Who's hiring in sales: October 11 to 18, 2026

OpenAI, Marsh (formerly Marsh McLennan) and five software companies that just raised money are hiring sales talent. Between October 11 and 18, 2026, North.cloud, Harmonic Security, RapidCanvas, Fragment and Clueso each said new funding will grow their go-to-market teams. OpenAI hired another senior sales leader. On the other side of the ledger, Lightspeed Commerce said 250 roles are affected by layoffs and unfilled openings.

Who is hiring

OpenAI hired Graham Seamans to lead sales for its cybersecurity business, Bloomberg reported on October 16. He had run xAI's sales team since August 2025. Since September, OpenAI has also hired Brian McCarthy and Ismail Elmas in Europe. Both came from Cursor. OpenAI declined to comment. [1]

If you sell security or AI software, keep OpenAI's careers page open.

Marsh, formerly Marsh McLennan, is adding sales capacity. On the company's October 15 earnings call, CEO John Doyle put it plainly: "we are hiring producers and consultants in areas where we see the greatest opportunity for growth." He said the firm's Thrive cost program is paying for it. [2]

onPhase, a finance and operations platform, named Jeff Zamczyk chief revenue officer on October 15. He runs sales, account management and partnerships. [3] Veho, a parcel delivery platform, named Henrik Nilsmo chief revenue officer the same day. "I'm excited to build the team," he said. [4] Neither company shared a headcount target.

Who raised money to hire

Five software companies announced rounds this week. Each said the money will grow sales or go-to-market teams.

Company	Raised	Led by	In their words
North.cloud (cloud and AI spend)	$60M Series B	PeakSpan Capital	"scale its engineering, product, and go-to-market teams" [5]
Harmonic Security (AI data security)	$50M Series B	Crosspoint Capital Partners	Growing "engineering and go-to-market teams" in the US and UK [6]
RapidCanvas (managed AI)	$29M Series B	Vertex Ventures SEA & India	Plans "to grow its go-to-market teams" [7]
Fragment (commerce automation)	$12M Series A	FirstMark	"actively hiring across GTM and engineering" in New York [8]
Clueso (AI video)	$10M Series A	Dharana Capital	Will "scale its enterprise go-to-market organization" [9]

None of them published a sales headcount. All of them have fresh money and said where it goes. That is a strong hiring signal.

Who is cutting

Lightspeed Commerce said 250 roles are affected, through layoffs and by leaving some openings unfilled. It did not say how many of each, or which teams. [10] BetaKit reported that former employees in sales and content roles announced their layoffs on LinkedIn. [11] Lightspeed said it will share more with its quarterly results next month.

Airtable's new owner, Bending Spoons, is laying off a "large part" of the workforce, Business Insider reported. It did not say how many people or which teams. [12]

XM Cyber laid off about 250 of roughly 300 employees in Israel, Calcalist reported. The company disputes that figure and says it will keep about 150 people. [13]

Netflix is cutting about 1,000 roles, mostly in product, tech, legal and HR. [14] TomTom said about 200 roles are affected. [15] Neither named sales roles.

Deals that could reshape sales teams

• Proofpoint agreed to buy Varonis for about $6.3 billion in cash, or $49.75 a share. Proofpoint plans to "align go-to-market efforts" after the deal closes, expected in the first half of 2027. No job cuts were announced. [16]
• Intuit is buying Sequence, a billing and revenue platform. Terms were not disclosed. [17]
• Salesforce is buying Loops, an AI analytics tool that will join Tableau. Terms were not disclosed. [18]

The market in one number

91.7. That was Indeed's index of US sales job postings on October 9, where February 2020 equals 100. It is up 1.5% from a year earlier and down slightly from 92.5 in September. Sales hiring is growing, slowly, and still sits about 8% below where it was before 2020. [19] The percentages are our math from the published index.

What to do this week

1. Go where the money went. North.cloud, Harmonic Security, RapidCanvas, Fragment and Clueso all said they are building go-to-market teams. Reach out to their sales leaders before the roles are posted.
2. Ask about the merger. Interviewing at Proofpoint or Varonis? Ask how territories and quotas will be set once the companies combine.
3. Read past the headline. This week, only Lightspeed's cuts were reported to include sales roles.

Know a company hiring account executives that we missed? Tell us and we will look at it for next week.