity if your company falls in the 90% that won’t support its inflated valuation.

Big Tech Stocks Soar

FAANG (or MAMAA or MANGA ??) stocks are mainly soaring lately. This won’t spur the hiring spree of 2021, but it should encourage healthy investment in mostly builder roles.

Nvidia is closing in on Amazon’s market cap…

And Arm, another chipmaker that recently IPO’d, grew +48% in a day on earnings

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hopes to raise $7 trillion (with a “T”) for a new AI chip venture.

What does this mean for the job search?

• Some speculate it could be oversupply with the AI funding boom. We saw this for chips during the Web3 crypto boom and then there was a drawback.

• It could just be the start of the hockey stick, but it would likely be a bumpy ride.

• If you look at the long trajectory, you should not bet against the big chipmakers. AI, autonomous vehicles, web3 (yes still), AR/XR and just general chip requirements will sustain this industry

• Sam Altman raising $7T for AI chips doesn’t scream “we’ve hit oversupply” yet

If you get a job at Nvidia or Arm, no one will blame you for snapping it up, even just for the exposure.

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024.

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💸 Get Hired

🧰 Job Search & Negotiation Tips

Triple tips today!

1. Should you join a startup in 2024?

A lot of laid-off FAANG employees are looking for greener grass in the startup world.

30-year startup veteran and author of The Startup Lottery: Your Guide To Navigating Risk And Reward, , wrote a guest post to help job seekers understand what they’re walking into when they join a startup over a public company.

I will also be interviewing Gus for a podcast episode, so comment with your questions!

2. How do you reach out to referrals, hiring managers, and recruiters?

I am currently writing a deep dive on how the best in the industry do cold and warm outreach to land interviews.

But here are 3 tips to start you off this week:

1. LinkedIn has tons of features to find connections (alumni, past employers, shared backgrounds, 1st/2nd degree) at target companies. Use them!

2. Use hunter.io to find work emails, write personalized short messages with low-effort asks, and follow up! The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

3. Don’t be afraid of hard work:

   1. Reach out to a large volume (50+ per week)

   2. Send personalized messages.
      If they don’t respond the first time, send one with some impressive work product or even do work for them (talk to customers, make a deck, build a model, test some things online, etc.). Make their lives easy.

This is just scratching the surface, so stay tuned for the deep dive.

Leave a comment with your questions or challenges networking for a job…

Leave a comment

3. Feeling underpaid, undervalued, and underappreciated? This engineer’s story may help…

📈 Company Power Rankings

Now it's time to take action…
Here are this week's company power rankings, so go start those reach-outs!

Legend:

💸 Pays top of market

💰 Pays competitively

🔥 Heating Up

Tip: Consider these as targets

1. 💸 OpenAI - Achieved a $2 billion run rate this past December, marking it as one of the fastest-growing startups ever.

2. 💰 Arm - Stock price surged 48% today on better-than-expected third-quarter earnings. SoftBank still owns 90% of the company's stock.

3. 💰Nvidia - Market cap may soon eclipse Amazon's

💵 Raised Funds This Week

Tip: Should be hiring soon. Reach out to hiring managers before they even post the jobs

• NinjaOne - IT system monitoring raised $231.5M at $1.9B valuation led by Iconiq Growth (Austin)

• Kin - home insurance raised $15M at $1B+ valuation led by Activate Capital (Chicago)

• Züm - electric school bus service raised $140M led by GIC (CA), large round for electric transportation

• Ambience Healthcare - medical note-taking software raised $70M led by Kleiner Perkins (San Francisco), large raise from top VC

• Zededa - edge computing platform raised $72M led by Smith Point Capital

• Avnos - carbon removal raised $36M led by NextEra Energy (San Francisco), large round in hot sustainability sector

• ProducePay - produce industry financial services raised $38M led by Syngenta Group (LA)

• Ezra - full body MRI scans raised $21M led by Healthier Capital (NY), large round for early detection

