Tech Talent Drop - Edition 23

Welcome to Tech Talent Drop Edition 23. 

 
AI recruiting is shifting from “nice-to-have” to the backbone of modern hiring. This week’s signals: stronger platform automation, big infrastructure bets, and fresh funding for the tools engineers and talent teams will actually use.

The Drop

LinkedIn will begin training its AI on member data (opt-out available) starting Nov 3rd
Announced this week, LinkedIn will use profiles, posts, and activity to improve generative features unless members toggle it off. Expect better in-product recommendations—but also more candidate questions about data use. For outreach, add a one-liner explaining your data practices and include the opt-out path in case candidates ask.

OpenAI + Oracle + SoftBank: five new U.S. “Stargate” data centers; Nvidia planning up to $100B investment.
Silicon Valley spent the week talking about a new wave of AI data-center capacity. The highlight: five U.S. sites tied to the Stargate effort and reporting that Nvidia will supply systems and invest up to $100B in OpenAI. Translation for hiring: persistent demand for data-center ops, reliability, capacity planning, and energy/cooling specialists in those regions.

OpenAI launches ChatGPT “Pulse,” a morning AI digest.
Pulse auto-compiles overnight briefs so teams wake up to a ready-to-scan summary. For recruiting, pilot Pulse to track req health, role heatmaps, competitor moves, and candidate replies—then verify any numbers before sharing.

TSMC shows how it’s using AI to cut chip power use.
At a Silicon Valley event, TSMC and EDA partners detailed AI-assisted chip design aiming to shrink energy use and time-to-tape-out. If you hire in systems, compilers, or chip flows, this underwrites medium-term headcount for AI efficiency work.

UAE deepens ties with OpenAI.
On Sept 27, the UAE president met OpenAI’s CEO in Abu Dhabi to expand collaboration on AI research, infrastructure, and applications—opening non-US/EU paths for platform, safety, and applied-research careers.

AI Tool of the Week

Juicebox (PeopleGPT) — agentic AI recruiting

Why it’s worth your time: unified AI search across 800M+ profiles with ranking, outreach, and ATS sync. Teams use it to run entire searches (longlist → outreach → first screens) in a single flow.

How to pilot (2 weeks): define one high-priority search; run Juicebox for longlist + personalized outreach; benchmark time-to-first-screen and response rate vs. your manual baseline. Keep a human QA step for fit and DEI guardrails.

Hiring / Interview Insight

Optimize for judgment, not just speed.
This week’s privacy and infra headlines will land on candidates’ desks. Add a 15-minute scenario to your loop:

1. Review an AI-generated prospect list with mixed quality; flag data-use concerns and propose a verification plan.

2. Decide when to escalate or pause an automated workflow (e.g., outreach cadence or scheduling conflict) and explain why.
   Score on reasoning, safety, and data hygiene—not only throughput.

Funding Watch (all announced 21–28 Sept 2025)

• Modular — AI runtime/compilers — $250M (≈$1.6B valuation). Hiring: compiler/runtime, distributed systems, partner eng.

• Corintis — chip-level liquid cooling — $24M Series A. Hiring: thermal, manufacturing, DC integrations (Microsoft cited as customer).

• Emergent — consumer app-building with AI — $23M Series A (Lightspeed). Hiring: product, mobile, creator tools.

• Rocket.new — “vibe-coding” AI builder — $15M seed (Salesforce Ventures, Accel). Hiring: full-stack, evals, AI platform.

• Doorstep — last-mile delivery intelligence — $8M seed (Canaan). Hiring: CV, routing, ops analytics.

Why it matters: Together, these point to continued demand in AI runtimes, datacenter cooling, and AI-assisted app creation—plus immediate GTM and integrations hiring.

Quick Bytes

• LinkedIn data-training change: draft a 2-line privacy note for candidates before Nov 3; add the opt-out link for transparency.

• Nvidia ↔ OpenAI: the reported $100B plan reinforces long-run GPU scarcity—premium comp for reliability and capacity planning likely persists.

• Stargate build-outs: track local job boards near the five new sites; infra and facilities roles typically post early.

• Chip efficiency: AI-assisted flows mean more openings where software meets silicon—compilers, PnR, verification.

What to do this week

• Pilot an agentic recruiting tool (Pulse for briefings, Juicebox for search) with a written verification SOP.

• Instrument your funnel: time-to-first-screen, qualified-screen rate, schedule latency, and offer acceptance.

• Prep candidate messaging about data use and privacy ahead of LinkedIn’s change.

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