Startup Pillow Is Recruiting Laid-Off Twitter Engineers With a Promoted Tweet

Is it the most opportunistic tweet ever? Or is Pillow just looking to give Twitter’s free-falling engineers a soft place to land?

Apparently Pillow, a property management startup for people renting homes on sites like Airbnb, bought a promoted tweet Tuesday to advertise a few job openings at the company. That’s nothing special — startups do it all the time — but this one specifically targeted engineers from Twitter. The same engineers that had just been laid off earlier that morning.

The tweet included an image that said "Twitter Engineers Wanted," along with the the text, "Why keep working with the same 140 characters? Come home to Pillow."

Too soon: Promoted Tweet targeting former Twitter engineers pic.twitter.com/nOiHHINDV8

— Matt Graves (@mgrooves) October 14, 2015

So Twitter employees freshly axed from Twitter were then recruited on Twitter using a promoted tweet. You with me? It looks as though Pillow’s tweet has since expired, but not before former Twitter comms director Matt Graves tweeted out a screenshot (above). Pillow hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

For some, the promoted tweet is likely hitting home a little too soon. But Pillow is far from the only company looking to recruit the 300-plus Twitter employees who were ousted Tuesday as part of company-wide layoffs. We’ve seen lots of tweets, including this one from Y Combinator President Sam Altman, who is also recruiting.

If you're a Twitter employee that got laid off and you want to apply to YC but need a few more days, email me and we'll give you more time.

— Sam Altman (@sama) October 13, 2015

Update: We heard back from Pillow, who gave us a pretty straightforward explanation for the ad. "We saw an opportunity to recruit some of the best talent in the world, and also an opportunity for them to join Pillow," a spokesperson wrote in an email.

There are tons of companies employing a similar tactic — below, just a sampling — and Twitter user @cra has invoked another Twitter product, Collections, to curate the perfect list of offers for the on-the-go unemployed Twitter engineer. (Hat tip to our former social media manager @AnthonyQuintano!)

If you were laid off by Twitter today, love markets and want to solve real time social problems, we're hiring! http://t.co/CDR4eKaNrL

— StockTwits (@StockTwits) October 13, 2015

Maybe tasteless, but if anyone laid off at Twitter likes a challenge, let me know. We're hiring @Spotify in Stockholm and NYC!

— Wouter de Bie (@xinit) October 13, 2015

We already have one @twitter employee joining our team, but if you got laid off today, let's work together. http://t.co/FjvTCq2PiC

— kevin flynn (@KevinMarkFlynn) October 13, 2015

Any laid off @twitter employee interested in video can reach out to me at t@pexe.so. Lets build something extraordinary together

— Rasty Turek (@synopsi) October 13, 2015

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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