MtnView, POET is an IC designer, ofc it needs a lot of engineers. Apple is fully of engineers, so are Intel, AMD, so on. I don't feel puzzled, I feel excited. The company has NEVER had this many engineers on board if my research served me right.

Edit: POET is also continuing to build out their product portfolio, which are derivatives of the OI platform, so ofc it would need more and more engineers. You get the point.