Weekly hiring report · Sep 28 to Oct 4, 2026
Who startups are hiring: week of Sep 28, 2026
By the JustBacked team · Published Oct 23, 2026
This week in one line
1,480 new roles at 371 venture-backed startups this week, down 3% on the week before.
- Gaining share: sales & bd (245 roles, +21%), finance (57 roles, +27%) and clinical (30 roles, +25%).
- Losing share: engineering (432, -7%) and marketing (79, -15%).
- The most-posted kinds of role were hardware / robotics (77), account executive (68) and marketing / growth (67).
- Fastest-rising role: security, 39 new roles against 11 the week before.
- Anthropic posted the most, 53 roles after its Series H, followed by Blank Street (52) and Harvey (44).
- Best-paid listed role type: account executive, with a median top-of-range of $335K.
- SF Bay Area led all cities with 229 roles (15% of the total); 22% were remote.
- 48% of roles were senior, staff or management; only 6% were entry level or internships.
- Series D+ companies posted the most roles (454).
New roles
1,480
-3% vs prior week
Startups hiring
371
-2% vs prior week
Median top of pay range
$193K
49% of roles list pay
Remote
22%
of new roles
What startups are hiring for
New roles by function, ranked by volume. Sales & BD took the biggest step up in share.
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | Median pay* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | 432 | 29.2% | -7% | $229K |
| Sales & BD | 245 | 16.6% | +21% | $230K |
| Operations | 130 | 8.8% | -3% | $156K |
| Marketing | 79 | 5.3% | -15% | $184K |
| Hardware | 67 | 4.5% | -12% | $97K |
| Finance | 57 | 3.9% | +27% | $232K |
| People | 49 | 3.3% | -21% | $192K |
| Customer | 47 | 3.2% | -15% | $130K |
| Product | 32 | 2.2% | -18% | $245K |
| Clinical | 30 | 2.0% | +25% | $95K |
| Legal | 30 | 2.0% | -14% | $290K |
| Design | 29 | 2.0% | +12% | $207K |
| Data & ML | 27 | 1.8% | -27% | $183K |
| Science | 15 | 1.0% | -21% | - |
*Median of the top of each listed pay range, USD roles only, shown when at least 8 roles list pay.
The roles behind the numbers
Grouped from job titles, so you can see past the broad functions: account executives versus SDRs, AI engineers versus backend engineers.
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | Median pay* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware / robotics | 77 | 5.2% | -21% | $180K |
| Account executive | 68 | 4.6% | +5% | $335K |
| Marketing / growth | 67 | 4.5% | +3% | $180K |
| Other sales | 63 | 4.3% | +7% | $185K |
| Software engineer | 53 | 3.6% | -21% | $225K |
| Backend / infrastructure engineer | 47 | 3.2% | -8% | $260K |
| AI/ML engineer or researcher | 46 | 3.1% | +15% | $275K |
| Customer success / account manager | 45 | 3.0% | -8% | $160K |
| Security | 39 | 2.6% | +255% | $300K |
| SDR / BDR | 34 | 2.3% | +62% | $100K |
| Product manager | 28 | 1.9% | -15% | $234K |
| Recruiter / talent | 27 | 1.8% | -13% | $200K |
| Finance | 25 | 1.7% | -4% | $250K |
| Solutions / sales engineer | 23 | 1.6% | -18% | $275K |
| Designer | 20 | 1.4% | +11% | $207K |
| Legal | 18 | 1.2% | -33% | $280K |
| Data | 14 | 0.9% | -42% | - |
| Full-stack engineer | 12 | 0.8% | +33% | - |
| Forward deployed engineer | 11 | 0.7% | -39% | - |
| Frontend / mobile engineer | 9 | 0.6% | -10% | $275K |
*Median of the top of each listed pay range, USD roles only, shown when at least 8 roles list pay.
Who is hiring the most
The startups that opened the most new roles this week.
