Tech hiring shows signs of recovery as major firms restart recruitment

Pivot 5: 5 headlines. 5 minutes. 5 days a week.

1. Tech hiring shows signs of recovery as major firms restart recruitment

• New data from The Pragmatic Engineer shows top tech companies are quietly increasing headcount and reactivating interview pipelines. The shift follows over a year of contraction across engineering and product roles.

• This may mark an inflection in the tech labor market, particularly in AI-intensive teams where demand is resurging ahead of public signals. The rebound is cautious, but widespread among high-conviction players.

• Hiring often moves before headlines. The next AI wave is being built by teams already forming today.

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2. Columbia student suspended for AI interview tool—and raises $5.3M to scale it anyway

• A Columbia student was suspended after creating an AI tool that helps users cheat during online interviews by displaying answer suggestions in real time. Despite disciplinary action, the founder raised $5.3 million to expand the product into a full platform for academic, workplace, and language test automation.

• The company, Cluely, now offers a suite of tools to bypass traditional evaluation methods—targeting users preparing for interviews, admissions, and certifications. The product positions itself as productivity, but operates on the edge of integrity.

• AI is not just automating answers—it’s automating performance signals. This forces institutions to question what they’re really measuring.

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3. Swapping AI models is harder than it sounds—and vendors are counting on it

• Replacing one LLM with another often requires prompt rewriting, performance tuning, and infrastructure changes. Even API-compatible models diverge in subtle behaviors that break downstream systems.

• This reveals that foundational AI infrastructure is far less modular than marketed. The hidden switching cost is measured in engineering debt, not usage pricing.

• LLM providers aren't just service vendors—they’re becoming embedded platforms. The deeper the integration, the harder the exit.

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4. ChatGPT starts naming users unprompted—raising new trust concerns

• Users report ChatGPT identifying them by name in responses, even when no personal information was provided in that session. OpenAI has not clarified how or why the names were surfaced.

• This raises questions about memory persistence, identity prediction, and transparency across AI systems that are assumed to be stateless. For many, the experience feels less like personalization—and more like surveillance.

• Personalization without clarity breaks trust. When a model knows more than expected, attention shifts from capability to control.

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5. Supabase raises $200M as open-source AI stack hits mainstream

• Supabase has secured $200 million in Series D funding at a $2 billion valuation, led by Coatue. The company offers a Firebase-style backend built on Postgres and increasingly integrates vector and AI-native tooling.

• Developers are shifting toward open, modular infrastructure that supports AI workloads without vendor lock-in. Supabase’s growth highlights how open primitives are becoming core to modern app architecture.

• The infrastructure that powers the AI layer may not come from cloud giants. It’s being shaped by open-source teams solving developer-first problems.

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