Lorenzo Cinque

Another great month of AI innovation in the UK👏 A few standouts raises worth noting (and congratulating):   Maze – Series A, $25M. Building autonomous AI agents that actively hunt and remediate cloud security issues. Treefera - Series B, $30M. Using AI to trace nature-based assets at the source, from forest to supply chain.   Wordsmith AI - Series A, $25M. Built for in-house legal teams, taking legal AI beyond templates and prompts.   Literal Labs - Pre-Seed, £4.6M. Logic-based model training using Tsetlin Machines.   assisterr AI - Series A, $2.8M. Enabling anyone to build, own and monetise small language model agents - tokenised, no-code, and decentralised. Their focus is on agentic systems, accountable AI, and targeted solutions that solve real problems and drive adoption, love to see it! Huge congrats to all involved, can’t wait to watch the growth🤠

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In the last 3 weeks I’ve spoken to 72 engineers. From early-stage start-ups to Google and Meta. I asked each of them: “What are the top factors that would impact your decision to accept a new role?” Compensation was always in the mix. No surprise there. But what came up nearly as often, ahead of perks, titles, or flexibility, was the work itself. Engineers want to solve interesting problems. They want to work on products they believe in. They want to feel connected to what they’re building, not just ship tickets. If you can’t clearly explain why someone's work will matter, you’ll struggle to hire the best people. Because the best people aren’t just looking for a job. They’re looking for impact. #Recruitment #Hiring #SoftwareEngineering #Technology #Careers Kioni Talent

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Most companies in the Blockchain / Web3 space still insist on hiring engineers who have prior experience working on similar tools. Makes sense, right? Only issue being that all of your competitors have exactly the same mindset. In a world that's already incredibly competitive to hire within, don't make things any more difficult than they need to be. An engineer working on embedded systems, infrastructure etc is already 80% of the way there. - They're still designing high-performance systems. - They’re still solving concurrency, data integrity, and scalability problems. - They’re still thinking about security and performance trade-offs. Some of the best engineers I’ve worked with didn’t start in Web3. They came from Go, Rust, and C++ backgrounds - often in fintech, gaming, or distributed computing.

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The Web3 hiring market feels very different right now ⚡ 12 months ago, the focus was survival, hiring freezes, budget cuts, and teams holding tight. Now I’m seeing a real shift: 🔹 Funded projects are starting to scale their teams again 🔹 Demand for Rust, Golang, and Solidity engineers is climbing fast 🔹 Strong pull for protocol & infra specialists such as performance, security, and cross-chain 🔹 Developers are asking smarter questions about token incentives, not just salary 💡 For developers 👩‍💻: The best opportunities are in businesses solving real infrastructure bottlenecks. If you are deep in low-level systems or smart contracts, your skills are in demand. For clients 🚀: The strongest engineers still get snapped up in days. A slow process means losing out. The hiring market is heating back up, and it feels like the build phase is here again.

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Really interesting piece from Anjli Raval in the Financial Times yesterday on the accelerating impact of AI on jobs, especially for junior-level white-collar positions.   As I shared with Anjli for that piece, while there will be exceptions in specific areas, the rise of AI may constrain the recovery in some junior roles. She also importantly notes that while AI is a factor, it’s important that we consider the wider story.   AI is not the sole driver of change here. Geopolitical and economic pressures, years of sluggish growth, and what some are calling the ‘Great Hesitation’, a period marked by uncertainty in hiring and investment decisions, have all contributed to a landscape where entry-level roles are increasingly vulnerable. AI is amplifying these existing pressures. If roles continue to disappear from the workforce, then we need to ask: what does this mean for the future talent pipeline? In sectors already facing skill shortages, failing to bring people in today means we won’t have the talent we need tomorrow. To tackle this, we need to rethink how we develop people, how we build talent pipelines, and how we value the human qualities that AI can’t replicate: creativity, emotional intelligence, and complex judgment.   Lean organisations might look good on paper, but resilience, innovation, and long-term success still depend on people. Let’s make sure we’re investing in them.   #WeAreHays #AI #FutureOfWork #TalentDevelopment #Leadership #HiringTrends #WorkforceStrategy

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Today we’re introducing Guide's long-awaited integration with Ashby ATS—bringing Aria, Guide’s AI RC agent, to all Ashby customers. The launch of this integration and our partnership with Ashby will enable more TA teams to: ↳ Automate interview scheduling with Aria, Guide’s AI RC agent, including both Copilot and Autopilot modes ↳ Deliver beautiful, branded candidate portals and interview prep to every candidate seamlessly If you’re an Ashby user looking to free up RC bandwidth and improve the candidate experience, the wait is finally over 🔥

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