SignalFire

Tech’s hiring playbook is being rewritten! 📉 New grad and early-career hiring has plummeted 50% since 2019. Junior roles are vanishing. Even top CS grads can’t break in. 🔥 Anthropic boasts 80%+ retention, outpacing Big Tech and other AI Labs with a poaching advantage over DeepMind and OpenAI. They’re quietly rewriting the rules of hiring—and everyone else is playing catch-up. 📍 Texas is losing startup talent, while San Francisco and New York City hold strong: Austin startup headcount is down 6%, Houston down 11%, and 65% of AI engineers are concentrated in SF and NYC SignalFire’s 2025 State of Tech Talent Report is live! We analyzed data from 650M+ professionals and 80M+ companies using our Beacon AI platform—and the results point to a massive reset in how tech companies are hiring, where talent is clustering, and who’s being left behind. Founders and talent leaders, this is your new roadmap for building competitive teams in 2025 and beyond. (Link to the full report and coverage from The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, and The San Francisco Standard are in the comments.) #TechTalent #AIhiring #FutureOfWork #GenZ #Anthropic #startups #StartupHiring #AIjobs #MLjobs #Talent

Which AI labs are poaching and retaining the best engineers? And how can you keep yours from being stolen away? Check out our new tech talent report

📊 SignalFire’s new data report is live: "Who’s winning the engineering talent game?" We analyzed 20 years of engineering career data from the top 100 tech companies to answer one question: What separates companies that attract and keep elite engineers from those struggling to hold onto talent? Here’s what the data shows: 🔹 Retention is the ultimate moat: Engineers at Google‎, Netflix‎, Apple‎, Microsoft‎, and Amazon‎ stay 3-5+ years on average, fueling compounding expertise and velocity. 🔹 Winners outpace attrition: Meta‎, Anthropic‎, and OpenAI‎ are growing their engineering teams 2-3x faster than attrition, while Tesla, Bloomberg, and Walmart are losing engineers faster than they can backfill. 🔹 Managerial layers are shrinking: The engineer-to-manager ratio has climbed 30% in 9 years (from 5.9 → 7.7), signaling leaner orgs with more autonomy and technical leadership. 🔹 Pedigree is overrated: At Microsoft‎, Adobe‎, and Walmart‎, 15%+ of engineers lack a college degree. Apple‎ and Disney follow at 13%, proving skills > credentials. 🔹 The job-hopper myth? Busted. Four-year tenure dipped only slightly (59% → 52%) despite layoffs, reorgs, and the AI hiring frenzy. We also identified M²A³GNUS, a new elite group of engineering culture leaders—including Stripe‎, Uber‎ and Adobe‎—joining FAANG as magnets for top technical talent. If you’re a founder or engineering leader in 2025, these are the insights that will set you apart: ✅ Retention beats recruiting ✅ Culture compounds talent density ✅ Brand gravity wins the long game This report is your data-backed playbook for building engineering teams that scale, without burning out. 🔗 [Link to the full report in comments]

When you create a workplace where people thrive, everything else follows: innovation, impact, and growth. Talent follows culture, and the strongest cultures are built with intention. Earlier this year, Inc. Magazine recognized three of our portfolio companies as Best Workplaces of 2025! 🙌 🚀 ✅ Grow Therapy - scaling compassionate mental health care ✅ Form Health - rethinking obesity treatment ✅ OneSignal - redefining customer engagement From mission-driven healthcare to developer-first tools, these teams are raising the bar for what great workplaces look like, and proving that investing in people is the ultimate growth strategy. At SignalFire, our Talent Advisory team, which includes former leaders from top tech companies, partners with founders to build the strong cultures that drive these kinds of results. From leadership development to hiring and org design, we’re with our portcos every step of the way. See the full list of companies here: https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/evzQhKZR

Hiring mistakes hurt. But there’s science-backed evidence that structured interviewing can boost your odds of getting it right, by more than 30%! Our Talent Partner Heather Doshay spoke to Shannon Ogborn from Ashby on OfferAccepted to talk about how this approach reduces bias, improves candidate experience, and leads to smarter hires.

