The hires that
moved the needle.

Selected case studies

1. 01Privacy-first · Decentralized identity

   2× Lead Rust Engineer — sourced from Poland for a Berlin team

   500-person Berlin technology company

   Berlin · Hired from Poland · EU contract

   Weeks

   4

   Mapped

   23

   Finalists

   5

   The mandate

   Professional Search for Lead/Staff Rust engineers to lift a 500-person Berlin team's in-house Rust group above mid-level seniority and accelerate a 12-month privacy / decentralized identity project. Berlin and the wider German market were empty at Lead level — sourced from Poland on a contract through our agency.

   The outcome

   First Lead Rust engineer signed in ~1 month. Second Lead Rust engineer placed two months later from the same warm pipeline. Both onboarded as EU-based contractors for the 12-month project.

   "Berlin and Germany were empty at Lead level. They sourced from Poland and got us experienced Rust leaders inside a month — then a second from the same pipeline."

2. 02AI-native · Seed start-up

   CTO — AI-native seed start-up, signed in 6 weeks

   AI-native seed start-up

   Munich / Amsterdam · Hybrid

   Weeks

   6

   Mapped

   10

   Finalists

   2

   The mandate

   Executive search (no retainer) for a founding CTO who could both architect a scalable product and remain the primary technical contributor using modern AI coding tools. Cultural fit and conviction in the founders were hard requirements.

   The outcome

   Short list of 10 in 1.5 months; 2 finalists presented; the chosen CTO signed inside the 6-week window and is now scaling the founding engineering team across Munich and Amsterdam.

   "They understood we needed an architect who would still ship code with AI — and a person who actually believed in the mission. Both finalists cleared the bar."

3. 03Financial services

   Chief AI Officer

   Fortune 100 global bank

   New York · Hybrid

   Weeks

   11

   Mapped

   142

   Finalists

   7

   The mandate

   Replaced an internal hire that had stalled twice. We mapped every candidate who had operationalized AI inside a Tier 1 bank globally, narrowed to seven, and closed in under twelve weeks.

   The outcome

   Hire is now leading a 240-person org and chairs the firm's AI risk committee.

   "They mapped a market we thought we already knew. The shortlist was tighter, sharper, and more candid than anything we'd seen in a decade of search."

4. 04Healthcare

   VP Engineering, ML Platform

   Public health-tech ($14B mkt cap)

   Boston · On-site

   Weeks

   9

   Mapped

   96

   Finalists

   5

   The mandate

   Engineering leader to build the company's first unified ML platform across imaging, claims, and clinical NLP. Required rare combination of regulated-domain experience and frontier infra.

   The outcome

   Hire shipped v1 of the platform in seven months; team scaled from 18 to 64.

   "Every candidate they sent us was someone we wished we'd already known. That's the bar."

5. 05Frontier AI

   Head of Applied Research

   Series B foundation-model lab

   London · Hybrid

   Weeks

   12

   Mapped

   88

   Finalists

   6

   The mandate

   Recruited a research leader from a top-3 frontier lab to bridge cutting-edge work with a shipping product roadmap. Search ran entirely off-market against active counter-offers.

   The outcome

   Team published two papers and shipped a new product line within a year of joining.

   "They understood the science well enough that the candidates took the call. That changed everything."

6. 06Enterprise SaaS

   Staff Software Engineer, Platform

   Series D dev-tools company

   Remote · EU

   Weeks

   8

   Mapped

   134

   Finalists

   9

   The mandate

   Distributed-systems engineer to lead a re-architecture of the core ingestion pipeline. Required hands-on Rust plus a track record of mentoring senior ICs.

   The outcome

   P99 latency cut by 62%; hire promoted to Principal within 14 months.

   "We'd been searching for nine months. They closed it in eight weeks with a candidate we didn't know existed."

7. 07Cybersecurity

   Director of AI Security

   Late-stage security platform

   San Francisco · Hybrid

   Weeks

   10

   Mapped

   102

   Finalists

   5

   The mandate

   First-of-kind role combining red-team experience with applied ML. Pool of qualified candidates was under 200 people globally; we engaged 102 of them directly.

   The outcome

   Hire built a 22-person org and shipped the company's flagship AI threat product.

   "The depth of the brief made every candidate conversation count. No wasted cycles."