Tech Talent Drop - Edition 21

Welcome back to another edition of Tech Talent Drop. This week brought important policy and platform changes that affect how teams ship and secure AI in production. Here is what matters for hiring managers and engineers right now.

The Drop

EU accepts Microsoft’s commitments on Teams bundling. The European Commission approved Microsoft’s plan to unbundle Teams from Microsoft 365 and Office 365, add interoperability and data portability, and widen price gaps between suites. Expect more vendor choice in collaboration stacks, plus procurement roles aligning security, IT, and engineering on tool selection.

Teams adds malicious link warnings. Microsoft is rolling out automatic alerts for links flagged as malicious in Teams chats, starting public preview this month. This will push incident response closer to the edge in day-to-day workflows and increase demand for security-minded admins and developer productivity engineers.

Regulators scrutinize AI companions used by teens. The US FTC issued orders to seven companies to disclose how they measure and mitigate harms to children and teens from AI companion chatbots. Governance, trust and safety, and policy operations skills will be at a premium as consumer AI scales.

Microsoft and OpenAI sign a new memorandum of understanding. The non-binding MOU outlines the next phase of their partnership and gives OpenAI flexibility as it refines structure and cloud relationships. Enterprise buyers should watch for licensing, interoperability, and roadmap changes.

AI Tool of the Week

Metaview – interview intelligence that records, transcribes, and auto-summarizes interviews so your team focuses on signal, not note taking. Use it to standardize debriefs, surface highlights, and shorten time to decision.

Hiring and Interview Insight

Given the week’s focus on safety and governance, add a short scenario exercise to your loop. Have candidates triage a suspicious link in a chat, decide when to escalate, and document steps taken to protect data. Include a second prompt where a model output is uncertain and candidates must verify or halt before shipping. This reveals judgment, not just speed. Tie this to your incident runbooks so the exercise maps to real on-call practice.

Funding Watch

All announced in 8–14 September 2025:

• Mistral AI – foundation models – €1.7B Series C. ASML becomes top shareholder. Hiring signals: research, model serving, safety, partnerships.

• PsiQuantum – photonic quantum computing – $1B Series E plus Nvidia collaboration. Hiring signals: photonics, control systems, verification, cryo.

• Replit – AI software development platform – $250M, valuation $3B, launched Agent 3. Hiring signals: agent safety, evals, enterprise integrations.

• Apex Space – satellite bus manufacturing – $200M Series D, valuation about $1B. Hiring signals: manufacturing ops, avionics, test, supply chain.

• Teton.ai – elderly care AI – $20M Series A led by Plural. Hiring signals: computer vision, healthcare integrations, clinical ops.

Quick Bytes

• EU closes its Teams antitrust probe after accepting Microsoft’s commitments. Procurement teams should revisit collaboration tool strategies and pricing.

• Teams malicious link alerts start public preview, useful for secure recruiting coordination and interview scheduling.

• FTC inquiry into AI companion chatbots puts trust and safety, policy, and child safety research squarely on hiring roadmaps.

That’s all for this week’s Tech Talent Drop — stay informed, and see you next week!

Hiring?

Josh Smith
[email protected]
01727 225 552