I don't fill seats. I build engineering teams.
Recruitment run by a CTO who has spent twenty years hiring for his own teams. I design the org, vet every candidate myself, and hand you engineers built for the AI coding era. The deliverable is a working team.
Hiring engineers is hard.
Hiring them right now is harder.
Three very different companies end up on this page. The problem underneath is the same: nobody in the room can truly judge the candidate.
You raised, and now you have to hire
You're a founder without a technical co-pilot. Every candidate sounds impressive. You have no way to tell the strong engineer from the confident one, and the cost of guessing wrong is your runway.
The team has to double
You have engineers, but the leaders are stretched thin and interviews are eating the roadmap. Growth is stalling on the one thing you can't shortcut: finding people worth hiring.
You hired for a different era
Your team was built before AI changed how software gets written. The next hires need a different profile, and your interview process has no way to detect it.
The resumes all look perfect
AI writes flawless resumes and rehearsed answers now. The signals hiring used to rely on are gone, and keyword matching just surfaces whoever gamed it best.
Design the org. Vet the people. Deliver the team.
Org design first
Before a single job post goes out, I design the team: which roles, what seniority mix, how it operates. A great hire in the wrong org design is still a miss.
CTO-led vetting
I interview every candidate personally. System design, real code, and a working conversation about how they think. Nobody reaches you on a keyword match.
Close and land
I calibrate offers to the market, help you win the candidate, and stay through onboarding so the hire actually sticks. Backed by a 90-day replacement guarantee.
The whole team, or a partner
inside your process.
The Team Build
I own the entire thing: org design, role definitions, sourcing, vetting, offers, and onboarding. You get a functioning engineering team, not a pile of candidates to figure out.
Hiring Partner
Your recruiters run sourcing; I bring the technical judgment. Scorecards, technical screens, final interviews, and offer calibration — a CTO inside your hiring loop.
The full engineering org.
From the first engineer to the executive who leads them, plus the roles a modern product team can't run without.
Engineers, all levels
Backend, frontend, full-stack, mobile. From strong mid-level builders to the staff and principal engineers who set the technical bar.
Engineering leaders
Engineering managers, directors, VPs of Engineering, and CTOs. I've hired eight CTOs; I know what the seat requires because I've sat in it.
Data, ML & platform
Data engineers, ML engineers, DevOps and platform roles. The people who make the product measurable, reliable, and cheap to run.
The old interview tests what AI
does for free. Mine doesn't.
Every candidate goes through four gates before they ever meet you. The point is to find the engineers who multiply with AI tools, and to do it with evidence rather than vibes.
The CTO screen
A real technical conversation with me: architecture, trade-offs, decisions they've owned. Twenty years of hiring for my own teams goes into this hour.
AI-era work sample
A realistic exercise with AI tools on the table, the way the job actually works. I watch how they direct the tools, what they accept, and what they push back on.
Critical thinking
Can they tell plausible from correct? I probe how they challenge generated output, find the flaw in a confident answer, and reason when the pattern doesn't match.
Creative range
The AI age rewards people who reframe problems, connect domains, and find the path nobody scripted. I test for that range directly, because it doesn't show up on a resume.
First hire in 6–8 weeks.
A team build repeats this loop role by role, with sourcing running in parallel so hires land in sequence, not single file.
Org design & scorecards
- Map the team you actually need: roles, seniority mix, sequence
- Write role definitions and scorecards worth measuring against
- Calibrate compensation to the market you're really in
Source & screen
- Targeted sourcing through my network and channels that work
- CTO screen on every serious candidate — no outsourced filters
- AI-era work sample for the ones worth your time
Your interviews
- A short slate of vetted finalists, with my written assessment of each
- I sit in or run your loop, whichever helps more
- Debriefs that turn opinions into a decision
Offer, close, land
- Offer strategy and negotiation support until the yes
- A 30-day onboarding plan so the hire ships early
- 90-day check-ins, with a replacement guarantee behind them
I've been hiring engineers
for twenty years.
A recruiter is judged on whether the seat gets filled. I'm judged on whether the team ships. Those are different jobs, and I only know how to do the second one — every candidate I send you is someone I'd put on my own team.
The thinking behind
the service.
Five essays on why hiring engineers broke in the AI era, and how I run it instead.
The resume is dead
AI writes flawless resumes now. Every signal hiring used to lean on is gone, and most processes are still screening like it's 2019.
The leetcode interview is over
Algorithm puzzles test exactly the work AI does for free. What a technical interview should measure instead.
Hire for judgment
The profile of a great engineer has changed: taste, skepticism toward plausible output, and leverage with agents.
Four engineers, not twelve
AI changed the math of team size. Why the right hire count is smaller than your plan says.
Technical skill is not the point
Raw technical skill is abundant now. What actually predicts performance is harder to test, and worth more.
All essays
The rest of the writing on AI-native teams, engineering leadership, and how software gets built now.
One fee, published.
You pay per successful hire, so my incentive is the hire that works, not the search that drags. Both engagement models carry the same fee and the same guarantee.
The Team Build
Org design, role definitions, sourcing, CTO-led vetting, offers, and onboarding. I run the whole build and hand over a working team.
Embedded Hiring Partner
Your team sources; I vet. Scorecards, technical screens, final interviews, and offer calibration, with my written read on every finalist.
Every hire is backed by a 90-day replacement guarantee: if it doesn't work out, I run the search again at no additional fee. Email me ↗
What founders ask before we start.
How is this different from a recruiting agency?
Agencies are built to run many searches at once, and good ones do that well. I do something narrower: I'm a CTO who has spent 20 years hiring for my own teams, and I bring that judgment to yours. I design the org before sourcing starts, I run every technical screen personally, and I'm accountable for whether the team ships — not just whether the seat gets filled.
What does "built for the AI coding era" actually mean?
Engineers work differently now. AI tools handle much of the routine code, so the engineers worth hiring are the ones with judgment: they direct the tools, catch the plausible-but-wrong output, and reason clearly when the pattern doesn't match. My vetting tests for exactly that — a CTO-led technical screen plus a realistic work sample with AI tools on the table, scored on critical thinking and creative range.
What roles do you recruit for?
The full engineering org: backend, frontend, full-stack and mobile engineers at all levels, staff and principal engineers, engineering managers, directors, VPs of Engineering, and CTOs, plus data, ML, DevOps and platform roles. I've hired 8 CTOs and 75+ engineers over my career.
How fast will I get my first hire?
Typically 6 to 8 weeks from kickoff to a signed offer: week 1 for org design and scorecards, weeks 2–3 for sourcing and CTO-led screening, weeks 4–6 for your interviews, and weeks 6–8 to close. Team builds run roles in parallel, so subsequent hires land faster than the first.
What does the fee cover?
The fee is 30% of the hire's first-year salary, paid per successful hire. It covers org design, role definitions, sourcing, my personal technical vetting, the AI-era work sample, offer strategy, negotiation support, and a 30-day onboarding plan. Every hire carries a 90-day replacement guarantee: if it doesn't work out, I rerun the search at no additional fee.
Can you work inside our existing hiring process?
Yes. In the Embedded Hiring Partner model your team runs sourcing and I bring the technical judgment: scorecards, technical screens, final-round interviews, and offer calibration. Same fee, same guarantee — the difference is who runs the pipeline.
Who is this not for?
High-volume hiring where speed matters more than the individual pick — a staffing agency will serve you better and cost less. This is for companies where each engineering hire genuinely changes the trajectory, and where getting it wrong is expensive.
Ready to build a team
worth keeping?
Tell me what you're building and who you think you need. I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right person to find them.