- 1Anthropic53 roles
Series H · mostly engineering
- 2Blank Street52 roles
Series C $75M
- 3Harvey44 roles
Series H $550M · mostly sales & bd
- 4DayOne35 roles
Series C $2.5B
- 5Crusoe29 roles
Series F $3.9B · mostly engineering
- 6Astranis27 roles
Series E · mostly engineering
- 7Cyera25 roles
Series G $400M · mostly sales & bd
- 8Hightouch22 roles
Series D $10M · mostly sales & bd
- 9Wonder18 roles
Series D $650M · mostly sales & bd
- 10Stord18 roles
Series F $250M
Freshly funded and already hiring
Raised in the last two weeks and posted roles this week, largest round first.
- 1Cyera25 roles
Series G $400M
- 2EliseAI10 roles
Series F $350M
- 3Snorkel AI5 roles
Series E $350M
- 4Enveda2 roles
Series E $311M
- 5General Intuition17 roles
Venture round $220M
- 6Hubble Network3 roles
Series C $200M
- 7Reverion1 role
Series B $175M
- 8Basecamp Research3 roles
Series C $140M
- 9Rainmaker2 roles
Series B $100M
- 10Numeral3 roles
Series C $100M
Where the jobs are
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SF Bay Area | 229 | 15.5% | -40% |
| New York | 229 | 15.5% | +29% |
| Los Angeles | 70 | 4.7% | +59% |
| London | 62 | 4.2% | +19% |
| Denver / Boulder | 55 | 3.7% | +17% |
| Boston | 41 | 2.8% | +37% |
| Toronto | 36 | 2.4% | +177% |
| Seattle | 29 | 2.0% | +45% |
| Munich | 29 | 2.0% | +21% |
| Austin | 25 | 1.7% | +9% |
| Paris | 23 | 1.6% | -42% |
| Washington DC | 23 | 1.6% | +28% |
Seniority
- Intern3%
- Entry4%
- Mid46%
- Senior13%
- Staff/Lead12%
- Manager14%
- Director4%
- VP/C-level5%
By funding stage
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series D+ | 454 | 30.7% | -15% |
| Series C | 299 | 20.2% | +3% |
| Series A | 216 | 14.6% | +4% |
| Venture (series unknown) | 212 | 14.3% | 0% |
| Series B | 204 | 13.8% | +11% |
| Seed | 82 | 5.5% | -10% |
| Pre-seed | 13 | 0.9% | +117% |
The last eight weeks
All new roles per week
Engineering
432+11% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Sales & BD
245+29% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Operations
130+52% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Marketing
79+36% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Hardware
67+47% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
People
49+18% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Finance
57+25% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Customer
47+49% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Product
32+2% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Data & ML
27+25% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Legal
30+60% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Design
29-9% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Clinical
30+83% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Science
15+63% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
How we count
Every role comes from the startup's own hiring system (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby and others), at venture-backed companies that raised in the last six months. A role counts in the week JustBacked first listed it. Changes compare with the period of the same length just before. JustBacked keeps adding newly funded companies, so raw counts drift up over time; shares of all new roles are the cleaner signal of what is gaining or losing ground. Live numbers, updated hourly, are on the startup hiring tracker.
Questions
- What are startups hiring for most right now?
- In the week of Sep 28, 2026, the most new roles were in engineering, sales & bd, operations. Gaining share: sales & bd (245 roles, +21%), finance (57 roles, +27%) and clinical (30 roles, +25%).
- Which startups hired the most this week?
- Anthropic (53 roles), Blank Street (52 roles), Harvey (44 roles), DayOne (35 roles), Crusoe (29 roles).
- Where does this data come from?
- Every role comes from the startup's own hiring system (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby and others), at venture-backed companies that raised in the last six months. A role counts in the week JustBacked first listed it. Changes compare with the period of the same length just before. JustBacked keeps adding newly funded companies, so raw counts drift up over time; shares of all new roles are the cleaner signal of what is gaining or losing ground.
Get the startups that just raised, and the roles they opened, every week.