Recruitment Consulting
Your professional search ends here
Hiring for AI and data roles is hard because most screening cannot tell a genuine practitioner from a fluent one. Ours is run by engineers who build these systems daily.
The screening problem in AI hiring
Demand for AI and data talent has far outrun the supply of people who have genuinely delivered production systems. The result is a market where CVs are dense with frameworks and model names, and where conventional keyword screening cannot separate someone who has shipped and maintained a system from someone who has completed a tutorial on it.
Our advantage is straightforward: the same engineers who build AI systems for our clients help assess candidates for them. Technical screening involves conversations about trade-offs, failure modes and things that went wrong in production — the questions where hands-on experience becomes obvious quickly and rehearsed answers do not hold up.
We also work on the definition of the role itself, which is where a surprising number of searches actually fail. Job specifications frequently ask for a data scientist when the work is data engineering, or list a decade of experience in a technology that has existed for three years. Correcting that at the start shortens the search more than any sourcing tactic.
Roles we recruit for
AI and machine learning engineers
Practitioners who take models into production and keep them working, not only those who can train them in a notebook.
Data engineers and analysts
Pipelines, warehousing, quality and the analytics layer that everything downstream depends on.
Software engineers
Backend, frontend and full-stack engineers for AI-centric products and platforms.
Cloud and DevOps
Infrastructure, MLOps and platform engineers who understand the demands of AI workloads.
Product and design
Product managers and designers who have worked on data and AI products, where uncertainty is part of the interface.
Leadership roles
Engineering and data leadership hires, where technical judgement and organisational capability both matter.
How we work
Fewer, better-assessed candidates rather than a high-volume funnel.
Define the role properly
We interrogate the requirement — what the person will actually build, which skills are essential versus aspirational, and whether the level and package match the market.
Source and screen
Targeted sourcing followed by a practitioner-led technical conversation, so candidates reaching you have already been assessed on substance.
Present with evidence
A shortlist with written assessment notes explaining our reasoning, including the reservations. Concealing a concern only wastes your interview time.
Support to close
Coordination through your interview process, honest feedback in both directions, and help navigating offer discussions to a decision.
Where we help most
We work best on roles where technical assessment is the bottleneck rather than raw candidate volume.
- Your first AI or data hire, where nobody internally can assess the skill
- Roles that have stayed open for months with unsuitable shortlists
- Building a team quickly without lowering the technical bar
- Specialist skills — LLM engineering, MLOps, data platforms — that are scarce
- Replacing a critical engineer where a poor hire would be expensive
- Advice on whether to hire, train an existing team member, or contract the work
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a general recruitment agency?
Mainly in who does the screening. Generalist agencies match keywords because they have no way to evaluate the underlying work. Our technical screening is conducted by engineers who build AI systems, which means candidates are assessed on how they reason about real problems rather than on which frameworks appear in their CV.
Do you work on contingency or retained terms?
Both, depending on the role. Contingency suits well-defined positions with a reasonable candidate pool. Retained arrangements suit senior, scarce or confidential searches where sustained effort is required. We will recommend which fits your situation and explain why.
Can you help us decide whether to hire at all?
Yes, and we regularly do. Sometimes the sensible answer is training an existing team member, engaging a contractor for a defined project, or restructuring the role entirely. Because we also deliver AI projects and run training programmes, we can give that advice without every answer defaulting to a placement.
Do you recruit outside India?
Our core market is India, including remote roles for international employers hiring here. For other geographies, ask and we will be candid about whether we can genuinely serve the search rather than accepting it and hoping.
What if the hire does not work out?
Replacement terms are agreed in writing before the search begins and vary by engagement type and seniority. We would rather set that expectation clearly at the start than discover a disagreement about it at the worst possible moment.
Related services
Struggling to fill a technical role?
Send us the role and the problems you have had with it so far. We will tell you what we would change about the brief before we start searching.