Handing over day-to-day engineering
Head of Engineering Recruitment for NYC Startups
Your first Head of Engineering takes hiring, planning and delivery off the founders' plate and still writes code. In New York City, we look for leaders who have grown a team from a handful of engineers and kept coding while they did it.
At a glance
Where a Head of Engineering fits
This is usually your first engineering leader. Get it right and the next ten hires get easier.
Roles we recruit for
Heads of Engineering, first engineering managers and player-coach leads
Stages
Seed to Series B
Where
New York City. In office, hybrid or remote
Who we look for
Leaders who still ship and have grown a team from a handful of engineers
Speed
Our last 3 hires averaged 17 days
How you pay
Retained, success-based or embedded. Terms agreed upfront
How we assess
Can they code, hire and run delivery in the same week?
Between seed and Series B, one person usually carries all three jobs. We look for evidence of each and tell you which one a candidate is weakest at.
01
Grew a team from a handful
Who they hired, who stayed and how the team performed a year later. Running a large team someone else built is a different job.
02
Still ships
At your stage, a Head of Engineering should still write code, just not on the critical path. We ask what they built in their last role and how much of their week it took.
03
Set up how the team works
Planning, reviews, on-call, incident response. We ask what they put in place and what they deliberately left out.
04
Works well with founders
Disagreements with a founder or CTO will happen. We want to hear how they handled one, and what they did when they lost the argument.
Team growth
Hiring record
Hands-on work
Equity expectations
Technical depth
Leadership with founders
Delivery planning
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
Tell us about the team your Head of Engineering will lead
Tell us what you're building. We'll come back with how we'd run the search.
Looking for a role? See open jobs
Head of Engineering vs VP of Engineering: what's the difference?
How many engineers should we have before hiring a Head of Engineering?
Should our Head of Engineering report to the CTO?
What should we decide before starting a Head of Engineering search?
Should we promote our senior engineer or hire a Head of Engineering from outside?
Should our Head of Engineering take over engineering hiring?
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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