Hey there —
The week that gave us 11,000 tech job cuts in a single day just got a closer look. Intuit’s CEO told CNBC those 3,000 layoffs had “nothing to do with AI” — and in the same breath, the company announced multi-year AI platform deals with two of the biggest AI companies on the planet. Meanwhile, one state decided that someone should start getting ahead of what happens to workers when companies move this fast.
Today: Intuit’s AI contradiction, California’s first-ever AI workforce executive order, and why the entry-level job market is getting harder even as openings rise.
In This Issue:
- 🔥 The Big Story: Intuit’s 3,000-person contradiction
- ⚡ Quick Hits: 4 major market movements this week
- 🏢 Companies Hiring: 5 remote-first teams building right now
- 🎯 Career Signal: The agentic AI architect boom
- ✅ Quick Win: The 2-minute job alert setup
🔥 The Big Story
Intuit Cut 3,000 Jobs. The CEO Said It Had Nothing to Do With AI. Then Intuit Signed Multi-Year AI Platform Deals.
The headline. On May 20, Intuit — the company behind TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mailchimp, and Credit Karma — cut roughly 3,000 employees, about 17% of its global workforce, the same morning Meta was announcing its own round of cuts. CEO Sasan Goodarzi framed the decision to CNBC as a structural simplification: reducing management layers, eliminating “coordination-heavy roles,” consolidating offices in Reno and Woodland Hills, with U.S. staff having until July 31. “None of it had to do with AI,” Goodarzi said. Intuit’s stock fell nearly 5% on the announcement.
The bigger picture. The same week, Intuit signed multi-year deals with two leading AI platform providers, integrating large language models into TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Mailchimp — and embedding Intuit’s tax, finance, and accounting capabilities into those AI products in return. The company also raised its full-year FY2026 guidance the same week, projecting $21.34–$21.37 billion in revenue, above analyst consensus. The moves look like this in sequence: cut one in six employees, sign AI platform deals, raise guidance, and tell investors the layoffs weren’t about AI. The restructuring charges hit $300 million. The AI bet is the reason for the trade.
Why this matters: Intuit crystallized something that’s been building all year. CEO messaging and operational decisions are increasingly going in opposite directions when it comes to AI. Workers who take press releases at face value are the ones most likely to be caught off guard. The companies cutting and the companies building can be — and increasingly are — the same company, in the same week.
Source: Intuit Press Room
Stat of the Week
56% → The wage premium workers with AI skills now earn over same-role peers who don’t have those skills — up from 25% just one year ago. The gap is widening faster than most upskilling programs are running. (Ravio AI Compensation & Talent Trends, 2026)
Source: Ravio
⚡ Quick Hits
California Becomes the First State to Issue an AI Worker Protection Executive Order
Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on May 21 directing California state agencies, universities, economists, and industry leaders to develop policies that prepare workers and businesses for AI-driven workforce disruption. The order specifically explores severance standards, employment insurance for displaced workers, expanded workforce training, and real-time payroll tracking to detect layoffs earlier. It does not create any immediate legal protections — no new severance rules, no moratoriums on AI-driven cuts. What it does is put every major employer operating in California on notice that policy is actively being built around them. If you work in California, the regulatory environment around AI layoffs is about to change in the next 6–12 months. See the order →
2026 Layoffs Have Already Blown Past All of 2025 — and June Hasn’t Started
As of this week, 212 documented layoff events in 2026 have affected 143,985 workers — roughly 993 people per day. The full-year 2025 total was around 124,000. We’re already 20% above that before the halfway mark. May is tracking as the worst single month of the year so far, with the pace accelerating into Q3. This isn’t a correction — it’s a structural reset. Companies that were “evaluating AI’s role” six months ago are now making decisions and cutting the people those decisions replace. Check the numbers →
Groupon Cuts 400 Jobs to Go “AI-Native”
Groupon’s board approved cutting up to 400 positions globally by end of Q3 2026, as part of a pivot to an “AI-native” operating model. Groupon expects $20–$25M in annualized payroll savings with roughly $7–$13M in restructuring charges. The company also raised its full-year EBITDA guidance to $75–$80M and its COO is stepping down effective July 10. This one matters beyond Groupon: when a consumer-facing deal marketplace — not a developer tool or AI infrastructure company — starts cutting for AI strategy reasons, the pattern has officially spread well beyond Silicon Valley. Get the details →
New Stanford Research Shows Exactly Who AI Is Hurting in the Job Market Right Now
Researchers at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab analyzed 950 occupations using one of the world’s largest payroll datasets. Workers aged 22–25 in AI-exposed occupations (software development, customer service, data work) saw entry-level head counts fall 16% since ChatGPT launched in late 2022. Meanwhile, older workers in the same roles saw head count grow. The explanation: AI absorbs “codified knowledge” — the kind you learn in school and can readily replicate — while experienced workers’ tacit, judgment-based skills remain harder to replace. A college degree no longer differentiates entry-level candidates in AI-exposed fields the way it used to. Read the research →
🏢 Companies Hiring
Even in a week defined by layoff headlines, these five companies are actively building remote teams. Worth bookmarking.
