Best of Bad Job Bingo: AI Dystopia Edition

Genuinely one of the most diverse companies I've seen so far. And the rare case where a company claims diversity as a value and seems to be backing that up with their hiring. Cool!

Whew, this is too real: We have the scars from building and working with the first generation of modern machine learning systems at Google, Meta, Pinterest, eBay, Lyft, and other leading organizations.

Since this is a founding role (something they emphasize a surprising amount) and the duties themselves have a distinct leadership flavor, I feel like the title should be a little more senior, but the pay is excellent for this kind of role.

Also, I don't think I've ever seen a support engineer described as being a mentor for other teams and I'm digging the spirit: Be the resident support expert and mentor for engineering and Go-To-Market teams

I really like that they included this: Shape best practices and company culture as we grow

Normally I'd count mentions of A-players (on the Careers page) and "Previous experience in a fast-paced startup environment is a plus" as flags, but overall I think they've done such a good job of conveying their company culture and values and describing this role that I don't think these things are a big deal. I think we have another Green Means Go on our hands!

Yes, It's AI. I'm as surprised as you.

Powered by Marey: The generative video model trained from scratch entirely on fully-licensed data — You know, if I have to co-exist with AI nonsense, at least it's licensed nonsense? (Total aside: their vision for generative video is worth a read.)

No real Careers page, just a list of jobs on Ashby.

Through technical workshops, community initiatives, and close collaboration with filmmakers and studios, you'll help shape an AI filmmaking future that pushes creative boundaries while respecting the work and rights of artists everywhere. — It's probably a little pathetic how easy it is to get me on your side as an AI company. Oh, you're doing the bare minimum? WOULD YOU LIKE A COOKIE?

Natural mentor and charismatic leader with ability to identify, nurture, and spotlight a diverse range of talent wherever you find it — Y'all know what I'm going to say here – real, positive leadership and mentorship require skill and knowledge beyond what natural ability can provide, and some (if not, in my experience, most) people will actually do more harm than good when they rely on charisma to get them through working with communities.

In our team, we approach our work with the dedication similar to Olympic athletes. Anticipate occasional late nights and weekends dedicated to our mission. We understand this level of commitment may not suit everyone, and we openly communicate this expectation. — I don't like it, but they're being upfront and honest about their expectations, which is a green flag.

$150K – $260K would be a great salary for a remote Community Lead role, but this position is hybrid in Los Angeles or San Francisco, so I'm on the fence considering the cost of living in these areas. And that's assuming it actually is hybrid, and not one of those 4-days-in-the-office, 1-day-at-home deals.

I'm going to put this in Eh, It's Probably Fine, with the caveat that I think candidates should 1) make sure it really is hybrid and 2) try to push for the high side of this range during the interview process.

I'm going to preface this by saying that, although I'm going to give you my opinion (as I always do), I like to reiterate periodically that what I think about a company or its mission doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is what you think of the company and its mission, and whether its values align with yours, and you don't need to explain or defend that to anyone but yourself.

So, having said that: I'm really, really torn on this company. On the one hand, we are born into a capitalist hellscape where our health largely depends on our skin color, our economic class, and our ability to purchase more time to live (but mostly work) from a system designed to ensure that we're always somehow in debt to it. If at any point that debt exceeds our purchasing power, the choice is to beg others to give us some of their purchasing power or, you know, die.

We could solve this by prioritizing our inalienable right to life and devoting our national resources to securing that right through universal healthcare, but I'm lolsobbing just writing that, so yeah. Instead, if AI must exist, isn't this the kind of thing it should be used for, even if using it to improve our health comes with its own environmental trade-offs and moral complexities?

On the other hand: it's fucking AI. Can we really trust anything it comes up with? And even if we could, should we be sinking literally billions of dollars into something that's not actually meant to enrich our lives, even in this context, but the bank accounts of the people who insist on building it instead of investing that money in real things that would impact real humans?

A real quandary. Let's play Bad Job Bingo, I'm sure that will solve everything.

Regardless of...all of that, Doctronic positions itself as "the first AI legally authorized to practice medicine," which already concerns me. As far as I can tell, this is not so much untrue as it is misleading. Doctronic's program was approved in late 2025 under a program in Utah that "can temporarily waive certain professional licensure and scope-of-practice laws to test innovative programs under close supervision." So I personally wouldn't consider it "legally authorized to practice medicine" so much as temporarily approved to test its capabilities in the healthcare space in 1 U.S. state out of 50.

