This Week’s Signal

The market has shifted from hiring to onboarding.

What Changed

Hiring held steady, but the market is shifting.

  • Active roles: 90 (down from 92)  

  • Hiring Index: 142.0 (down from 150.0)  

  • Expansion Rate: 17.9% (down from 18.8%)  

  • Median roles/company: 3.0 (flat)  

  • Scaling companies (3+ roles): 11 (down from 12)  

  • Top-four share: ~50% (up from 47%) 

The overall size of the market changed only slightly. The more important shift is where activity sits.

A greater share of remaining demand is now concentrated within a smaller group of companies, as roles continue to turn over across the rest of the market.

Spellbook, Kraken Robotics, CoLab Software, and Vish Limited now account for roughly half of all visible demand.

Weekly View: Under the Surface

It’s been a month since the launch of the Undercurrent, and the market has shown a clear pattern: roles are turning over quickly.

Of the 170 positions tracked since launch, nearly half have already come off the board, with March postings moving especially fast while April roles are still relatively new.

That isn’t a slow market but a time-sensitive one, where opportunities exist but don’t stay open for long. At the same time, more of that activity is concentrated within a smaller group of companies.

Taken together, the pattern is becoming clearer:

This is a market defined by speed and concentration, not scale.

The implication is straightforward:
Waiting carries a higher cost than in a typical hiring cycle.

Company Insights

  • Spellbook expanded from 14 to 17 roles and now accounts for roughly one in five live roles.

  • Kraken Robotics slipped slightly (12 → 11) but remains a core anchor.

  • CoLab Software edged up (9 → 10) and stays firmly in the top tier.

  • Vish Limited rose from 5 to 7 and moved into the upper cluster.

  • Vision33 narrowed from 7 to 4 and dropped out of the top group.

Selected Roles

A snapshot of current demand:

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Function Mix

Function

Current Roles

Prior Roles

Delta

Engineering

29

31

-2

Sales

16

18

-2

Operations

14

14

0

Product & Design

6

8

-2

Marketing

7

7

0

Finance

6

4

+2

People & Legal

3

4

-1

Customer Success

9

6

+3

Core demand eased slightly, but the overall mix remained stable.

Core roles fell from 57 to 51, accounting for most of the net decline. At the same time, customer success (+3) and finance (+2) continued to expand.

This is consistent with a market moving from hiring to execution.

Build roles are being filled, while support and coverage roles continue to be added behind them.

Layer Breakdown

Layer

Change from Last Week

Market Concentation

Core (Eng/Sales/Product)

-6

57%

Execution (Ops, Marketing, Finance)

+2

30%

Support

+2

13%

Core roles declined (-6), while execution and support both expanded slightly (+2 each).

This pattern typically follows a hiring wave: core roles are filled first, and execution layers build around them.

The result is a transition from building teams to operating them.

The Undercurrent (Why This Matters)

The market is stabilizing after an early-year hiring push.

The number of roles and companies held mostly steady, but the composition shifted:

Core hiring eased as engineering, sales, and product roles declined modestly.

Support roles continued to grow as customer success and finance expanded, even as build roles were filled.

Taken together, the signal is a transition. As the hiring wave moves into completion, the market is shifting to operate the teams that were just built.

The next signal to watch is whether new demand emerges to restart expansion, or whether the market holds at this level.

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See all 90 roles

Full Roles List

Avalon Holographics

Big Land Networks Ltd

BreatheSuite

ClearRisk

CoLab Software

Compusult Limited

Granville Biomedical Inc.

HeyOrca Inc.

Kerby-Reid Inc.

Kraken Robotics

NDITIVE

PAL Aerospace

Pingram.io

SmartICE Monitoring & Information Inc.

Solace Power Inc.

Spellbook

Verafin Nasdaq Canada Inc.

Verlo Finance

Virtual Marine Inc.

Vish Limited

Vision33 Inc.

trophi.ai

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