Indian-origin startup offers jobs to laid-off Meta staff, salary up to ₹5.2 cr

Kamath, the founder of US-based Smallest AI, said his company is hiring former Meta employees for its speech team in San Francisco.

“Laid off from Meta? We are hiring in speech team for Smallest AI in San Francisco!” Kamath posted on X, adding that the roles come with base salaries ranging from $200,000 (₹1.75 crore) to $600,000 (₹5.26 crore) a year, along with flexible equity options.

“With such attractive base salaries, selected employees are likely to receive more than half a million per annum, making the pay as attractive as bigger tech companies,” Kamath said.

Job requirements

The Smallest AI founder outlined the eligibility criteria in his post, writing: “Looking for – experience with speech evals, speech generation, full duplex speech to speech… Must be - fkin smart and hungry. DM me [sic].”

Meta’s AI layoffs

Meta recently announced it would cut around 600 positions in itsSuperintelligence Labs, part of an effort to make its AI division more agile, according to Reuters.

The layoffs span teams across Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR), product-focused AI units, and AI infrastructure groups, though its TBD Lab**, focused on next-generation foundation models, remains unaffected.

Chief AI Officer

Alexandr Wang said the restructuring aims to streamline decision-making and broaden the scope of remaining roles.

The company also encouraged affected employees to apply for other internal positions.

Meta’s AI expansion and funding

Earlier this month, Meta secured a $27 billion financing deal with Blue Owl Capital—its largest private capital agreement to date—to support its largest data center project. Analysts say the deal allows Meta to accelerate its AI ambitions while shifting cost and risk to external investors.

Meta had reorganised its AI teams under Superintelligence Labs in June, following key staff exits and muted reception to its open-source Llama 4 model.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally led a major hiring drive to reinforce the division.

Meta began investing in AI in 2013, establishing the FAIR unit and hiring Yann LeCun as chief AI scientist to build a global research network focused on deep learning.