This is an important distinction, and I don't love that they caved to easy marketing, knowing that people in vulnerable health are not going to stop to locate the FAQ page and then scroll 40 questions deep to check this information.

But let's check the job listing - maybe everything else is on the up and up.

We're looking for a Customer Success Manager to own customer satisfaction across Doctronic. You'll ensure patients, partners, and enterprise clients are getting value—and that we're hearing them when they're not. — I need to point out this framing: notice they don't say, "You'll ensure patients et al are being treated appropriately," or "You'll ensure that patients et al are not being harmed by our AI." It's: "You'll ensure patients et al are getting value" because they're concerned only with money and whether patients will come back to give them more of it.

Report on customer health trends to leadership, translating data into actionable insights. Advocate for customer needs in product planning and prioritization discussions. — Someone's health is not a product. That they're treating it like one is a big, big problem.

Again, aside from...all of that, I'm concerned that some of the job duties are misaligned with the title, and the pay is just okay for a hybrid role in NYC. I am...let's say disquieted by this company, but the job itself is at worst a Tread Carefully.

But truly, friends. Tread carefully with this one.

Some of their values are interesting – perfectly fine in the right hands, dangerous in the wrong hands. Specifically, these two:

Mission - We believe in the power of AI as an enabling tool to democratize expertise. — This is something you really need to define because "democratize expertise" sure sounds like "steal labor so that I don't have to pay people a fair wage," doesn't it?

A+ Team - Our team consists of a majority of ex-Founders, world leading scientists and nationally competitive athletes. — Okay? If you care about "democratizing expertise," why would any of that be something you're impressed by?

I'd like to point out that the Why We Work Here section contains no actual information about the tangible benefits of working at Cresta (such as health insurance, time off, compensation package, etc.). I smell bullshit!

Cresta's co-founder and chairman is Sebastian Thrun, the genius behind — So humble. (And also very funny – we must appreciate this one dude's "genius" while assuming everyone else must be okay with "democratizing expertise." Cool.)

Our leadership also includes CEO, Ping Wu, the co-founder of Google Contact Center AI — Because Google is known for its excellent customer service?

Cresta is on a mission to turn every customer conversation into a competitive advantage by unlocking the true potential of the contact center. [...] Our valued customers include brands like Intuit, Cox Communications, Hilton, and Carmax — ...because companies like Intuit and Cox are known for their excellent customer service?

Join us on this thrilling journey to revolutionize the workforce with AI. — No thanks, I'm good.

This role requires a visionary leader — This job description is exhausting.

Compensation for this position includes a base salary, equity, and a variety of benefits. — Gee, what incredibly useful information about salary. I'm overcome by their transparency.

Actual base salaries will be based on candidate-specific factors, including experience, skillset, and location, and local minimum pay requirements as applicable. — HA. Now there's some useful info – "we'll probably just pay you the minimum required by local law."

I'm putting this in BINGO purely for how insufferable this company sounds.

Note: There are a few other CX roles open at this company, including some Customer Success roles and an Implementation Manager.

The "RISE OF THE HUMAN MACHINE" plastered across their home page isn't alarming at all. O_O

Multicultural from the very beginning and inclusive. Tadaweb is open to all types of mindsets, beliefs, languages and orientations. We’re proud to respect people of all ages and ideas, bringing more value to our spaces and products. Oooooh boy.

Y'all, the Company Careers page BINGOed before I even got to the job description, which actually looks fairly normal (if only available on LinkedIn). Not that I think y'all are doing this, but if anyone is, this is a really good example of why you can't just apply to a role based on a job listing alone.

DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER

From their Careers page: The age of AI is here. Generative AI has the potential to unseat incumbents, catapult new leaders, or solidify existing moats. – What a perfectly normal way to introduce your AI company.

Speaking of Careers pages, Scale's needs some work. They repeat whole paragraphs and talk about "Parental Support" without explaining what parental leave or other policies they actually have. Given how much they're hiring, you'd think someone would have noticed the problems before now.