An 80% talent retention rate and an 88% offer acceptance rate! In AI’s most cutthroat talent market, Anthropic is rewriting the rules of recruiting and retaining top talent. Our Talent Partner Heather Doshay partnered with Anthropic‎'s Head of Global GTM Recruiting, Nick Lewis,‎ to unpack how they’re pulling this off: 💫 Mission-first hiring that attracts true believers 💫 AI-powered recruiting workflows (Claude drafts JDs, interview plans, and more) 💫 Rigorously trained interviewers who treat hiring as a strategic responsibility 💫 Candidate experiences that build trust, even with rejections For early-stage startups battling for talent, Anthropic offers a blueprint: its clear mission, intentional culture, and smart AI leverage beat perks and big budgets. Learn how Anthropic does it and what startups can learn from its unique talent strategy. 🔗 [Link to the full blog in comments.] #TalentStrategy #Hiring #Recruiting #Retention #CompanyCulture

The "open vs. closed" AI model gap? According to this engineer, consider it closed. 🤯 We spoke to Hassan El Mghari, Director of Developer Relations at Together AI, about the incredible leap in open-source models (like Llama and DeepSeek R1) and how his company is arming developers with the infrastructure to build with them. Hassan, who's built demo apps used by 1.2 million people, shares his candid advice for #AIEngineers breaking into the field, including his full "vibe coding" workflow and essential tools. If you're building in AI, you need to check out this interview with Jarod Reyes. #OpenSource #OS #Developers #NVIDIA #coding #AI

Event marketers, experience curators, and behind-the-scenes magic-makers, this one’s for you. We’re looking for an Events Manager that loves to craft experiences, spark big ideas, and turn connections into impact. SignalFire‎ is a different kind of VC firm, one built like a tech company, with a team of engineers, data scientists, and operators backing founders from seed to scale. Events aren’t an afterthought here, they’re a core part of how we build community across our portfolio, and we’re looking for someone who can elevate that even further. 𝗔𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿, 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗹𝗹: ✨ Lead high-impact events for founders, execs, and operators 🎯 Shape our event strategy across sectors like enterprise SaaS, healthtech, and vertical AI 🚀 Collaborate with investors, talent partners, and GTM leaders to shape moments that drive momentum This is a high-visibility, high-autonomy role with room to run. If you’re creative, scrappy, and love building memorable experiences that actually move the needle, not just fill a room, we want to hear from you. 📍 Role is SF-based. 🙌 Bonus: You’ll get to work alongside Mitchell Yee!  📩 Apply here: https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/gQB2sQRQ #VCJobs #EventsJobs #HiringNow

Becoming a unicorn is impressive. Becoming a decacorn? That’s even rarer. Fewer than 4% of Health & PharmaTech unicorns ever crack the $10B+ mark. The elite group of founders who made it that far didn’t just build products, they built entirely new categories. These founders scaled through regulatory minefields, outpaced entrenched incumbents, and turned the chaos of COVID into rocket fuel. As a result, they also changed how healthcare is delivered, paid for, and measured. This elite group includes: - Peter Gassner & Matt Wallach – Veeva Systems - Jeff Tangney, Nate Gross, MD & Shari Buck – Doximity - Scott Glenn, John Burd, Lauren Otsuki & Ellen Preston – Dexcom - Ed Park & Todd Park – Devoted Health - Dennis Gillings – IQVIA - Glen Tullman – Livongo - Christopher Parks & Robert Hendrick – Change Healthcare What can startup founders learn from their paths? What patterns are emerging in the next wave of decacorns? How is the bar rising for Health & PharmaTech startups? SignalFire’s report breaks it all down: “Who’s really building Health & PharmaTech unicorns and decacorns” https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/gRz9nU2H #healthtech #biotech #pharmatech #healthcareAI

Everyone wants top AI talent but few teams know how to actually land them. At Ai4 - Artificial Intelligence Conferences 2025, SignalFire Partner, People & Talent, Heather Doshay will take the stage to share insights on how to hire the best AI talent. Backed by insights from SignalFire’s State of Talent Report and decades of recruiting experience, Heather will break down what actually works in today’s AI hiring wars, from sourcing to selling your mission. Session info: “How to Hire the Best AI Talent: Trends and Tactics” 🗓 August 11–13 📍 MGM Grand, Las Vegas 🎟 Register now: https://xmrrwallet.com/cmx.plnkd.in/g-bT7_xp This one’s for founders, CTOs, and hiring leads who are tired of losing great candidates to the highest bidder. #AIHiring #TechTalent #GenerativeAI #StartupHiring