• StatusPRO - VR training for athletes raised $20M led by GV (Miami), large round from top VC

• Closinglock - real estate transaction security raised $12M led by Headline (Austin), large round preventing fraud

• Starship Technologies - delivery robots raised $90M led by Plural and Iconical (Estonia), developing autonomous delivery

☁️ Proceed with Caution

• Grammarly cut 230 employees, 25% of headcount after raising at a high $13 billion valuation in 2021

• DocuSign laid off 6% of staff and was going to be bought by private equity before discussions stalled

🚀 Who's Hiring

Companies posting new roles this week

AI focus this week - they need more than just researchers:

• 💸 Nvidia - GPUs and AI chips (1,675 total jobs)

• 💸 Databricks - Data analytics platform (125 eng jobs)

• 💸 OpenAI - AI research organization (74 eng jobs + 13 research)

• 📈💰**Snowflake** - Cloud data platform (25+ eng jobs)

• Lightmatter - Photonic AI chips (24 eng jobs)

• 💰**Scale AI** - Data labeling for AI (21 eng jobs)

• 💰**Anthropic** - AI safety research (16 eng jobs)

• Typeface - Text-to-3D graphics (12 eng jobs)

• Adept - AI for small business (9 eng jobs)

• Helsing - AI for drug discovery (8 eng jobs)

• Inflection AI - Synthetic data for AI (5 eng jobs)

• Eleven Labs - AI chip design (5 eng jobs)

• Perplexity AI - AI for commerce content (3 eng jobs)

• Anduril - Defense tech and drones (1 eng job)

🌟 Top 20 Highest Paying Companies (Source: Levels.FYI, Product Manager: All Levels)

🕒 IPO Watch

🟢 Promising

• 💸 Plaid has a new President, possibly hinting at IPO plans

• Reddit hasn't released its public IPO filing yet, but Bloomberg reports that the social networking site did $800 million in revenue in 2023, a 20% jump over 2022.

• Circle - Major USDC stablecoin developer confidentially filed for IPO

• Shein - Chinese fast fashion giant seeking approval for US IPO, but Beijing investigating

• Zeekr - Chinese electric vehicle company planning 2024 IPO

• Rubrik - Data management and security company pushed back plans to Spring 2024 or later

• SeatGeek - Sports/concert ticket marketplace filed for IPO in April 2023, expected in 2024

• Turo - Car-sharing startup has delayed IPO plans a few times, but could go public in 2024

🟡 Still waiting

• Unfortunately, 💸 Databricks, SpaceX, and 💸 Stripe have all allowed employees to sell shares to investors recently to delay the need for an IPO

• Navan, Fanatics, and Klarna have all been quieter after earlier IPO speculation

📈 Recent IPOs:

• 🔥 Arm (+89.65% since IPO!) England-based chip designer → Stock soared +48% in a single day this week!

• 📉 Klaviyo (-9.34%, but rebounding) Marketing automation platform

• 📉 Instacart (-11.33%, but rebounding) Grocery delivery

• Oddity (-13.17%) Direct-to-consumer beauty brand

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024

Leave a comment

🏀 The 3-Pointer

1. Funding in generative AI startups surged over 250% to reach $29 billion globally in 2023 according to Pitchbook, thanks to large rounds for OpenAI, Anthropic, and others.

2. But downstream vertical AI startups saw even faster growth, with deal activity in healthcare AI specifically doubling in 2023

3. As the AI market matures, vertical AI solutions in areas like manufacturing, agriculture, and medicine may be overlooked areas to target in your search

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💰 Salary Spotlight

Meta gave out bigger bonuses with its big earnings win, while other big tech companies like Microsoft didn’t give merit increases to many.

