The Challenge
As a pre-seed start-up with no internal recruitment function and limited brand presence, the founders faced
the difficulty of attracting senior engineers willing to join at such an early stage.
The role required someone who could build from the ground up and thrive in ambiguity, which meant the
candidate pool was naturally small. The search had to be precise, thoughtful, and aligned with the founders’
vision to reduce risk and ensure the first hire was the right fit.
Our Solution
We worked directly with the founders to:
- Understand their technical roadmap and clarify immediate priorities
- Define the skills needed for the first phase of product development
We ran a targeted search for engineers who had the capability to act as
true founding contributors – people who could build, make decisions
with little structure, and shape the engineering culture from the ground
up.
After placing the first engineer, we continued to scale the wider team
across engineering, data, infrastructure, product and design.
The Result
Within weeks, the company secured its founding engineer. Over the following months, we delivered 9 hires across all core technical and product functions, creating a cohesive, multi disciplinary team that accelerated the product build and strengthened their position ahead of the next funding round. Every hire was mapped to the company’s roadmap so growth stayed controlled and purposeful.
2
weeks from brief to
initial placement
100%
of candidates
shortlisted were
interviewed
9
placements in total
across all core technical
and product functions