We are growing operations rapidly, on-boarding new customers, and launching products all the time. This raises new strategic questions we need to answer as well as tactical challenges we need to overcome. – My friends. As a CX leader (which has almost always included T&S risk assessment / mitigation), I advise you to think very carefully before working in Trust & Safety for a company that routinely launches products before they've fully considered the risks and tactical challenges involved with said products. Think about the battle you'd be fighting daily, which you'd constantly be fighting uphill, and THEN CONSIDER THAT THOSE PRODUCTS INVOLVE GENERATIVE AI. (See the main story for this issue, ye gads.)

The blend of operations, process improvement, and cross-functional leadership make this a unique and exciting role that will provide an opportunity to work with multiple teams across the company and around the globe. – Okay, so why the hell is this role only at the manager level, then?

The requirements section is too long to quote here, but it is a fucking mess: unnecessary elitism, poorly written and repeated requirements, and requirements that are wildly misaligned with the job title.

Dare I say that I think this job description might have been written by AI?

Okay, I am...very not objective about this company. I am actively hostile to the product and the way Siena markets it: simulated chat conversations on their homepage in which they are clearly encouraging companies to deceive customers into thinking they're talking to humans and not bots and intentionally and repeatedly positioning their product as a replacement for human support agents.

So it is galling – to say the least – to see Siena hiring human support for their product when they're happy enough for it to fuel an exaggerated AI craze that's led to a CX employment crisis everywhere else. The words irony and hypocrisy come to mind.

Thus it is unsurprising that Siena has no Careers page to speak of, just a list of their job openings. Why worry about being candidate-first? I'm sure there's an AI for that.

making a real impact in automating agentic workflows — Making up words in addition to making up "humans.”

join us on our mission to revolutionize customer experience through empathetic AI — starts box-breathing exercises

We're direct and honest: We believe in straightforward, truthful communication. We say what we think, clearly and respectfully. — Does that include being honest with customers when they're talking to a chatbot and not a human?

As Manager of Technical Support, you will be responsible for managing the technical support team within our customer success organization. — What technical support team? I thought you have Siena for that. Is this position just bossing the bot around?

In this player/coach role, you will help to deliver world class support to our global customer base. — Ooohhh, so Siena's good enough for other people's customers, but not to deliver "world-class support" for your customers. Got it.

We're a startup. We can't offer you fancy offices or extra perks. But here's what we can offer — How about, I don't know, JUST REAL FUCKING BENEFITS. Who (oh, who am I kidding, what) wrote this? Have y'all dove so far into the AI Kool-Aid that you can't even remember that a real person will be in this job and need little things like healthcare and dental? WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU.

At Siena, we’re not just looking for people who can do a job. We’re looking for people who want to break boundaries, create the future, and reshape industries. — I can't, y'all. Snark overload. I CANNOT.

There's also a Customer Success Manager role open at this company but I absolutely refuse to subject myself to more of this nonsense.

(I should note that I don't begrudge the humans who work here. People need jobs. That's kind of the whole basis for my beef with Siena.)

We value sharp minds and strong initiative. — Y'all, I'm tired. Enter joke here illustrating the absurdity of wasting space saying uninsightful, useless shit like this on Career pages.

We tackle real problems. — Do you? Do you really? As opposed to all those fake problems experienced by non-inventory management companies? Y'all have got to stop letting your marketing interns write your Careers pages.

We’re not just about enhancing productivity, we’re about enhancing lives. — Oh, for fuck's sake.

We’re not just filling roles; we’re fueling a movement. — This Careers page is killing me. Literally, I can feel the website sending free radicals directly through my eyeballs and into my bloodstream. Like 5G. That's how that works, right?

Oh god, is it over? IS IT FINALLY OVER? AM I FREE? Oh, there's still a whole job description. Ugh.

Autone is an AI-powered inventory optimisation platform — Well, at least that explains everything.

I'll take "What job description was written by AI?" for one billion dollars, Alex.

No compensation, no mentions of benefits anywhere, no idea if it's onsite or remote, and the location is just "Usa, New York Office." Honestly, I'm not even convinced this is a real company. I'm gonna say Seriously, Maybe Don't.

Wow, what a thing to name your company. Although I just know there was a conversation at some point where someone advised, "Just name it Bland AI! It'll seem less threatening!"

Unfortunately, the branding doesn't work. This product seems like a nightmare.