• Despite layoffs, Meta’s financials and stock performance have been soaring

• Meta reportedly is giving big bonuses this year

• Other tech companies cut bonuses, even completely for some orgs

What else would be valuable for your job search? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Leave a comment

💸 Get Hired

🧰 Job Search & Negotiation Tips

Tip: Mass Personalization Job Search

1. Volume: Apply broadly to 100+ jobs per week

2. Quality: Focus on 20 jobs for high-touch outreach

3. Automate: Use Simplify Chrome Extension to auto-fill job applications

4. Track: Create a job tracker (sheets work) to stay organized

5. Say Yes: Take any interview you get for practice, at least at first

BONUS Tip: LinkedIn “Open To Work” (Recruiters only)

I was surprised that a Sr. Product Director I used to manage told me he had no idea this feature on LinkedIn existed, so I think everyone should watch this.

Bonus: Make sure you turn it off/on every 1-2 weeks and reply quickly to recruiters.

📈 Company Power Rankings

Now it's time to take action…
Here are this week's company power rankings, so go start those reach-outs!

Legend:

💸 Pays top of market

💰 Pays competitively

🔥 Heating Up

Tip: Consider these as targets

1. 💸 Meta - Stock surged 20% after strong earnings and dividend announcement

2. 🔥 Reddit - Confidentially filed for IPO, targeting $5B+ valuation

💵 Raised Funds This Week

Tip: Should be hiring soon. Reach out to hiring managers before they even post the jobs

1. DataSnipper - $100M Series B at $1B valuation for auditing automation startup (Amsterdam)

2. Kore.ai - $150M round for conversational AI provider (Orlando). One of the largest AI-focused rounds.

3. Watershed - $100M Series C at $1.8B valuation for carbon accounting startup (San Francisco)

4. Teamshares - Raising $100M+ for employee ownership startup (Brooklyn)

5. Plex - $40M Series C-3 round for media streaming software

6. Zum - $140M Series E at $1.3B valuation for school transportation startup

7. Rebellions - $124M Series B at $658M valuation for AI chip startup (South Korea)

8. SmithRx - $60M Series C for prescription benefits platform (San Francisco)

9. XReal - $60M round at $1B+ valuation for AR glasses maker (China)

10. Metronome - $43M Series B for usage-based billing software (San Francisco)

11. Oasis Security - $40M round for server/IoT security platform (Tel Aviv)

12. LightBeam - $17.8M Series A for data privacy compliance platform (Palo Alto)

13. Splash - $14.1M Series A extension for fantasy sports betting platform (Denver)

14. Codeium - $65M Series B at $500M valuation for AI coding platform (San Francisco). Backed by top VC Kleiner Perkins at a high valuation.

15. Inari Agriculture - $103M round at $1.63B valuation for crop yield improvement startup (Cambridge, MA). Over $1.5B valuation is rare for an early stage agtech startup.

16. Accompany Health - $56M Series A for personalized healthcare startup (Maryland). Large round for an early stage healthcare AI company.

17. Cube.Exchange - $12M Series A for crypto trading platform (Chicago). One of the few crypto companies raising amid the recent market crash.

☁️ Proceed with Caution

1. 23andMe - DNA testing startup collapsed from $6B valuation to <$1/share

2. PayPal - Laying off 9% (2,500 employees) of workforce

3. Block - Will cut headcount by 10% (1,000 employees)

4. Polygon Labs - Crypto startup cut 19% (60 employees) of workforce

5. iRobot - Amazon abandoned acquisition spurring 30% layoffs

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024.

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🚀 Who's Hiring

Companies posting new roles this week

Public

• 💸 Amazon - 🔪 17d ago, time-consuming ATS, 12,326 open jobs

• 💸 Tesla - 🔪 6mo ago, 5,925 open jobs

• 💸 Meta - Huge stock and earnings lift, 🔪 25d ago, 1,519 open jobs

• 💸 Google/Alphabet - 🔪 13d ago, time-consuming ATS, 1,411 open jobs

• 💸 NVIDIA - Still rising, 1,675 open jobs

Private

• Reddit - 📈 Planning up to $5B IPO, 3,000 employees, 🔪 8mo ago, 136 open jobs

• 💸 Databricks - 🦄 $43B valuation, 8,000 employees, on IPO watchlist, 332 open jobs

