Transforming AI startups with the top 0.01% talent

We Help NY and SF-based AI Startups and Founders to build their dream founding treams

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The StellarSearch Network
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Connecting stellar startups with the people behind the best teams.

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We know where exceptional people are building today - and the startups worth joining next.

Who We Partner With

Built for companies where every hire matters

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Early-stage AI startups
From Seed through Series C, we work with ambitious AI companies building teams around products with genuine technical and commercial complexity.
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Founders making their first critical hires
Your earliest hires shape everything that comes after. We help you find people who can operate with ownership, ambiguity and very little structure.
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Teams raising the talent bar
You don't need more candidates. You need people who make an already strong team materially better - and who your best people want to work alongside.
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Companies competing for exceptional talent
The people you want usually aren't looking. We help you identify them, understand what would make them move and sell them on why your company is worth the risk.
Talk to our team
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VP of Sales @ AI Startup | New York City
"Liam, Founder of StellarSearch, was a pleasure to have in my organization and a true leader on the team. He has an exceptional ability to quickly understand client needs, both their immediate priorities and long-term goals, and translate that understanding into results."
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Head of Talent @ Raspberry AI
"Liam has mastered this skill, and it was a pleasure to be able to watch him work."
CTO @ EdTech Startup | New York City
"Liam, and the StellarSearch team have been amazing at sourcing us extremely high quality product engineers.

I'm not really sure how he does it, but he continues to find us top tier talent that fits exactly what we're looking for."
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Co-Founder & CTO @ FinTech AI Startup | New York City
"Liam thanks for the great push. I am properly drowning in calls, and a lot are very high calibre. Give me more."
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CEO @ FinTech AI Startup | New York City
"It’s honestly night and day compared to where we were before, after working with 4–5 other firms."
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Co-Founder @ Agentic AI Startup | San Francisco
"You’ve been sending us great candidates and tracking everything well. Thanks, team."
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Co-Founder @ HealthTech Startup  | San Francisco
"Liam quickly honed in exactly on what we're looking for and was tireless in finding us incredible talent"
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Member of Technical Staff @ AI Startup | San Francisco
"They are extremely smart, have great hustle, very professional and highly empathetic."
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Senior Full Stack Engineer @  AI Startup | New York City
"StellarSearch was supportive, encouraging, and honestly felt more like a friend who was rooting for me to land the role."
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Software Engineer @ EdTech AI Startup | New York City
"They were motivating, kind and really went above and beyond to make me feel taken care of."
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Founding ML Engineer @ FinTech AI Startup | New York City
"StellarSearch was wonderful to work with. I owe my current job to them."
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Founding Engineer @ EdTech AI Startup | New York City
"Working with StellarSearch was great; the entire process was smoother and quicker than I anticipated."
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Senior Software Engineer @  PayPal
"StellarSearch are exceptional recruiters who understands the Al industry very well."
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Founding Engineer @ HealthTech AI Startup | San Francisco
"StellarSearch reached out about a founding engineer role and did exactly what a good recruiter should do.

I'm very grateful they reached out."
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Full Stack Engineer @ AI Startup | New York City
"StellarSearch were extremely helpful and attentive during the entire hiring and interview process, checking in and going above and beyond when trying to resolve any issues that came up.

Would highly recommend."
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Senior Backend Engineer @ AI Startup | New York City
"Some of the best recruiting I've ever experienced; exceptionally responsive and communicative with regards to any questions I had and was very proactive in providing relevant information.

They did a great job explaining roles, companies, and interview processes and was friendly + supportive throughout."
Expertise

The teams we help build

From engineers and researchers to product and GTM - we find the people who can make an outsized impact at an early-stage company.

Engineering
Founding & Product Engineers
High-agency engineers who can own problems end-to-end, move quickly and build from 0-1.
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AI / ML
Applied AI & Machine Learning
Engineers turning rapidly evolving AI capabilities into products that work in production.
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Product & Design
The people deciding what gets built
Product leaders and designers who thrive in ambiguity and stay close to customers, founders and the product.
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Systems & Infrastructure
Backend & Infrastructure
Engineers building the systems, data platforms and infrastructure ambitious products depend on.
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Go-To-Market
The people taking it to market
Founding sellers and GTM leaders who can win early customers, find repeatability and build the commercial motion.
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Research
Research Engineers & Scientists
Researchers and engineers pushing model capabilities forward and turning new approaches into real-world systems.
Explore All
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We know where exceptional people come from.
The best startup talent doesn't always come from the most obvious places. We’ve spent years learning the teams, companies and signals that consistently produce exceptional talent.
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Beyond the obvious logos
We look past company prestige and job titles - finding ex-founders, early employees, fast-rising engineers and people doing exceptional work outside their day job.
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A market we know deeply
We continuously map the highest-bar startups and technology teams, following where exceptional people are building, who they’ve worked with and where they’re likely to go next.
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Why founders trust StellarSearch with their most important hires
We’ve built StellarSearch specifically for early-stage companies where every hire can materially change the trajectory of the business.
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20+ years of search experience
Our team has recruited across engineering, AI/ML, product and GTM - from founding hires through to senior leadership.
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75+ candidates placed
We’ve helped build teams from pre-seed through Series C, placing exceptional people into some of the highest-bar AI startups.
Built for founders & hiring leaders
We work as an extension of your team - learning the company, calibrating the bar and representing your opportunity with the same conviction you would.
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17-day Average Hire

Speed that actually matters

Our average hire takes 17 days from submission to accepted offer. For well-calibrated searches, we can have exceptional candidates in process within the first few days - without compromising on the bar.
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The numbers don't lie

The track record behind the searches.
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75+

Candidates placed

17 days

Average time to hire

98%

Retention rate

Hiring your founding team?

Tell us what you're building. We'll find the experts who can build and ship it.

Start Hiring

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FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why would we work with StellarSearch, instead of recruiting ourselves?
3. How do you know if someone is actually good?
5. How quickly will I see candidates?
7. What happens if the search isn't working?
2. What type of candidates are you great at finding?
4. How do you find people we can't?
6. How much of the process do you own?
8. What are your pricing models?
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