Hiring · Technical roles for startups
3–5 engineers worth interviewing. In 7 days.
Not five hundred CVs. A short list of people we've already screened technically, who know your stage, your salary band and your notice-period reality — before they ever reach your calendar.
A bad engineering hire costs a startup six months. Most recruiters optimise for the number of CVs they send. We optimise for the number you'd actually want to hire.
The roles startups get wrong most often.
Engineering only, by design. Depth in one kind of hire beats breadth across all of them.
- 01Founding engineersYour first one to three engineers — people who can own a codebase, not just a ticket.
Your first one to three engineers — people who can own a codebase, not just a ticket.
- 02Backend & platformAPIs, data models, infra-as-code, the systems everything else sits on.
APIs, data models, infra-as-code, the systems everything else sits on.
- 03Frontend & mobileReact, Next.js, React Native, native iOS / Android — product engineers with taste.
React, Next.js, React Native, native iOS / Android — product engineers with taste.
- 04Data & MLData engineers, ML engineers, applied AI — the roles most often mis-screened.
Data engineers, ML engineers, applied AI — the roles most often mis-screened.
- 05DevOps & SRECloud, CI/CD, observability, on-call — for when uptime becomes a sales question.
Cloud, CI/CD, observability, on-call — for when uptime becomes a sales question.
- 06Engineering leadersEngineering managers, heads of engineering, first VP — the hire that hires everyone after.
Engineering managers, heads of engineering, first VP — the hire that hires everyone after.
What the first fourteen days look like.
- Day 0
Role brief, 45 minutes
What the person will own in their first 90 days, the salary band you can actually pay, and the three things that would make you say no.
- Day 2
Scorecard and outreach
A written scorecard you sign off, then targeted outreach — no job-board blast, no spray of InMails with your logo on them.
- Day 7
First shortlist, 3–5 people
Each with a technical screen write-up, CTC and notice period confirmed, and why we think they'll say yes to you.
- Day 14
Interviews running
We schedule, chase feedback within 24 hours, and recalibrate the list if your first interviews tell us the scorecard was wrong.
Every name on the list has already cleared this.
01
Technical screen
A conversation about something they actually built — trade-offs, failure modes, what they'd do differently.
02
Stage fit
Have they worked somewhere without a platform team, a PM, or a spec? Startups need people who have.
03
Offer reality
Current CTC, expectation and notice period confirmed up front — not discovered at offer stage.
04
Reference
One back-channel reference for every senior and leadership hire, before you spend an interview on them.
Published fees. No retainer to start.
Paid on joining, as a share of first-year fixed CTC. Variable pay and ESOPs aren't counted.
Single role
12.5%
of first-year fixed CTC
One role, contingency. You pay only if someone we introduced joins.
Hiring sprint
3+ roles
reduced fee, one brief
Your next engineering team in parallel — one scorecard set, one weekly sync, one invoice cadence.
Founding team
Embedded
monthly, scoped together
We sit inside your hiring for a quarter: employer story, careers page, outreach, interviews — the full loop.
90
Day replacement
If they leave in the first 90 days, we find the replacement. No second fee.
Whether they resign or you let them go for performance. The guarantee is the clearest way we know to say the shortlist was screened properly.
The ones founders actually ask.
You should — for volume. You'll get hundreds of applicants and spend your evenings screening them. We exist for the roles where the right person isn't applying to anything, and where a founder's hours are worth more than the fee.