• 💸 Jane Street - 2,000 employees, 171 open jobs

• SpaceX - 🦄, $150B valuation, 12K employees, 1,067 open jobs

• 💸 Stripe - 🦄 $50B valuation, 8,000 employees, 🔪 7mo ago, 329 open jobs

• 💸 DRW - 1,800 employees, 92 open jobs

• 💸 OpenAI - 🦄 $29B valuation, 1,100 employees, 🔪 79d ago, 138 open jobs

• 💰 Rippling - 🦄 $11B valuation, 2,000 employees, 342 open jobs

• 💸 Scale - 🦄 $7B valuation, 2,000 employees, 🔪 13mo ago, 80 open jobs

• 💸 Anthropic - 🦄 Unicorn, $4B valuation, 240 employees, 62 open jobs

Sourced some signals from TrueUp.io

Top 20 Highest Paying Companies (Source: Levels.FYI, Staff Engineer)

🕒 IPO Watch

The biotech IPO boom and lowering valuations could reopen the tech IPO window starting in the next few months, with AI/cloud/cybersecurity startups as prime targets according to some VCs.

🟢 Promising

• 🔥 Reddit - Confidentially filed for IPO, targeting $5B+ valuation

• Circle - Major USDC stablecoin developer confidentially filed for IPO

• Shein - Chinese fast fashion giant seeking approval for US IPO, but Beijing investigating

• Zeekr - Chinese electric vehicle company planning 2024 IPO

• Reddit - Social media community platform planning March or April IPO, but could push

• Rubrik - Data management and security company pushed back plans to Spring 2024 or later

• SeatGeek - Sports/concert ticket marketplace filed for IPO in April 2023, expected in 2024

• Turo - Car-sharing startup has delayed IPO plans a few times, but could go public in 2024

🟡 Still waiting

• High-paying 💸 Databricks, 💸 Plaid, and 💸 Stripe have all not yet revealed IPO plans

• Unfortunately, 💸 Databricks, SpaceX, and 💸 Stripe have all allowed employees to sell shares to investors recently to delay the need for an IPO

• Navan, Fanatics, and Klarna have all been quieter after earlier IPO speculation

📈 Recent IPOs:

• Oddity Direct-to-consumer beauty brand

• Arm England-based chip designer

• Klaviyo Marketing automation platform

• Instacart Grocery delivery

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024

👀 If interested, please fill out the survey here: https://maven.com/forms/7875aa

With the ripple of layoffs in January behind us, we take a look into:

1. FAANG+ hiring trends

2. +$150k/yr offer increase using silence

3. Lots of new hiring companies

Here we go…

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📋 Table of Contents

💼 Hiring Trends

• FAANG+ is mixed on hiring: There are some bright spots in Apple, Uber/Airbnb, and even Amazon and Meta despite recent layoffs.

💸 Take action. Get Hired.

• 💸 Real Candidate Stories:

  • A PM I was coaching got a +60%, +$150,000 offer increase without other offers with a simple strategy

  • I told someone how to find referrals and they got one 16 minutes later

• 🔥 Company Power Rankings: Apply to trending, top paying & newly funded co’

• 💼 Who’s Hiring? Companies posting new jobs this week

• 💰 Top Paying Companies: Top 20 highest paying companies for mid-level

• ⏱️ IPO Watch: Track who is and isn’t going public in 2024

💼 Hiring Trends

🏀 The 3-Pointer

1. Among FAANG, Apple and Amazon hire most, and even Meta outpaces Google

2. Uber and Airbnb picked up hiring the past few months

3. OpenAI and other AI companies continue to accelerate through Jan 2024

See the companion bonus post with data deep dives into FAANG+ hiring trends.

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024.

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💸 Get Hired

🧰 Job Search & Negotiation Tips

I have two candidate stories today.

