**The big picture:** Weekday, a Y Combinator-backed startup, has raised $2.2 million in seed funding to expand its AI-powered platform for reference-based hiring, particularly for remote engineers. **Why it matters:** This investment highlights a growing focus on leveraging peer-vouched references to combat hiring inefficiencies and reduce mis-hires in a competitive talent landscape. **Between the lines:** - Weekday's platform connects engineers' social graphs to generate shortlists of referred talent. - The