Weekly hiring report · Nov 2 to Nov 8, 2026
Who startups are hiring: week of Nov 2, 2026
By the JustBacked team · Published Nov 9, 2026
This week in one line
2,340 new roles at 400 venture-backed startups this week, up 39% on the week before.
- Gaining share: hardware (172 roles, +161%), operations (209 roles, +80%) and data & ml (78 roles, +70%).
- Losing share: clinical (11, -91%) and marketing (97, -8%).
- The most-posted kinds of role were hardware / robotics (128), account executive (99) and other sales (84).
- Fastest-rising role: ai/ml engineer or researcher, 74 new roles against 43 the week before.
- Axiom Solutions International posted the most, 695 roles after its Series A $2.0B, followed by Upwind Security (63) and Harvey (59).
- Best-paid listed role type: account executive, with a median top-of-range of $300K.
- SF Bay Area led all cities with 297 roles (13% of the total); 17% were remote.
- 42% of roles were senior, staff or management; only 7% were entry level or internships.
- Series A companies posted the most roles (904).
New roles
2,340
+39% vs prior week
Startups hiring
400
0% vs prior week
Median top of pay range
$200K
29% of roles list pay
Remote
17%
of new roles
What startups are hiring for
New roles by function, ranked by volume. Hardware took the biggest step up in share.
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | Median pay* | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering | 704 | 30.1% | +42% | $230K |
| Sales & BD | 309 | 13.2% | +32% | $200K |
| Operations | 209 | 8.9% | +80% | $145K |
| Hardware | 172 | 7.4% | +161% | $83K |
| People | 115 | 4.9% | +28% | $170K |
| Marketing | 97 | 4.1% | -8% | $200K |
| Data & ML | 78 | 3.3% | +70% | $178K |
| Finance | 72 | 3.1% | +41% | $200K |
| Customer | 68 | 2.9% | +31% | $185K |
| Legal | 53 | 2.3% | +13% | $250K |
| Product | 38 | 1.6% | +9% | $250K |
| Design | 33 | 1.4% | -15% | $230K |
| Science | 18 | 0.8% | +13% | - |
| Clinical | 11 | 0.5% | -91% | - |
*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 | 128 | 5.5% | +24% | $180K |
| Account executive | 99 | 4.2% | +15% | $300K |
| Other sales | 84 | 3.6% | +27% | $184K |
| Marketing / growth | 74 | 3.2% | -16% | $195K |
| AI/ML engineer or researcher | 74 | 3.2% | +72% | $299K |
| Customer success / account manager | 64 | 2.7% | +56% | $185K |
| Recruiter / talent | 62 | 2.6% | +3% | $170K |
| Backend / infrastructure engineer | 61 | 2.6% | -3% | $240K |
| Software engineer | 45 | 1.9% | +29% | $252K |
| Legal | 42 | 1.8% | +20% | $250K |
| Solutions / sales engineer | 40 | 1.7% | +54% | $200K |
| Finance | 40 | 1.7% | +100% | $208K |
| Security | 36 | 1.5% | +20% | $242K |
| Product manager | 33 | 1.4% | -3% | $250K |
| SDR / BDR | 30 | 1.3% | +36% | $90K |
| Designer | 26 | 1.1% | -19% | $228K |
| Data | 20 | 0.9% | +11% | $235K |
| Forward deployed engineer | 18 | 0.8% | +29% | - |
| Full-stack engineer | 17 | 0.7% | +42% | - |
| Frontend / mobile engineer | 5 | 0.2% | -37% | - |
*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.
- 1Axiom Solutions International695 roles
Series A $2.0B · mostly engineering
- 2Upwind Security63 roles
Series C $300M · mostly sales & bd
- 3Harvey59 roles
Series H $550M · mostly legal
- 4fonio.ai55 roles
Seed $17M · mostly sales & bd
- 5Crusoe40 roles
Series F $3.9B · mostly engineering
- 6Alan32 roles
Series G $545M · mostly sales & bd
- 7Savvy Wealth30 roles
Series C $100M · mostly engineering
- 8Horizon3.ai29 roles
Series E $250M · mostly sales & bd
- 9Blank Street28 roles
Series C $75M
- 10Cyera27 roles
Series G $400M · mostly engineering
Freshly funded and already hiring
Raised in the last two weeks and posted roles this week, largest round first.
- 1Cohere16 roles
Series E $5.0B
- 2Fractile1 role
Series C $771M
- 3Bedrock Robotics4 roles
Series C $600M
- 4Wealthsimple7 roles
Series F $213M
- 5Serval2 roles
Series C $150M
- 6Hex Technologies3 roles
Series D $100M
- 7Foundry Robotics1 role
Series A $100M
- 8Nevis2 roles
Series B $70M
- 9Infisical2 roles
Series B $40M
- 10Avante AI2 roles
Series A $30M
Where the jobs are
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SF Bay Area | 297 | 12.7% | +6% |
| New York | 215 | 9.2% | +15% |
| Austin | 92 | 3.9% | +207% |
| London | 92 | 3.9% | -4% |
| Paris | 70 | 3.0% | +52% |
| Tel Aviv | 51 | 2.2% | +155% |
| Los Angeles | 50 | 2.1% | -34% |
| Boston | 36 | 1.5% | -28% |
| Munich | 34 | 1.5% | -29% |
| Toronto | 23 | 1.0% | -23% |
| Chicago | 18 | 0.8% | +200% |
| Washington DC | 18 | 0.8% | +100% |
Seniority
- Intern2%
- Entry4%
- Mid51%
- Senior11%
- Staff/Lead12%
- Manager12%
- Director4%
- VP/C-level3%
By funding stage
| Roles | Share | vs prior week | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | 904 | 38.6% | +337% |
| Series D+ | 479 | 20.5% | -7% |
| Series C | 341 | 14.6% | +13% |
| Series B | 228 | 9.7% | +5% |
| Venture (series unknown) | 217 | 9.3% | -32% |
| Seed | 165 | 7.1% | +54% |
| Pre-seed | 6 | 0.3% | -25% |
The last eight weeks
All new roles per week
Engineering
704+28% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Sales & BD
309+20% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Operations
209+30% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Marketing
97+14% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
People
115+53% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Hardware
172+56% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Customer
68+22% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Finance
72+41% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Clinical
11-2% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Legal
53+43% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Data & ML
78+59% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Product
38-12% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Design
33+33% (last 4 wks vs first 4)
Science
18+19% (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 Nov 2, 2026, the most new roles were in engineering, sales & bd, operations. Gaining share: hardware (172 roles, +161%), operations (209 roles, +80%) and data & ml (78 roles, +70%).
- Which startups hired the most this week?
- Axiom Solutions International (695 roles), Upwind Security (63 roles), Harvey (59 roles), fonio.ai (55 roles), Crusoe (40 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.