1) Finding Referrals - Just do it.

First, I just sent this message to a PM I was mentoring and it took them just 16 minutes before they had a referral response:

1. Search on LinkedIn for people and filter for your school, your past company, or 2nd degree connections

2. Send them a message mentioning your common connection and the role you're interested in + the hiring manager to get an intro (found via search as well - see my other posts and upcoming articles)

2) A +60% Job Offer Increase in 24 Hours By Keeping Quiet

Yes, salary negotiations are still happening all the time in this market!

I was helping a Product Manager negotiate their job offer with no other offers on the table.

They pitched their unique value to the hiring manager, and when they got the offer they just said “thank you, I will review the offer this weekend.”

What happened? They got an email the next day saying they increased the offer $110k/year! But they stayed silent again and said “Thank you, I will review the offer this weekend.”

And yet again, the recruiter got back to them a few hours later raising the offer another $40k/year.

That was +$150k/year and +60% in 24 hours by using one of the simplest tactics in negotiations: stay silent.

And the crazy thing is that they could still negotiate up even more because we didn’t start using the more advanced tactics.

Silence:

1. When receiving an offer, stay neutral and say “thank you”, but don’t react or agree

2. Ask for time to review the details with your family/mentors/whoever. Take your time.

3. Keep in touch, but stay “silent” on your reactions and don’t feel forced.

Check out my 42 minute Salary Negotiations video and stay tuned for much more.

Leave a comment

📈 Company Power Rankings

Now it's time to take action…
Here are this week's company power rankings, so go start those reach-outs!

Legend:

💸 Pays top of market

💰 Pays competitively

🔥 Heating Up

Tip: Consider these as targets

• 💸 Airbnb

• 💸 OpenAI

• 💸 Uber

• 💰Amazon

• Anduril: Increased hiring and performance for this DefenseTech company

• Rippling: +42% Engineering job posts in the past 3 months and pays well in the US, but India is home to most of the tech teams

• 💸 Databricks: The company continues its 2-year+ hiring spree with even more hiring in January

• xAI: Reportedly looking to raise $6b at $20b valuation and likely hiring

💵 Raised Funds This Week

Tip: Should be hiring soon. Reach out to hiring managers before they even post the jobs

• ElevenLabs: $1b+ valuation for the voice-generating GenAI Brooklyn startup

• Flexport: Raised $260 million from Shopify to recoup burned cash from 2023

• Bilt Rewards: $200m at a $3.1 billion valuation for the New York-based rent rewards card

• Anomalo: Palo Alto startup uses AI to monitor quality of business data

• AiDash: $50m to the San Jose startup uses AI and satellites to spot weather and fire risks to power lines

• Norm AI, $11m to the NY startup helping chief compliance officers automate regulatory tasks

• Ozone API: $10.8m round for the London startup that lets financial institutions use open APIs

• Spellbook: $20m Series A for the Toronto-based GenAI startup for drafting and reviewing contracts.

• Torq: Portland startup raises $42m Series B for automating business security

• TravelPerk: Barcelona-based startup similar to Navan/TripActions raises $104m at a $1.4 billion valuation.

☁️ Proceed with Caution

• Tesla stock slid among reduced forecasts and targets

• Cruise autonomous vehicle startup released internal reports and has funding slashed from parent GM

• 💸 Figma slashed its valuation from $20b to $10b after Adobe’s acquisition didn’t go through, offering employees buyout packages if they want to leave. However, this could mean they want to hire more people who really are excited about the product and you can get in at the more realistic valuation for your stock offer.

• Palantir is reportedly seeing slowing growth and we saw very depressed hiring in 2023, with a slight uptick this month.

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🚀 Who's Hiring

Companies posting new roles this week
All have some remote roles posted

Public

• Microsoft: Multinational technology corporation with a range of software, services, and hardware.

• GitHub: Platform for software collaboration and version control.

• GitLab: Open core software company specializing in a comprehensive DevSecOps platform.

