Meta fires. Twitter fires. They also license Lyft, Stripe, Salesforce. The difficulties of the technological giants, which in recent months have resulted in a wave of layoffs in all sectors, is becoming an opportunity for American startups. Thousands of engineers, salespeople, developers are now back on the job market. They will need a new job soon. And there are tens of thousands of uncovered positions. In Silicon Valley, but not only.
The Wall Street Journal told what happens beyond the news, always dramatic, of companies forced to reduce costs to cope with difficulties. There are hundreds of startups in the United States that have raised tens of millions of dollars over the years. Until now they couldn’t always afford employees who worked for tech giants (with salaries that easily start with five zeros). Now there are opportunities that were unthinkable until last year.
“There is an abundance of talent. Up until now we couldn’t afford it.”
The financial newspaper interviewed some staff chiefs who are hiring the profiles already fired by big tech: “There is an abundance of talent right now, a few years ago we would never have been able to attract candidates like the ones we are hiring”, says the manager of a startup active in artificial intelligence. The company hires engineers from Lyft, which last week announced a 700 job cut, or roughly 13 percent of its staff.
Time plays in favor of these start-ups. The startups that have recently begun to take their first steps, in jargon called early stage, are currently still in the development phase. They therefore put little or nothing on the market. So they have been spared the impact of rate hikes, inflation and bottlenecks on supply chains. In other words: they can hire talents to continue the development phase by leveraging the capital raised. Many millions, billions of dollars.
But according to several industry analysts, it could also be an advantage for professionals who have returned to the market. Many of them, they explain, were born in startups. They began to work with a very different mindset from what is then assumed in a company with tens of thousands of employees. And a return to origins could translate into new opportunities and stimuli.
A market that continues to ask for engineers and developers
Early stage startups enjoyed a good investment market in 2022. Unlike the larger ones, they raised capital, perhaps with lower figures, but useful for launching new businesses. A similar phenomenon is also occurring in Italy.
However, we are talking about startups that in the US collect an average of 2.8 million dollars, with a valuation of 10.5 million dollars. In a context where the demand for engineers, developers and sales experts remains high: 317,000 job advertisements published in October alone in the US for these sectors. 10,000 more than the previous month.