startup salaries are going up... and computers can smell?? đ
+ startup salaries are on the up and up
GM Friends,
This issue contains dozens of reasons why I love you. Each and every one of them a job (or something that will make your future âď¸đđŤ)
Your â¨BFFs đ
Jordan (+Bacon, who is ready to play ball)
First, a question motivated by Troy KirwinâŚ
Networking is one of the best ways to land a new gig, but some say a killer cold email can work miracles. I want to know: how did you find your last role?
P.S. If youâre interested in learning cold email strategies, lmk and Iâll do a lil baby feature on them. đ
Good news in numbers
According to Cartaâs State of Startup Compensation report from the first half of 2025:
Across all ranks and all roles, the average salary for new hires at startups is up 5.8% over 2022 numbers, with much of that increase taking place in the last 18 months or so.
Roles making the most progress are: legal, product/design/marketing, and engineering.
Both voluntary departures and layoffs trended downward in the first half of the year.
Bee-you-tee-full j.o.b.s
Clinical nutrition platform Nourish has 70 open jobs right now, with many of them in GTM. These roles are located all over the U.S.
We need to talk about Valar Atomicâs $130 million series A. đľâđŤ Theyâre scaling clean nuclear energy for industrial power. All open jobs are in Hawthorne, CA, or Orangeville, UT.
Astrus, which makes software tooling that empowers analog designers to create advanced microchips with AI, is hiring for a handful of tech roles, including an analog design lead and a layout methodologies lead. All jobs are in Toronto or Waterloo, Canada. Reach out to careers@astrus.ai or Steph Hector on LinkedIn for more details.
Employee leave management software startup Cocoon is hiring for a few roles, all of them REMOTE. Perks include unlimited PTO + other types of paid leave, like bereavement/compassionate and parental.
Forward this to your favorite social worker. â¤ď¸ Youth mental health platform Marble Health is hiring in its NYC offices across engineering, ops, growth, and even clinical therapy.
Osmo is teaching computers how to smell. Really. Hopefully theyâre good whiffs, tho. All jobs are on the East Coast. Highlights include a fragrance analyst and a robot operator. Honestly, sign me up for either of those. Also, Bacon could teach these computer noses whatâs up (or down).
Agentic security platform Daylight Security is hiring in Singapore, Tel Aviv, and the US. US jobs are REMOTE.
Agentic AI marketer Blaze is hiring for REMOTE jobs in the US, UK, and Canada. They say theyâre looking for people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives who arenât afraid to challenge the status quo. So go get âem, tiger.
Agentic security platform Teleskope is hiring in data science, engineering, and GTM in their NYC offices. They do have a REMOTE position for an account executive with an OTE of $300Kâ$340K. đ¸
There are 22 open jobs at AI video creation engine HeyGen. These are mostly West Coast roles and a few in Canada. Weâre talking AI research and development, engineering, marketing, product, and sales. AND internships in product management and biz dev.
Autonomous SWE agent Ona (FKA Gitpod) is hiring in the U.S., UK, and Germany for CX, growth, product design, and product marketing. All these jobs are REMOTE. Wheeeee!
Toby Talks: How to get your moneyâs worth
Haseeb Qureshi (former Airbnb, current managing partner at crypto fund Dragonfly) wrote this great post about how to negotiate your comp.
Hereâs the TL;DR
You should always negotiate. âItâs a signal of competence and seriousness.â
Get everything (not just the #s) in writing.
Donât show your cards. Guarding your information can give you power. (Mwahaha!)
Stay positive. Defeatists have already lost.
Donât capitulate to âexploding offers.â That is, offers that expire in 24â48 hours. Push back. In most cases, they will give you more time. And, if they donât give you more time⌠are you sure you want to be working for them? Companies are typically on their BEST behavior during the hiring process; if they are already using coercion at this point in your relationship, just imagine how they may behave in the future once âthey have you.â
Spotlight on: startup recruiting j.o.b.s.
Recruiters need jobs too. Without heroes like these (okay, like meeee), founders couldnât build the companies they do.
Startups are built on people. Period.
AI-powered search and productivity platform you.com needs a contract technical recruiter and a contract senior recruiter in SF.
AI research lab Symbolica needs a sourcing recruiter for AI and ML talent in London.
Portable nuclear reactor startup Radiant needs a contract senior technical recruiter in El Segundo, CA.
Insurance claims simplifier Candid Health needs a recruiter for product and design roles based in Denver, NYC or SF.
Safety-focused healthcare LLM Hippocratic AI needs a REMOTE GTM recruiter.
Next gen telecom startup Gigs needs a senior technical recruiter to work in Berlin, Amsterdam, or London and a GTM talent partner in NYC.
Gen AI and video platform Black Forest Labs needs a talent partner based in SF or London.
Founding jobs
Be a founding member of a brave new country. I mean company. And you donât even have to be an engineer.
The amazing Elena Wagenmans, founder of Taya (AI jewlery!), is searching for a founding software engineering lead to work with her in SF.
The no-introduction-needed Lovable needs a founding customer success manager.
Agentic AI marketer Blaze needs a founding GTM lead.
Customer support platform Lorikeet needs a founding talent sourcer and coordinator.
AI-native knowledge management platform Liminary needs a founding product manager.
Agentic security platform Daylight Security needs a founding marketing manager.
Document parsing platform Reducto is making a lot of founding hires, including a founding head of marketing, a founding head of finance, and a founding security engineer. See all of them here.
Required reading for you smarty smarts
This guide to vibe coding for beginners.
Why so many people think the Fruit of the Loom logo is a cornucopia (it ainât).
Genius-level AI scientist Yann LeCun says heâs leaving Meta to launch his own startup.
Yours, always and forever,
â¤ď¸âđĽ Jordan