After Plaid
- 7%Founded something4
- 37%Joined a startup21
- 9%Joined a big company5
- 47%Elsewhere
Shares of those who moved on, by their next stop.
People who leave Plaid most often go to Cursor and Google. 7% found something next. 37% go small. Median stay 2y 2m
These are the engineers in the Zelcast network and the profiles run through the Eng Scorer, not Plaid's headcount: 134 people on a map of 26,572, the No. 68 company on it by people. Updated August 20, 2026.
- People on the map
- 1340.5% of everyone on the map
- There now
- 8160% of the people here
- Moved on
- 5340% of the people here
- Median tenure
- 2y 2mmiddle half 11m to 4y 5m
Put Plaid side by side with another company, every number against every number.
Came from, went to
Ribbon width is the number of people who made the move. Most arrive from Amazon. Most leave for Cursor (5% of recorded departures).
How long people stay
29%<1y
14%1-2y
25%2-4y
29%4-7y
3%7y+
126 stays with both a start and an end on the record.
Who comes and goes, by year
0012
0013
0014
1115
6016
5117
1118
8119
171120
22521
311622
131423
141324
22825
15326
joined left2026 is a partial year
2012 to 2026: 155 joined, 74 left.
Caliber
84mediantop 10%89
0Eng Scorer caliber, 134 scored99
there now 83 moved on 85. The people who left score higher than the people still there.
Titles held here
- Software Engineer84
- Software Engineer Intern29
- Senior Software Engineer27
- Engineering Manager11
- Staff Software Engineer3
5 most common titles, by people who held them.
Behind the median
Everyone here with an Eng Scorer read, placed in their caliber tier.
- 3%Exceptional4 people
- 20%Strong27 people
- 58%Solid78 people
- 19%Emerging or unproven25 people
134 of the 134 people here carry an Eng Scorer tier.
Exceptional and strong are the top two of the five tiers. 31 of the 134 people here with a read sit in them, 23%. A tier is the band an Eng Scorer caliber score falls in, so this is the same measurement as the median on the caliber card, opened up. A tier holding fewer than 3 people is printed together with the one next to it, because a bucket that small is a person rather than a pattern.
Whether a title rose here
The level of the first title recorded here, against the last.
41%Titles that rose31 of 75 classified people
- 41%Rose31 people
- 55%Stayed level41 people
- 4%Fell3 people
75 of the 134 people here had a title that could be placed on the ladder before and after.
A title rose when the last title recorded here sits higher on the ladder than the first; for someone who recorded one title here and then left, it is measured against the first title of their next role. The ladder runs intern, junior, mid, senior, staff or manager, principal, director, VP, then founder or C-level. A title that matches no rung is left out rather than guessed, and product, program and project managers are left out entirely, being a different ladder. That leaves 75 of the 134 people here classified, and it leans towards people who have left: someone still here on a single recorded title has nothing to be measured against.
Where they studied
- UC Berkeley15.0%
- MIT7.5%
- UIUC6.0%
- Carnegie Mellon5.3%
- Stanford5.3%
- University of Waterloo4.5%
- NYU3.8%
- UT Austin3.8%
The 8 most listed schools among the 133 people here with a school on file.
Of the 133 people here with a school on file, 20 list UC Berkeley, 10 list MIT and 8 list UIUC. A person can list more than one school, so these overlap rather than add up.
Public work
one square is one in a hundred
38%have a public GitHub account on their profile
51 of the 134 people here whose profile was checked for public accounts. An account the check did not find reads the same as no account, so this is a floor rather than a census.
Across the 325 companies on the map that can show this figure, the median is 38%.
Where they are now
49% of the people who have worked at Plaid and list a location live in the San Francisco Bay Area today, against 47% of everyone on the map.
Plaid
Everyone on the map
- 49%SF Bay Area66 · map 47%
- 46%New York62 · map 33%
- 4%Somewhere else6
All 134 people who worked at Plaid list a location, and every share here is over them.
Where they live now, from the profile as it reads today, not where they sat while they worked at Plaid: a metro here does not mean the company has an office in it. The lower strip is the same metros across the whole map, for comparison.
On the same resumes
Companies that show up most often alongside Plaid, at any point in a career.
Key facts
- 134 people on the Zelcast alumni map have worked at Plaid: 81 are there now and 53 have moved on.
- The most common next employer after Plaid is Cursor (3 people, 5% of recorded departures), followed by Google.
- The most common previous employer before Plaid is Amazon (11 people), followed by Google and Meta.
- The median tenure at Plaid is 2y 2m (middle half 11m to 4y 5m).
- Of those who moved on from Plaid, 7% went on to a founder title, 37% joined a company with 200 or fewer people, and 9% joined a company with 10,000 or more.
- The median Eng Scorer caliber of people who have worked at Plaid is 84 on the 0 to 99 scale (134 scored).
- The most common title held at Plaid is Software Engineer, then Software Engineer Intern.
- Of the 133 people here with a school on file, 20 list UC Berkeley (15.0%), then MIT (10). A person can list more than one school, so these overlap rather than add up.
- 49% of the 134 people here who list a location live in SF Bay Area today, against 47% of everyone on the map. That is where they live now, not the office they sat in while they worked here.
- 38% of the 134 people here whose profile was checked for public accounts have a public GitHub account on it.
- Of the 75 people here whose title could be placed on a ladder both before and after, 31 rose, 41 stayed level and 3 fell.
About this data: built from 144,786 jobs across 26,572 engineers in the Zelcast network and Eng Scorer reads, updated August 20, 2026. A move counts when the next role starts within 24 months of leaving; companies with fewer than 20 people on the map are not shown, and destinations with fewer than 3 people are folded into the totals. Caliber is the Eng Scorer score.
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