02 Customer Support - Bland always has a great attitude, a perfect memory, and infinite patience. Never make customers wait on hold or deal with a b attitude again.

We are a start-up, and we need people who understand what that means. — Sure. What does that mean, Bland AI?

We aren't a super traditional team, but we are an extremely effective one. We love unique backgrounds, hardworkers, and intelligent people who take pride in everything they do. — They really are bland if they can't come up with something better than "we don't want witless malingerers."

You pay attention to small details — Bland and predictable.

If you don't have the perfect experience that is fine! We're a bunch of drop-outs and hackers — Because a bunch of drop-outs is who you want in control of an AI voice product that can be used to do little things like influence elections and defraud people.

Working at a start-up is really hard. — Where's that "Startups are hard!" Barbie when you need her?

We work a lot and we figure things out on the fly. — I get that this is BJB, and we're talking about jobs and hiring. I do. I really do. But I just--okay, I need a moment. For just this minute, can we stop and acknowledge that this is a perfect example of everything that is often wrong with Tech in general and how we approach AI specifically? Can we just acknowledge that generative AI is really fucking dangerous even in the hands of incredibly educated and careful people and that maybe it is recklessly, unforgivably irresponsible to allow 20-somethings who appear to have no professional experience before 2022 to be in charge of AI products that could destabilize democracies? COULD WE MAYBE JUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT FOR A MILLISECOND OH MY FUCKING GOD–

I'm back. I'm fine. Everything's fine.

I'm putting this in Seriously, Maybe Don't purely because of how fucking terrifying it is.

Another one that was reader-submitted. Thanks!

Come build the search engine for human opinion. — I can literally go on any website right now and find someone's dumb opinion. You're reading my dumb opinion right now. Why are we doing this.

$9M Funding — The internet was a mistake.

From Terac's inception, we've been fascinated by a single idea: as agent-run companies emerge, they won't need employees, but they will still need people. Today, humans do most of the world's work with the help of AI. In a not so distant future, AI will do most work with the help of humans. Terac is the labor marketplace that will power this post-AGI future. — Please mercy-kill me before this future arrives, thanks.

What We Do Today: We are an expert network powering frontier research by building the infrastructure layer that makes human labor accessible on-demand. Companies integrate with us via API to access our wide array of research-grade experts. We handle recruitment, verification, screening, and payouts so our partners can focus on building their products. — 1) What the everloving fuck does this even mean, and 2) This is just nine raccoons in a trenchcoat like those guys at Builder.ai, isn't it?

Where We're Going: Over the course of human history, jobs have only become shorter and shorter term. In the stone age, you hunted or gathered your whole life. In the industrial era, you worked at one factory for 30 years. Now, on platforms like Uber, people take on dozens of micro-jobs per day. We believe this trend will continue and the need for AI-driven labor marketplaces will only grow. — I hate this so much, I don't have anything funny to say.

How We Work: We're building something that matters. These are the principles that guide us. — This is fucking exhausting. I might need that mercy killing a little sooner.

Their "values" are as boilerplate and shallow as you'd expect them to be, so I'm just skipping them.

Terac helps teams reach faster research breakthroughs through our marketplace of verified experts. We are building agents to recruit, verify, and match 10,000s experts with 100s of research opportunities. We work with leading enterprises and are backed by top investors. — Is this company even AI? WHAT DOES THIS FUCKING MEAN

We're looking for a founding operator to partner directly with the CEO to shape and scale the company’s core functions. You will work on the highest-priority problems in the company including managing customer relationships, building out the founding team, and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. You're someone who thrives in ambiguity, has exceptional judgment, and can context-switch between strategic planning, tactical execution, and people operations. — I don't think they have any better idea of what Ops is supposed to do than they do about what their product actually is.

Coordinate the delivery of our highest-value projects. Work with the CEO to drive important business decisions. Oversee and orchestrate the work of 10,000s of experts on our platform — 🎶 One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong 🎶

Work with our team six days a week in our San Francisco headquarters — I'm sorry what

Background in consulting, finance, startups, or other operationally intense environments. — “You can be as clueless as us, it's fine." -- Terac, probably

Comp - In-office six days per week — Is this supposed to be a benefit? I-

This is just so very, deeply stupid. $9 million, guys.