Weekly hiring report · Oct 5 to Oct 11, 2026
Who startups are hiring: week of Oct 5, 2026
By the JustBacked team · Published Oct 23, 2026
This week in one line
1,675 new roles at 373 venture-backed startups this week, up 13% on the week before.
- Gaining share: engineering (537 roles, +24%), product (67 roles, +109%) and people (81 roles, +65%).
- Losing share: operations (110, -15%) and sales & bd (243, -1%).
- The most-posted kinds of role were hardware / robotics (109), marketing / growth (78) and other sales (65).
- Fastest-rising role: hardware / robotics, 109 new roles against 77 the week before.
- Anthropic posted the most, 57 roles after its Series H, followed by Cyera (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 286 roles (17% of the total); 23% were remote.
- 45% of roles were senior, staff or management; only 7% were entry level or internships.
- Series D+ companies posted the most roles (534).
New roles
1,675
+13% vs prior week
Startups hiring
373
+1% vs prior week
Median top of pay range
$200K
42% of roles list pay
Remote
23%
of new roles
What startups are hiring for
New roles by function, ranked by volume. Engineering took the biggest step up in share.
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | Median pay* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | 537 | 32.1% | +24% | $225K |
| Sales & BD | 243 | 14.5% | -1% | $217K |
| Operations | 110 | 6.6% | -15% | $193K |
| Marketing | 110 | 6.6% | +39% | $195K |
| People | 81 | 4.8% | +65% | $166K |
| Hardware | 69 | 4.1% | +3% | $100K |
| Product | 67 | 4.0% | +109% | $260K |
| Customer | 54 | 3.2% | +15% | $165K |
| Legal | 50 | 3.0% | +67% | $250K |
| Finance | 42 | 2.5% | -26% | $210K |
| Data & ML | 36 | 2.1% | +33% | $160K |
| Design | 29 | 1.7% | 0% | $177K |
| Science | 19 | 1.1% | +27% | - |
| Clinical | 16 | 1.0% | -47% | - |
*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 | 109 | 6.5% | +42% | $180K |
| Marketing / growth | 78 | 4.7% | +16% | $200K |
| Other sales | 65 | 3.9% | +3% | $300K |
| Backend / infrastructure engineer | 64 | 3.8% | +36% | $275K |
| Software engineer | 60 | 3.6% | +13% | $250K |
| Account executive | 59 | 3.5% | -13% | $335K |
| Product manager | 52 | 3.1% | +86% | $250K |
| AI/ML engineer or researcher | 48 | 2.9% | +4% | $275K |
| Security | 46 | 2.7% | +18% | $300K |
| Recruiter / talent | 42 | 2.5% | +56% | $175K |
| Customer success / account manager | 38 | 2.3% | -16% | $200K |
| Solutions / sales engineer | 35 | 2.1% | +52% | $220K |
| Legal | 35 | 2.1% | +94% | $250K |
| SDR / BDR | 34 | 2.0% | 0% | $101K |
| Data | 25 | 1.5% | +79% | $218K |
| Finance | 24 | 1.4% | -4% | $225K |
| Forward deployed engineer | 20 | 1.2% | +82% | - |
| Designer | 17 | 1.0% | -15% | $150K |
| Full-stack engineer | 16 | 1.0% | +33% | - |
| Frontend / mobile engineer | 5 | 0.3% | -44% | - |
*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.
- 1Anthropic57 roles
Series H · mostly engineering
- 2Cyera52 roles
Series G $400M · mostly sales & bd
- 3Harvey44 roles
Series H $550M · mostly sales & bd
- 4Horizon3.ai33 roles
Series E $250M · mostly sales & bd
- 5Crusoe33 roles
Series F $3.9B · mostly engineering
- 6Blank Street32 roles
Series C $75M
- 7Pogo30 roles
Venture round
- 8True Anomaly28 roles
Series D $600M · mostly engineering
- 9DayOne27 roles
Series C $2.5B
- 10Alan25 roles
Series G $545M · mostly sales & bd
Freshly funded and already hiring
Raised in the last two weeks and posted roles this week, largest round first.
- 1EliseAI8 roles
Series F $350M
- 2General Intuition1 role
Venture round $220M
- 3Jeeves17 roles
Series C $110M
- 4Quartermaster AI1 role
Series B $100M
- 5Efficient Computer3 roles
Series B $97M
- 6Reco2 roles
Series B $55M
- 7Flow Engineering3 roles
Series B $50M
- 8ai3Bio1 role
Series A $48M
- 9Dyad1 role
Series A $10M
- 10Destro AI4 roles
Seed $8M
Where the jobs are
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SF Bay Area | 286 | 17.1% | +25% |
| New York | 187 | 11.2% | -18% |
| Los Angeles | 92 | 5.5% | +31% |
| London | 73 | 4.4% | +18% |
| Denver / Boulder | 46 | 2.7% | -16% |
| Seattle | 39 | 2.3% | +34% |
| Paris | 38 | 2.3% | +65% |
| Boston | 33 | 2.0% | -20% |
| Toronto | 30 | 1.8% | -17% |
| Tel Aviv | 29 | 1.7% | +164% |
| Austin | 24 | 1.4% | -4% |
| Munich | 20 | 1.2% | -31% |
Seniority
- Intern4%
- Entry3%
- Mid48%
- Senior15%
- Staff/Lead12%
- Manager11%
- Director3%
- VP/C-level3%
By funding stage
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series D+ | 534 | 31.9% | +18% |
| Series C | 293 | 17.5% | -2% |
| Series B | 273 | 16.3% | +34% |
| Venture (series unknown) | 247 | 14.7% | +17% |
| Series A | 234 | 14.0% | +8% |
| Seed | 84 | 5.0% | +2% |
| Pre-seed | 10 | 0.6% | -23% |
The last eight weeks
All new roles per week
Engineering
537+15% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Sales & BD
243+40% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Operations
110+43% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Marketing
110+64% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Hardware
69+51% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
People
81+18% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Customer
54+47% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Finance
42+35% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Product
67+51% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Data & ML
36+6% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Legal
50+45% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Design
29+16% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Clinical
16+42% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Science
19+79% (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 Oct 5, 2026, the most new roles were in engineering, sales & bd, operations. Gaining share: engineering (537 roles, +24%), product (67 roles, +109%) and people (81 roles, +65%).
- Which startups hired the most this week?
- Anthropic (57 roles), Cyera (52 roles), Harvey (44 roles), Horizon3.ai (33 roles), Crusoe (33 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.