Stripe — Payments Infrastructure, Remote Engineering Hub → Stripe built a permanent remote engineering hub in 2022 and has expanded it consistently — remote engineers now make up 22%+ of their technical staff. Open roles span software engineering, infrastructure, identity, and product. View open roles →
Shopify — Digital by Default Since 2020 → Shopify hasn’t had a mandatory in-office day since 2020 and has built its entire operating model around distributed work. The role in Boise pays the same as the one in Toronto. Current openings span engineering, product, commercial, and design. View open roles →
HubSpot — @Flex Policy, Remote-Eligible Globally → HubSpot’s “@flex” policy gives every employee a choice: office, hybrid, or fully remote. Remote employees receive a monthly stipend for home office setup. Open roles span marketing, engineering, sales, and customer success. View open roles →
Atlassian — Team Anywhere, 100% Virtual Hiring Process → Atlassian runs on a “Team Anywhere” model — the majority of roles are remote-eligible and every interview is conducted virtually. The company makes Jira, Confluence, and Trello. Open roles span engineering, product, design, and support. View open roles →
GitLab — The World’s Largest All-Remote Company → GitLab has been fully remote since day one — 2,500+ team members across 65+ countries with no physical headquarters and location-independent compensation bands. Open roles span engineering, product, UX, sales, and support. View open roles →
Know someone between jobs? Forward this section — it might be exactly what they need.
🎯 Career Signal
The agentic AI architect is becoming the defining technical role of 2026. Job postings for agentic AI roles grew 280% year-over-year, and Gartner projects that 40% of enterprise applications will embed task-specific AI agents by end of this year — up from less than 5% just last year. Average compensation ranges from $185K–$320K in base, with senior packages climbing higher at companies like Salesforce, NVIDIA, Apple, and major consulting firms. This role isn’t just for ML engineers anymore — data engineers, solutions architects, and senior developers who understand agent frameworks are landing these roles. If you’ve been the person who connects AI capabilities to business outcomes, that’s the exact profile in demand.
🧠 Skill-Building Reads
The market is moving fast. Here’s what’s worth your time this week.
Elements of AI — Free, Beginner-Friendly, No Coding Required → The University of Helsinki built this for everyone — over 1 million students from 170+ countries have completed it. If you’ve been meaning to understand how AI works rather than just read about it, this is the cleanest on-ramp available. About 30 hours total. Read it →
fast.ai — Practical Deep Learning for Coders → fast.ai’s code-first course gets you writing PyTorch and training real models in the first session — no theoretical preamble. Engineers who want to work in AI rather than just alongside it consistently cite this as the fastest path from “interested” to “capable.” Read it →
Microsoft AI Fundamentals Learning Path — Free, Credential-Worthy → Free and aligned with the AI-900 certification, this learning path covers ML concepts, computer vision, NLP, and Azure AI services. Structured, employer-recognized, completable in a focused week. Read it →
✅ Quick Win
Set up a Google Alert for each of your top five target companies’ careers pages.
When you’re in an active job search, most people find out about openings days or weeks after they go live. A Google Alert with a query like site:stripe.com/jobs new notifies you the moment new listings appear. It takes 2 minutes to configure per company, runs automatically, and costs nothing. In a market where competitive roles close before most candidates know they exist, being first to apply matters.
What we’re watching: California’s AI workforce policy timeline as other states watch the Newsom playbook, whether May’s layoff pace forces a federal response on labor protections, and Intuit’s Q3 earnings as the first real test of whether its AI platform deals deliver the margin expansion it’s projecting.
🎯 Bottom Line
This week sharpened a divide that’s been forming all year. On one side: companies trimming, simplifying, and betting that AI platforms will handle what people used to do. On the other: a handful of teams still building distributed workforces, investing in human talent, and positioning for the next wave of growth. The job market is sorting in real time. The gap between AI-adjacent and AI-capable is widening every quarter, and the entry-level market is the most visible early casualty. The job seekers doing well right now aren’t waiting for things to stabilize — they’re learning which side of that divide their skills sit on and moving accordingly. RemoteHunter.com has verified remote jobs and AI-powered tools to help you build a resume and cover letter that actually gets through. Use both.
Until next week — keep building.
— The RH Team 🤙
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