• Cloudflare: Web infrastructure and website security company offering content delivery network services.

• 💸 Meta (formerly Facebook): Social media conglomerate known for its social networking services and products.

• 💸 Coinbase: Digital currency exchange platform facilitating the buying, selling, and storing of cryptocurrency.

• ServiceNow: Provider of cloud-based platforms and solutions for digital workflows.

• Hims & Hers: Telehealth company offering prescription and over-the-counter health and wellness products.

• Block (formerly Square): Financial services and digital payments company.

• Pinterest: Social media platform for discovering and saving creative ideas.

• Oracle: Multinational computer technology corporation known for its database software and technology.

• Affirm: Financial technology company offering installment loans to consumers at the point of sale

Private

• 💸 Stripe: Technology company building economic infrastructure for the internet.

• Reddit: Social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website.

• Navan (formerly TripActions): Business travel and expense management solutions.

• 💸 Databricks: Data and AI company with a unified data analytics platform.

• Talkspace: Online and mobile therapy company providing mental health services.

• Acorns: Financial technology and services company specializing in micro-investing and robo-investing.

• CoreWeave: Cloud solutions provider specializing in GPU-accelerated computing.

• 💸 Plaid: Financial services company providing technology to connect to users' bank accounts.

• Rippling: Company offering an employee management platform that handles payroll, benefits, and IT.

• Runway AI: Technology company focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

• Attentive: Mobile messaging platform for innovative e-commerce and retail brands.

• Motional: Autonomous vehicle technology company working on self-driving cars.

Top 20 Highest Paying Companies

🕒 IPO Watch

We expect more private companies to offer secondary sales to provide investors and employees liquidity this year as they wait before testing the IPO waters.

Shein is the only big update this week, but the watch continues…

🟢 Promising

• Circle - Major USDC stablecoin developer confidentially filed for IPO

• Zeekr - Chinese electric vehicle company planning 2024 IPO

• Reddit - Social media community platform planning March or April IPO, but could push

• Rubrik - Data management and security company pushed back plans to Spring 2024 or later

• SeatGeek - Sports/concert ticket marketplace filed for IPO in April 2023, expected in 2024

• Turo - Car-sharing startup has delayed IPO plans a few times, but could go public in 2024

🟡 Still waiting

• 📉 Shein - Chinese fast fashion giant seeking approval for US IPO, but Beijing is investigating and US lawmakers are hoping to stall the IPO. Investors tried to sell shares at a -30% discount on the private markets due to the uncertainty.

• High-paying 💸 Databricks, 💸 Plaid, and 💸 Stripe have all not yet revealed IPO plans

• Unfortunately, 💸 Databricks, SpaceX, and 💸 Stripe have all allowed employees to sell shares to investors recently to delay the need for an IPO

• Navan, Fanatics, and Klarna have all been quieter after earlier IPO speculation

📈 Recent IPOs:

• Oddity Direct-to-consumer beauty brand

• Arm England-based chip designer

• Klaviyo Marketing automation platform

• Instacart Grocery delivery

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I know the layoffs this past week might make you think the dark days are back again, but both the data and our chats with leaders tell a slightly more positive story. Candidates are still getting interviews and offers, and even negotiating increases. Let's put this all into perspective to give you

1. some hope

2. some companies to target

3. and some tips on how to negotiate even after layoffs!

Here we go...

Subscribe now

Mixed Signals in the Tech Job Market 🚦

📋 Table of Contents

💼 Hiring Trends

• 🚨 New Year Layoffs: As we predicted, 62 companies laid off 9,533+ so far this year, but nothing compared to 277 co’s laying off 89,000+ last January

• 🏢 Big Names in the Mix: Layoffs include Meta, Google, Amazon, Discord…

• 🤔 More Hiring on the Horizon? Despite layoffs, there will be more hiring in 2024 based on conversations with tech leaders and what we see on the ground

• 💰 Startup Salary Trends: Base salaries remain steady, equity compensation sank -25%, but demand for employee shares on the secondary market rose

💸 Take action. Get Hired.

