The most-traded private companies are hiring in opposite directions
Open job postings across the Setter 30 · January 1 to July 10, 2026
The Setter 30 ranks the private companies that secondary-market buyers want the most. Investors treat these names as one basket. Their job boards say they are not. Across the 18 companies tracked from January to July 2026, defense and space open roles rose 63% and the AI and software names rose 43%, while the fintech and crypto companies cut open roles by 39%, from 738 to 450.
Four sectors, two directions
Open roles by sector, indexed to 100 on January 1, 18 companies
Zoom in from sectors to individual companies and the swings get even bigger. Anduril added 1,104 open roles since January, more than the rest of the list's gains combined. On the other side, Deel cut its board from 425 to 261, Kraken from 174 to 51, and Lambda from 94 to 32. These are not small trims: Kraken's open postings are down more than two thirds.
Who is adding roles, who is cutting
Net change per company: roles open on July 10 minus roles open on January 1
Valuation buys surprisingly little hiring in parts of the list. Kalshi is valued at 22 billion dollars and posts 13 open roles; Deel is valued at 17.3 billion and its board is shrinking. At the other extreme, Anduril posts more open roles than companies valued ten times higher. The scatter below puts every company with at least a month of tracked history on one canvas.
What a billion dollars of valuation hires
Latest valuation (log scale) against open roles now
Three notes on coverage: Stripe and Shield AI appear only in the point-in-time views because their boards entered tracking or re-baselined after January; Saronic is excluded because its careers board went stale during the period; and SpaceX completed its IPO after the first-quarter list was compiled, so it is now a public company and its valuation here is its last private-market mark. Role counts reflect each company's public careers board.
Explore the interactive infographic for the full breakdown.
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Source: Timeplot, based on job postings from companies on the Setter 30 list (Q1 2026 edition). Data covers January 1 to July 10, 2026.