Engineering & AI
Research and production. Applied AI and model development. Early-team range and later-stage specialization.
AI tools make a strong technical profile easy to produce, and fluency with the tools easy to perform. What separates candidates is the judgment behind real systems. We look past the vocabulary to the decisions: what each person built, what broke, what they changed and what happened next.
Who we search for
Engineers across research, applied AI and production, from a founding engineer to specialists for a growing team.
- Founding engineer
- Software engineer
- ML engineer
- AI engineer
- Research engineer
- Research scientist
- Data engineer
- Infrastructure engineer
- DevOps engineer
- Engineering manager
How we assess engineers
Before outreach, your team agrees on what this engineer must accomplish. Each candidate's most significant technical work is then compared with it, across four things.
Personal ownership
What they designed, built and decided themselves, including what failed and what they changed.
Technical conditions
The scale, constraints, data and tooling behind the result, so the outcome reads in context.
How they use AI
What they asked AI to do, what they checked, and which decisions stayed theirs.
Transfer to your environment
Whether the problems they solved match the ones your team faces next.
In their words
From a head of AI who hired engineers, and an engineer considered for a founding role.
“The résumés all said roughly the same thing: models, agents, production, scale. The interviews finally separated the people who had used the language from the people who had made the decisions. That saved us from being impressed by the wrong things.”
“They didn't act like using AI was cheating; I had to explain what I asked it to do, what I checked, and which decisions were mine. I mean, fair enough!”
Fees
Most Engineering & AI searches run as Specialist Search. Engineering leaders, such as a CTO or Head of AI, run as Leadership Search.
Usual fit
Specialist Search
$10,000
Retainer: $2,500
Balance at signature: $7,500
For individual contributors and people managers within a defined functional market.
Leadership Search
$20,000
Retainer: $5,000
Balance at signature: $15,000
For executives, heads of function, and searches that need broader market mapping, multi-stakeholder alignment, leadership assessment or heightened confidentiality.
Choose Exclusive Search and we're your only external firm for 20 business days, starting when you approve the Signal Spec and outreach is ready. Your fee becomes $9,000 for Specialist or $18,000 for Leadership, and replacement coverage extends to 180 days. View the fee schedule
Questions
How do you assess candidates who use AI tools?
Using AI is not the issue. Candidates explain, extend and defend their work in real time, so you see their own judgment and personal contribution.
Do you assess research roles as well as production roles?
Yes. Research roles are assessed on the questions a candidate pursued and the methods they chose. Production roles are assessed on the systems they shipped and how those held up.
How do you decide between Specialist and Leadership Search?
Leadership Search covers executives, heads of function and searches that need broader market mapping, multi-stakeholder alignment, leadership assessment or heightened confidentiality. We confirm the type before your engagement begins.
Tell us about the role. Within one business day, we confirm whether we are the right firm to lead the search.
Bring the job description you have, or the role in your head. We define the role with you.