• 💸 Tip: Negotiate after layoffs? Yes! Read how laid-off candidates still negotiate

• 🔥 Company Power Rankings: Apply to trending, top paying & newly funded co’s

• 💼 Who’s Hiring? Companies posting new jobs this week

• ⏱️ IPO Watch: Track who is and isn’t going public in 2024

💼 Hiring Trends

🏀 The 3-Pointer

1. Despite the recent layoff spree, tech layoffs are down 90% since last January overall, with startup layoffs only dropping -54%. Leaders are citing “efficiency” and “profit”, but this time around, they’re hoping to invest more in new areas instead of just cutting. Google’s CEO said that layoffs will continue through 2024, but at a slower pace.

2. We predicted this, talking to leaders in Q4 who planned Q1 layoffs in exchange for the new roles they wanted in 2024. They want to grow teams but had to cut low-ROI units in exchange. On the startup side, many startups are still shutting down and some companies just delayed the inevitable layoffs that should have happened a year ago (ahem…Discord).

3. We expect even more accelerated hiring as leaders negotiated with finance to hire a lot in 2024, though there are more competing candidates because of the layoffs. We are hearing from many people that they are getting much more recruiter outreach recently, and we see some companies sending out a spike in offers since the new year.

All tech:

Trueup, which uses AI to track layoff & jobs data, counted even more layoffs globally with 20,446 laid off in Jan 2024 from 122 companies, but still a large drop off from 2023

Startups saw a decrease in layoffs, but are doing worse than big tech, with layoffs remaining way above 2021 or 2019 levels and startups still shutting down:

Source: Carta’s 2023 State of Startups

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💰 Salary Spotlight

For mid-career startup employees, the average base salary (cash) did not change in 2023, but the equity compensation definitely did.

“Equity packages for mid-career employees fell about 25% this year (in terms of shares received, not just due to valuations decreasing)” - Peter Walker, Head of Insights at Carta

Luckily, startup employees have been able to sell their stock on secondary markets more at the end of 2023, but valuations remain low, leaving some options worth less than the cost to exercise.

Let us know if you want to learn more about selling your startup shares on secondary markets.

Source: Carta’s 2023 State of Startups

What else would be valuable for your job search? Let us know by leaving a comment.

Leave a comment

💸 Get Hired

🧰 Job Search & Negotiation Tips

You still have negotiation power! 💪

Just today, we were helping two people negotiate offers successfully. It is still happening.

Here are ways even laid-off tech professionals have been building up their negotiating power:

1. Situation security

• Even without a job, build up your financial runway by freelancing, taking side gigs, and reducing your living costs.

• Visa expiring? A Data Scientist I worked with spoke with an immigration lawyer to convert their expiring H1B and extend their time in the US for a few months, landing a better offer.

2. Unique candidate positioning

• Companies will pay you more, even with other candidates waiting, if you correctly highlight your unique fit for a role.

• We helped a Product Manager who had a down-level job offer. She positioned her combined experience from a larger, faster-growing company and another company in the same industry to make the hiring manager realize she was by far the best fit and worth a better offer.

3. Company’s desperation

• Companies are still desperate to hire the right people for specific roles. They can’t afford to have wasted headcount nowadays, so they’re being picky. If you get the offer, find out how desperate they are and how long they’ve been looking to figure out how hard you can push.

Finally, your psychology is what dictates your negotiating power more than anything. If you are calm and willing to walk away from an offer that’s less than you reasonably should accept, then you will be able to negotiate. Prepare upfront with negotiation scripts and mock negotiations, and know your walk-away criteria so you don’t emotionally make it up on the fly.

📈 Company Power Rankings

Now it's time to take action…
Here are this week's company power rankings, so go start those reach-outs!

