Products built on someone else's model
AI Engineer Recruiters for Startups in New York
Once customers rely on an LLM feature, someone has to keep it accurate, fast and affordable as usage grows. We recruit AI engineers in New York City who have done that with features, agents or retrieval systems in production.
At a glance
Who counts as an AI engineer
AI engineers build products on existing models: retrieval, agents, evals and the code around them. We agree which of those your role leans on first.
Roles we recruit for
AI engineers, LLM engineers, agent engineers and forward-deployed AI engineers
Stages
Seed to Series C
Where
New York City. In office, hybrid or remote
Who we look for
Strong software engineers with LLM features in production and the evals to back them
Speed
Our last 3 hires averaged 17 days
How you pay
Retained, success-based or embedded. Terms agreed upfront
How we assess
What an AI engineer has to show us
After launch, LLM features usually break on quality, cost or latency. We ask each candidate how they handled those problems, and check the software engineering underneath.
01
Ships LLM features
One LLM feature customers relied on: what it did for them and which parts of the build they wrote.
02
Measures quality
We ask how they caught a quality drop before customers did, whether through an eval suite, test sets or human review, and what they changed to fix it.
03
Controls cost and latency
A time they made an AI feature cheaper or faster without losing quality tells us most. We want the how: model choice, caching, batching or routing to smaller models.
04
Strong software basics
AI engineering is still software engineering. Services they ran in production, tests they wrote and incidents they fixed outside the AI work all count.
Shipped LLM features
Eval practice
Cost and speed fixes
Comp and timing
Software fundamentals
LLM system design
Eval design
Who runs your search
Liam, Founder of StellarSearch
Our team brings 20+ years of search experience across engineering, AI/ML, product and GTM.
LinkedIn ↗
Client feedback
Feedback from founders and the engineers we placed
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."
I'm very grateful they reached out."
Would highly recommend."
They did a great job explaining roles, companies, and interview processes and was friendly + supportive throughout."
Where our hires come from
We've placed people from teams like these
We look past titles to the work: ex-founders, early employees and people doing their best work outside the day job.
How we work
How we run your search
From the first call to an accepted offer. What we handle, and the few places we need you.
Learn what you're building, what the hire owns in the first 90 days, and the comp, equity and location you can offer.
One call with the founders.
Map the market from day one. If the problem is sourcing, pay, location, process or the profile, we tell you early.
Agree any changes to the brief.
Approach people who aren't applying anywhere, and assess each one on evidence before they reach you.
Nothing. This part is ours.
Send each candidate with our write-up, then schedule and keep the process moving.
Run your interviews.
Advise on the offer, handle the back and forth, and close.
Make the final call.
If the search isn't working, we tell you fast. We use market data to recalibrate instead of sending weaker candidates for weeks.
Ways to work with us
Three ways to work with us
Pick the model that fits the hire. All terms are agreed upfront, with no hidden fees.
Best for a priority hire
Retained
A dedicated search for the one hire that can't wait. We commit time to your role from day one.
Dedicated search from the first call
Market map shared with you
Fee agreed upfront
Best for a single hire
Success-based
We run the search and you pay when the hire is made.
No fee until you hire
Same assessment on every candidate
Terms agreed before we start
Best for several roles
Embedded
We work as part of your team across several hires, for a monthly fee plus a reduced success fee.
Monthly fee plus reduced success fee
One hiring standard across roles
Works alongside your in-house team
Start a search
Send us the AI feature you need built
Tell us what you're building. We'll come back with how we'd run the search.
Looking for a role? See open jobs
What's the difference between an AI engineer and a machine learning engineer?
Can a strong software engineer become an AI engineer?
What is a forward-deployed AI engineer?
What should our interview for an AI engineer test?
Do AI engineers need experience with our model provider or framework?
Do we need an AI engineer who can fine-tune models?
How quickly will we see candidates?
We already have an in-house recruiter. Why use you?
How much of the process do you own?
What if the search isn't working?
How do you charge?
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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