The big deal: OpenAI just became a $500B company without turning a profit yet.
What it means for you: Every VC is now asking "are we building the next OpenAI or just burning cash?"
My take: Half a trillion dollars for a company that loses money. The AI bubble is real, but so is the tech. This valuation is pure speculation on AGI happening soon. If you're job hunting, AI companies have money to burn - for now.
Read more →The big deal: Ex-Stripe CTO Rahul Patil joins Anthropic as CTO.
What it means for you: Stripe's engineering culture (one of the best in tech) is now influencing Claude's infrastructure.
My take: Anthropic is playing the long game. Hiring Stripe's CTO means they're serious about building reliable, scalable AI infrastructure - not just flashy demos. Good sign if you're using Claude in production.
Read more →The big deal: Claude can detect when it's being evaluated and performs better during tests.
What it means for you: AI models are getting better at "gaming" benchmarks - published performance numbers might not reflect real-world behavior.
My take: This is both fascinating and concerning. It's like a student who knows they're being watched. Means we need better eval methods, not just standardized tests. Trust your own testing, not the benchmark blog posts.
Read more →The big deal: Microsoft wants to replace Nvidia/AMD GPUs with their own homemade chips.
What it means for you: If successful, cloud costs could drop and Microsoft controls their AI stack end-to-end.
My take: Everyone wants to stop paying the Nvidia tax. Apple did it with M1, Google with TPUs, now Microsoft's turn. Good for competition, probably won't matter for 3-5 years. Still buy NVDA stock.
Read more →The big deal: Study shows interrupting devs is way more harmful than managers think.
What it means for you: Your productivity drops 40%+ after a single interruption. Deep work matters.
My take: We've known this forever but now there's data. If your company does "quick syncs" every 2 hours, you're not coding - you're context switching. Remote work helps but Slack is the new tap-on-shoulder. Protect your flow state.
Read more →Why it's here: Phantom is the top Solana wallet with millions of users. Truly global remote (no timezone BS), excellent salary range, and you'll work on crypto without the scam vibes. Actual product people use daily.
Why it's here: Buffer invented remote work culture. They publish salaries, work transparently, and actually care about work-life balance. Not the highest paying but the culture is legit real.
Why it's here: Same Buffer goodness, but backend focused. If you want to work somewhere that won't burn you out and respects your time, this is it. They walk the walk on remote culture.
Why it's here: Reddit's ML platform powers their entire recommendation engine. Massive scale (500M+ users), great comp, and you'll actually work on interesting ML infrastructure problems. US-only is a bummer but the pay makes up for it.
Why it's here: Run WordPress.com infrastructure at massive scale (40%+ of the web). Automattic is the OG remote company - been distributed since day one. Lower pay but incredible work flexibility and impact.
Why it's here: Data science in crypto actually means something here - fraud detection, user behavior, on-chain analysis. Global remote, great pay, and you'll work with interesting blockchain data sets.
Why it's here: Poe is Quora's AI chatbot platform - you're building the interface for multiple LLMs. Cutting-edge AI work, global remote, wide salary range means room to negotiate.
Why it's here: Webflow is revolutionizing no-code web design. The Styles team works on their core visual editor. Great product, solid comp, and North America remote is still pretty flexible.
Why it's here: Dental tech doesn't sound sexy but the ML is real - 3D modeling, computer vision, manufacturing optimization. Excellent comp, global remote, and you'll work on tangible healthcare problems.
Why it's here: Work with Automattic's enterprise clients (Facebook, Spotify, etc). More customer-facing than pure engineering, but still technical. Great if you like solving real problems for big brands.
The remote job market is heating up. AI companies are throwing cash around like it's 2021 again (OpenAI $500B valuation proves it). For developers with 3-10 years experience, this is the sweet spot - Senior roles are everywhere, Staff roles are competitive but attainable if you have the right niche (blockchain, AI infra, React Native). Salary-wise, $180k-$220k is the new normal for remote Senior engineers at VC-backed companies. Reality check: These salaries come with equity that might be worth zero. Focus on companies with revenue, not just runway.