Legend:

💸 Pays top of market

💰 Pays competitively

🔥 Heating Up

Tip: Consider these as targets

1. Microsoft - Expanding amid AI push. Now the highest-valued company in the world

2. 💸 Waymo & 💸 Cruise - Driverless robotaxis are back on the roads

3. Anthropic - OpenAI competitor (Claude.ai) reportedly raising a major round

4. 💸LinkedIn - Lots of offers going out the past two weeks

💵 Raised Funds This Week

Tip: Should be hiring soon. Reach out to hiring managers before they even post the jobs

1. Arena Bioworks - Massive $500M funding for new biotech

2. Rainbow - $12M for insurance tech platform

3. Sway - $19.5M for delivery and returns optimization

4. Overmoon - $10M for vacation home rental startup

5. Luma - 3D generative model raised $43M

6. Robin AI - Contract software AI raised $26M

7. PerformYard - Software company raised $95M

8. PhotoRoom - Popular AI photo editor raised ~$60M

☁️ Proceed with Caution

1. Apple - Strong earnings beat stock drop, but concerns over payments regulations

2. Unity - Cut 25% of workforce in layoffs

3. Google - CEO says layoffs will continue, but AI will grow

4. Discord - Cut 17% of workforce in layoffs with very high $15B valuation vs. revenue

5. Pitch - Laying off two-thirds after $130M raised

6. Flexe - Warehouse logistics startup cut 38% of staff

7. 💰Uber - Uber shut down Drizly alcohol delivery business to focus resources

🚀 Who's Hiring

Companies posting new roles this week

Public

• 💸Meta

• 💸Airbnb

• 💰Amazon

• 💸LinkedIn

• Bumble: Dating app

• Udemy: Online learning marketplace

• Wayfair: Furniture & home goods e-tailer

• 💰DoorDash: On-demand food delivery

• Klaviyo: Email marketing platform

• Datadog: Monitoring & analytics for cloud

• Riot Games: Maker of League of Legends

• GitLab: Leading devops lifecycle platform

• Smartsheet: Collaborative work management

• hims & hers: Digital health and wellness

Private

• ❗️Discord: Community social app
  *Still apply, but Discord emailed applicants that some hiring is frozen due to layoffs

• 🔥 ScaleAI: Applying AI to improve manufacturing processes.
  Employee said they are growing fast and it’s hard to meet demand

• 💸Coupang: Korea-based online shopping rocketship

• Zscaler: Cloud cybersecurity

• OpenAI

• The New York Times

• New Relic: App performance monitoring

• Cardlytics: Targeted marketing data

• Airtable: Spreadsheets+Database

• Talkiatry: Online therapy

• DoveTail user research platform

Top 20 Highest Paying Companies (Source: Levels.FYI, Sr. Engineer)

🕒 IPO Watch

🟢 Promising

• Circle - Major USDC stablecoin developer confidentially filed for IPO

• Shein - Chinese fast fashion giant seeking approval for US IPO, but Beijing investigating

• Zeekr - Chinese electric vehicle company planning 2024 IPO

• Reddit - Social media community platform planning March or April IPO, but could push

• Rubrik - Data management and security company pushed back plans to Spring 2024 or later

• SeatGeek - Sports/concert ticket marketplace filed for IPO in April 2023, expected in 2024

• Turo - Car-sharing startup has delayed IPO plans a few times, but could go public in 2024

🟡 Still waiting

• High-paying 💸 Databricks, 💸 Plaid, and 💸 Stripe have all not yet revealed IPO plans

• Unfortunately, 💸 Databricks, SpaceX, and 💸 Stripe have all allowed employees to sell shares to investors recently to delay the need for an IPO

• Navan, Fanatics, and Klarna have all been quieter after earlier IPO speculation

📈 Recent IPOs:

• Oddity Direct-to-consumer beauty brand

• Arm England-based chip designer

• Klaviyo Marketing automation platform

• Instacart Grocery delivery

Forward Top Tech to a friend! Everyone should be building their job options in 2024

Share